Something weird about raids

[Raven.1524]

I came back to gw2 after a while.

Haven't really raided since HoT the first time raids came to the game.

I recently opened the lfg and noticed 2 things,

- The clear tab is only filled with raid sells

- The training tab is empty

I won't compare it to games like wow since I never played that because I always disliked how that game looks.

 

I did a bit a a research and started questioning if Is it normal to play a raid and everyone be expecting to either have some weird amount of LI, see a video and know all the mechanics before even starting the fight or join a training group and forced to be on discord.

 

Since the situation seems to be like this, I personally won't raid unless I get a group of friends to start playing this game with me,

But I really started questioning if it was really designed to be this weird to start getting into raids or is it like this for every other mmo raiding scene?

 

Honestly, If all raids are designed to be like this, maybe the simplest answer is that in regards to hard content, I should either only play games my friends play or play single player games with hard difficulty (I don't know, monster hunter after master rank 200+ event stuff?)

 

So what do you guys think it's the issue here?

- This is simply not my type of game mode on an mmo?

- It's designed to be started with a group of friends

- The learning curve or the way it's implemented on the system is wrong?

- Some other issue I'm not seeing

 

btw: I won't talk about selling raids. I just don't like that and simply ignore their existence instead of making drama about it.

[AgentMoore.9453]

2 minutes ago, Raven.1524 said:

So what do you guys think it's the issue here?

Well, and please take this with a grain of salt as it's a snapshot assessment of the current moment, I think there are two issues keeping raids weird in terms of player engagement:

ArenaNet insists that various things in the game are meant to be a 'ramp' to the coordination and difficulty of raids, but that's not actually how it is in practice. There is no ramp. That is half the issue. They're simply very different from what most players are used to, and so a lot of people just don't bother.

Strikes (and the newly-implemented raid emboldened mode) were an attempt to bridge this gap, but the empty LFG is a sign that it's not working (yet) to turn raids into something people engage with as openly and as comfortably as they do fractals, dungeons, and other group content. What this means is that most grouping isn't happening in LFG which brings you to the other weakness of raids: They require 10 people.

Couple the fine art of collecting 10 knowledgable people with the wonky nature of the current LFG system and what you get is - for a lot of folks - an annoying experience. Because of this, most raid groups are formed through guilds or out-of-game Discords and other social apps (Assigned raiding nights, statics, scheduling). Groups getting formed outside of the LFG panel makes the LFG panel look lonely which in turn makes it look like there's nothing but run sales happening (Which, whatever, let people buy things if they feel like it).

Raids require people to understand encounter mechanics and have a level of competency with their builds and skills that can be hard to find when you spin the PUG wheel, moreso in raids than in nearly any other part of the game. I don't think strikes managed to make a meaningful impact on this, and the emboldened buff is still new so we'll probably have to wait and see if it's enough to make raids feel more accessible to the average player. The emboldened buff is somewhat close to what people have asked for since raids were first added: different tiers of difficulty that can be opted in or out of.

Is it possible this might be the direct ramp that could help raids open up to more people? Only time will tell.

So to answer your initial question: At the moment, yes, the empty LFG and the kill-proofing is normal as a result of the way raids were implemented, their level of difficulty and coordination compared to the rest of the game, and the shortcomings of the LFG system itself.

[patton the great.7126]

Just go into a raid group. When the elitist starts asking u stuff like show LI, can you spell ur name backwards, have you bothered to learn the mechanics? YOU NEED TO THUMP UR CHEST and say 1v1 bro? Come to obsidian sanctum or a guild hall, or pvp and show them no amount of youtube watching, metabattle reading, raid selling will save them FROM THE PURIFICATION OF A TRUE REGULATOR!!!!

 

At least that's what I do. I don't get invited to too many raids what for on account of my alphaness and inability to speel my name back'ards but I sure do win the moral victory of being able to regulate the elitists. Still to this day no PvE raider has ever taken down Patton Ulysses s Sherman the great! 

 

(Read all of this in the macho man's voice for full effect, with a tinge of my home grown west varginey accent!) 07 don't cave to their fancy ways!

Edited July 24, 2022 by patton the great.7126

[Cuks.8241]

48 minutes ago, Raven.1524 said:

questioning if it was really designed to be this weird to start getting into raids or is it like this for every other mmo raiding scene?

 

Honestly, If all raids are designed to be like this, maybe the simplest answer is that in regards to hard content, I should either only play games my friends play or play single player games with hard difficulty (I don't know, monster hunter after master rank 200+ event stuff?)

Generally yes. I mean it makes sense. Raids are modes that are designed to test both players' individual skill and group coordination. For that you need a coherent group, preferably a static. 

Pugging is usually done by experienced players that either didnt raid with guild for the week, do it on second account or are just doing "farm" encounters which guild doesnt schedule anymore. Progression pugging is rare but that is what raid training could be labeled in gw2.

Some games like wow have implemented LFR modes which does the grouping for you. But for me thats not really raiding. Technically its a raid but its more like a tour guide, a preview.

 

Basically if you are interested in raiding a guild is always the best answer for any game.

Edited July 24, 2022 by Cuks.8241

[Blude.6812]

51 minutes ago, Raven.1524 said:

So what do you guys think it's the issue here?

It was a mistake to implement it with the design they used

 

Edited July 24, 2022 by Blude.6812

[Keymaster.7362]

There are some circumstances that can lead one to your impression.

I don't know how frequently you did look at the lfg, but raids have a weekly cap of rewards. The most people are already done and waiting for the reset on monday.

90% of the players are to afraidto open their own lfg and simply wait for someone eöse to do this. Many people don't use the lfg. They have a static groupe or are in a raid groupe. You have many great and friendly raid lern guilds out there.

It may seem paradox at first, but as more populare a groupe search is, as fewer to you see it in lfg.

The raid sellers wait normaly many hours before someone falls in their trap.

A groupe with a li off 500+ can wait up to 30 minuts.

Real learn groups or groups with smaller kps are full in few minutes and so you don't notice theme in the most time.

My personal advice, if you want to start with raiding it's always a good idea to search for a raid learning guild or discord groupe.

Edited July 24, 2022 by Keymaster.7362

[god fragment.5716]

It's not so much that people aren't lfg for raids, it's more that raids reset on mondays and those with the intention to clear the raids have done so before the weekend. As for the kill proof, that is required as ...well.... proof, that you know the encounters and the group will clear the raids smoothly. Experienced lfg is for those who want a quick and smooth run. The training lfg is mostly empty because, for one, it was added a few weeks ago and two, raid training is mostly done within guilds and is therefore not advetised.

[Dark Red Killian.3946]

Another thing I find myself doing is that if there isn’t a post in lfg, I don’t play. I am somewhat experienced (probably 30-40 boss kills ea). Mostly I play when my guild plays. Some raids there are very specific rolls or else you will fail or not do well. If I don’t know every roll, I am not as eager to step up and post an LFG as a commander. Sometimes I just want to lfg and find something and play. The other thing too is the accessibility of commanding. If people don’t have commander tag, what’s to say they don’t post a group just because of that? People generally want a group with a commander that takes charge and sorts the rolls. Otherwise it will be a less experienced group with no organization, more than likely you will fail. They could give some leway there and revamp the lfg altogether. What strikes don’t prepare you for is learning to deal with specific rolls. (Ex, kiter, bombs, pusher, wisps, mortars, the list goes on).

[Raven.1524]

50 minutes ago, Keymaster.7362 said:

I don't know how frequently you did look at the lfg, but raids have a weekly cap of rewards. The most people are already done and waiting for the reset on Montag.

 

I wonder if there's meaning or a reason for a weekly cap to exist on a game that has horizontal progression.

Or if it's just something that came as an old practice?

[Sobx.1758]

2 hours ago, Raven.1524 said:

I came back to gw2 after a while.

Haven't really raided since HoT the first time raids came to the game.

I recently opened the lfg and noticed 2 things,

- The clear tab is only filled with raid sells

- The training tab is empty

I won't compare it to games like wow since I never played that because I always disliked how that game looks.

 

I did a bit a a research and started questioning if Is it normal to play a raid and everyone be expecting to either have some weird amount of LI, see a video and know all the mechanics before even starting the fight or join a training group and forced to be on discord.

 

Since the situation seems to be like this, I personally won't raid unless I get a group of friends to start playing this game with me,

But I really started questioning if it was really designed to be this weird to start getting into raids or is it like this for every other mmo raiding scene?

 

Honestly, If all raids are designed to be like this, maybe the simplest answer is that in regards to hard content, I should either only play games my friends play or play single player games with hard difficulty (I don't know, monster hunter after master rank 200+ event stuff?)

 

So what do you guys think it's the issue here?

- This is simply not my type of game mode on an mmo?

- It's designed to be started with a group of friends

- The learning curve or the way it's implemented on the system is wrong?

- Some other issue I'm not seeing

 

btw: I won't talk about selling raids. I just don't like that and simply ignore their existence instead of making drama about it.

Are you on EU or NA?

You seem to fail to identify a problem where you open a lfg, see no squads and close lfg instead of... That's right, creating a group by yourself. It shouldn't be a problem considering you say you know the mechanics. If everyone presents the same stance, where they only want to join a squad instead of making one, there will be no squads to join. It's that simple.

Meanwhile, that also speeds up squads filling up, which is why they don't exactly linger in lfg for that long, feeding your perception of "no active squads in lfg". 

Edited July 24, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[SlayerXX.7138]

23 minutes ago, Raven.1524 said:

I wonder if there's meaning or a reason for a weekly cap to exist on a game that has horizontal progression.

One thing his habit forming. The other is people are idiots/addict's and will burn themselves out on content given the chance. Running as much as possible. Same reason the IBS chest is weekly. Short enough to be habit forming long enough to not burn out thanks to daily "IBS FC 250 Insight Alac, Quickness".

Edited July 24, 2022 by Albi.7250

[Raven.1524]

22 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Are you on EU or NA?

You seem to fail to identify a problem where you open a lfg, see no squads and close lfg instead of... That's right, creating a group by yourself. It shouldn't be a problem considering you say you know the mechanics. If everyone presents the same stance, where they only want to join a squad instead of making one, there will be no squads to join. It's that simple.

Meanwhile, that also speeds up squads feeling up, which is why they don't exaxctly linger in lfg for that long, feeding your perception of "no active squads in lfg". 

 

Oh, don't worry. I know what my problem is and it's most likely related to the way it's forcing me to start a group and managing it instead of a one click and join a random group of people on specific roles assigned based on gear or some other factor, which is clearly not how everything is designed.

 

So, I believe that arenanet choosing a way to implement an lfg, gear builds is fine and I'm not really interested on criticizing how they want us to socialize either

.

After reading some comments, I came to realize this simply isn't a mode I'm interested in. Unless of course, like I said before, I make 9 friends of mine to start playing the game with me.

 

You could say that meeting people, creating groups and guilds is part of the experience, so I should start my own group... I don't think I really care about that, but I don't think it's bad either, just not what I'm looking for right now.

 

In short, I believe the healthiest approach I could have is to think that this mode doesn't exist for me, ignore it completely and simply do whatever mode I find fun.

[Keymaster.7362]

58 minutes ago, Raven.1524 said:

 

I wonder if there's meaning or a reason for a weekly cap to exist on a game that has horizontal progression.

Or if it's just something that came as an old practice?

I would say GW2 is a game with horizontal, vertical progression. You have many different modes; raids, fractal, strikes, open world, wvw; but at all of them you have to start at lvl 1 and progress them separately.

 

The daily/ weekly caps are a design decision to keep all modes relevant.

If you could play everything without a cap, you would only farm raids, or only fractals, or only open world metas. With all the caps you switch between a little bit raids, a little bit fractals and a little bit open world metas.

Edited July 24, 2022 by Keymaster.7362

[Sobx.1758]

15 minutes ago, Raven.1524 said:

Oh, don't worry. I know what my problem is and it's most likely related to the way it's forcing me to start a group and managing it instead of a one click and join a random group of people on specific roles assigned based on gear or some other factor, which is clearly not how everything is designed.

Ah, so that's what you're talking about, the game not having specifically assigned roles which would make a completely different lfg system possible. See, my previous answer was directed more at your opening post about lfg tabs being empty, as well as some groups requiring LI. Overally what you just wrote in this post seems to be a different thing when compared to the first post of this thread, which is why my response was what it was.

Quote

You could say that meeting people, creating groups and guilds is part of the experience, so I should start my own group... I don't think I really care about that, but I don't think it's bad either, just not what I'm looking for right now.

In short, I believe the healthiest approach I could have is to think that this mode doesn't exist for me, ignore it completely and simply do whatever mode I find fun.

Good for you, perfectly valid decision to make -plenty of content to choose from.

Edited July 24, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Cuks.8241]

4 minutes ago, Raven.1524 said:

You could say that meeting people, creating groups and guilds is part of the experience, so I should start my own group... I don't think I really care about that, but I don't think it's bad either, just not what I'm looking for right now.

This "start your own" group for progression raiding is not really a good advice for someone that never really raided. I see it as a bit of meme answer to players that feel entitled that others should open groups for them. But I don't think its applicable to progression raiding. 

Why not just join a raiding guild?  That's always the best, fastest and most fun option to basically achieve anything in mmo games. 

The player base in this game has this strange attitude towards guilds. Guilds are usually the driving force for everything in mmos. But I guess the casual and overall friendly design actually led this game to lack of communities. 

[Sobx.1758]

10 minutes ago, Cuks.8241 said:

This "start your own" group for progression raiding is not really a good advice for someone that never really raided. I see it as a bit of meme answer to players that feel entitled that others should open groups for them. But I don't think its applicable to progression raiding. 

Why not just join a raiding guild?  That's always the best, fastest and most fun option to basically achieve anything in mmo games. 

The player base in this game has this strange attitude towards guilds. Guilds are usually the driving force for everything in mmos. But I guess the casual and overall friendly design actually led this game to lack of communities. 

Obviously, if he doesn't know anything about the encounter and the mechanics, it's far from a good option to make his own training group since the players joining will rightfully expect learning from him (unless he specifies it's some kind of a blind playthrough, I guess). 😅 

Although OP is asking "why is this expected to know the encounter to join a group" -it's not exactly expected in training groups as a general rule, but it sure can speed up the learning process.

Edited July 24, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[LSD.4673]

3 hours ago, Raven.1524 said:

I recently opened the lfg and noticed 2 things,

- The clear tab is only filled with raid sells

- The training tab is empty

Like most things in GW2, it's dependent on a lot of different factors, but the main one is time. On EU, the tabs are only populated after work/school time, meaning 4pm. Training raids only seem to show up around 6-8pm.

And, again, like most things GW2, the issue with population is with Anet's awful implementation. Not only are raids poorly communicated to players, and like the other guy said, poorly "ramped up" to players...but they're also competing for players with a variety of other game modes, notably strikes.

3 hours ago, Raven.1524 said:

I did a bit a a research and started questioning if Is it normal to play a raid and everyone be expecting to either have some weird amount of LI, see a video and know all the mechanics before even starting the fight or join a training group and forced to be on discord.

You aren't limited to just that. Refresh the training tab every now and then at peak times (evening). That's how i got into them. I've played since 2016 and have held off playing raids until just last week. I didn't want to have to organise them via set-in-stone training sessions, and with the updates making changes to raids, i figured i'd find a bunch of new people -- and i figured right. It's not easy pickings by any means, but there's a fair few training raids each day popping up, all led by a chatmander. Some of them ask you to check out the Mukluk video first, others explain everything totally via text; some want you to already understand the mechanics if you want to join and (weirdly) one of them was obnoxious about things like only having people under 15k AP. But ultimately, the options are there.

You just have to realise that raids aren't a supported game mode. GW2 works in fads of "focused content". Their focus is on Strikes now. The rewards and the new stuff is with Strikes. So, most people are playing, you guessed it, Strikes.

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

1 hour ago, Cuks.8241 said:

The player base in this game has this strange attitude towards guilds. Guilds are usually the driving force for everything in mmos. But I guess the casual and overall friendly design actually led this game to lack of communities. 

Well in every mmo , the driving force is also the auto-lfg .

But the GW2 raiders  have a strange attitude towards it .

Thank god we have a LI-KP system and we brim with communities

 

(why raiders always forget auto-lfg , when they mention other games ?)

Edited July 24, 2022 by Killthehealersffs.8940

[samsar.9152]

I'm happy I have found the really nice and friendly community to do raids and raid training. No need to LFG. 🙂

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

The problem is simple, its 10man content that is long and tedious, and easy to fail at repeatedly. i was in a raid for over four hours the other night, and my only choice was to give up and leave and not get the rewards for the final boss, or stick it out and hope for the best.

 

We cleared it, eventually, but it only took one player doing something wrong to wipe us again and again, and we were simply at the mercy of something beyond our control.

 

Strike Missions don't have this problem nearly as bad, because they're much shorter, and even then players quickly grow tired of the longer Strike Missions and stop playing them except for the weekly.

 

As a general rule, 10man content in this game isn't worth doing because it takes a long time to form a group, the mechanics of that group like the builds players have to run are alot more complex, and raids are extremely unforgiving on pretty much every aspect which means newer players quit after the first few wipes.

 

Its the same reason you still see players prefering metas like Dragonfall over Dragon's End. Its okay to have harder content, but when its just punishing no one wants to do it. The time and effort to set up an encounter properly has to be rewarded even if you don't manage to do it perfectly, otherwise it just becomes a huge waste of time.

 

In an MMO, there has to be an X chance of success for Y time and effort invested. If the investment is particularly steep, then this chance has to approach nearly 100% because when players just walk away with nothing after wasting their entire free time, it makes everything sour, which then spreads through the playerbase like a poison--"avoid doing this, its not worth it" and the content fizzles out.

 

Its only viable for that first time acheivement, the thrill of it, that's all. This applies to alot more than just raids too, its affected every single overly difficult, tine consuming and unrewarding part of the game, while other parts of the game are left as 20 gold per hour facerolls where you just fall into loot by pressing autoattack.

 

Its easy to say "git gud", but would you go into ranked PvP if you couldn't get gold, Transmutation Charges, Ascended Shards of Glory, and other rewards..? Now I imagine that on top of having no rewards for playing this PvP match, it also took 20-30mins to queue every time, and then every time your team wiped someone would leave, and have to be replaced before you could continue.

 

That's what alot of content in this game has become starting with around LWS3 era. Hardcore players are not the majority of players, in fact its like this in real life too. Not everyone can be a doctor, or a firefighter, or lawyer. Alot of us just toss burgers, that's realistic, and losing sight of that realism leads to bad game design, and content and mechanics that get abandoned, sometimes for good.

 

I say this as someone who has done almost everything in this game, often many times.

 

But this is what we get because a very small, vocal community wanted raids an similar content instead of continuing development on the much more popular dungeons and Fractals, and re-using many existing rewards and difficulty systems that were already working long before Strike Missions even became a thing.

 

I probably run with over a hundred 5man groups a week, primarily in dungeons along with the Fractal T4 dailies, and maybe one raid if they're not a sell. Strike Mission rewards are nonexistent.

 

I hope that in the future the devs will do something about all the instanced content in the game being like someone exploded a bomb and just sent it all over the place., but given the small changes they've made so far barely making a difference, I don't have much hope in that myself.

Edited July 25, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Moradorin.6217]

I have always speculated that the reason for allot of the issues with how long it takes to find groups, in part, is due to the game, sort of, lacking a good social system or reason for people/players to build up and maintain groups of players from which to form statics, do meta, pvp, etc with. In many ways, discord has been used to fill in the gaps, but it requires its own level of maintenance and such which allot of people and guilds just dont have the time and money to invest (yes discord servers cost money if you wana run a good one *cough* kitten Nitro *cough* )

 

So what is my point? Guilds!

The God kitten name of the game is GUILD WARS2 but they have never really revisited the guild system. Guild Mission rewards are NOT good, the Mission designs are deeply flawed and only the easy Trek and bounty is possible without a large group, yet none of the Mission rewards are even close to good enough to attract anyone let alone groups of people, at least in 99% of guilds. THe other 1% have some other thing that compels the players to socialize.

 

I would argue most guild are dysfunctional groups of people who never talk or interact with each other, at least for the most part. The obvious acceptation are Mission focused Guilds which are just another LFG system for a specific set of activities. However, even Mission Focused guilds tend not to be social. They are just co-dependent individuals with a common goal to do a task like Zerg in WvW, get raid clears done, etc.

 

LONG LONG ago before gw1, etc (20yrs) I played my first mmo EverQuest. It had in game mechanisms that created some player interdependence. Mostly it helped create social situations in which players would interact, benefit each other and through that develop relationships. The most obvious things it had were things like needing certain classes to do things like Teleport, summon your corpse to recover your gear, etc. It also used a trinity system for its raids, and you had to compete to get the Good encounters each reset before another group could to get the good loot. All of this meant that each player was motivated to be an active part of that Guild and in tern the activities of the Guild.

^^ This is relevant to GW2 because it lacks any such system to cause players to bond and care about a Guild or anything like that so everything becomes transactional and most of us sort of start from scratch each time we want to tag up or find a tag to do a raid or event. The obvious exception is statics, but again a static in gw2 is very hard to maintain because its basically all just transactional and players tend not to care about the other players and tend to have little to no loyalty to the group.

 

Guild Wars IMO has long been in desperate need of some social mechanism to foster some type of group loyalty or to similarly want to feel, at least somewhat, invested in a Guild or similar group without reliance on 3rd party apps like discord.

 

I dont profess to know the best solution, but I cant help but think that a revamp of Guild Mission rewards and maybe Guild Missions is the obvious solution. Heck a revamp of the pvp arena in the halls could even take a step at revitalizing pvp/wvw if it was setup to allow people to use the stats and stuff from each mode, but thats another topic.

 

Guild Missions wouldnt solve all this but it wouldnt hurt either. long term I think a Guild Mission revamp could potentially create a better system to train people on raids too, but that would sorta assume people are gona raid and do strikes etc with a guild in the first place, but I know many players just have no luck either joining or running a guild that is able to keep all that going. I would argue its mostly because its not rewarding for either the members or the guild leader and officers to operate as a guild. Its basically not rewarding and could and should be.

 

Even just a revamp of the Mission rewards at least could generate some actual Guild interaction beyond LF XYZ to do <event> and a reward revamp wouldn't seem to need much in the way of dev time either.

Edited July 25, 2022 by Moradorin.6217

[Asum.4960]

It's an MMO, so naturally this type of endgame content revolves around grouping. The best way to get into such content is via friends, guilds, etc. 

If you approach it with the mindset of being "forced" into being on Discord and the like, rather than forming connections and getting to have a good time playing together and progressing as group with other players (what an MMO traditionally is all about), then the content indeed may not be for you, or you may need to adjust your perception/mindset. 

 

@AgentMoore.9453 and @Moradorin.6217 touched on important issues here.

Where GW2 fails in terms of endgame group content is the lack of a "ramp" for players to start engaging the content with - leaving players stranded in front of a sheer impossible cliff that is the LFG, where primarily experienced players look for likeminded/skilled individuals to efficiently clear the content with in absence of their groups/statics that they usually play with or that initially prepared them for the content. 

 

This lack of ramping into this type of content comes in two forms.

The first being the knowledge and skill required. Powercreep has essentially invalidated the Open World content almost entirely in it's ability to teach players even the fundamental mechanics of the game as well as how to build and play their characters. 

While not enough quite yet, Anet has done a lot of work in this regard by implementing more intermediate content with Strikes, as well as dabbling in some slightly more sophisticated tutorialization with EoD.

 

Secondly, and this is imo the point where GW2 almost completely breaks down as MMO, is the lack of social ramp which especially Moradorin touched on. 

GW2 does absolutely nothing (save for abandoned Dungeons) to incentivise and normalise grouping, social interactions and integration into communities throughout it's entire leveling experience and even beyond. 

This is the true hurdle/lack of ramp into content like Raids.

Lacking knowledge or skill aren't as much of a prohibitive factor if players are embedded into supportive player communities in which they are comfortable to fail in, get taught by, or to just tackle the content, fail and learn together with.

 

And Anet has done nothing to remedy or even acknowledge this crucial problem with their MMO, with Guild's, Guild Missions and co. being depreciated and due to lack of function and incentives at large not performing their functions anymore of bringing players together to form bonds - which would not only make it easy, but most importantly fun and "safe" to tackle group content together with. 

 

So while the LFG isn't the right place to get into content such as Raids, players at large are left with the mindset of "being forced into Discords" rather than naturally being herded into ingame communities by the game for various activities and benefits touching many if not most parts of the game, which can then fairly naturally transition into engagement with the instanced group endgame as well. 

 

TL;DR:

LFG isn't a suitable place to get into this type of content at first and likely never will be. Engaging with communities and finding friends to enjoy the content with is the not only the best approach to do so, but imo the ultimate goal of this content - not a "forced" inconvenience on the way to getting into the content.

[Krzysztof.5973]

Do we have to deal with absolutes? Selling existed since Arah came out. And some squads will always ask for KP, not all of them. There is nothing weird about it. Plus, they specifically stated, the raids never meant to be for PUGs and LFG. 

[samsar.9152]

21 hours ago, patton the great.7126 said:

Just go into a raid group. When the elitist starts asking u stuff like show LI, can you spell ur name backwards, have you bothered to learn the mechanics? YOU NEED TO THUMP UR CHEST and say 1v1 bro? Come to obsidian sanctum or a guild hall, or pvp and show them no amount of youtube watching, metabattle reading, raid selling will save them FROM THE PURIFICATION OF A TRUE REGULATOR!!!!

 

At least that's what I do. I don't get invited to too many raids what for on account of my alphaness and inability to speel my name back'ards but I sure do win the moral victory of being able to regulate the elitists. Still to this day no PvE raider has ever taken down Patton Ulysses s Sherman the great! 

 

(Read all of this in the macho man's voice for full effect, with a tinge of my home grown west varginey accent!) 07 don't cave to their fancy ways!

This! Or ping stack of bananas, potatos or something other stupid stuff when they ask for LI or KP. 😄

[disco.9302]

22 hours ago, Raven.1524 said:

 

So what do you guys think it's the issue here?

- This is simply not my type of game mode on an mmo?

- It's designed to be started with a group of friends

- The learning curve or the way it's implemented on the system is wrong?

- Some other issue I'm not seeing

The first issue is that Anet made an LFG system which is too basic. 

NA raid LFG is significantly worse with about 3-9 sellers constantly there and only a small handful of actual groups being made.

EU is slightly better with there being fewer sellers and more actual raid groups up more of the time.

There is also the matter of timing. 

Mondays, after reset there are going to be more groups being made as well as on Fridays/weekends. 

 

Going back to the primary point, the LFG is too basic and players over time have found that using external resources such as discord is far more effective. For training and advanced tactics, voice coms are infinitely superior to typing.

 

The second issue is the format for KPs. It's clunky - you have to keep hold of some random fragments, ribbons etc which waste space in your inventory/bank and they are inconsistent (30kp could mean up to 30 kills or just 6). You also can't use LI because you could have farmed this from doing escort and never touched any other raid encounter. For this the community has created killpoof.me - also an external site which tracks API.

 

For both of the above issues, we see a similarity. Anet has come short with the tools they've provided and the community has decided to use external systems. 

This is part of the whole problem - having to do homework outside of the normal game to be able to participate in content. 

To do raids, you have to want to do them and have a little more drive than "oh, nothing in lfg, I guess I'll never return". Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending the current situation, just describing it.

 

What are the solutions?

Have better KP like titles (or similar) after 10/25/50 kills on a certain boss perhaps, less RNG for that aspect of clears. Something to rival killproof.me without being fakable like current items.

Also a better party builder system. The more experienced crowd have moved to statics which are never in LFG because they use discord coms which are external. As a filthy casual I've pugged my ~600LI after doing training runs but I know that the majority of the raid community group up elsewhere.

 

The current way people get into the content is to find a guild which does training runs, many do this but are inconsistent. Prior to doing the training attempts, it's a good idea to check some videos on what to expect and what might be expected from you as the player. My advice would be to find a class/build which is easy to play so you can focus on mechanics at the beginning. Bannerslave was my choice as the rotation was very simple and it had limited utility slots to do anything with - currently not an option since devs destroyed banners. After training runs, people either gravitate towards pugs or statics. Once you know the mechanics, each week the encounters become easier and easier for you.