Raid lockouts are holding back the raids

[Cuks.8241]

So I've just recently completed a couple of raid wings through the LFG training squad and to my surprise we cleared it without much hassle. Mostly first timers, no special requirements or KP with maybe 2 or 3 experienced players (which makes a huge difference for special mechanics). We even one shot some of the bosses and only really needed to progress on the last wing bosses. The squad leader was patient enough to let some of us complete newbies take over some of the special mechanics and it went fine after maybe an attempt or 2 to get a hang of it.

These were not emboldened, just normal raid encounters in Wing 1 -4. I guess the power creep also did its job. I found harvest temple normal harder or at least more punishing than most encounters. At least for 80 % of the group that is not assigned special mechanics. Voice comm is really not needed at all (I dont mind it though, its more fun, social and easier to communicate).

Also raids are really really fun and not really such a big time commitment per wing. I have been raiding in wow and other games quite a lot but that was in the past when I had no kids and had the time to do it. But from what I have seen I could maybe squeeze the time even now to complete a wing or 2.

So now I come to the issue. There are so few training groups. And they fill fast.

And conditionally removing the weekly raid loot lockouts would I think help with that. Now I get that complete removal of lockouts would not go well with the current loot system and would probably not increase the amount of raid training groups because raiders would just farm raids more with their current groups. 

But what if they introduced raid mentoring system. If you start a raid as mentor you can complete the raid twice or more times per week but there would be conditions. 8/10 of the squad should not be locked out for the week. This means there could be 2 mentors per squad because hey 2 is better than 1. Maybe additional condition would be that you need to fill the squad through LFG raid training although I am not sure if this is a good idea or not. The loot could be reduced for each additional clear but at least make it worthwhile for the second weekly clear.

I think such a system would be a good incentive for at least a few experience raid comms to go at it with a bunch of newbies without compromising their weekly clears.   

The emboldened mode is fine I guess but doesn't do much and I dont like to do "easy mode" encounters anyway, just takes away from the feeling of accomplishment. Only did emboldened once and we didnt really need it. We failed Sabetha a few times because we didnt know what to do not because we had low dmg or we died to stuff.

[zeyeti.8347]

Not a good idea , people will pretend to train and will go fastclear just for the loot , you can do a lfg wherever you want , even in the training section as you are not really training .

Better idea for me is to add a daily raid boss or maybe wing , let ppl who have already cleared a wing choose to remake the wing and why not even choose the boss they will face (on cleared weekly wings only ofc).

As for wing 1-4 they are known to only need 3-4 experienced player to be cleared easily , the dps player don't have much to do if the tank , healers , kiters , ... know their job .

Vg : if you have a good healer you don't care about greens , nor red balls , only thing dps have to care about is blue teleporting aoe

Gorse : just dps it to the death , easy with the power creep ...

and whatsoever

on wing 5 to 7 that changes drastically , just look at desmina : not ccing the golems , looking at all dead walls , not facing desmina , dodging quad-octo slash , ccing desmina without trying to cc the golem and dodging scythe , a lot more things to do on those wings for each member of the squad

[Cyninja.2954]

1 hour ago, Cuks.8241 said:

These were not emboldened, just normal raid encounters in Wing 1 -4. I guess the power creep also did its job.

Raids, and especially wings 1-4, have been power crept and "easy" for years by now. The out of game support structures (guides, discords, builds, videos, etc.) have been growing for years too. The recent power creep certainly made more roles more accessible.

 

The mantra of "raids are to hard (or even just "hard")" is a distant past even on these forums by now except for the ultra niche super incompetent crowd (where one can assume the issue does not lie with the content but rather the individual).

 

Any player who invested some time and energy into actually wanting to raid could have done so since PoFs launch basically (over 5 years ago), or shortly after once Firebrand and Renegade were re-balanced (and once heal scourge was a thing, which on its own can carry pretty much any W1-4 fight). Any  player giving in to the victim card and/or listening to the aforementioned niche forum crowd would have simply stood in their own way. It was nice that emboldened mode encouraged more players to actually give raids a try, self experiencing what experienced raiders have been saying for years: if you prepare a little and give it an honest shot, you will succeed.

 

As to raid lockouts:

Most mentors or raid trainers already run double and triple shifts per week. Those clears you had were most likely NOT the trainers weekly clear (and if they were, that's a rather rare occurrence). I doubt removing the lockouts will adjust that to a large extent even if it would be nice to give those dedicated players a tad more rewards. What it will open the door to is abuse of the system. We've had raid selling commanders in the past which created PUG groups with 1-2 paying players, without telling the rest of the squad.

Edited February 4, 2023 by Cyninja.2954

[Cuks.8241]

1 hour ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

Not a good idea , people will pretend to train and will go fastclear just for the loot , you can do a lfg wherever you want , even in the training section as you are not really training .

This would definitely happen but I don't see it as a bad thing. It would just translate to more raid clears per week with more players having to be involved (well or more accounts but that's probably already a thing). If only some of those are true training runs that's still more training runs. I doubt this would lead to some kind of in game inflation or anything.

1 hour ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

What it will open the door to is abuse of the system. We've had raid selling commanders in the past which created PUG groups with 1-2 paying players, without telling the rest of the squad.

Any such system opens doors for abuse which is just reality and a few extra drops won't really kill anyone. I have no idea how large the customer base for raid selling is and what prices we are talking about but I don't imagine a little bit of extra loot would really change anything. Anyway I am not against raid selling or lets say service selling in games in general (for in game currency). That is completely fine by me but thats just my opinion I understand these services can be controversial especially in a game where you can buy gold with cash.

I have raided frequently in wow and also lead quite a lot of pug runs including training runs. Leading pugs and training has its rewards but also its frustrations. I wouldn't do it at the time if no loot was involved and I would also not go out of my way to equip extra character or account just to run them. I would just do them for raids that I didnt clear that week with my group.

[Fuchslein.8639]

I really wonder what abuse in this context even means.

Are people Not allowed to Run the Same raids more than 1 time a week and get actuall good rewards for this? I mean, where would be the difference to fractals or Dungeons? Why did anet Change the reward-mode with raids? I mean, they could still restrict it like fractals for example.

I ask this already somewhere Else,but i really Wonder how Open world Players would react when all their favorite Events would give decent rewards only one time a week. Sure a Lot would be playing, Like i know Raiders who RAID almost every day, because it's fun for them. But would this really be the majority when we See how easy Event popularity shifts as fast as a new more profitable Event gets added to the game? I don't think so.

Just my two Cents. I know, Raiders who want better rewards for playing what is fun for them are sooo~ greedy ^^".

Edited February 5, 2023 by Fuchslein.8639

[Krzysztof.5973]

It's always wholesome to read somebody new stepping into raids and realizing they're actually easy. Fighting with fearmongering among players that do not raid would have increased raid population exponentially. We don't really need any intricate systems to grow raid playerbase.

All we need is new raids with consistent schedule. Not a schrodinger's approach where raids are never coming and maybe coming at the same time because ANet never explicitly stated that they will never again release new raid wings. 

Edited February 5, 2023 by Krzysztof.5973

[zeyeti.8347]

9 hours ago, Fuchslein.8639 said:

I really wonder what abuse in this context even means.

Are people Not allowed to Run the Same raids more than 1 time a week and get actuall good rewards for this? I mean, where would be the difference to fractals or Dungeons? Why did anet Change the reward-mode with raids? I mean, they could still restrict it like fractals for example.

I ask this already somewhere Else,but i really Wonder how Open world Players would react when all their favorite Events would give decent rewards only one time a week. Sure a Lot would be playing, Like i know Raiders who RAID almost every day, because it's fun for them. But would this really be the majority when we See how easy Event popularity shifts as fast as a new more profitable Event gets added to the game? I don't think so.

Just my two Cents. I know, Raiders who want better rewards for playing what is fun for them are sooo~ greedy ^^".

Totally agree , at least they could give us more than 6 blue and 1 green non id whenever we clear a boss we already cleared , killing a pack of moas at queensdale is more profitable .

Even the cm's loot aren't that great and have no difference in scaling , just look at Keep construct cm vs Dhuum cm , same cm loot , but ... you see my point.

[Cyninja.2954]

2 hours ago, Krzysztof.5973 said:

It's always wholesome to read somebody new stepping into raids and realizing they're actually easy. Fighting with fearmongering among players that do not raid would have increased raid population exponentially. We don't really need any intricate systems to grow raid playerbase.

All we need is new raids with consistent schedule. Not a schrodinger's approach where raids are never coming and maybe coming at the same time because ANet never explicitly stated that they will never again release new raid wings. 

Exactly. If you want to do something to "help" or promote raid content, and thus support the community around raids (that includes raid trainers and commanders), the goal should be to get a sustainable model of continuous content going. Not some band-aid "slap on some minor and meaningless extra reward" solution.

Increasing rewards for challenging instanced content is fine, but it's not even a drop in the bucket of the issue that without fresh content, it eventually becomes all about farming the rewards, then abandoning the content or clearing it 1nce per week. That's where everyone eventually ends up at.

As far as abusing the system. I was not looking at this from the perspective of competent mentors/trainers. I take as a given that the "intended" use of something added should benefit the game. I was rather looking at this from the perspective of incompetent mentors/trainers (aka the ones pretending to be) trying to sneak by some extra rewards for themselves, hence my given example.

Also the entire dynamic changes once rewards are tied to "training" raids, which is to say that there might be cases where suddenly success becomes of more importance over proper training or even necessary failure, which in turn increases the pressure on the squad. So you either make(keep) the rewards as pointless as they are now (meaning any changes you make in increasing them keep them at far to low to be interesting), or you are inviting the possibility of priority shifts happening in some squads.

To be clear: if it was up to me, challenging instanced content would be the most rewarding content in the game. I just don't see the offered idea as any type of solution to the actual issues at hand.

Edited February 5, 2023 by Cyninja.2954

[The Boz.2038]

Raid locksouts are a really bad idea, that part of the analysis is correct. Should be done away with 80% of the way.

[Yasai.3549]

Locking out content is never a good thing. It's not like the boss fight or encounter is the prize that needs to be locked out. Just limit clear reward and let people redo Raids endlessly, there's literally 0 issue in letting players replay content. 

Imagine going to idk Mcdonalds and then they say OKAY YOU CAN'T COME ANYMORE UNTIL 9AM NEXT WEEK ON MONDAY.