Strikes don't replace raids. We need Wing 8

[Obtena.7952]

11 minutes ago, Renegated.4132 said:

 

It's not aversion per se, it's the fact that instead of atleast bothering a bit to ask themselves what went wrong they simply decided to throw the towel and move forward.

My problem here is that this isn't a fair assessment of the situation. It's a clever wordsmithing to make it sound like Anet didn't try to make raids work but ... that's not accurate. I mean, we have 7 wings, several bosses in each, unique rewards and mechanics in each, developed over a period 6 years over 2 expansions and to top it all off, attached to Legendary armor rewards. Tell me what part of that suggests that's just Anet 'throwing in the towel' here? That kind of commentary is actually pretty absurd. I think it's pretty clear there was an obvious, concerted effort on Anet's part to make raids work in GW2. Much of what you say seems to just be some hefty guilt-shaming. If you think that's a compelling way to make Anet pay attention to you, GL I guess.  

You simply don't have any idea of the efforts it took or the impact raids did (or didn't have) in the game. All we know is what we can see and what happened. You don't think it was enough? Frankly, what you think isn't really relevant to how these decisions are made. 

Edited January 19, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[Renegated.4132]

23 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

My problem here is that this doesn't seem like a fair assessment of the situation. It's a clever wordsmithing to make it sound like Anet didn't try to make this work but ... that's not accurate. I mean, we have 7 wings, several bosses in each, developed over a period 6 years? That's not just 'throwing in the towel' here ... there was an obvious, concerted effort to make raids work here. 

You simply don't have any idea of the efforts it took or the impact raids did (or didn't have) in the game. All we know is what we can see and what happened. 

 

Well, we can start with the fact that when releasing the W1 they didn't do anything to prevent toxic behavior on the raids, to the point of some commanders kicking you because "You're bad" as reason or even worse, SOME where kitten enough (I'm tired of the long version of it) to kick you due to not being capable of achieving the damage qT or SC can achieve by 1-5K (Ignoring the fact that those players have almost muscular memory). That pushed a lot of people away, and even today that ghost haunts the raids despite of those kind of behavior having almost disappeared.

 

We continue with the rewards, as said, you can get the same you can get on raids anywhere and easier. They offer no real reason to take the challenge aside of MONKEEEEEEEE.

 

Something I don't recall seeing is promotion coming from the devs, like for example a week say " Raiding special week, all devs will be creating each one a squad to take down Wings 1 to 4 each day, call of the mists active in all wings for the week", or something like that to make people say "Wow, let's try it".

 

I get your point when you say that there's an effort there, and yeah, mea culpa for saying it was not there, but it's also undeniable that they could have done a bit more when it comes to connect with the community and see how the things were going.

Edited January 19, 2023 by Renegated.4132

[Obtena.7952]

8 minutes ago, Renegated.4132 said:

 

Well, we can start with the fact that when releasing the W1 they didn't do anything to prevent toxic behavior on the raids, to the point of some commanders kicking you because "You're bad" as reason or even worse, SOME where kitten enough (I'm tired of the long version of it) to kick you due to not being capable of achieving the damage qT or SC can achieve by 1-5K (Ignoring the fact that those players have almost muscular memory). That pushed a lot of people away, and even today that ghost haunts the raids despite of those kind of behavior having almost disappeared.

 

We continue with the rewards, as said, you can get the same you can get on raids anywhere and easier. They offer no real reason to take the challenge.

 

Something I don't recall seeing is promotion coming from the devs, like for example a week say " Raiding special week, all devs will be creating each one a squad to take down Wings 1 to 4 each day, call of the mists active in all wings for the week", or something like that to make people say "Wow, let's try it".

 

I get your point when you say that there's an effort there, and yeah, mea culpa for saying it was not there, but it's also undeniable that they could have done a bit more when it comes to connect with the community and see how the things were going.

Again, not here to argue with you about the causes of the decline of raids (but nice play trying to pin player behaviour on Anet's lack of policing there ... solid low blow there). Anet dould have done more? Maybe ... but that's just related to the cost of doing so. I would say ... they did enough. 

Just telling you it's not wrong to tell players to choose games that give them what they want because that is reflected in the data Anet likely uses to make decisions about content strategy and direction. Maybe you think there is something good resulting from Anet trying to cling to players unhappy with game content who are unlikely to spend money on the game ... I don't see what that good thing is. 

Edited January 19, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[Renegated.4132]

51 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Again, not here to argue with you about the causes of the decline of raids (but nice play trying to pin player behaviour on Anet's lack of policing there ... solid low blow there). Anet dould have done more? Maybe ... but that's just related to the cost of doing so. I would say ... they did enough. 

Just telling you it's not wrong to tell players to choose games that give them what they want because that is reflected in the data Anet likely uses to make decisions about content strategy and direction. Maybe you think there is something good resulting from Anet trying to cling to players unhappy with game content who are unlikely to spend money on the game ... I don't see what that good thing is. 

 

It's not a low blow, it's the truth, the span of time between launch of W1 and launch of W2 was Vietnam sometimes when it comes to some commanders, to the point of getting close to the temporary ban on certain cases due to how they behave when the try failed, those were not much, but they were, and sadly was not something reportable per se due to the fact of "My squad, my rules" and that there was not a category that fitted well in this kind of situations, don't know if they added more report options or not.

 

And my problem comes due to the way you expressed the point, at the beginning sounded like "Just leave", now sounds more like "Just try something else." And let me tell you, if me and my friends call GW2 "The comfort zone" it's for a reason xDD

 

And when it comes to asking the community, it wouldn't be only the unhappy ones, it would be in general, raids it's something that has been on a situation of stasis for almost 4 years, it would be good to know what the community thinks about them in order to move one way or the other in case they want to try something new with them or simply add more wings. It doesn't matter how many wings they add, if they don't make the mode attractive to the players, those will not play that content.

 

Also, knowing what the community wants to say on certain topics can be a good way to move forward, after all they're the ones keeping the game alive.

 

 

Edited January 19, 2023 by Renegated.4132

[Obtena.7952]

3 hours ago, Renegated.4132 said:

Also, knowing what the community wants to say on certain topics can be a good way to move forward, after all they're the ones keeping the game alive.

Anet is aware of what the community wants so whatever are you going on about?  Anet listening to the community is exactly why we see certain implementations like tiered difficulty or roles. Again, the picture you paint here that Anet needs to know all this stuff (because you don't think they do) is an over exaggeration of reality. Just because you don't see something ingame does not mean Anet isn't aware people want it. It's more likely that these things people want aren't the best things for the game that Anet are willing to deliver to them.

Again, if Anet wasn't giving people what they wanted, it would be reflected in the data they collect to measure their game and the success of the game itself. Games that don't give people what they want simply don't exist or last very long. Seems to me just based on the metric of longevity ... Anet is most definitely giving enough people what they want for GW2 to be part of a successful business. That's why it's completely reasonable to tell people to pack up and leave if a game doesn't deliver what they want from it because that is exactly how the game is measured ... with data, not with forum post counts or guilt-shaming posts. 

 

Edited January 19, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[The Boz.2038]

6 hours ago, Renegated.4132 said:

words

You will find, dear forum user, that should one hypothetically, theoretically find themselves in a situation in which they appear to be conversing with mud, one should first cease that activity, and perhaps consider a more productive enterprise.

A raid wing costs *a lot* of money to make. A strike? Not so much. A recycled storyline strike? Even less. 
As much as I'd love to see a new raid wing, and will forever hold out hope for it, I... really do not see one coming any time soon.

[Bakeneko.5826]

9 hours ago, Renegated.4132 said:

[text goes here]

Simple words, simple ideas, a bit of hyperbole:

Game has 1000 units of players. 10% do raids. -> Team of 6 devs make raids. Raids cost time and money -> While making raids, team of developers is not making other content, like open world or strikes or fractals -> Raiders are happy, spends some money. Some people from 900 units of players do raids, however it is not majority -> Players who don't raid, takes a break, do not spend money -> Devs make non-raid content -> Dev team can't make raid, is making other content -> 900 units of players play non-raid content, pays money. Some raiders play content, pays money -> Anet makes more money, than making raids -> Anet decides money is good, makes non-raid content to keep more players.

It doesn't matter what vocal minority on forums/reddit/twitter/Trump Social Media thinks. Anet has data - how many players raid, NC Soft has data - how much money Anet makes. If NC Soft is not happy with the amount of money - NC Soft tells Anet to make profitable content. Thus you have abandoned dead content such as raids and dungeons. You can try to engage in tautology, like you have done so far, but it will not change a fact, that raids were not popular in Guild Wars 2 and if you want MORE raids, there are games that focus heavily on raiding - go play them.

 

[jasqui.3947]

I'm relatively new to this game (played a bit for free in 2018 and then came back a bit before EoD announcement).

 

This game's combat system feel so unique compared to any other MMO I've tried.

 

I've been through dungeons, fractals, strikes and now recently raids. I must say that while I like all of them it wasn't until I started playing fractal CMs and eventually raids that I hadn't actually noticed how cool this game is.

 

When I eventually went through living world stories I was surprised that some bosses weren't recycled into strikes or fractals. If the problem is how expensive it is to make new raid encounters then why aren't they recycling some of those older content for strikes at least?

 

I also think that the "too expensive" is a bad excuse. They clearly can release new raid wings for EoD with the new "living world" for this season. They've already mentioned that strikes are a stepping stone for raids and they even added emboldened and increased raids rewards. Why would they do that if they plan to leave the content dead? I think they are planning to release some raid wings with the new season that will come with an even easier mode (kind of like story mode). That way they can make a new adventure for people who also don't want to play harder content and adapt. Or they are just testing if by making some small changes there will be more people interested.

 

Just because older raid wings were original stories and adventures doesn't mean the new one couldn't be part of the new living world season main story. They changed how the LWS system works with the release of IBS so they could easily release a new season that is also not a LWS. 

 

I personally love strikes, fractals and raids. The raids are especially fun to me because of how I got to interact with people in order to learn the content and beat it. I also love how some raid encounters make use of what make classes unique, sometimes you have to change your build to be able to have a smoother run. Recently I finally beat all raid wings and I can't wait to see what's to come.

 

Also don't say "go play another game" because that's just dumb and rude. I come here to leave this comment because I get the feeling some believe us new players are not interested in these types of content. You see the number of people who play the content but you only see the people who stayed in the game. You don't see the new and returning players. I don't want to just get pretty in the game and stand afk in Arborstone or Mystlock Sanctuary. 

 

The problem is toxicity and/or bad LFG tools? Well then just keep asking them to fix it. Don't pretend the only solution is not releasing the content. I read a lot of "back in the day when there was only W1..." Well that is in the past. I haven't had a single person call me out for anything in the game that has made me go like "I don't want to play this anymore" Most of the time it has been very constructive instead or some of them simply leave the group. Who cares about leavers, just look for new people to play, look for a guild, join one of the discords (Hardstuck, Skein Gang) there's plenty of ways to find like-minded players and a lot of people willing to help

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

The biggest problem with most instanced content is it stands alone and that makes it expensive to develop. Even the original, standalone strikes from IceBrood Saga were abandoned for strikes shared with the storyline in End of Dragons. Honestly, this is how it should've been done to begin with, everywhere in the game.

 

The devs have wasted so much time and effort trying to fill a thousand cookie jars. This is also why CM's work so well, because while they're still the same Fractal, raid or strike, it completely changes the encounter.

 

To put it simply, it took the devs an entire decade to realise that reusing content is good. Going forward, all instanced content needs to have some overlap to be a successful use of resources.

Edited January 20, 2023 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Bakeneko.5826]

3 hours ago, jasqui.3947 said:

They've already mentioned that strikes are a stepping stone for raids and they even added emboldened and increased raids rewards. Why

IBS ones were. EoD CMs are harder than most raids.

 

3 hours ago, jasqui.3947 said:

I also think that the "too expensive" is a bad excuse

It's ONLY valid excuse. Anet is not making GW2 out of goodness of their heart - they are trying to make money. If game doesn't generate money, it can be best MMO that will ever exist and it would still sink. People here fail to understand that Anet is trying to make money first, make game second.

 

3 hours ago, jasqui.3947 said:

Why would they do that if they plan to leave the content dead?

Why would they plan to abandon content? Players didn't engage in raids enough to make it worth the while to make new raids. Simple as that. It's cute, that some people think Reddit, Forums, Efficiency or other tool has majority of players on it, when it truth - it's minority (and by a wide margin).

 

3 hours ago, jasqui.3947 said:

Also don't say "go play another game" because that's just dumb and rude

Then don't come and say "x game has this and gw2 doesn't"

 

3 hours ago, jasqui.3947 said:

Don't pretend the only solution is not releasing the content.

It's cheaper, thus, it's better in corporate sense.

[Tom.8029]

One of the recurring themes I see here in people’s posts is that they didn’t encounter this or that in their raiding experience. 
 

I just wanted to say this: Just because you have not experienced something personally doesn’t mean it does not exist.   Further, your experience is not the average or baseline experience, everyone’s experience is different. This piece of advice can be applied to many things in life, use it well. 

Edited January 20, 2023 by Tom.8029
Typo

[Renegated.4132]

On 1/20/2023 at 9:53 AM, Bakeneko.5826 said:

It's cheaper, thus, it's better in corporate sense.

 

As you said, in a corporate sense. If you want the game to continue working you need to keep happy the players, because if they leave, the game won't work, in a corporate sense nor in a game sense.

 

To make the raids appealing (or any endgame instanced content in general) the "you can face a challenge" quote won't work alone, you need to give the player an acording reward to that challenge, and right now, strikes do that better than raids, strikes are hard yet not much (excluding cm), and the rewards are good for the challenge they represent. As soon as they give raids a real reason to be there, people will go do them, but right now they don't give anything fractals, strikes or even PvP/WvW give, and any of the mentioned modes it's easier than raiding.

Edited January 21, 2023 by Renegated.4132

[Cuks.8241]

They could release 3 or 4 strikes with a bit of trash, dialogue and continuous story. Not just pure arena fight.  You need to complete the first to get to the second and so on. And once you unlock all of them, you can just play them as strike missions. But you can also play them in one piece like a raid wing, maybe even with some changes to fights and some additional backstory and events. 

[Linken.6345]

13 hours ago, Cuks.8241 said:

They could release 3 or 4 strikes with a bit of trash, dialogue and continuous story. Not just pure arena fight.  You need to complete the first to get to the second and so on. And once you unlock all of them, you can just play them as strike missions. But you can also play them in one piece like a raid wing, maybe even with some changes to fights and some additional backstory and events. 

So like cold war/forging steel strike? first one get skiped 99% of the time the other get done rarely?

Edited January 24, 2023 by Linken.6345

[Cuks.8241]

6 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

So like cold war/forging steel strike? first one get skiped 99% of the time the other get done rarely?

I actually really like Forging Steel. If prep and some of the repetitive parts would be trimmed and boss would be more interesting and much harder it would be great. Now its just to long to include it in full clear. 

Cold war is the worst designed strike by far. Quite long. And its still just an arena fight only without a real boss, just generic trash. 

But hey if players are only interested in super fast content with good income than I guess there is really no point for anet to release new raids and fractals probably also. 

[Obtena.7952]

On 1/21/2023 at 5:35 AM, Renegated.4132 said:

 

As you said, in a corporate sense. If you want the game to continue working you need to keep happy the players, because if they leave, the game won't work, in a corporate sense nor in a game sense.

Sure ... but thas need to keep players happy isn't only applicable to raids. There are MANY other facets of the game that "keep happy the players" to contribute to their decision to stay with the game or not and how that results in the longevity of the game. In fact, I would argue that based on the history of this game and its raids, we have already seen that this game is more than capable of existing and continually developed without new raids being released.

The end of the game is not as dependent on the raid environment as you continually imply it is. 

 

Edited January 24, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[Carnage.6751]

I don't think in this point A-net really dont wanna spent budget for the contents not played by huge percentage of player base.Strike for them pretty cheap and efficient way to make content.Like rather than creating original instances and Bosses and writing a story for them.Why not we just copy paste an instance from story mode and put a mob from events or story and enbiggen them?

I played strikes a couple times and I felt absolute hollow.İts absolute resident sleeper content.And those rewards absolute garbage.

[Linken.6345]

6 hours ago, Carnage.6751 said:

I don't think in this point A-net really dont wanna spent budget for the contents not played by huge percentage of player base.Strike for them pretty cheap and efficient way to make content.Like rather than creating original instances and Bosses and writing a story for them.Why not we just copy paste an instance from story mode and put a mob from events or story and enbiggen them?

I played strikes a couple times and I felt absolute hollow.İts absolute resident sleeper content.And those rewards absolute garbage.

With your last line you sure it was not dragon response missions you were playing?

[Bakeneko.5826]

On 1/21/2023 at 12:35 PM, Renegated.4132 said:

As you said, in a corporate sense. If you want the game to continue working you need to keep happy the players, because if they leave, the game won't work, in a corporate sense nor in a game sense.

Raids did not appeal to majority. To keep game afloat - majority must be happy.

 

On 1/21/2023 at 12:35 PM, Renegated.4132 said:

To make the raids appealing (or any endgame instanced content in general) the "you can face a challenge" quote won't work alone, you need to give the player an acording reward to that challenge, and right now, strikes do that better than raids,

HT normal is harder than some raids. EoD CMs are absolutely harder than most raids. I'd say it's fair for EoD strikes to have good rewards.

 

On 1/21/2023 at 12:35 PM, Renegated.4132 said:

As soon as they give raids a real reason to be there, people will go do them,

Legendary items are locked behind raids. Literally best QoL item in the game. If that does not attract players, I doubt anything else will.

 

On 1/21/2023 at 12:35 PM, Renegated.4132 said:

right now they don't give anything fractals, strikes or even PvP/WvW give, and any of the mentioned modes it's easier than raiding.

WvW is easier than raids? PvP? Those aren't even the same game.... It takes way longer to get legendary items from those modes.

Fractals are easier, yes. But it's 5 man content, where everyone needs to pull their weight, and one dead player matters more in fractals than raids.

Strikes.... Come on.... Go do any of EoD CMs and tell me they are easier than all of the raids, esp. HTCM

[Cyninja.2954]

2 hours ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

Raids did not appeal to majority. To keep game afloat - majority must be happy.

That is actually a common repeated but very flawed statement. It falls apart in scenarios where a "majority" is not sufficient to sustain a product because there is no "majority" large enough to exist on its own.

This statement also completely forgoes or ignores not noticeable synergies or interactions down the road. This game would be very different without say challenging instanced content (all of it, no reason to focus on a single part) and yet the amount of players which do not partake in challenging instanced content is a vast majority.

It's not necessary for the majority to be happy. It's necessary that the majority draw a benefit, even if they are unaware of their  benefit, of this content being added and the direction the game would take without said content.

2 hours ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

HT normal is harder than some raids. EoD CMs are absolutely harder than most raids. I'd say it's fair for EoD strikes to have good rewards.

EoD strikes are quite well rewarded for the effort they take. IBS strikes are even better rewarded given their difficulty.

2 hours ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

Legendary items are locked behind raids. Literally best QoL item in the game. If that does not attract players, I doubt anything else will.

Legendary armor does attract players and is even responsible for one of the most lucrative "sell" communities in the game. The continued rewards and sustained development are the larger issue at hand.

2 hours ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

WvW is easier than raids? PvP? Those aren't even the same game.... It takes way longer to get legendary items from those modes.

Longer yes. Length of times is one type of challenge. That has nothing to do with difficulty though.

2 hours ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

Fractals are easier, yes. But it's 5 man content, where everyone needs to pull their weight, and one dead player matters more in fractals than raids.

Very biased statement here.

Normal T4 fractals, and even fractal farms or CMs (though CMs a tad less) are VASTLY overloaded reward wise (if compared to any other content in the game). T4s most definitely do NOT require everyone to pull their weight. Not even CMs do.

Recs are even worse offenders. They yield exorbitant rewards at nearly no difficulty.

In an unbiased comparison between ALL of the games content where reward versus difficulty is compared, fractal are some of the worst offenders. There is absolutely 0 justification for fractals to yield this much loot compared to other content.

Do I enjoy my fractal loot? Sure. That doesn't mean I have to agree or warp some kind of justification though. Fractals are vastly over-rewarding, period.

2 hours ago, Bakeneko.5826 said:

Strikes.... Come on.... Go do any of EoD CMs and tell me they are easier than all of the raids, esp. HTCM

HT CM is an outlier even among strikes. Most of the EoD Strikes are raid level difficult comparative to mid difficulty raid fights. Both modes suffer from low rewards overall compared to other content which is significantly easier (open world), takes far less work to organize (open world, fractals, etc.) or yields significantly more reward over time (open world, fractals).

Edited January 27, 2023 by Cyninja.2954

[Mell.4873]

@Obtena.7952 Just let the guy suggest a new a Raid wing.

This is such a semantic argument. It's like me with wanted a Raid/Strike quing system for quality of life. 

Arguing here is kinda pointless since you are just purposefully trying to pit yourself against him. 

 

Just say, new raid Wing would be amazing but Arena Net has moved on from this content into Strikes and probably won't return. 

Edited February 2, 2023 by Mell.4873

[Mell.4873]

I think over all a new Raid Wing is not a bad idea but what is really needed is for Arena Net to inforce roles. 

Yes some Raid bosses are much easier when let's say you use a theif to steal plasma but having 4 Support/Dps and 2 healer should be a standard Arena Net needs to set for 10 man content. 

Edited February 2, 2023 by Mell.4873

[Sobx.1758]

26 minutes ago, Mell.4873 said:

I think over all a new Raid Wing is not a bad idea but what is really needed is for Arena Net to inforce roles. 

Yes some Raid bosses are much easier when let's say you use a theif to steal plasma but having 4 Support/Dps and 2 healer should be a standard Arena Net needs to set for 10 man content. 

No, it doesn't need to be that and anet doesn't need to enforce it. Connect this post with what you wrote right above it ("It's like me with wanted a Raid/Strike quing system for quality of life.") and it seems what you're focused on here is pushing for your previous idea, at which point... wrong thread. I don't see why it would be supposed to be enforced at all and how it has anything to do with getting new ones.

Edited February 2, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[Obtena.7952]

4 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

@Obtena.7952 Just let the guy suggest a new a Raid wing.

That makes little sense to me ... I'm not stopping anyone from posting anything they want to post. I think your advice is actually mistargeted ... If people don't want to discuss what I'm saying, they shouldn't be replying to ME. 

As for Wing 8 ... like I already said, it's a business decision and there isn't a 'need' for it to happen, just because some people think it's a great idea. Some people just don't want to face that fact, knowing it's not in their favour for getting more raids.

 

Edited February 2, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[Mell.4873]

13 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

No, it doesn't need to be that and anet doesn't need to enforce it. Connect this post with what you wrote right above it ("It's like me with wanted a Raid/Strike quing system for quality of life.") and it seems what you're focused on here is pushing for your previous idea, at which point... wrong thread. I don't see why it would be supposed to be enforced at all and how it has anything to do with getting new ones.

It doesn't really matter what you say since they are moving in this direction. I mean every Class can provide one of the two main boons and sometimes both. We have 3 barrier healers with 2 in just the last expansion.

I am trying to push the LFG system because we have it in PvP so it's already available for repropose. We have 3 main roles already so I don't see why you can't que with them for at least fractals. Again, many other games have this and is what is lacking compared to something like FF14.