Do raids need easy/normal/hard difficulty mode? [merged]

[Tyson.5160]

@Turin.6921 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:

@nia.4725 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:

@Turin.6921 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:I’m just wondering if the raids would have been more inviting had they stuck to a gradual scaling difficulty concept from the start.

I am not sure it would solve much. In think the lack of in-game tools for accessibility so that people know how to basically start is a more important factor. A training category on LFG where trainers and new people could easily congregate or more options on the training golem to learn mechanics for example. If there where such things in game i think the actual progression within the wing would not matter that much.

What about instead of an easy mode per say, if they had a new wing that comes before wing 1. Can call it wing 0. You could try and introduce some of the standard raids themes and mechanics to this wing, and maybe keep the difficulty low, like a Cairn, MO and Samarog kinda difficulty. That way you could let this wing introduce and better equip the new raiders for what’s in store.

I really like this idea. A kind of easy wing more forgiving without actually gifting the kills or allowing things like undergeared or autoattacking being able to clear it, with mechanics that would intruduce new raiders. Yeah! This would actually help them get in touch with raids. It could serve as a mid step between open world and raids and help them get comfortable and fear less the other raid wings.

Just another opportunity to add a new raid wing with new bosses, new area, new story and if does indeed bridge the gap sorta speak then the next step would to try W4 and so on. By that point that two out of six raid wings and then they could do W1-3.

You could also add a few training achievement and titles as well (completing the training regiment on the golem on bosses mechanics or what ever wing 0 might be) so that people can show off the fact that they at least went through the basics with having to link anything.

That would make sense, kinda like how in all the starting zones they have those dodge areas to teach about dodging damage, if they had something in there to teach you some of the standard raid mechanics, that would be nice.

I was also thinking that maybe when you entered the raid wing there would be npcs telling you about different aspects of raiding. Maybe have an npc talk about healing and another about tanking, dps etc.

[nia.4725]

@Tyson.5160 said:

@nia.4725 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:

@Turin.6921 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:I’m just wondering if the raids would have been more inviting had they stuck to a gradual scaling difficulty concept from the start.

I am not sure it would solve much. In think the lack of in-game tools for accessibility so that people know how to basically start is a more important factor. A training category on LFG where trainers and new people could easily congregate or more options on the training golem to learn mechanics for example. If there where such things in game i think the actual progression within the wing would not matter that much.

What about instead of an easy mode per say, if they had a new wing that comes before wing 1. Can call it wing 0. You could try and introduce some of the standard raids themes and mechanics to this wing, and maybe keep the difficulty low, like a Cairn, MO and Samarog kinda difficulty. That way you could let this wing introduce and better equip the new raiders for what’s in store.

I really like this idea. A kind of easy wing more forgiving without actually gifting the kills or allowing things like undergeared or autoattacking being able to clear it, with mechanics that would intruduce new raiders. Yeah! This would actually help them get in touch with raids. It could serve as a mid step between open world and raids and help them get comfortable and fear less the other raid wings.

Just another opportunity to add a new raid wing with new bosses, new area, new story and if does indeed bridge the gap sorta speak then the next step would to try W4 and so on. By that point that two out of six raid wings and then they could do W1-3.

Yup yup I like this. And I think it would be nice for experienced raiders too to have a more relaxed wing. I wouldn't mind it being released after W6 and delaying the release of a more difficult wing. This would be better than a simple easy mode of all existing raid bosses:

• It would require less dev time (but maybe I'm wrong in here; only devs and designers know)
• It would help new people who want to raid but at the same time it wouldn't cheese raids nor it would gift anything
• Killing all bosses from W1 to W4 would still be required to get envoy so the rewards wouldn't change, but new raiders would find themselves more prepared to jump into more difficult wings
• It would be new content instead or reworked old content so it would interest more people, even experienced raiders, since it would be a set of new bosses to beat

[Turin.6921]

@Tyson.5160 said:I was also thinking that maybe when you entered the raid wing there would be npcs telling you about different aspects of raiding. Maybe have an npc talk about healing and another about tanking, dps etc.

Yeah or maybe when you entered the aerodrome. I would also mark the portal where the training golem is with a different colour (more inviting that red) so that people start from there.

[Dami.5046]

@Turin.6921 said:

@Dami.5046 said:I just wish there was a way to unlock the mastery to the get the magic 262 other than having to find a kind group to kill a Boss, period. It seems my Guild friend who warned me about even trying was correct. No wonder there aren't more raiders since you get batted out before you even start.

You can just do escort. Its a pretty easy encounter. Also the masteries just give QoL and pros that are only raid related. If you do not raids you do not need them.

Well on a completion side yeah I wouldn't mind the challenge to get the 262, I'm not against raiding, I'm kitted out for it, but from what I can gather having the correct gear just for an Escort isn't enough. If you can get a group that is. However since I have had my share of toxicity in the on line gaming world I turned to other things to do.

[sigur.9453]

@nia.4725 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:

@Turin.6921 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:I’m just wondering if the raids would have been more inviting had they stuck to a gradual scaling difficulty concept from the start.

I am not sure it would solve much. In think the lack of in-game tools for accessibility so that people know how to basically start is a more important factor. A training category on LFG where trainers and new people could easily congregate or more options on the training golem to learn mechanics for example. If there where such things in game i think the actual progression within the wing would not matter that much.

What about instead of an easy mode per say, if they had a new wing that comes before wing 1. Can call it wing 0. You could try and introduce some of the standard raids themes and mechanics to this wing, and maybe keep the difficulty low, like a Cairn, MO and Samarog kinda difficulty. That way you could let this wing introduce and better equip the new raiders for what’s in store.

I really like this idea. A kind of easy wing more forgiving without actually gifting the kills or allowing things like undergeared or autoattacking being able to clear it, with mechanics that would intruduce new raiders. Yeah! This would actually help them get in touch with raids. It could serve as a mid step between open world and raids and help them get comfortable and fear less the other raid wings.

while it would be a reasonable idea, the question is how much of development it would take. and how that would relate to the "regular" raid relaise schedule.it would make me kind of "uneasy" when i would see "real" raid releases take even longer as they are now.and how that would actually help someone with current raids.again, to learn the raid mechanics the easiest thing to to is...well raid.sure it will take time (more for one, less for others) but you can shorten that by spending half an hour getting confident with your desired class on the trainingsgolem.for most bosses the mechanics 80% of the grp has to deal with is just "dont stand in that glowing field" or "you need to stand in that glowing field".the "challenging" ones are these where every one need to know whats going on. (Sabetha, Deimos,Sloth, Mathias, SH, Dhuum or KC to some degree) and those can only be learned AT the boss itself.i am sorry, as said above, i can´t really see how that would help a "newbie" getting into raids.

[nia.4725]

@Dami.5046 said:

@Turin.6921 said:

@Dami.5046 said:I just wish there was a way to unlock the mastery to the get the magic 262 other than having to find a kind group to kill a Boss, period. It seems my Guild friend who warned me about even trying was correct. No wonder there aren't more raiders since you get batted out before you even start.

You can just do escort. Its a pretty easy encounter. Also the masteries just give QoL and pros that are only raid related. If you do not raids you do not need them.

Well on a completion side yeah I wouldn't mind the challenge to get the 262, I'm not against raiding, I'm kitted out for it, but from what I can gather having the correct gear just for an Escort isn't enough. If you can get a group that is. However since I have had my share of toxicity in the on line gaming world I turned to other things to do.

Escort does not require to have all ascended gear or anything. Just the basic coherent build with decent gear (exotics are fine). It also requires some mechanics but those are fairly easy. You just need a chrono who knows how to go through the cave and leyline gliding, anything else is just chaining wargs and killing them before they reach glenna, and clearing mines by stepping into a white circle and hitting the mine. Read a guide, gather the people you can and place an LFG; you'll find people to do it, believe me.

[Turin.6921]

@Dami.5046 said:

@Turin.6921 said:

@Dami.5046 said:I just wish there was a way to unlock the mastery to the get the magic 262 other than having to find a kind group to kill a Boss, period. It seems my Guild friend who warned me about even trying was correct. No wonder there aren't more raiders since you get batted out before you even start.

You can just do escort. Its a pretty easy encounter. Also the masteries just give QoL and pros that are only raid related. If you do not raids you do not need them.

Well on a completion side yeah I wouldn't mind the challenge to get the 262, I'm not against raiding, I'm kitted out for it, but from what I can gather having the correct gear just for an Escort isn't enough. If you can get a group that is. However since I have had my share of toxicity in the on line gaming world I turned to other things to do.

It is more than enough for escort to have the correct gear. Actually it so easy that even gear matters less. If you read up on the mechanics it not a big deal. It is really much easier than completing the open world HoT masteries. In the end of the day just join a training discord and do one training and you are done, if you just want the masteries for the completion sake. Check these out: https://snowcrows.com/newtoraids/

[Tyson.5160]

@Turin.6921 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:I was also thinking that maybe when you entered the raid wing there would be npcs telling you about different aspects of raiding. Maybe have an npc talk about healing and another about tanking, dps etc.

Yeah or maybe when you entered the aerodrome. I would also mark the portal where the training golem is with a different colour (more inviting that red) so that people start from there.

Honestly, there should be npcs in the aero drone already that explain these things. Then there should another npc that points to the different difficulties, such as go try W0 first followed by Bastion of Penitent, etc.

[Tyson.5160]

@sigur.9453 said:

@nia.4725 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:

@Turin.6921 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:I’m just wondering if the raids would have been more inviting had they stuck to a gradual scaling difficulty concept from the start.

I am not sure it would solve much. In think the lack of in-game tools for accessibility so that people know how to basically start is a more important factor. A training category on LFG where trainers and new people could easily congregate or more options on the training golem to learn mechanics for example. If there where such things in game i think the actual progression within the wing would not matter that much.

What about instead of an easy mode per say, if they had a new wing that comes before wing 1. Can call it wing 0. You could try and introduce some of the standard raids themes and mechanics to this wing, and maybe keep the difficulty low, like a Cairn, MO and Samarog kinda difficulty. That way you could let this wing introduce and better equip the new raiders for what’s in store.

I really like this idea. A kind of easy wing more forgiving without actually gifting the kills or allowing things like undergeared or autoattacking being able to clear it, with mechanics that would intruduce new raiders. Yeah! This would actually help them get in touch with raids. It could serve as a mid step between open world and raids and help them get comfortable and fear less the other raid wings.

while it would be a reasonable idea, the question is how much of development it would take. and how that would relate to the "regular" raid relaise schedule.it would make me kind of "uneasy" when i would see "real" raid releases take even longer as they are now.and how that would actually help someone with current raids.again, to learn the raid mechanics the easiest thing to to is...well raid.sure it will take time (more for one, less for others) but you can shorten that by spending half an hour getting confident with your desired class on the trainingsgolem.for most bosses the mechanics 80% of the grp has to deal with is just "dont stand in that glowing field" or "you need to stand in that glowing field".the "challenging" ones are these where every one need to know whats going on. (Sabetha, Deimos,Sloth, Mathias, SH, Dhuum or KC to some degree) and those can only be learned AT the boss itself.i am sorry, as said above, i can´t really see how that would help a "newbie" getting into raids.

Trying to get some ideas out there. Not sure exactly how we can make the content more inviting by designing an easier introductory wing and bridging that gap a bit better.

Think about it this way. W0 would be your warm up before you start to excercise. Mind you, perhaps Anet has already thought of this and is developing a raid wing, which allows new raiders to get their feet wet, before doing laps in the pool.

It would actually be kinda funny if W0 took place in the aerodrome and one of the bosses would be the training golem ? and another could a group of mercenaries.

[casualkenny.9817]

Just wanna suggest:

Easy mode:1) boss hps do not reset on wipes2) token rewards to match the kitten difficulty.because of this change

Allowing casual players like me to explore and taste the mechanics firsthand, without the stress of causing wipes to my teammates. Allowing casuals to have an easygoing practice run without toxicity, and eventually some might progress to real raids while others will do other content once our curiosity is satisfied.

Minimal work on anet's side, NO negative effect on real raiders (while potentially increasing the pool of competent raiders with firsthand experience), content for casual guilds to play around in. Win win win.

(I'm a t3.5 player with no hope of progressing to t4cm)

[Tyson.5160]

@sigur.9453 said:

@nia.4725 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:

@Turin.6921 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:I’m just wondering if the raids would have been more inviting had they stuck to a gradual scaling difficulty concept from the start.

I am not sure it would solve much. In think the lack of in-game tools for accessibility so that people know how to basically start is a more important factor. A training category on LFG where trainers and new people could easily congregate or more options on the training golem to learn mechanics for example. If there where such things in game i think the actual progression within the wing would not matter that much.

What about instead of an easy mode per say, if they had a new wing that comes before wing 1. Can call it wing 0. You could try and introduce some of the standard raids themes and mechanics to this wing, and maybe keep the difficulty low, like a Cairn, MO and Samarog kinda difficulty. That way you could let this wing introduce and better equip the new raiders for what’s in store.

I really like this idea. A kind of easy wing more forgiving without actually gifting the kills or allowing things like undergeared or autoattacking being able to clear it, with mechanics that would intruduce new raiders. Yeah! This would actually help them get in touch with raids. It could serve as a mid step between open world and raids and help them get comfortable and fear less the other raid wings.

while it would be a reasonable idea, the question is how much of development it would take. and how that would relate to the "regular" raid relaise schedule.it would make me kind of "uneasy" when i would see "real" raid releases take even longer as they are now.and how that would actually help someone with current raids.again, to learn the raid mechanics the easiest thing to to is...well raid.sure it will take time (more for one, less for others) but you can shorten that by spending half an hour getting confident with your desired class on the trainingsgolem.for most bosses the mechanics 80% of the grp has to deal with is just "dont stand in that glowing field" or "you need to stand in that glowing field".the "challenging" ones are these where every one need to know whats going on. (Sabetha, Deimos,Sloth, Mathias, SH, Dhuum or KC to some degree) and those can only be learned AT the boss itself.i am sorry, as said above, i can´t really see how that would help a "newbie" getting into raids.

I mean it would be an additional raid wing to get insights and mag shards from, minis, wing specific loot.

It wouldn’t be redesigning fights, but making new ones that would be more introductory and taught good habits.

[sigur.9453]

@Tyson.5160 said:

@sigur.9453 said:

@nia.4725 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:

@Turin.6921 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:I’m just wondering if the raids would have been more inviting had they stuck to a gradual scaling difficulty concept from the start.

I am not sure it would solve much. In think the lack of in-game tools for accessibility so that people know how to basically start is a more important factor. A training category on LFG where trainers and new people could easily congregate or more options on the training golem to learn mechanics for example. If there where such things in game i think the actual progression within the wing would not matter that much.

What about instead of an easy mode per say, if they had a new wing that comes before wing 1. Can call it wing 0. You could try and introduce some of the standard raids themes and mechanics to this wing, and maybe keep the difficulty low, like a Cairn, MO and Samarog kinda difficulty. That way you could let this wing introduce and better equip the new raiders for what’s in store.

I really like this idea. A kind of easy wing more forgiving without actually gifting the kills or allowing things like undergeared or autoattacking being able to clear it, with mechanics that would intruduce new raiders. Yeah! This would actually help them get in touch with raids. It could serve as a mid step between open world and raids and help them get comfortable and fear less the other raid wings.

while it would be a reasonable idea, the question is how much of development it would take. and how that would relate to the "regular" raid relaise schedule.it would make me kind of "uneasy" when i would see "real" raid releases take even longer as they are now.and how that would actually help someone with current raids.again, to learn the raid mechanics the easiest thing to to is...well raid.sure it will take time (more for one, less for others) but you can shorten that by spending half an hour getting confident with your desired class on the trainingsgolem.for most bosses the mechanics 80% of the grp has to deal with is just "dont stand in that glowing field" or "you need to stand in that glowing field".the "challenging" ones are these where every one need to know whats going on. (Sabetha, Deimos,Sloth, Mathias, SH, Dhuum or KC to some degree) and those can only be learned AT the boss itself.i am sorry, as said above, i can´t really see how that would help a "newbie" getting into raids.

Trying to get some ideas out there. Not sure exactly how we can make the content more inviting by designing an easier introductory wing and bridging that gap a bit better.

Think about it this way. W0 would be your warm up before you start to excercise. Mind you, perhaps Anet has already thought of this and is developing a raid wing, which allows new raiders to get their feet wet, before doing laps in the pool.

It would actually be kinda funny if W0 took place in the aerodrome and one of the bosses would be the training golem ? and another could a group of mercenaries.

Keep them comming :)in my opinion (which noone should see as a fact, neighter do i) one of the problems is actually that the "open world endgame" is a bit on the "to easy side".whats not a problem for me personally since a lot of people are liking the status quo as it is. but nothing really "prepares" you for the instanced endgamecontent.or even explain key mechanics (what is CC?). i mean, the dodge tutorial is a nice to have, but do you need to dodge in open world regulary?i am shifting the topic a little bit sorry, but the "warm up" should be already given by openwold content itself (or fractals, which to be fair, already give a good insight on what to expect in raids)

[Feanor.2358]

@"Cerioth.7062" said:Or lets make raids 5 man content. Accessibility issues solved.

Are they? Does "cms + t4, 200+ kp, bs+druid" ring a bell? Not to mention how much work would that take, since there are mechanics requiring more than 5 already.

[Tyson.5160]

@sigur.9453 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:

@sigur.9453 said:

@nia.4725 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:

@Turin.6921 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:I’m just wondering if the raids would have been more inviting had they stuck to a gradual scaling difficulty concept from the start.

I am not sure it would solve much. In think the lack of in-game tools for accessibility so that people know how to basically start is a more important factor. A training category on LFG where trainers and new people could easily congregate or more options on the training golem to learn mechanics for example. If there where such things in game i think the actual progression within the wing would not matter that much.

What about instead of an easy mode per say, if they had a new wing that comes before wing 1. Can call it wing 0. You could try and introduce some of the standard raids themes and mechanics to this wing, and maybe keep the difficulty low, like a Cairn, MO and Samarog kinda difficulty. That way you could let this wing introduce and better equip the new raiders for what’s in store.

I really like this idea. A kind of easy wing more forgiving without actually gifting the kills or allowing things like undergeared or autoattacking being able to clear it, with mechanics that would intruduce new raiders. Yeah! This would actually help them get in touch with raids. It could serve as a mid step between open world and raids and help them get comfortable and fear less the other raid wings.

while it would be a reasonable idea, the question is how much of development it would take. and how that would relate to the "regular" raid relaise schedule.it would make me kind of "uneasy" when i would see "real" raid releases take even longer as they are now.and how that would actually help someone with current raids.again, to learn the raid mechanics the easiest thing to to is...well raid.sure it will take time (more for one, less for others) but you can shorten that by spending half an hour getting confident with your desired class on the trainingsgolem.for most bosses the mechanics 80% of the grp has to deal with is just "dont stand in that glowing field" or "you need to stand in that glowing field".the "challenging" ones are these where every one need to know whats going on. (Sabetha, Deimos,Sloth, Mathias, SH, Dhuum or KC to some degree) and those can only be learned AT the boss itself.i am sorry, as said above, i can´t really see how that would help a "newbie" getting into raids.

Trying to get some ideas out there. Not sure exactly how we can make the content more inviting by designing an easier introductory wing and bridging that gap a bit better.

Think about it this way. W0 would be your warm up before you start to excercise. Mind you, perhaps Anet has already thought of this and is developing a raid wing, which allows new raiders to get their feet wet, before doing laps in the pool.

It would actually be kinda funny if W0 took place in the aerodrome and one of the bosses would be the training golem ? and another could a group of mercenaries.

Keep them comming :)in my opinion (which noone should see as a fact, neighter do i) one of the problems is actually that the "open world endgame" is a bit on the "to easy side".whats not a problem for me personally since a lot of people are liking the status quo as it is. but nothing really "prepares" you for the instanced endgamecontent.or even explain key mechanics (what is CC?). i mean, the dodge tutorial is a nice to have, but do you need to dodge in open world regulary?i am shifting the topic a little bit sorry, but the "warm up" should be already given by openwold content itself (or fractals, which to be fair, already give a good insight on what to expect in raids)

Any ideas on how to bridge that gap? I feel we have half a stairs built to a second floor, the problem we have is that we don’t have the first couple steps that connects it to the ground floor.

[BlaqueFyre.5678]

@Ohoni.6057 said:

@Cerioth.7062 said:Or lets make raids 5 man content. Accessibility issues solved.

Making it 5 man really solves nothing. For one thing it would be one of the harder changes to implement, since so many aspects would need to be overhauled, but even setting that aside, that alone would not make the encounters easier, it would just double each player's personal responsibility. They would still have to work just as hard to pull off the mechanics right.

@"BlaqueFyre.5678" said:One flaw to that reasoning, the current implementation of Raids is inline with the Raid Devs intentions and design goals for Raids so every thing is working as intended and therefore there is absolutely no problem.

"Working as intended" should

never

be confused for "working as it should." The pre-launch Battlefront II was "working as intended," but see how that worked out for them. The devs clearly

intended

raids to turn out how they have. My contention is that they could do a

better

job than they intended when it comes to accommodating players who do not enjoy the current challenge level of raiding.

There would be a problem if the Raid Devs intended for Raids to be easier and they weren’t, then their intentions and implementation would not coincide and that is a problem, but again that is not the case here.

No, that would not be a problem. If they intended the content to work a certain way, and it turned out that it didn't,

but

the players were totally happy with the result anyway, then that is not a

problem.

Something is

only

a problem if players are upset about it,

regardless

of how it ended up in that state.

Developer intention means absolutely nothing.

@"Sykper.6583" said:Explain to me why instanced group content should have even less instances of, the technical jargon is 'shenanigans' where things just aren't playing out as intended?

Because it's more intentional. Everyone who shows up shows up intending to win. Bad players can be kicked from the group. There are a fewer number of players, so it's easier to notice when players are behaving badly, which gives them more incentive to shape up. With open world encounters, you have all sorts of issues, like players taking up space in the map that have no interest in the encounter at all, players that are in the event area, but have no intention of taking it seriously, and are very easily lost in the pile of bodies. Obviously a player can intentionally sabotage a raid attempt if that's their goal, but most people who try to join a raid actually want it to succeed, and will try as best they can to make that happen.

It should be incumbent on instanced content, in theory and practicality, to be actually more prone to shenanigans or strictly harder. In other words it's against the design of instanced content to be of the same difficulty of open world, because it defeats the point of it. This is exactly why Dungeons back in the day were designed in this manner.

Agreed, which is why I think it's silly to even try to ask the question "should this be easier/harder than open world content?" There are way too many variable to weigh those two things. That's why the comparison

I

make is to other instanced content, I say that the easy mode raid should be comparable to dungeons and low-tier Fractals, how they can be compared to open world, there's no right answer to that question.

That's not particularly true, we've had several instances of hard content (eventually getting outdated by patches) that actively worked against several comps. The 'original' purpose behind the Meta, as I presume you are aware, is to be the most effective method to any encounter.

Yes, but that's the thing, a meta comp could beat a dungeon in half the time, and if you were playing for efficiency, you'd want to do that as often as possible, but non-meta comps could still

clear it.

So you'd have groups that would advertise "[meta only]," but there would also be more loose groups, and joining those wasn't any death sentence.

So there's a substantial amount of 'heresy' about what you are saying because no currently worked on instanced content, or SUPPORTED instanced content, simply allows any comps except for early fractal tiers. You can try working a complete off-meta comp for T4s and CMs if everyone brings the tools needed, but mixing it up randomly in pugs can easily lead to failure.

But again, I'm not talking about T4 or CM, I'm talking about T1. Players who want an experience like T4 or CM should be doing hard mode.

Well we have videos of full Minstrel's comps like Tempests spending an hour with complete defensive stats killing an Enraged Vale Guardian on normal difficulty, but that's full defense gear intentionally built around a boss that is supposed to kill you well before that.

So if they weren't doing that for the lulz, would you view that as a productive use of their time? Would it upset you if a group of full Minstrels could kill VG in easy mode (getting easy mode rewards) after spending an hour doing so? Wouldn't it be more productive of them to equip more offensive gear and kill him quicker, with only slightly increased risk?

I think that a hard-mode capable team would be able to clear easy mode faster and more effortlessly than a hodge-podge easy-mode team could, but this is fine, since it still wouldn't be as efficient a use of their time as clearing it on hard mode and getting hard mode rewards for their troubles.

How about you provide me with some numbers on what you expect some of Vale Guardian's attacks to hit for? For example Vale Guardian in normal mode does a cleave every 3 seconds, his auto hits for about 7k on a glass cannon. What would his autos do in this easy mode?

I just do not follow the details closely enough to do that. If I were the sort of player that did, I might be the sort of player who would already be doing hard mode, but I'm not.

"Tanks" are simply people running the highest toughness in order to tank the boss, thus forcing a build for them. I presume in the easy-mode there would be no such aggro system correct?

I think I discussed this elsewhere, but ideally I think it would be nice if there were a "shrine" near toughness-tank enemies that would provide one member of the group with a massive Toughness buff, allowing any player to snag the Tank "role" in the group regardless of gearing. My point there though was that while the enemy might decide on a tank, given the relative damage of easy mode it would be less vital for that player to

behave

any differently than normal, he could likely survive the damage he was taking, and the group could survive him being out of position. The boss would still react the same, and the player tanking could choose to perfeom that role to the best of his ability, it would just be less necessary to the outcome.

And I think this is where it gets a little vexing and difficult for us, because you have given a lot of vague answers. Many raiders here who are telling you 'It is easier than you think' understand the nuances behind a lot of the attacks from bosses, what the effect of them is, the conditions behind why certain moves have ended the raid.

And I get that, which is why I WANT you guys to be helping rather than hindering. I fully agree that you have more actual knowledge and could do a better job than I at designing an easy mode, IF you were at all interested in doing so. The problem is, most of the responses I get are filtered through a complete disinterest in providing the mode that players want provided. You claim that the raids are easy, because you have the mindset that views them that way, and have had the mechanics drilled into you in such a way that it's second nature. It's like someone raised bilingual just not understanding how someone could have difficulty learning a new language.

So long as you operate under the theory that it's us

players

who "need to be fixed," that there is nothing wrong with the content and all you have to do is figure out the best way to indoctrinate us into your philosophies, you will get nowhere. You need to set that mindset aside. Instead, whether you personally believe it or not, you need to operate under the assumption that the current raid mechanics

themselves

ARE actually too much of a barrier of entry for a significant group of players. IF you believe that to be true, what changes do you think

to the mechanics

could reduce that barrier of entry.

Basically, these discussions are like discussing banking regulation with bankers. I get that a banker understand banking way more than I do, and could probably figure out better ways to regulate banks than I could, but I also get that what he

really

wants is for banks to not be regulated at all, so he's going to avoid being helpful, and I'll have to muddle through as best I can.

People who play this game casually will find the safest and easiest strat to killing a boss, they will ENDURE the mechanics while pressing buttons randomly to end the boss, doing all the 'don'ts' from Vale Guardian to Dhuum.

Ok. If that's what they prefer, who's problem would that be?

Vale Guardian's Enrage timer is normally 8 minutes, easy mode won't have an enrage timer but we can assume an average pug group with balanced damage and defensive stats is going to hit that mark. If I had to assume the comp was built to be 25% more defensive at the same rough cost, it's 2 extra minutes to kill Vale Guardian at a significantly less chance to wipe. Two Minutes, that's NOTHING in the casual pug standards for things like T4s, and those would be harder than this.

So you've posed a problem here, what would you suggest as a solution, without significantly increasing the risk of a total wipe? Would it help to actually

increase

VG's HP, so that a "meta hard mode" team comp would actually take about twice as long to kill him, and a bumbling easymode pug would take 15-20 minutes? Considering that the rewards would be reduced from hard mode, what outcomes would you see as "fair?"

And again we come back to damage numbers. Would Vale Guardian have an Damage Aura? How much would the Damage floors tick for? Things like this will gauge how far many of the low effort comps go.

And again, details like that I leave to more knowledgeable players/developers. I'm discussing general aspirational targets, and I defer

achieving

those targets to those that know better.

To give you an idea, if you cut all the damage from Vale Guardian in half, from all of it's attacks...it would still be too hard for a lot of people running average comps. There would still be wipes from the raw damage, or at least a lot of downs that would frustrate players.

Ok, but could you reduce

some

attacks while leaving others alone? Which do you think should be reduced, and by how much? I don't mind players getting downed from time to time, so long as enough players stay up that they can rez the rest. I don't mind players getting defeated occasionally, so long as the rest of the group can still clear the encounter without them (and hopefully they managed to contribute a decent amount before that). And I don't mind the party wiping

some

of the time, so long as it is by far the exception, rather than the rule, even for uncoordinated random pugs.

@Tyson.5160 said:Would be interesting if the next raid was less linear, like if it was Garrenhoff for example.

Man, if they ever made Garrenhoff into a raid

without

introducing an easy mode version at the same time, it would be hard to find a table in Tyria that

hadn't

been flipped.

Again just beacuase certain people perceive there to be a problem doesn’t there is one, since hey they have been surpassing Anets Expectations they mee tall their goals and intentions, again the content wasn’t intended for everyone, Anet makes it clear that they never intended to make everyone happy with the Raids and knew that not everyone would like them or do them, and they are perfectly fine with that. Again perceived problems aren’t problems, but I See what the real issue is and it isn’t the Raids.

[sigur.9453]

@Tyson.5160 said:

@sigur.9453 said:

@nia.4725 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:

@Turin.6921 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:I’m just wondering if the raids would have been more inviting had they stuck to a gradual scaling difficulty concept from the start.

I am not sure it would solve much. In think the lack of in-game tools for accessibility so that people know how to basically start is a more important factor. A training category on LFG where trainers and new people could easily congregate or more options on the training golem to learn mechanics for example. If there where such things in game i think the actual progression within the wing would not matter that much.

What about instead of an easy mode per say, if they had a new wing that comes before wing 1. Can call it wing 0. You could try and introduce some of the standard raids themes and mechanics to this wing, and maybe keep the difficulty low, like a Cairn, MO and Samarog kinda difficulty. That way you could let this wing introduce and better equip the new raiders for what’s in store.

I really like this idea. A kind of easy wing more forgiving without actually gifting the kills or allowing things like undergeared or autoattacking being able to clear it, with mechanics that would intruduce new raiders. Yeah! This would actually help them get in touch with raids. It could serve as a mid step between open world and raids and help them get comfortable and fear less the other raid wings.

while it would be a reasonable idea, the question is how much of development it would take. and how that would relate to the "regular" raid relaise schedule.it would make me kind of "uneasy" when i would see "real" raid releases take even longer as they are now.and how that would actually help someone with current raids.again, to learn the raid mechanics the easiest thing to to is...well raid.sure it will take time (more for one, less for others) but you can shorten that by spending half an hour getting confident with your desired class on the trainingsgolem.for most bosses the mechanics 80% of the grp has to deal with is just "dont stand in that glowing field" or "you need to stand in that glowing field".the "challenging" ones are these where every one need to know whats going on. (Sabetha, Deimos,Sloth, Mathias, SH, Dhuum or KC to some degree) and those can only be learned AT the boss itself.i am sorry, as said above, i can´t really see how that would help a "newbie" getting into raids.

I mean it would be an additional raid wing to get insights and mag shards from, minis, wing specific loot.

It wouldn’t be redesigning fights, but making new ones that would be more introductory and taught good habits.

i have nothing agains a new wing with if i understand you correctly a better difficulty curve? but slefish as i am i would still like somethign harder in it then.giving a though...what i would actually enjoy (not that it would be easy to impliment or design)a "boss" (could even be the trainingsgolem) which uses radom mechanics from other bosses in some form (would be tricky honestly) on a daylie/weekly rotation. which also grants 1 Li/Week and a possible mini drop.Would be good for new players to learn the mechanics, have some sort of challenge and a reward.and for me as a "experienced" player i would have some more variety with this random boss fight in this game.For example.. first phase 2 people have to run in a green circle, 2nd phase an orb needs to be pushed through 2 rifts, and last phase some player needs to be CC´d every 30 seconds.

[Feanor.2358]

@Tyson.5160 said:

@sigur.9453 said:

@nia.4725 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:

@Turin.6921 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:I’m just wondering if the raids would have been more inviting had they stuck to a gradual scaling difficulty concept from the start.

I am not sure it would solve much. In think the lack of in-game tools for accessibility so that people know how to basically start is a more important factor. A training category on LFG where trainers and new people could easily congregate or more options on the training golem to learn mechanics for example. If there where such things in game i think the actual progression within the wing would not matter that much.

What about instead of an easy mode per say, if they had a new wing that comes before wing 1. Can call it wing 0. You could try and introduce some of the standard raids themes and mechanics to this wing, and maybe keep the difficulty low, like a Cairn, MO and Samarog kinda difficulty. That way you could let this wing introduce and better equip the new raiders for what’s in store.

I really like this idea. A kind of easy wing more forgiving without actually gifting the kills or allowing things like undergeared or autoattacking being able to clear it, with mechanics that would intruduce new raiders. Yeah! This would actually help them get in touch with raids. It could serve as a mid step between open world and raids and help them get comfortable and fear less the other raid wings.

while it would be a reasonable idea, the question is how much of development it would take. and how that would relate to the "regular" raid relaise schedule.it would make me kind of "uneasy" when i would see "real" raid releases take even longer as they are now.and how that would actually help someone with current raids.again, to learn the raid mechanics the easiest thing to to is...well raid.sure it will take time (more for one, less for others) but you can shorten that by spending half an hour getting confident with your desired class on the trainingsgolem.for most bosses the mechanics 80% of the grp has to deal with is just "dont stand in that glowing field" or "you need to stand in that glowing field".the "challenging" ones are these where every one need to know whats going on. (Sabetha, Deimos,Sloth, Mathias, SH, Dhuum or KC to some degree) and those can only be learned AT the boss itself.i am sorry, as said above, i can´t really see how that would help a "newbie" getting into raids.

Trying to get some ideas out there. Not sure exactly how we can make the content more inviting by designing an easier introductory wing and bridging that gap a bit better.

Think about it this way. W0 would be your warm up before you start to excercise. Mind you, perhaps Anet has already thought of this and is developing a raid wing, which allows new raiders to get their feet wet, before doing laps in the pool.

It would actually be kinda funny if W0 took place in the aerodrome and one of the bosses would be the training golem ? and another could a group of mercenaries.

To be honest, I think VG is structured really well in exactly this respect. Think about it:

First you get to dispatch the colored guardians one at a time at your own pace, showing you their basic mechanics, which you encounter later in the fight.Then you get to fight the boss for 33% of its hp, combining these 3 basic mechanics.Then you get the split, which is again about the same mechanics, but this time you're tasked to handle them more or less simultaneously.Then you progress to the second phase, which introduces the platform damage and the breakbar attack.And finally there's the last phase which only requires you to execute all the already introduced mechanics with less mistakes.

It's all very incremental, one step at a time. It by far not the easiest boss, but to this day I consider VG to be the best introductory boss. It shows you what raids are about, and in a sense teaches you how to tackle them. I don't really know what you could do better than this. If its too relaxed, you won't pick up the right attitude and you'd still get disheartened by the actual bosses.

[Tyson.5160]

@Feanor.2358 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:

@sigur.9453 said:

@nia.4725 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:

@Turin.6921 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:I’m just wondering if the raids would have been more inviting had they stuck to a gradual scaling difficulty concept from the start.

I am not sure it would solve much. In think the lack of in-game tools for accessibility so that people know how to basically start is a more important factor. A training category on LFG where trainers and new people could easily congregate or more options on the training golem to learn mechanics for example. If there where such things in game i think the actual progression within the wing would not matter that much.

What about instead of an easy mode per say, if they had a new wing that comes before wing 1. Can call it wing 0. You could try and introduce some of the standard raids themes and mechanics to this wing, and maybe keep the difficulty low, like a Cairn, MO and Samarog kinda difficulty. That way you could let this wing introduce and better equip the new raiders for what’s in store.

I really like this idea. A kind of easy wing more forgiving without actually gifting the kills or allowing things like undergeared or autoattacking being able to clear it, with mechanics that would intruduce new raiders. Yeah! This would actually help them get in touch with raids. It could serve as a mid step between open world and raids and help them get comfortable and fear less the other raid wings.

while it would be a reasonable idea, the question is how much of development it would take. and how that would relate to the "regular" raid relaise schedule.it would make me kind of "uneasy" when i would see "real" raid releases take even longer as they are now.and how that would actually help someone with current raids.again, to learn the raid mechanics the easiest thing to to is...well raid.sure it will take time (more for one, less for others) but you can shorten that by spending half an hour getting confident with your desired class on the trainingsgolem.for most bosses the mechanics 80% of the grp has to deal with is just "dont stand in that glowing field" or "you need to stand in that glowing field".the "challenging" ones are these where every one need to know whats going on. (Sabetha, Deimos,Sloth, Mathias, SH, Dhuum or KC to some degree) and those can only be learned AT the boss itself.i am sorry, as said above, i can´t really see how that would help a "newbie" getting into raids.

Trying to get some ideas out there. Not sure exactly how we can make the content more inviting by designing an easier introductory wing and bridging that gap a bit better.

Think about it this way. W0 would be your warm up before you start to excercise. Mind you, perhaps Anet has already thought of this and is developing a raid wing, which allows new raiders to get their feet wet, before doing laps in the pool.

It would actually be kinda funny if W0 took place in the aerodrome and one of the bosses would be the training golem ? and another could a group of mercenaries.

To be honest, I think VG is structured really well in exactly this respect. Think about it:

First you get to dispatch the colored guardians one at a time at your own pace, showing you their basic mechanics, which you encounter later in the fight.Then you get to fight the boss for 33% of its hp, combining these 3 basic mechanics.Then you get the split, which is again about the same mechanics, but this time you're tasked to handle them more or less simultaneously.Then you progress to the second phase, which introduces the platform damage and the breakbar attack.And finally there's the last phase which only requires you to execute all the already introduced mechanics with less mistakes.

It's all very incremental, one step at a time. It by far not the easiest boss, but to this day I consider VG to be the best introductory boss. It shows you what raids are about, and in a sense teaches you how to tackle them. I don't really know what you could do better than this. If its too relaxed, you won't pick up the right attitude and you'd still get disheartened by the actual bosses.

Yeah, Tex was going over this fight as well in terms of what makes it challenging and it’s not really any of the actual boss attacks. Bad placements of greens, not ccing during bullet hell, getting the debuff from being in a field of the wrong assigned guardian. Frankly keep that all the same. It’s more execution rather then the actual boss.

My thought is there a way to teach new raiders about the tanking aspect the healing/support aspect etc. These are things that the open world doesn’t teach well. Is this something that can be taught through different new raid bosses and a brand new raid wing?

[Feanor.2358]

@"Tyson.5160" said:My thought is there a way to teach new raiders about the tanking aspect the healing/support aspect etc. These are things that the open world doesn’t teach well. Is this something that can be taught through different new raid bosses and a brand new raid wing?

That's an interesting question. I don't think a full-fledged raid wing is necessary for this, but I can totally see the value of training instances focused on these. Imagine a training area composed of a "boss" golem and "allied" golems which take a lot of damage from the boss one. Your goal is to tank it, diverting damage from your "teammates" until they kill it. Or alternatively, heal them to the same effect. Perhaps just different "programs" in the SFTA. It could definitely help new players get faster the basics of tanking and healing.

[flog.3485]

Ultimately, I think the problem stems from how raids is implemented into the actual game. And this problem is two-fold imo:

1. they require 10 people as an entry level while no other content in the game requires 10 players.
2. Its content is somewhat assumed (wrongly or not, still up to debate) to be harder than the hardest 5 man content the game has to offer.

There is not much to do to change the second problem (and if anything has to be changed, it has already been done with the different encounters providing different difficulties) because players’ expectations, perception and experience will vary too much for anything concrete to do, as far as development goes. However I think something can be done to change the first problem that has not been done so far.

I would suggest that the game offers 10 man content that isn’t raids. Guild missions would be perfect for that imo, so that the newcomers that want to tackle raids are somewhat used to group up with 9 other players (and obviously if the guilds are short on players, they could open up the LFG tab).Now what game mode ? Looking back at Guild Wars, there was this cool instance where your would fight swarm of mobs that would get stronger the longer you stay in the instance. I think it would be cool to have this type of content as a guild mission. As for what loot it would offer, I was thinking of mobs dropping a particular currency or materials that can used as a new sink for longterm rewards or as a way to upgrade the guild hall.

[Grogba.6204]

@"Feanor.2358" said:That's an interesting question. I don't think a full-fledged raid wing is necessary for this, but I can totally see the value of training instances focused on these. Imagine a training area composed of a "boss" golem and "allied" golems which take a lot of damage from the boss one. Your goal is to tank it, diverting damage from your "teammates" until they kill it. Or alternatively, heal them to the same effect. Perhaps just different "programs" in the SFTA. It could definitely help new players get faster the basics of tanking and healing.

FFXIV does that. In fact you can't queue for the dungeonfinder unless you progressed through the role training. All three trinity roles are explained:Tank: Move out of casts/build aggro/deal with adds/pull mobs off of other playersHealer: Move out of casts/heal a single ally/heal your group/deal with aggroDamage Dealer: Move out of casts/focus a target/target priority/encounter mechanics

naturally, certain aspect cannot apply for GW2

[Astralporing.1957]

@BlaqueFyre.5678 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@BlaqueFyre.5678 said:As intended and it is supposed to, remember just because certain people think it’s a problem doesn’t it’s actually a problem.The opposite is equally true.

Only responding to the portion where you quote me since on mobile editing Down to that is a hassle.

One flaw to that reasoning, the current implementation of Raids is inline with the Raid Devs intentions and design goals for Raids so every thing is working as intended and therefore there is absolutely no problem.Nope, "working as intended" does not mean "there's no problem". Remember, that the devs are also included in that abovementioned quote. Them thinking there's no problem doesn't mean there really isn't one. Merely that they

think

there isn't one. And they have been wrong about things before, and went back on some design principles as a result. And even then not always the changes that resulted were for the better.

@Tyson.5160 said:Problem is they can’t physically rearrange the fights, without screwing up everything. So they would have to nerf Cairn, Vale Guardian and Sloth and then increased the difficulty of Gorseval, Trio and MO.Yeah, but if they were really thinking about introducing easy encounters as a way to help new people get into raids more easily, as they claimed, they'd have thought about it in designing future raids. W5 shows they don't really consider that factor at all, though.

@"Turin.6921" said:In terms of progression i think the philosophy is the same as in other wings. I think deliberately they do not put the easiest encounter 1st since it can be easily exploited like ppl do with escort. w2, w4 and w5 seem to do this ; having a relatively tougher encounter at the start( even though the balancing in w4 was a bit rushed) . Then more relaxed ones in the middle and the real tough one at the end. So their difference is not the progression as much as the fact that w2 is tougher overall.It's very possible. In this case however the value of having easier encounters as far as increasing interest in new players go is completely wasted. That hard encounter at the beginning of the raid wing is enough to negate any possible gains they might have had from the next encounters.Basically, easy encounters that are placed after a harder one do nothing for the people that ask for easy mode, and shouldn't be brought up as "but we already have this" argument.

[BlaqueFyre.5678]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@BlaqueFyre.5678 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@BlaqueFyre.5678 said:As intended and it is supposed to, remember just because certain people think it’s a problem doesn’t it’s actually a problem.The opposite is equally true.

Only responding to the portion where you quote me since on mobile editing Down to that is a hassle.

One flaw to that reasoning, the current implementation of Raids is inline with the Raid Devs intentions and design goals for Raids so every thing is working as intended and therefore there is absolutely no problem.Nope, "working as intended" does not mean "there's no problem". Remember, that the devs are also included in that abovementioned quote. Them thinking there's no problem doesn't mean there really isn't one. Merely that they

think

there isn't one. And they have been wrong about things before, and went back on some design principles as a result. And even then not always the changes that resulted were for the better.

@Tyson.5160 said:Problem is they can’t physically rearrange the fights, without screwing up everything. So they would have to nerf Cairn, Vale Guardian and Sloth and then increased the difficulty of Gorseval, Trio and MO.Yeah, but if they were really thinking about introducing easy encounters as a way to help new people get into raids more easily, as they claimed, they'd have thought about it in designing future raids. W5 shows they don't really consider that factor at all, though.

@"Turin.6921" said:In terms of progression i think the philosophy is the same as in other wings. I think deliberately they do not put the easiest encounter 1st since it can be easily exploited like ppl do with escort. w2, w4 and w5 seem to do this ; having a relatively tougher encounter at the start( even though the balancing in w4 was a bit rushed) . Then more relaxed ones in the middle and the real tough one at the end. So their difference is not the progression as much as the fact that w2 is tougher overall.It's very possible. In this case however the value of having easier encounters as far as increasing interest in new players go is completely wasted. That hard encounter at the beginning of the raid wing is enough to negate any possible gains they might have had from the next encounters.Basically, easy encounters that are placed after a harder one do nothing for the people that ask for easy mode, and shouldn't be brought up as "but we already have this" argument.

Again just because certain player think there is a problem because it doesn’t conform to their viewpoint doesn’t mean it’s a problem, remember the Raids aren’t designed for everyone and never were intended to be designed for everyone, again there is no problem since the Raids are working perfectly fine in their entire scope and design philosophy, again Raids weren’t designed to cater to everyone so again let’s emphasize that again it seems necessary, Raids weren’t designed for everyone, so if a player thinks that Raids need to change to conform to them/their play style which was never the intended group/play style in the first place The there isn’t a problem, that’s common sense.

There is only one problem and it isn’t with the Raids and it’s clear to see what that issue is and where it lies.

[Astralporing.1957]

@BlaqueFyre.5678 said:Again just because certain player think there is a problem because it doesn’t conform to their viewpoint doesn’t mean it’s a problemAgain, the opposite is still equally true.@BlaqueFyre.5678 said:remember the Raids aren’t designed for everyone and never were intended to be designed for everyone, again there is no problem since the Raids are working perfectly fine in their entire scope and design philosophyYes, raids work perfectly fine within the scope of their original design philosophy. It's that very philosophy that causes problems, however.

It's like you were complaining about a heater failure in your room and someone replied "It's cold because it's Winter. It's perfectly natural and so there's no problem whatsoever". In the meantime, you're still cold.

[BlaqueFyre.5678]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@BlaqueFyre.5678 said:Again just because certain player think there is a problem because it doesn’t conform to their viewpoint doesn’t mean it’s a problemAgain, the opposite is still equally true.@BlaqueFyre.5678 said:remember the Raids aren’t designed for everyone and never were intended to be designed for everyone, again there is no problem since the Raids are working perfectly fine in their entire scope and design philosophyYes, raids work perfectly fine within the scope of their original design philosophy. It's that very philosophy that causes problems, however.

It's like you were complaining about a heater failure in your room and someone replied "It's cold because it's Winter. It's perfectly natural and so there's no problem whatsoever". In the meantime, you're still cold.

Your analogy has no bearing on the this topic since that is a Failure Of the Heater which intended purpose is to heat a room, you know failing to do what it’s intended to do, while Raids are working perfectly as intended, again there is no problems with Raids the only problem lies elsewhere and it is perfectly clear where and what that problem is. Again just because certain people think their is a problem doesn’t mean there is one, since again Raids are doing what they are intended to do and based upon Anet posts have been exceeding goals and expectations.

Just because certain people don’t like the intentions and goals of Raids and think that they need to be changed to cater to them since Raids don’t line up with their thoughts doesn’t mean it’s a problem.