Raid difficulty and challenge motes

[Fatalyz.7168]

@Lakemine.3014 said:

@Fatalyz.7168 said:

@Crevox.5806 said:....This is a weird program the GW2 community has created.

I believe that this stems from the fact that there really is no way to judge a persons preparedness for raids. Other games have at least a gear score, so you at least know that that person was invested enough to gear up (I would assume, I didn't play those games). This game, you can have random people showing up in whatever they happen to have (ex - wearing soldiers stats while trying to fill a dps role, or wearing rare/exotics of differing stats). The only way groups have of determining someone's willingness to invest, is in the number of LI that others have accrued (or any other arbitrary means, like the AP requirements in prev dungeon running days). Whether right or wrong, it is the method that the community adopted, to at least filter out those that were not invested.

Something to consider about training runs, they can end up being like auditions. The reason for this is because a lot of the experienced community gives back by helping to run these. You do a training run, even if it gets nowhere, you can still get noticed and invited to a guild. I understand if you don't want to do them, I refused to do them myself, but it took me a much longer time to get into raiding, than it had to.

I understand what your saying, and for investing into harder content, yes. But, for example, in SWTOR (Star Wars: The Old Republic) they have 3 tiers of difficulty for raids, Story Mode (SM), Veteran Mode (VT) (former Hard Mode HM), and Master Mode (MM) (former Nightmare NIM). The story modes have min req gear ratings, but they are not high, plus they have daily rotating group finder raids, that give a bolster up to the avg gear rating for that raid. So people who might be a bit under geared, or who don't have time to regrind gear can still experience the storyline, for all the raids and on every character. Now VT? Also a gear rating, but no bolster, better rewards, extra mechanics, but still the same storyline. And MM is just worse. Imo, the "normal" of raids in GW2, is the VT mode from SWTOR, it gates people and prevents them from seeing the storyline. But SM does NOT give the same rewards as VT. You want those rewards, go gear up and learn the fights in VT. But if you just want to do the storyline and get some basic rewards, you still have easy story mode to do. Just wish Anet would do the same thing. ie: easier raids so people can see the storyline, but less or next to no rewards, unless they do it normally or in CM.

One difference between SWTOR's Operations (read: Raids) and GW2's Raids. Operations are the main endgame for SWTOR, the main story always leads to them. In that world it makes sense for the Operations to offer multiple difficulties.

Raids are not the main endgame for GW2, there is nothing in GW2 that leads you to Raids, story-wise. If you had to go into a raid to find out the culmination of the Heart of Thorns story, and I would agree, there should be multiple difficulty levels. The delivery of the main story in this game, is open world and personal instances. Raids only exist in this game for those that wanted a group (larger than 5) challenge.

[Lakemine.3014]

@Metavahn.7293 said:so you dont want to add difficulty scaling because you want to keep pushing out content that only <1% of the playerbase will ever see, seems like backwards logic to me and why i and many other players rarely play GW2 for more than a week

its these rigid ideas and ideals that keep gw2 from being what it should of been, a contender to WoW and FFXIV which it will never be

and im sure all those toxic raid guilds would be so happy to invite every new returning player to come experience the new content, dont make me laugh

I will stick to FFXIV as my main MMO, switch to WoW on occasion and GW2 being the last resort, as it should be

my money goes to FFXIV because of your amazing and backwards ideals, rely on that cash shop for aslong as you can because you need it to stay afloat

First off, even though I'm a not a weekly raider (yet), people who do raids is not <1%, yes its not a large percent, but its not that low. To be generous I would say about 10-14% of the GW2 population do raids, slightly more have tried them. (Imo though, its less, but being generous :)) Yes I agree with the rigid ideas, but lets see how far they can get with those and not change them. They have the internal numbers of who is playing what, and they will change or get fired/moved around/funding canceled or teams broken up, which they don't want. Let it play out. Does FFXIV still have 2+ second CD between abiltys?

[Lakemine.3014]

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Zefiris.8297 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:The simple answer is: it's not cost-effective. An "easy/story mode" raid would have no replayability whatsoever. Let alone multiple difficulty tiers. They will serve to only be "accessed" once by some curious players who will never go back to them. It is simply not worth the effort.

Actually, other MMOs have proven this to be wrong: This approach is most cost effective, because it achieves multiple things at once.

1. It gets people into raiding, letting them actually try the content and see if they like it (which many do)
2. It gets people to practice the mechanics, leading to the average person trying a raid to be better at it
3. It keeps people engaged, because there is more content to do with friends, which is
   the
   reason for a MMO to have retention

This is why the most successful MMOs do use such easier modes. It's not because these games have nicer designers, it's just because it's a more effective use of development time.

1. No it doesn't. I've seen many people show interest in raiding and lose it quickly. It was never a difficulty problem, it was commitment. Having to make arrangements ahead of time and having to stick with them for the sake of a game - that's what makes people not become raiders, most of everything. You might argue PUGs exist, but pugging wastes a lot more time in setting up a group, both at the start and when somebody leaves. It's your free time and you're trying to have some fun. Waiting is nobody's idea of fun, so people give up on that, too.

2. No it doesn't. Tuned-down mechanics can only teach you bad habits.

3. No it doesn't, see (1).

For point 2.....imo, they should not tune down mechanics, just the dps checks and enrage timers. Does that mean having to dodge 15+ of Slothasor's Spore Release, yeah maybe, but people are not under a time constraint, plus it means practicing that mechanic more. Also, removing LIs and lessening rewards for this mode, so people don't just go the path of least resistance to get LIs, but can still learn the mechanics and see the storyline

[Fatalyz.7168]

@Lakemine.3014 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Zefiris.8297 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:The simple answer is: it's not cost-effective. An "easy/story mode" raid would have no replayability whatsoever. Let alone multiple difficulty tiers. They will serve to only be "accessed" once by some curious players who will never go back to them. It is simply not worth the effort.

Actually, other MMOs have proven this to be wrong: This approach is most cost effective, because it achieves multiple things at once.

1. It gets people into raiding, letting them actually try the content and see if they like it (which many do)
2. It gets people to practice the mechanics, leading to the average person trying a raid to be better at it
3. It keeps people engaged, because there is more content to do with friends, which is
   the
   reason for a MMO to have retention

This is why the most successful MMOs do use such easier modes. It's not because these games have nicer designers, it's just because it's a more effective use of development time.

1. No it doesn't. I've seen many people show interest in raiding and lose it quickly. It was never a difficulty problem, it was commitment. Having to make arrangements ahead of time and having to stick with them for the sake of a game - that's what makes people not become raiders, most of everything. You might argue PUGs exist, but pugging wastes a lot more time in setting up a group, both at the start and when somebody leaves. It's your free time and you're trying to have some fun. Waiting is nobody's idea of fun, so people give up on that, too.

2. No it doesn't. Tuned-down mechanics can only teach you bad habits.

3. No it doesn't, see (1).

For point 2.....imo, they should not tune down mechanics, just the dps checks and enrage timers. Does that mean having to dodge 15+ of Slothasor's Spore Release, yeah maybe, but people are not under a time constraint, plus it means practicing that mechanic more. Also, removing LIs and lessening rewards for this mode, so people don't just go the path of least resistance to get LIs, but can still learn the mechanics and see the storyline

Tbf, most of the DPS checks are really low, VG I think is around 4k, per person in a 10 person squad. Gorseval, on the other hand, is a dps check. But on most other fights, like sloth, if people are dodging the mechanics anyway, enrage won't usually matter, it isn't insta-wipe, and you can still keep on plugging away. Enrage mode, however, does severely lower the possibility for recovery, if a mechanic is missed.

I remember my guilds first Matt kill. We ended up going 5 min past the enrage timer.

[Lakemine.3014]

@Rennie.6750 said:

@"Crystal Reid.2481" said:New forum, so I'll jump in with a new post on this.

We won't be adding a different difficulty tier at this time. Raids need to continue to remain the most challenging content in the game, and they aren't designed to be accessible by everyone from a skill perspective. Could they be more accessible from a "finding 9 other players to play with" side? Sure. That isn't always an easy problem to solve, and any solution would detract away from the team making more raid content. We'd love to get more content out to you guys faster really.

I see a lot of comments about W4 difficulty, so I'll add some notes on that as well. Balance came in later than expected since we had far more bosses and content to test than usual. Are we totally happy with how balance turned out? Yes and no. The Mursaat Overseer base difficulty is too easy, but we were very happy with the CM difficulty. For the next release we'd like to get difficulty tuned more back in line with Spirit Vale. However, some of that original difficulty and magic is hard to re-capture. You never forget your first raid boss kill.

So you're telling us that raids "need" to remain exclusively challenging, yet you fail at providing any convincing argument so I'll assume it's just personal/dev team preference, because it means that 1) you're not going to listen to a huge chunk of your playerbase (seriously, I've never seen game devs straight out refusing to adapt existing content many players have been requesting for years, future will tell if that kind of behaviour works on the long term for this game), 2) that everyone else in the game development industry is wrong and that you're right, because all of your competitors offer a casual raiding environment if they offer raids at all. And no, it's not that time consuming to remove party wipe mechanics for individual mistakes and reduce monsters health and damage significantly. Yes it does need some testing to see if this works but no, this isn't as hard as you claim it is, because once again, all of your competitors do it and they do it well.

Um......look at Bioware devs with SWTOR ever since Knights of the Fallen Empire (KotFE or their "3rd" (5th) xpac) to see devs not listening. I might not agree and dislike their direction, but the Anet devs here with GW2 have adding things I have asked for, even if it took them 2 years to add it.

P.S. Bioware for SWTOR got a new guy in charge back in April, he had a KITTEN pile of kitten to clean up from the previous guy, and still a long way to go, but he has done more and listened and fixed or added things or change things in 5 months, then the guy before him in 2 years.

[Lakemine.3014]

@Rennie.6750 said:

@Lakemine.3014 said:

@Fatalyz.7168 said:

@Crevox.5806 said:....This is a weird program the GW2 community has created.

I believe that this stems from the fact that there really is no way to judge a persons preparedness for raids. Other games have at least a gear score, so you at least know that that person was invested enough to gear up (I would assume, I didn't play those games). This game, you can have random people showing up in whatever they happen to have (ex - wearing soldiers stats while trying to fill a dps role, or wearing rare/exotics of differing stats). The only way groups have of determining someone's willingness to invest, is in the number of LI that others have accrued (or any other arbitrary means, like the AP requirements in prev dungeon running days). Whether right or wrong, it is the method that the community adopted, to at least filter out those that were not invested.

Something to consider about training runs, they can end up being like auditions. The reason for this is because a lot of the experienced community gives back by helping to run these. You do a training run, even if it gets nowhere, you can still get noticed and invited to a guild. I understand if you don't want to do them, I refused to do them myself, but it took me a much longer time to get into raiding, than it had to.

I understand what your saying, and for investing into harder content, yes. But, for example, in SWTOR (Star Wars: The Old Republic) they have 3 tiers of difficulty for raids, Story Mode (SM), Veteran Mode (VT) (former Hard Mode HM), and Master Mode (MM) (former Nightmare NIM). The story modes have min req gear ratings, but they are not high, plus they have daily rotating group finder raids, that give a bolster up to the avg gear rating for that raid. So people who might be a bit under geared, or who don't have time to regrind gear can still experience the storyline, for all the raids and on every character. Now VT? Also a gear rating, but no bolster, better rewards, extra mechanics, but still the same storyline. And MM is just worse. Imo, the "normal" of raids in GW2, is the VT mode from SWTOR, it gates people and prevents them from seeing the storyline. But SM does NOT give the same rewards as VT. You want those rewards, go gear up and learn the fights in VT. But if you just want to do the storyline and get some basic rewards, you still have easy story mode to do. Just wish Anet would do the same thing. ie: easier raids so people can see the storyline, but less or next to no rewards, unless they do it normally or in CM.

Lol why does everyone care so much about what kind of gear casual players have access to? First if it's not rewarding then you'll get the same complaints then having good gear more accessible gives a better baseline to work on the next expansion as the devs don't have to care about wildly varying character power and design everything around a mix of greens and yellows. Just hand out exotics with an awesome skin like candy and have a rare chance at ascendant, everyone will be happy.

Because if gear is easier to get, then it becomes about peoples skill and knowledge about their class and the fights. This is why I LOVE pvp and ranked in GW2. Icame from SWTOR pvp, where you would get rofl stomped, even with a bolster on, by people who had better gear then you. Pvp here (I started just after the change in April of 2014) is NO FREKAING GEAR NEEDED. Its about skill, its about knowing your class, the other classes, trying to outsmart other people, know the maps, know rotations. Your not held back by stupid gear that costs upwards of 400+ gold. And you can switch to a different class on the fly, no hassle. Heck, I can go make a new character, and within 3 minutes of making them, be beating people in ranked. Can't do that in raids. (Also to help people if I need to switch to a different class because the comp needs to change. Can do that in ranked, can't in raids, unless you have metric ton of gold, which most people don't.)

[Lakemine.3014]

@meeflak.9714 said:Arenanet had stated from the start what they plan to do with raids. They were made to give the community something challenging and engaging to enjoy. It has been said that they don't want to take time to make different tiers because it will take away from thier time they have to design new engaging raid content. Why do you expect them to cater to your requests? Why do they have to take time away from development of new mechanics, for those that want to play it? Your asking them to put a stop on their goals to cater to you

Do raider's have to run fractals .. no... Do they if they want to experience the lore ? Or get ad infinitum? Yes

Do raider's have to play PvP? No . Do they have to if they want Ascension ? Yes

Do raider's have to play WvW? No. Do they have to if they want the the armor and back piece? Yes

Does the community have to raid? No . Do they if they want to experience the lore and get legendary armor ? Yes.

No one Is forced to do anything in this game. If a player wants something from a certain aspect of the game. It's their responsibility to seek it out... I'll never play WvW again I'm sure. Imnot upset I'll never get their specific skins. Those players put the into that game mode to receive it's payouts. That's all raids ask of you . If you want to be included. Then include yourself, but don't expect arenanet to cater to you because you don't want to go through with getting into the content the way it was designed

Edit: why do I get so many thumbs down for explaining it the way I see it.. I'm sorry if you don't like my stance, we disagree, sure. But don't you think it's best to just see the magic In raids and give them a shot the way arenanet intended it?

I don't think there is lore in pvp and wvw? And if there is.....hold that thought. In fractals people can still experience the lore with t1 fractals, they don't need to do t4 fractals to get lore. See for lore reasons, pvp, wvw and fractal newbs who stink at the game can STILL experience the lore by doing easy versions of them. Do they give the same rewards as the harder tiers of these content? Nope. So why can't raids be the same way?

[Lakemine.3014]

@Fatalyz.7168 said:

@Lakemine.3014 said:

@Fatalyz.7168 said:

@Crevox.5806 said:....This is a weird program the GW2 community has created.

I believe that this stems from the fact that there really is no way to judge a persons preparedness for raids. Other games have at least a gear score, so you at least know that that person was invested enough to gear up (I would assume, I didn't play those games). This game, you can have random people showing up in whatever they happen to have (ex - wearing soldiers stats while trying to fill a dps role, or wearing rare/exotics of differing stats). The only way groups have of determining someone's willingness to invest, is in the number of LI that others have accrued (or any other arbitrary means, like the AP requirements in prev dungeon running days). Whether right or wrong, it is the method that the community adopted, to at least filter out those that were not invested.

Something to consider about training runs, they can end up being like auditions. The reason for this is because a lot of the experienced community gives back by helping to run these. You do a training run, even if it gets nowhere, you can still get noticed and invited to a guild. I understand if you don't want to do them, I refused to do them myself, but it took me a much longer time to get into raiding, than it had to.

I understand what your saying, and for investing into harder content, yes. But, for example, in SWTOR (Star Wars: The Old Republic) they have 3 tiers of difficulty for raids, Story Mode (SM), Veteran Mode (VT) (former Hard Mode HM), and Master Mode (MM) (former Nightmare NIM). The story modes have min req gear ratings, but they are not high, plus they have daily rotating group finder raids, that give a bolster up to the avg gear rating for that raid. So people who might be a bit under geared, or who don't have time to regrind gear can still experience the storyline, for all the raids and on every character. Now VT? Also a gear rating, but no bolster, better rewards, extra mechanics, but still the same storyline. And MM is just worse. Imo, the "normal" of raids in GW2, is the VT mode from SWTOR, it gates people and prevents them from seeing the storyline. But SM does NOT give the same rewards as VT. You want those rewards, go gear up and learn the fights in VT. But if you just want to do the storyline and get some basic rewards, you still have easy story mode to do. Just wish Anet would do the same thing. ie: easier raids so people can see the storyline, but less or next to no rewards, unless they do it normally or in CM.

One difference between SWTOR's Operations (read: Raids) and GW2's Raids. Operations are the main endgame for SWTOR, the main story always leads to them. In that world it makes sense for the Operations to offer multiple difficulties.

Raids are not the main endgame for GW2, there is nothing in GW2 that leads you to Raids, story-wise. If you had to go into a raid to find out the culmination of the Heart of Thorns story, and I would agree, there should be multiple difficulty levels. The delivery of the main story in this game, is open world and personal instances. Raids only exist in this game for those that wanted a group (larger than 5) challenge.

With.....storyline content that effected the personal storyline in LS3. And look at how many people are complaining about how there are to many plot holes showing up out of no where in LS3. (Not saying its a extremely large population, but I see it a lot.)

[Fatalyz.7168]

@Lakemine.3014 said:. So why can't raids be the same way?

Differing design philosophies. Fractals were created from the ground up to be varying difficulty levels, raids were not. We also do not know the amount of resources it takes to complete one fractal with multiple levels of difficulty vs 1 complete raid wing.

[Lakemine.3014]

@Fatalyz.7168 said:

@Lakemine.3014 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Zefiris.8297 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:The simple answer is: it's not cost-effective. An "easy/story mode" raid would have no replayability whatsoever. Let alone multiple difficulty tiers. They will serve to only be "accessed" once by some curious players who will never go back to them. It is simply not worth the effort.

Actually, other MMOs have proven this to be wrong: This approach is most cost effective, because it achieves multiple things at once.

1. It gets people into raiding, letting them actually try the content and see if they like it (which many do)
2. It gets people to practice the mechanics, leading to the average person trying a raid to be better at it
3. It keeps people engaged, because there is more content to do with friends, which is
   the
   reason for a MMO to have retention

This is why the most successful MMOs do use such easier modes. It's not because these games have nicer designers, it's just because it's a more effective use of development time.

1. No it doesn't. I've seen many people show interest in raiding and lose it quickly. It was never a difficulty problem, it was commitment. Having to make arrangements ahead of time and having to stick with them for the sake of a game - that's what makes people not become raiders, most of everything. You might argue PUGs exist, but pugging wastes a lot more time in setting up a group, both at the start and when somebody leaves. It's your free time and you're trying to have some fun. Waiting is nobody's idea of fun, so people give up on that, too.

2. No it doesn't. Tuned-down mechanics can only teach you bad habits.

3. No it doesn't, see (1).

For point 2.....imo, they should not tune down mechanics, just the dps checks and enrage timers. Does that mean having to dodge 15+ of Slothasor's Spore Release, yeah maybe, but people are not under a time constraint, plus it means practicing that mechanic more. Also, removing LIs and lessening rewards for this mode, so people don't just go the path of least resistance to get LIs, but can still learn the mechanics and see the storyline

Tbf, most of the DPS checks are really low, VG I think is around 4k, per person in a 10 person squad. Gorseval, on the other hand, is a dps check. But on most other fights, like sloth, if people are dodging the mechanics anyway, enrage won't usually matter, it isn't insta-wipe, and you can still keep on plugging away. Enrage mode, however, does severely lower the possibility for recovery, if a mechanic is missed.

I remember my guilds first Matt kill. We ended up going 5 min past the enrage timer.

Hmm.......then I guess the guild runs I tried people couldn't even get to 4k? Because we couldn't even get to phase 2 more then 3 times of VG. And I know the necro was at 29k and me on my thief was around there too, but lower because I don't have min/max stats, just stuff in the general range, running mostly full zerk with some assassin. And when the raid leader posted the dps meter (which to my understanding, NO ONE is aloud to test your dps unless you do it yourself.) most everyone seemed to be around 14k, which I'm guessing not being higher was because of only being in the first phase? Now true, the reason why was because people kept failing the green circle. But the few times we did make it to the 3rd phase, it was after 4 minutes, so 4 minutes into the fight. Dps to low I'm guessing?

[Lakemine.3014]

@Fatalyz.7168 said:

@Lakemine.3014 said:. So why can't raids be the same way?

Differing design philosophies. Fractals were created from the ground up to be varying difficulty levels, raids were not. We also do not know the amount of resources it takes to complete one fractal with multiple levels of difficulty vs 1 complete raid wing.

Hmm......true. Man I wish both teams would come out and explain the truth with all the gritty details and computer jargon and code so we can make more sense of it.

[Fatalyz.7168]

@Lakemine.3014 said:

@Fatalyz.7168 said:

@Lakemine.3014 said:

@Fatalyz.7168 said:

@Crevox.5806 said:....This is a weird program the GW2 community has created.

I believe that this stems from the fact that there really is no way to judge a persons preparedness for raids. Other games have at least a gear score, so you at least know that that person was invested enough to gear up (I would assume, I didn't play those games). This game, you can have random people showing up in whatever they happen to have (ex - wearing soldiers stats while trying to fill a dps role, or wearing rare/exotics of differing stats). The only way groups have of determining someone's willingness to invest, is in the number of LI that others have accrued (or any other arbitrary means, like the AP requirements in prev dungeon running days). Whether right or wrong, it is the method that the community adopted, to at least filter out those that were not invested.

Something to consider about training runs, they can end up being like auditions. The reason for this is because a lot of the experienced community gives back by helping to run these. You do a training run, even if it gets nowhere, you can still get noticed and invited to a guild. I understand if you don't want to do them, I refused to do them myself, but it took me a much longer time to get into raiding, than it had to.

I understand what your saying, and for investing into harder content, yes. But, for example, in SWTOR (Star Wars: The Old Republic) they have 3 tiers of difficulty for raids, Story Mode (SM), Veteran Mode (VT) (former Hard Mode HM), and Master Mode (MM) (former Nightmare NIM). The story modes have min req gear ratings, but they are not high, plus they have daily rotating group finder raids, that give a bolster up to the avg gear rating for that raid. So people who might be a bit under geared, or who don't have time to regrind gear can still experience the storyline, for all the raids and on every character. Now VT? Also a gear rating, but no bolster, better rewards, extra mechanics, but still the same storyline. And MM is just worse. Imo, the "normal" of raids in GW2, is the VT mode from SWTOR, it gates people and prevents them from seeing the storyline. But SM does NOT give the same rewards as VT. You want those rewards, go gear up and learn the fights in VT. But if you just want to do the storyline and get some basic rewards, you still have easy story mode to do. Just wish Anet would do the same thing. ie: easier raids so people can see the storyline, but less or next to no rewards, unless they do it normally or in CM.

One difference between SWTOR's Operations (read: Raids) and GW2's Raids. Operations are the main endgame for SWTOR, the main story always leads to them. In that world it makes sense for the Operations to offer multiple difficulties.

Raids are not the main endgame for GW2, there is nothing in GW2 that leads you to Raids, story-wise. If you had to go into a raid to find out the culmination of the Heart of Thorns story, and I would agree, there should be multiple difficulty levels. The delivery of the main story in this game, is open world and personal instances. Raids only exist in this game for those that wanted a group (larger than 5) challenge.

With.....storyline content that effected the personal storyline in LS3. And look at how many people are complaining about how there are to many plot holes showing up out of no where in LS3. (Not saying its a extremely large population, but I see it a lot.)

Except that Forsaken Thicket had no part in LS3, and it was not telling the part of the Commander (the player character). It was telling the story of a lost patrol, and a squad that went to go find them. The Pact Commander's story, picks up right at the start of LW3.

Does the story of the Forsaken Thicket help explain how the events of Bloodstone Fen happened? Certainly. But, it is a side story, not the story of the Commander, and not ultimately integral to the story of LW3.

You could remove Forsaken Thicket, leave the NPC in Bloodstone Fen, and know what happened. They chose to tell his story, through a raid, to convey the difficulty that was put before the heroes that went looking for that missing squad.

[Fatalyz.7168]

@Lakemine.3014 said:

@Fatalyz.7168 said:

@Lakemine.3014 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Zefiris.8297 said:

@Feanor.2358 said:The simple answer is: it's not cost-effective. An "easy/story mode" raid would have no replayability whatsoever. Let alone multiple difficulty tiers. They will serve to only be "accessed" once by some curious players who will never go back to them. It is simply not worth the effort.

Actually, other MMOs have proven this to be wrong: This approach is most cost effective, because it achieves multiple things at once.

1. It gets people into raiding, letting them actually try the content and see if they like it (which many do)
2. It gets people to practice the mechanics, leading to the average person trying a raid to be better at it
3. It keeps people engaged, because there is more content to do with friends, which is
   the
   reason for a MMO to have retention

This is why the most successful MMOs do use such easier modes. It's not because these games have nicer designers, it's just because it's a more effective use of development time.

1. No it doesn't. I've seen many people show interest in raiding and lose it quickly. It was never a difficulty problem, it was commitment. Having to make arrangements ahead of time and having to stick with them for the sake of a game - that's what makes people not become raiders, most of everything. You might argue PUGs exist, but pugging wastes a lot more time in setting up a group, both at the start and when somebody leaves. It's your free time and you're trying to have some fun. Waiting is nobody's idea of fun, so people give up on that, too.

2. No it doesn't. Tuned-down mechanics can only teach you bad habits.

3. No it doesn't, see (1).

For point 2.....imo, they should not tune down mechanics, just the dps checks and enrage timers. Does that mean having to dodge 15+ of Slothasor's Spore Release, yeah maybe, but people are not under a time constraint, plus it means practicing that mechanic more. Also, removing LIs and lessening rewards for this mode, so people don't just go the path of least resistance to get LIs, but can still learn the mechanics and see the storyline

Tbf, most of the DPS checks are really low, VG I think is around 4k, per person in a 10 person squad. Gorseval, on the other hand, is a dps check. But on most other fights, like sloth, if people are dodging the mechanics anyway, enrage won't usually matter, it isn't insta-wipe, and you can still keep on plugging away. Enrage mode, however, does severely lower the possibility for recovery, if a mechanic is missed.

I remember my guilds first Matt kill. We ended up going 5 min past the enrage timer.

Hmm.......then I guess the guild runs I tried people couldn't even get to 4k? Because we couldn't even get to phase 2 more then 3 times of VG. And I know the necro was at 29k and me on my thief was around there too, but lower because I don't have min/max stats, just stuff in the general range, running mostly full zerk with some assassin. And when the raid leader posted the dps meter (which to my understanding, NO ONE is aloud to test your dps unless you do it yourself.) most everyone seemed to be around 14k, which I'm guessing not being higher was because of only being in the first phase? Now true, the reason why was because people kept failing the green circle. But the few times we did make it to the 3rd phase, it was after 4 minutes, so 4 minutes into the fight. Dps to low I'm guessing?

First, you give consent to having your dps monitored, anytime you join a group or squad. The only way to never have it read, is not join a group, or go with groups/people that don't use them. I believe that this was how Anet phrased giving consent.

To the point you raised, it seems your dps was at an OK level. So it seems that the issue is failed mechanics. For VG, the most common mechanic fails are, not managing greens (either through distort or having people go to the circle), people getting ported by blues (personal mechanic check, although can be distorted), lack of seeker control, slow CC (his CC channel ability really hurts), dps getting in front of VG and getting hit by his absurdly hard auto, and if kiting the boss for phase 2 and 3, not moving the boss fast enough causing greens to spawn in a danger zone.

Something that I suggest to people, if you are having difficulty overcoming a boss, you or someone else, record a couple of runs. See what you can see, and focus on improving those areas.

[LadySilverHand.6841]

I would really love to see a story mode for raids. It would make it a lot easier to get started doing raids. Dipping my toe, and testing the temperature in a way that is less intensive and demanding from other players, rather than trying to dive into the deep end head first and getting yelled at for not knowing what to do, even after prepping from guides. I want to feel comfortable in taking my time and enjoying the story and scenery, instead of swiftly bashing my way through every portion and then looking up the lore later to see what happened.Story mode on the dungeons was quite honestly what got me started playing more than just basic PvE, and was instrumental when I was a new player in becoming comfortable playing in groups and trying new content."This is my story." Please give this solid time and consideration, Anet.

[zealex.9410]

@Blaeys.3102 i can understand the need for easier acess to the story i myself have talked about this. But the raid story is supposed (as many ahve told you) to be experienced in a group format. Theres alot of dialogue between the player characters and between diff characters and the npcs that wouldnt work in solo mode. Speakinga bout wow and even ff14 they dont allow you to solo experience the story either. They do have an entry mode for the raids and that prefectly fine. I feel that an easier normal mode and a harder cm mode is the way to go. But solo modes? No, not really.

[Blaeys.3102]

@zealex.9410 said:@Blaeys.3102 i can understand the need for easier acess to the story i myself have talked about this. But the raid story is supposed (as many ahve told you) to be experienced in a group format. Theres alot of dialogue between the player characters and between diff characters and the npcs that wouldnt work in solo mode. Speakinga bout wow and even ff14 they dont allow you to solo experience the story either. They do have an entry mode for the raids and that prefectly fine. I feel that an easier normal mode and a harder cm mode is the way to go. But solo modes? No, not really.

@zealex.9410 I agree. I am not in favor of a solo version of the raids and have never advocated for such. I firmly believe that different group difficulties via the use of Motes (whether they are challenge motes or some kind of story mote) is the way to go. They have proven that the concept works - and even admitted its success in this very thread, noting how happy they are with the difficulty of the Mursaat Overseer challenge mote. It is just a matter of getting past their own personal shortcomings about the idea of a story mode and implementing it.

@fatalyz.1768 - again, there is no such thing as a side story in a game like this. You say that it is a side story because it doesn't contribute to the culmination of the "main" story. The reality is, there is no culmination to the story, because there is no linear progressing main story - GW2 is the amalgam of all the stories, maps and other experiences we have in Tyria and the Mists (something that is true of how most successful MMOs approach storytelling).

Anet uses the term "side story" as a semantic tool to justify the less accessible nature of the experiences inside the raids - to try and make people not care that they are missing out on that part of the Tyrian (GW2) story. The reality is, of course players would like to experience that content, no matter how little story is there - and that includes people who play bearbow rangers or guardian tanks or whatever (and do not want to have to experience the frustration that trying to play those way-off-the-meta builds play in the current raid format). It isn't about being lazy - it isn't about being bad at the game. it is about a bad decision on the part of the developers essentially locking those experiences away from large portions of the playerbase.

[LadySilverHand.6841]

I'm not asking for a solo story mode.

[SirMoogie.9263]

@Fatalyz.7168 said:

Except that Forsaken Thicket had no part in LS3, and it was not telling the part of the Commander (the player character). It was telling the story of a lost patrol, and a squad that went to go find them. The Pact Commander's story, picks up right at the start of LW3.

Well except for all those letters addressed to you asking for your help, your character having active dialogue during the raid, and Bennett saying you were there, if you were. I agree it wasn't PC central, but it did give a nod to you being there as part of the squad, if you partook in it.

[icy.9250]

Crystal Reid wants it more like Wing1, which has some positives but also some negatives. There's a reason people skip Spirit Run and why others making a living selling a Gorseval opener to dozens of groups every week. The whole timegated portals thing after VG is absolutely awful, and the killing of ghosts afterwards, the destroying of random walls while escaping an unseen enemy, or doing some random mushroom JP that looks quite strange in a non-puzzle setting... just to get to Gorseval?

Please, hopefully we'll never need to see anymore of these Spirit Runs. In this sense, Wing4 accomplished quite a lot -- actual streamlined content where organized groups could pride themselves in uninterrupted skill.

[Kyban.4031]

@Crystal Reid.2481 said:I see a lot of comments about W4 difficulty, so I'll add some notes on that as well. Balance came in later than expected since we had far more bosses and content to test than usual. Are we totally happy with how balance turned out? Yes and no. The Mursaat Overseer base difficulty is too easy, but we were very happy with the CM difficulty.I've run the MO CM quite a bit and I'm not sure that's the kind of difficulty we're looking for. A lot of the difficulty in that fight comes from dps lining up with mechanics, forcing the spikes and blue square to happen at the same time. Yes, it's possible to work around it through lowering the team's dps or getting enough movement to find a blue square that isn't covered but it makes the difficulty feel very rng and more frustrating than other CM fights.

[Fatalyz.7168]

@Blaeys.3102

I am not attempting to say that people don't want or shouldn't want access to that story. It, just is flat out not related to the Commander (PC). That, by it's nature makes it a side story. Whether people want access to it or not, has no bearing on whether it is or is not a side story.

The decision to lock the content behind a skill wall, that they intentionally made high, and whether it is bad or not, is highly subjective.

I do not see it as a bad thing, simply because there is nothing wrong with some content that a majority will never experience. In this, raids are content that are all about the challenge for the group, the story is secondary. If it was all about the story, why doesn't it involve the Commander, why is most of the story told through notes, not dialogue and cut scenes?

Yes, it has interesting story. But just because it has interesting story, does not mean that it has to be for everyone. Perhaps if it kills the game, then it can be said that it was needed. But if the game continues to go strong, then perhaps it never did need it, and people just wanted it.

[Astralporing.1957]

@Fatalyz.7168 said:

@Lakemine.3014 said:. So why can't raids be the same way?

Differing design philosophies. Fractals were created from the ground up to be varying difficulty levels, raids were not.

Well, in that case that design philosophy for raids seem to be faulty at its core.

[Fatalyz.7168]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Fatalyz.7168 said:

@Lakemine.3014 said:. So why can't raids be the same way?

Differing design philosophies. Fractals were created from the ground up to be varying difficulty levels, raids were not.

Well, in that case that design philosophy for raids seem to be faulty at its core.

It's only faulty when you have a specific idea of what you think it should be, and unable to accept what it is.

Edit: In other words, it is only faulty when it is a failure. By all appearances, it is a success for it's intended audience, and then some. That makes it hard to argue that it is faulty.

[Lonami.2987]

@Fatalyz.7168 said:

@Lakemine.3014 said:. So why can't raids be the same way?

Differing design philosophies. Fractals were created from the ground up to be varying difficulty levels, raids were not. We also do not know the amount of resources it takes to complete one fractal with multiple levels of difficulty vs 1 complete raid wing.

Raid difficulty mode don't need to be super complex. For example:

Vale Guardian

• Easy mode: The boss is weaker in general. Failing green circles does much less damage. Enrage timer longer by 4 minutes. You get no LIs and no unique ascended loot.
• Hard mode: The boss is stronger in general. You need 6 persons at the green circles. Failing a green wipes the raid. The split versions come back to life after 10 seconds if there's any other split alive, so you need to kill the 3 at the same time. Entering areas outside your color during the split does more damage. Enrage timer shorter by 2 minutes. You get an additional LI, and the chances for unique ascended loot are higher.

That would suffice.

@icy.9250 said:Crystal Reid wants it more like Wing1, which has some positives but also some negatives. There's a reason people skip Spirit Run and why others making a living selling a Gorseval opener to dozens of groups every week. The whole timegated portals thing after VG is absolutely awful, and the killing of ghosts afterwards, the destroying of random walls while escaping an unseen enemy, or doing some random mushroom JP that looks quite strange in a non-puzzle setting... just to get to Gorseval?

Please, hopefully we'll never need to see anymore of these Spirit Runs. In this sense, Wing4 accomplished quite a lot -- actual streamlined content where organized groups could pride themselves in uninterrupted skill.

Those filler events should either be optional, or part of the bosses themselves.

[aimasira.3786]

i get it that you want the raids to be the most difficult mode in the game.however i feel like new "players" or "raid players" are feeling intimidated for participating in them. The current players that do raids on a weekly basis will have no problem at all but if you see the lfg new players will never have a chance with any of the raids, and when more raids will come into the game i feel that situation will get worse.A lot of ppl have not managed to even kill any boss, because of lack of skill in the group or ignorance . Its different to read how to kill the boss and kill it.You may have to consider ways to make raids more welcoming to new and ignorant playersFor Example: 1) you have timers on bosses and if you wont manage to kill it in the appropriate time the group will instantly die. rather than killing the group you could let the group continue to fight until they kill it and maybe reward them less or nothing. this is just for them to be trained for the particular boss2) you could always create an easy mode for raids and give less rewards or nothing, could be done just for exploration and lore.3) you can create a hard mode for every raid for the pro players and give them more rewards in exchange