Is this the current state of raiding?

[Godfather.9058]

https://ibb.co/qjhhx74

1 actual raid, 3 raid sellers, 2 recruitment ads (1 not in english), and 1 looking for opener.

[Linken.6345]

Yea not like people got other crap to do at this time of year or something 😛

[Jedrik.3109]

Current? As in the last few years?

[kharmin.7683]

(Unpopular opinion, perhaps) Raids should never have been implemented in GW2.  Resources would have better been spent on other content that appeals to a larger portion of the player base.

[Shuzuru.3651]

Well, contrary to raid seller and ads, squad raiding are not in the lfg non stop , since they don't need people once full.

It's not rare to see the lfg going from like 10 squad looking for people to 1 sometime in like 30min, squad were formed and now people are raiding, so no lfg.

[Cyninja.2954]

Food for thought: active and full squads are not listed on the LFG. Sell adds which don't close remain open indefinitely.

Use the above information as you see fit.

[Quickpawmaud.6374]

1 hour ago, Godfather.9058 said:

https://ibb.co/qjhhx74

1 actual raid, 3 raid sellers, 2 recruitment ads (1 not in english), and 1 looking for opener.

What even is an opener? 

[devzero.4093]

58 minutes ago, kharmin.7683 said:

(Unpopular opinion, perhaps) Raids should never have been implemented in GW2.  Resources would have better been spent on other content that appeals to a larger portion of the player base.

I believe there is plenty of interest but many are just intimidated by raids and the expectations that come with it. The open world in GW2 also does not prepare the players for instanced content at all which isn't helpful to the situation.

Also while we're at the topic of the state of raiding, there's one easy thing Anet can do to bring more life to raids: decent repeatable raid rewards. Reward me for doing the same raid bosses multiple times a week with decent gold.

[devzero.4093]

23 minutes ago, Quickpawmaud.6374 said:

What even is an opener? 

If you want to train on Deimos for example and you don't want to kill Cairn, Mursaat and Samarog, you look for someone who already killed Cairn, Mursaat and Samarog but did not kill Deimos and ask that person to open the instance for you. You're now also on Deimos without having to kill the others to get to him.

[Super Hayes.6890]

As a player that would like to do the raids and is also a veteran player, the barrier to start and have fun is difficult and unclear. I can see why many people don't get into this content.

[vares.8457]

38 minutes ago, Super Hayes.6890 said:

As a player that would like to do the raids and is also a veteran player, the barrier to start and have fun is difficult and unclear. I can see why many people don't get into this content.

There is not really a barrier. Just take your guild mates and start raiding. That’s what I and many others did. 

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

Selling raids is legal and an intended use of the LFG by ANet. If you do not want to see them, just block the players who list them.

If you want to raid, you sadly have to join a guild that does raiding. If you want to learn raiding, you also have to join a dedicated guild for that.

28 minutes ago, Super Hayes.6890 said:

As a player that would like to do the raids and is also a veteran player, the barrier to start and have fun is difficult and unclear. I can see why many people don't get into this content.

I had my fair share of negative experiences with instanced content over the years. Lots of drama, guilds breaking apart because of it and the whole arc-DPS/performance/work stuff. I gave up all my hope. But then I joined a laid back guild for 30+ people. I frequently do strikes now and can do T4 fractals again without getting stressed. Not raiding, but tbh I do not want to. Having the right people to play with makes a huge difference. Imo it is worth to keep searching for a nice community. 

[Schimmi.6872]

You should also consider the time and day, because most groups run at prime time and on monday because of the reset. I just opened the LFG and the picture was completely different - 8 actual groups, 1 lf opener and 2 sellers. Your picture was too early for EU prime time.

Also keep in mind that at least some groups paused because of the holidays and as others have already posted, real groups fill fast and sell-groups usually stay till the commanders removes them. Especially when only dps and/or easy roles are needed, they real group often fill in seconds after they were posted.

[LSD.4673]

2 hours ago, kharmin.7683 said:

(Unpopular opinion, perhaps) Raids should never have been implemented in GW2.  Resources would have better been spent on other content that appeals to a larger portion of the player base.

Yeah, the devs could have put that time and effort into developing some other thing to abandon. 

[sumpwa.1849]

3 hours ago, kharmin.7683 said:

(Unpopular opinion, perhaps) Raids should never have been implemented in GW2.  Resources would have better been spent on other content that appeals to a larger portion of the player base.

Raids were never properly implemented in the first place. If they were the LFG would have specialized role signups and gear inspect.

[Crono.4197]

Raiding should never have been implemented in Guild Wars 2. It only increased the amount of elitism in the game and that's why many don't even wanna do it.

[starlinvf.1358]

3 hours ago, kharmin.7683 said:

(Unpopular opinion, perhaps) Raids should never have been implemented in GW2.  Resources would have better been spent on other content that appeals to a larger portion of the player base.

I also would had settled for Raids what work specifically for GW2's design, rather than shoe horn the archaic WoW DPS/Trinity model, and all the Build/Comp problems that came with it.  

[starlinvf.1358]

38 minutes ago, Crono.4197 said:

Raiding should never have been implemented in Guild Wars 2. It only increased the amount of elitism in the game and that's why many don't even wanna do it.

If we're gonna be fair, this was not true.  NA in particular had an extremely active Training Community for a few years, and only started falling off due to PUG burn out.  The casual side of the community either demonized the whole raid community, because thats how it is everywhere else, OR "tried" and got in over their heads almost immediately, then wrote it off.   I used to be the latter, until I fell in with a Raid Trainer guild.   When I found out most raids only really need 3 non-DPS builds to keep under control, I was shocked.  That means the main problem are people who aren't keeping up with the anti-wipe mechanics; as generally speaking, DPS shouldn't be a huge problem (until the balance team started nerfing stuff).  Not helping that were Casual PUGs trying to force their way in, solely on the motivation/entitlement of Legendary armor, and blaming the Raid community for not carrying them.

As far as I could see, the Raid community only imploded when it got insular, and too lazy to train new PUGs.    I still stand by my belief that the raids were designed wrong for this game...  but out of everything that happened, it was not raid community elitism that was the problem.  

And if its a problem "now", I guess the people finally got what they wanted then.  

[Surelia.2651]

5 hours ago, Godfather.9058 said:

https://ibb.co/qjhhx74

1 actual raid, 3 raid sellers, 2 recruitment ads (1 not in english), and 1 looking for opener.

Active raiding guilds are for the most part all to be found in Discord not LFG; there are plenty on both NA and EU; the few times you would see somebody in game LFG advertising an actual spot open (not selling), it's usually a guild core team that ended up with some who were unable to make it. 

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

8 hours ago, Super Hayes.6890 said:

As a player that would like to do the raids and is also a veteran player, the barrier to start and have fun is difficult and unclear. I can see why many people don't get into this content.

if you're on a north american server, then please see the link in my signature!

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

Just because only ugly bananas remain in the basket in LIDL it doesn't mean LIDL only sells ugly, rotting bananas.

Groups that are not meant to fill will never fill and will stay on LFG, groups that are for actually doing the Raids will fill and disappear.

15 hours ago, Crono.4197 said:

Raiding should never have been implemented in Guild Wars 2. It only increased the amount of elitism in the game and that's why many don't even wanna do it.

Acting like Dungeons weren't already on the level of Raids with requirements. Then again, early dungeon requirements of X amount of AP, and pretty much only Warrior, Ele or Mesmer kinda sounds worse than what people ask in Raids.

[devzero.4093]

At this point in the thread I'm afraid to ask, but what do you guys mean with elitism?

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

1 hour ago, devzero.4093 said:

At this point in the thread I'm afraid to ask, but what do you guys mean with elitism?

Having any form of requirement.
I had the (mis)fortune of seeing someone complain that being required to ping boots is elitist.

[Krzysztof.5973]

On 12/27/2023 at 6:01 PM, kharmin.7683 said:

(Unpopular opinion, perhaps) Raids should never have been implemented in GW2.  Resources would have better been spent on other content that appeals to a larger portion of the player base.

I agree. The game would have died before covid came around, that way NCsoft would have invested all that money into mobile market and made more money. 

[firedragon.8953]

The thing about raids is that they are usually organized in guild/static or through a discord community like Raid Academy. 
The reason is that it's easier (faster) to pre-assign/select roles using Discord reacts to a post and that when raiding with people you've raided with before (i.e. guild mates) expectations are clearer and the time investment of learning each raid begins to pay off as everyone gets skilled.

PUGs can be a huge mixed bag of friendly/bored gods walking amongst mere mortals, sweaty-palmed one-shot one-clear raiders, semi-experienced raiders, completely untrained players, and oblivious newbies (or vets?). Each on their own is probably fine, but mixing them and their expectations together with them all thinking everyone else is going to be similar to them is a disaster.

But yeah, it isn't a new thing that Raid LFG is empty and/or just raid seller ads, and a part of that reason is that they aren't popular with most of the community. I really enjoyed raids in this game when I used to learn and then lead them with my own guild. Probably one of the most social parts of the game where you can work together with other players and actually feel like you did something while goofing around and chatting the whole time. But, this isn't the mainstream culture of GW2 and how the majority of people are trained to just "show up and get credit." So, yes, raids aren't very popular, and the lack of a large raider population can make consistent group formation more difficult than the raids themselves.

I'm SUPER glad Anet made raids, but I'm not completely surprised they stopped making them.