Getting more people into Raids

[STIHL.2489]

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:Raid content should have the least possible playerbase, to keep the "feel" of the content and its "rewards" "unique" and "elite".

Eh.. remember.. you're playing GW2, not Wildstar. or something hard . Even the best GW2 player is looked upon as mediocre in the gaming world, and that's in the competitive PvP arena, it only goes down hill when they stat to talk about PvE.

[Vulf.3098]

@STIHL.2489 said:Eh.. remember.. you're playing GW2, not Wildstar. or something hard . Even the best GW2 player is looked upon as mediocre in the gaming world, and that's in the competitive PvP arena, it only goes down hill when they stat to talk about PvE.

Then there is WoW and ff14 that has addons playing the game for you.

[Nilson.9865]

If they would make a story for raids, "green asterisk" ,and that story would have achievements, plus rewards which would make player to finish this story.Someone's progress will stuck in the Spirit Vale. Someone's progress will do the same in Hall of Chains.We will not left behind our friends/guildmates. It could become new topic in guild's or map's chats.Plus add to all this a short cinematic intro(with flashbacks), so players could know what's the point of all this. Because we looove cutscenes)

[Tyson.5160]

@Vinceman.4572 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:I’m often surprised when a first pull ends in a success, usually the party has to marinate a little and find its footing before a victory occurs. As for time, not sure how a problem like that can be solved unless we get an overhaul to the lfg system for raiding, which has more customization. Any thoughts regarding arding future wings having no legendary collection? Good idea or bad idea?

With more experience you'll see that you can literally oneshot all bosses in W1-4 very easily, W5 till Dhuum is also not very hard with a group of 10 players knowing the content by heart. You don't have to be very highly skilled for that, you're just not used to raiding that long so you haven't played together with experienced people or maybe not all of them were experienced.Also, there are sometimes these bosses where you hop into a pug group, join the raiding instance, take your food, ready check, kill the boss and gg ty + bye bye - all in all 5-15 minutes like good old dungeon runs.

@Tyson.5160 said:Yeah, I’ve looked into finding a raid guild, however I play during non peak hours and most guilds raid in the evenings and weekends while I’m at work.

See, and that is still your own issue. Sorry for that but during the usual peak time there is not much waiting for a raid group. I rarely have to wait more than 5 minutes to find a squad if I pug and with my static it's a non issue to find single players as well within minutes.I doubt that a high increase of new players will make it easier to find a squad for you. It's instanced content and even during dungeon peak time it hasn't been easy to find appropriate or good groups at night, during early morning or forenoon. And those are 5 man content, same goes for fractals.

Oh I realize it’s my issue, I’ve come to terms with that as It would be a stupid reason to quit my job so I could play at peak hours. I was simply answering Cpt comment.

[LadyKitty.6120]

Biggest issue might be that there's more than some people among the raid community who want to keep the raids as the rare treat for only the most skilled players. And these people are quite loud about it, trying to silence whoever's trying to show that raids aren't only for the elite and metabuilds. Kitty's personally been showing that even the most infamous builds (power reaper, power zerker, power soulbeast, healer engineer and pistol+pistol deadeye as some examples) can raid decently but those aforementioned people have directly asked Kitty to stop showing "bad trash builds" as they're afraid that people would start using them and thus average pug group would possibly have lower DPS and they'd need to deal with more mechanics and more mechanics means more wipes and EVERYONE DIES! AAARGH!

To be honest, metabuilds certainly have the highest damage potential and when played by a skilled raider, they certainly outperform anyone playing a build with lower potential. But it many cases, metabuilds themselves can be a bit of a challenge to play well for people who are just getting into the raid scene. As alternatives, there's lots of builds with lower damage potential, but that potential can be pulled out super-easily through the raid mechanics. Though then again, certain peoples really don't want people to play them 'cause they'd possibly be content playing such builds and they wouldn't seek to improve their gameplay as such, they say. Constant improvement! Everyone must aim for faster and faster kill times!

The problem about getting new players into raid scene isn't really something that Anet could solve. It's a problem of current raid community following the best raiders like sheep without healthy criticism towards what they say. And only cure to that is either community changing thru some magic trick or getting new peoples trained to raids thru raid training discords and guilds.

[Rennie.6750]

@STIHL.2489 said:

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:Raid content should have the least possible playerbase, to keep the "feel" of the content and its "rewards" "unique" and "elite".

Eh.. remember.. you're playing GW2, not Wildstar. or something hard . Even the best GW2 player is looked upon as mediocre in the gaming world, and that's in the competitive PvP arena, it only goes down hill when they stat to talk about PvE.

That's not even remotely true. Wildstar has no unfair/bs mechanic, GW2 has plenty. There are many poorly telegraphed devastating attacks hidden in a sea of players effects and tons of little things you have to remember, again because of poor telegraphs. It would be true if mechanics were clearly communicated but they're not. I've played wildstar and most other MMOs out there and GW2 bosses are the most poorly done overall. You'd think it's only the older ones but no, it's really hit or miss. For some reason GW2 has a passion for minuscule bosses and pure animation tells you won't see due to your own effects so he can swing a sword all he wants for 0.25s, no one will see that and people will get downed and it will feel unfair. That's because it is.

To OP: if you want more players playing raids you're going to have to convince ANet to change how we learn raids. Right now I don't have time to devote hours to practising a raid boss but I've learnt fractals purely through pugs and right now I'm doing good. If the learning part is sliced into smaller parts then it becomes much easier to learn as it's one thng at a time. Fractal tiers apparently breed perfectly capable pugs even for t4, as I very rarely run into issues at this tier. Raids would need a similar mechanic.

I believe changing buffs would help too, waiting for a chrono to do something really gets tedious. Buffs are too strong to skip right now and that makes making some random group an exercise in frustration especially around peak hours as all chronos are busy already. I'd love to heal on my guardian too, but people want heals + might and I can't do that, so healing is still locked to 2 professions and that's really dumb.

[Tyson.5160]

@Rennie.6750 said:

@STIHL.2489 said:

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:Raid content should have the least possible playerbase, to keep the "feel" of the content and its "rewards" "unique" and "elite".

Eh.. remember.. you're playing GW2, not Wildstar. or something hard . Even the best GW2 player is looked upon as mediocre in the gaming world, and that's in the competitive PvP arena, it only goes down hill when they stat to talk about PvE.

That's not even remotely true. Wildstar has no unfair/bs mechanic, GW2 has plenty. There are many poorly telegraphed devastating attacks hidden in a sea of players effects and tons of little things you have to remember, again because of poor telegraphs. It would be true if mechanics were clearly communicated but they're not. I've played wildstar and most other MMOs out there and GW2 bosses are the most poorly done overall. You'd think it's only the older ones but no, it's really hit or miss. For some reason GW2 has a passion for minuscule bosses and pure animation tells you won't see due to your own effects so he can swing a sword all he wants for 0.25s, no one will see that and people will get downed and it will feel unfair. That's because it is.

To OP: if you want more players playing raids you're going to have to convince ANet to change how we learn raids. Right now I don't have time to devote hours to practising a raid boss but I've learnt fractals purely through pugs and right now I'm doing good. If the learning part is sliced into smaller parts then it becomes much easier to learn as it's one thng at a time. Fractal tiers apparently breed perfectly capable pugs even for t4, as I very rarely run into issues at this tier. Raids would need a similar mechanic.

I believe changing buffs would help too, waiting for a chrono to do something really gets tedious. Buffs are too strong to skip right now and that makes making some random group an exercise in frustration especially around peak hours as all chronos are busy already. I'd love to heal on my guardian too, but people want heals + might and I can't do that, so healing is still locked to 2 professions and that's really dumb.

I remember seeing a post a long while ago where someone suggested being able to spawn bosses in the training arena, where you could work on certain mechanics that were causing issues, such as practicing jumping or dodging Samarogs slam attack or practice dodging Sloth flame breath and Sabethas flame wall, not sure if that would help or not. Might be worth some time to do some practicing when waiting for a party or during down time. Guess it could also let people practice rotations while dealing with mechanics.

[Shard.4791]

New people start raiding all the time. I'm not convinced that the rate needs to be faster. Raiding is like the new guild missions except it has some kind of barrier of entry.

[STIHL.2489]

@Vulf.3098 said:

@STIHL.2489 said:Eh.. remember.. you're playing GW2, not Wildstar. or something hard . Even the best GW2 player is looked upon as mediocre in the gaming world, and that's in the competitive PvP arena, it only goes down hill when they stat to talk about PvE.

Then there is WoW and ff14 that has addons playing the game for you.

and yet they come here to get away from the stress and high demands of those games. So... GW2 players are below an addon..

Good thing I play PvP or that would be a real blow to my ego...

[Talindra.4958]

From my observations... We have many new raiders starting.. while many vet raiders stop playing as well. Most are still around although playing very casually now. Raiders need to invest a lot of time into it and sometimes it feels more like a job than an entertaining game. :OIdk maybe if we hv the reset timer different for different wings and on different days. It maybe a total disaster but I think this will encourage ppl to pug more instead of sticking with same group for entire full run.. Pugging help new players. A lot players with exp currently don't care about li req anymore when I join pug group tht don't ask for li.. I noticed a few exp players were in the group too.. it's nice to see mix of players in group and to help those new to get started.Ofc we don't want changes to affect current raiders.. esp static groups. Most static group raid few times a week so I guess splitting reset for wings to different days may actually help to marry up scheduled raid better too. Eg w1 n w2 on Monday. W3 and w4 on Wednesday and w5 on weekends.As I raid with pugs only... It really feels like a job to raid intensely once a week at reset. Plenty of effort and concentration for 2hours now with wing 5 it's more than 2hours.. quite draining tbh..unlike with static team ppl are more relaxed generally. Couldn't find any static group to play at my play time and thank goodness reset is at my evening just after work otherwise raid is probably hard for me. Will see, there maybe changes to how I will play this game xD..

[Silmar Alech.4305]

To get more people into raids, lower the requirements. Make raids easier/add an easier mode. That lowers the entry barrier and let people in that currently wait in front of the barrier and aren't able to cross it.

If you ask me personally, I'd very much like to raid, but although I am probably proficient enough to do the task, training eats too much of my time. I consider training hard work and no fun, because you only fail during training. Hard work and no fun isn't a thing I want to experience in a game. With hard work and often no fun I'm earning my living. I feel no sense of success during raid training, and if the group eventually succeeds, I feel exhausted instead of satisfied.

Finally, in trainings there is more time spent on waiting than on actually combat and learning.You join a training guild, take your part in the team, for example dps. You painstakingly make your character ready; build, equipment and food, and you study demo videos. You show up on the training date just in time, but find only 5 people present. 20 minutes later, 8 persons finally showed up after fractals, meal, getting the latest build, and whatever. The remaining 2 are missing. You search on lfg for the 2 missing roles. 15 minutes later, the team is full. 5 minutes later, the lfg people got ready and joined voip and the instance. You train 3 wipes (30 minutes). Someone leaves, most often one of the lfg people. New lfg. 10 minutes later, the new lfg person is ready and in the instance and voip. You train 2 wipes (20 minute). Someone leaves. 10 minutes later, the team is complete again from lfg and joined. You train 2 more wipes (20-30 minutes), then some of the regulars has to leave for today, and one of the lfg people leaves as well.It's now about 2.5-3 hours after the starting date. The training dissolves, because you cannot get any more people from lfg for training that late in the evening.You fought 1.25 hours and waited 1.25 hours. The next training date is exactly the same and the next after that as well. This is an unacceptable ratio; it's a waste of my precious free time. This is how I experienced raids, and I stopped trying because of this after about 3 months of trying in 2 guilds.

[STIHL.2489]

@"Silmar Alech.4305" said:To get more people into raids, lower the requirements. Make raids easier/add an easier mode. That lowers the entry barrier and let people in that currently wait in front of the barrier and aren't able to cross it.

I am going to disagree, but only to theory craft on this idea.

Just think about this, if they made for a hard requirement, like AR in Fractals, it would be very cumbersome for people to just make a bunch of "raid alts" to fill any role, as such, they would mostly likely be stuck with one or two main, and thus would need pull from the pool of other people to fill roles they have not made an alt to fill (no do they want to grind the efforts for) , making it so that the raid community would want a bigger pool of other players to pull from to fill those roles.

Just something to think about... mull over..

[crosknight.3041]

raids are pretty time consuming and imo the main reason people get turned off by it. depending on the group a full wing clear can be anywhere from 30 mins to 3+ hours, leaning more towards more time for newer players.another thing to expect with new players is, "YOU WILL DIE, A LOT." mechanically the raids are pretty demanding sometimes coming down to one person messing up causing wipes. Learning said mechanics is part of the struggle you will have to do. reading guide and watching youtube vids can help a bit here but isn't a substitute for actual experience.Team matters: ideally you'll want a team made up of guildies, though occasionally you'll find training runs in LFG. dont assume people are elitists, in my experience there is far more elitists in pvp then raids.

[CrustyBot.3564]

The Lfg needs fixing. Enhanced description sections, filtering options, dedicated guild recruitment/guild finder too.

If you want to overdose on roleplay, you could set up interactive bulletin boards in the aerodrome, fractal/wvw portal areas in LA and in each of the hub cities. One of the reasons that in game recruitment for raiding sucks is that you need to be in an active squad to list an lfg post.

So if you want to recruit for a static, or advertise you help with training, then you either use an alt or set up a listing during the hours you aren't actively doing content. I feel like having listings that don't rely on you being online would be a great boon to attracting people. You could have a system that works like flicking through your mail which holds 24-hour listings (requiring refreshes every week by the original poster to weed out inactive listings) that divide into two categories - one that advertises a group and another that advertises a set event with a set time.

Group advertisement works fairly straightforward, a message with contact details and the like. Event advertisement would work by providing details, setting a date/time and an option to "sign up" which would send people who sign up an automatic mail 1 hour before the event is scheduled to occur, with the listing poster having access to the account names of people who "signed up".

I don't particularly know how practical all this seems but it has applications beyond just raiding. It would be beneficial for a lot of other content too - organised bounty trains, HP trains, dungeon tours, etc. And it finally gives guilds an in game recruiting option beyond spamming map chats.

To contrast, most people agree raids are not unreasonably difficult. The problem with raiding comes with logistics or other people. For example, steep LI requirements in Lfg, toxic behaviour towards non optimal playstyles, lack of visibility for training runs, etc. The solution offered by many is to trivialise the content with an easy mode and fix those problems incidentally rather addressing the problems directly.

I don't have an issue with easy mode in theory. But in practice, the implementation of an easy mode would necessitate a shift in the amount of development resources dedicated to raids compared to other pve content. Because to ensure that the content is played by demographics who are not invested in raids, they will need to take things that currently interest non raiding pvers and put that in raids to incentivise play. Namely, insert core story content into raids. And should Anet decide to move in that direction, Guild Wars 2 will become a primarily raid Mmo for pve content, as opposed to an open world pve content game with raids on the side. I don't support that kind of direction.

So that's why I want Lfg revamps and QoL features as I think that tackles the issue more directly, without harming the overall pve content focus balance, whilst improving other parts of the game too.

[Edu.6984]

Make easy modes or wait for the power creep to eventually make all old content easier.

[tekfan.3179]

The biggest problem imo is that to train for raids, you need to raid.You want to improve? Just hope that there are nine other people who are willing to put up with your lack of experience. Alternatively open up a training group and wait hours for new members who might just hang around for about half an hour before leaving again.Train your rotations at the training golem...which is next to useless once you have to deal with boss mechanics while running your rotation.

A training arena where you can train alone on boss-dummies with reduced hp and without the mechanics that require multiple people would be one option. #The other option would be to turn the raid-wings into LW-episodes where you can train on the bosses by repeating the episodes. This could reward you with skins, so raiders could identify trained beginners with those armor-skins.

[Chris McSwag.4683]

@tekfan.3179 said:The biggest problem imo is that to train for raids, you need to raid.You want to improve? Just hope that there are nine other people who are willing to put up with your lack of experience. Alternatively open up a training group and wait hours for new members who might just hang around for about half an hour before leaving again.Train your rotations at the training golem...which is next to useless once you have to deal with boss mechanics while running your rotation.

A training arena where you can train alone on boss-dummies with reduced hp and without the mechanics that require multiple people would be one option. #The other option would be to turn the raid-wings into LW-episodes where you can train on the bosses by repeating the episodes. This could reward you with skins, so raiders could identify trained beginners with those armor-skins.

Yeah because the huge raid training guilds and communities easily available certainly makes it hard to take a step into raids and build experience /s.It's easier than ever to start raiding, but for some reason people don't even bother using the proven tools that are suggested. It's literally a google search away

[tekfan.3179]

@Chris McSwag.4683 said:

@tekfan.3179 said:The biggest problem imo is that to train for raids, you need to raid.You want to improve? Just hope that there are nine other people who are willing to put up with your lack of experience. Alternatively open up a training group and wait hours for new members who might just hang around for about half an hour before leaving again.Train your rotations at the training golem...which is next to useless once you have to deal with boss mechanics while running your rotation.

A training arena where you can train alone on boss-dummies with reduced hp and without the mechanics that require multiple people would be one option. #The other option would be to turn the raid-wings into LW-episodes where you can train on the bosses by repeating the episodes. This could reward you with skins, so raiders could identify trained beginners with those armor-skins.

Yeah because the huge raid training guilds and communities easily available certainly makes it hard to take a step into raids and build experience /s.It's easier than ever to start raiding, but for some reason people don't even bother using the proven tools that are suggested. It's literally a google search away

Yeah those. You know, those that require you to be online on specific times and weekdays for their training sessions. Or do you mean those that kick you because you can't be online for a month due to business in RL? Because I totally didn't look into those possibilities /s.

Being able to train on your own so you can run raids when you have the time is a feat the raid-content is severely lacking. Skilled casuals are a resource that could be tapped for a higher influx into the raiding community.

[Lunateric.3708]

@tekfan.3179 said:

@Chris McSwag.4683 said:

@tekfan.3179 said:The biggest problem imo is that to train for raids, you need to raid.You want to improve? Just hope that there are nine other people who are willing to put up with your lack of experience. Alternatively open up a training group and wait hours for new members who might just hang around for about half an hour before leaving again.Train your rotations at the training golem...which is next to useless once you have to deal with boss mechanics while running your rotation.

A training arena where you can train alone on boss-dummies with reduced hp and without the mechanics that require multiple people would be one option. #The other option would be to turn the raid-wings into LW-episodes where you can train on the bosses by repeating the episodes. This could reward you with skins, so raiders could identify trained beginners with those armor-skins.

Yeah because the huge raid training guilds and communities easily available certainly makes it hard to take a step into raids and build experience /s.It's easier than ever to start raiding, but for some reason people don't even bother using the proven tools that are suggested. It's literally a google search away

Yeah those. You know, those that require you to be online on specific times and weekdays for their training sessions. Or do you mean those that kick you because you can't be online for a month due to business in RL? Because I totally didn't look into those possibilities /s.

Being able to train on your own so you can run raids when you have the time is a feat the raid-content is severely lacking. Skilled casuals are a resource that could be tapped for a higher influx into the raiding community.

If you're skilled you won't need typical training. I have multiple friends that came from MMO raid backgrounds and couldn't be bothered to train, asked for a simple explanation about X Encounter and got their kill without hassle. One of them actually got 10 raid bosses on his first day (an old WoW/Wildstar raider with a full time job now). If you're accustomed to raids you will find gw2 raids to be too lenient for the most part.

[Enoah.1956]

Super-easy/exploration mode with no or dumbed down enemies. Make them drop no loot, let players not get any or super low-tier rewards through it. This is what I would have loved to have for dungeons too (in the exploration mode too). It's so hard to do some of them and pay attention to the story and explore the areas (I like to see things and do panomara shots with HUD hidden) when you are going in with others.

The wall that keeps most from raids, or me at least, is the requirement that you can only enter them with a 10-man squad and that you need to fight hard mobs with the right builds and knowing the mechanics.

Or add a spectator mode where you can watch people or fly around as (visible or invisible) whisps similar to how you do in Southsun Survival. This way people could perhaps get warm with how Raids work, or at least explore the areas and get to know the lore that you would otherwise forced to read up on the GW2 wiki anyway.

[Henry.5713]

Depends on what you mean by getting people into raids. A story mode would only make a chunk of the player base, those who actually care about the story, do raids once and then never touch again. Nothing more than that and rather similar to dungeon story modes.

About the insane difficulty and impossible time consumption of raids:Friends from my WvW guild asked me to help them out with getting started on raids. Me being the only regular raider, two others who have pugged easy bosses a handful of times but with kind of effective builds and the rest who are rather clueless about PvE in this game, who do not run proper builds at all or gear or have a mic.First kill on VG still took us less than two hours. Obviously one of the easier bosses and just a start but you probably get my point. A few hours per week is all you need to get started. All of us have a life, busy jobs, wives, husbands, kids and too much other nonsense going on in our lives.Even I was surprised how little effort is actually required to get the first kill. All you need is someone experienced, people who are willing to listen and a bit of your time.

[Oldirtbeard.9834]

@Tyson.5160 said:Been thinking about this topic a lot. What are some suggestions to get more people into the raiding game mode?

Buff Reaper, make more optimal tank options that don't have butterflies farting out of them (hell redesign Death Magic into a tanking trait line for both PVP AND PVE so Necromancer can have two support roles, then maybe I come back from my Dragon Knight I've been playing exclusively for 3 weeks).

[Oldirtbeard.9834]

@Tyson.5160 said:Do you think rewards would drive more people into the content?

I doubt they need more rewards than Legendary Armor, Legendary Ring, Ascended Gear, and exclusive skins; pretty sure rewards are not the problem except for Raiding Veterans that have lost interest.

[Oldirtbeard.9834]

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:Raid content should have the least possible playerbase, to keep the "feel" of the content and its "rewards" "unique" and "elite".

This is why I play and brought my wallet to ESO, old-fashioned archaic divisive attitudes like this along with the complacency that keeps it in fashion.

In ESO I queue up with my Dragon Knight and enjoy casual normal dungeons and Trials, I'm not suggesting people should quit and follow my path but to borrow from a comment above sometimes the tribe you're looking for isn't even playing the same game.

You GW2 Culture can keep Raiding right where it is, I got tired of paying ANet for the privilege of being told Reaper is trash by a community that ironically embodied the very adjectives they were using to describe me and my personal choices.

[Oldirtbeard.9834]

@Tyson.5160 said:

@Vinceman.4572 said:

@Tyson.5160 said:I’m often surprised when a first pull ends in a success, usually the party has to marinate a little and find its footing before a victory occurs. As for time, not sure how a problem like that can be solved unless we get an overhaul to the lfg system for raiding, which has more customization. Any thoughts regarding arding future wings having no legendary collection? Good idea or bad idea?

With more experience you'll see that you can literally oneshot all bosses in W1-4 very easily, W5 till Dhuum is also not very hard with a group of 10 players knowing the content by heart. You don't have to be very highly skilled for that, you're just not used to raiding that long so you haven't played together with experienced people or maybe not all of them were experienced.Also, there are sometimes these bosses where you hop into a pug group, join the raiding instance, take your food, ready check, kill the boss and gg ty + bye bye - all in all 5-15 minutes like good old dungeon runs.

@Tyson.5160 said:Yeah, I’ve looked into finding a raid guild, however I play during non peak hours and most guilds raid in the evenings and weekends while I’m at work.

See, and that is still your own issue. Sorry for that but during the usual peak time there is not much waiting for a raid group. I rarely have to wait more than 5 minutes to find a squad if I pug and with my static it's a non issue to find single players as well within minutes.I doubt that a high increase of new players will make it easier to find a squad for you. It's instanced content and even during dungeon peak time it hasn't been easy to find appropriate or good groups at night, during early morning or forenoon. And those are 5 man content, same goes for fractals.

Oh I realize it’s my issue, I’ve come to terms with that as It would be a stupid reason to quit my job so I could play at peak hours. I was simply answering Cpt comment.

Maybe this game isn't meant for us any more, I've been enjoying my self for the past three weeks in Tamriel.