Strike wont make me raid

[Super Hayes.6890]

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Super Hayes.6890 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@"Ashantara.8731" said:Unfortunately, the opposite is happening: raiders are taking over strike missions. Soon, no non-raider will be doing strikes anymore because of the LI requirements. :s I don't think

that's

what ANet had in mind when they introduced the EotN strike mission hub. :/

You seem to be slightly confused here.

First

: no one can take over content which is open to everyone. You are free to make your own group at any time. I do so daily with guild members from some of my guilds.

Second

: the vast majority of LFG tags on EU are without any requirements. How do I know? I actually spend quite a lot of time checking the LFG daily since I run all strikes multiple times. Most casual groups skip Boneskinner, some Boneskinner and Whisper, but many groups do the easy 3 strikes daily.

Third

: what you are perceiving is more dedicated players sticking to the content, even creating farm runs, while less dedicated players are slowly dropping out of the content after having seen it 2-3 times. That's not "raiders taking over", that's casual players dropping out. Those two might have a similar effect, but the cause is a vastly different one, as would be the place to put blame. If you want to blame someone, blame other casual players who decide to not stick with the content, but careful, you might get called toxic elitist. There solved.

Please stop spreading such nonsense.

I would argue that strikes like the boneskinner are chasing away those of us that don't raid much already. I have yet to complete that one as everyone starts quitting after it fails once or twice. I still don't fully understand it and it doesn't explain itself at all. I have to depend on players that already know how to do it and so far their explainations have been brief and not crazy helpful. If this is supposed to bridge the gap to raids I would argue that this one is making players jump off the bridge.

None of which is in any way the fault of other players.

If the difficulty is to high: feel free to complain to the developers.

Never said it was the other players fault. Simply pointing out that for the average player like me this strike doesn't really bridge anything. Perhaps a way to make mechanics more obvious? All I'm saying is that if you do the strikes in order this one is just as difficult and unclear as it is if you start doing strikes with the boneskinner and totally skip the others. I don't feel like I've grown in skill by doing strikes and therefore am as useless as I was before in raids. High difficulty is fine but this is not a puzzle game. Explain the "how to" outright so I can practice getting good at it and become less of a burden to the other nine players.

[IndigoSundown.5419]

As usual, ANet design choices are driven not just by what they think players want, but by resource limitations. Face it, instanced requires less resources than making an open world zone and populating it with more events. At the moment, ANet is doing both. However, if they are looking to divert more developers to the expansion, it would serve them to be able to keep more of us around by providing strikes, and by providing raids if strike missions do lead to greater interest in raids.

For anyone who wants to keep playing GW2, an investment in content that more players will participate in is a good thing. More players generally means more revenue, and revenue floats the ANet boat. My interaction with PvE is minimal in GW2. So, it would make sense for me to demand that ANet focus more on WvW (kitten knows, it needs it). However, I recognize that it will take many demographics to keep the game alive long-term.

So, it's all well and good for the OP to let ANet know that strike missions won't lead him to raids. That's information, though I doubt ANet thought all PvE players would embrace strikes and move to raids. However, those expressing the opinion that the game would be better without harder, instanced PvE, be careful what you ask for. The consequences might not be what you envision.

[Bladestrom.6425]

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@sevenDEADLY.5281 said:

@Ashantara.8731 said:Unfortunately, the opposite is happening: raiders are taking over strike missions. Soon, no non-raider will be doing strikes anymore because of the LI requirements. :s I don't think

that's

what ANet had in mind when they introduced the EotN strike mission hub. :/

Literally fake news. I've been doing pug strikes every day and NEVER once seen an LI requirement.

Your experience does not equal mine. That doesn't make my statement "fake news". It would only be fake news if I was lying about it, which I am not. Whenever I have been doing strikes for the past week, over 50% of the LFG entries were listing LI requirements.

@Cyninja.2954 said:

First

: no one can take over content which is open to everyone. You are free to make your own group at any time.

That wasn't my point. My point it that I have seen an increase in raid squads for strikes, which I think will scare off your average PvE player, which I think is not what ANet's intention was when they introduced strike missions.

That does not make sense. If one considers that on average content will see less play across all player groups as time passes, it is easy to assume that even raiders will stop playing the content. Thus the overall raid players playing strikes is decreasing. The only question is: is it decreasing at the same rate as more casual players. Which one can make educated assumptions on.

Strikes have an auto-group feature. It makes sense to assume that players who are less organized use that approach, while players who are more organized or intend to clear the difficult strikes, use the LFG. Meanwhile, and this is very clearly observable, LFG listings with more requirements take longer to fill. This is not a new concept and has been well known, even as far back as dungeons.

Again, your claim that:"raiders are taking over strike missions. Soon, no non-raider will be doing strikes anymore because of the LI requirements." is plain incorrect since this content is equally accessible to all players.

What you are essentially complaining about is that players who put in less effort to group, will have a harder time than players who put in more effort to group, but you decided to blame the completely incorrect players here.

That's what I take offense to since it's nothing but playing the toxic blame game.

@Ashantara.8731 said:

@sevenDEADLY.5281 said:

Second

: the vast majority of LFG tags on EU are without any requirements.

You must be playing at different times than I do...

Yes, as do the other 5 people who disagreed with your statement. But you are correct, this is a subjective issue.

All we know is: Arenanet and the developers will have the metrics on how and how much play this content sees. Everything else is pure speculation.

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Ashantara.8731 said:Unfortunately, the opposite is happening: raiders are taking over strike missions. Soon, no non-raider will be doing strikes anymore because of the LI requirements. :s I don't think

that's

what ANet had in mind when they introduced the EotN strike mission hub. :/

You seem to be slightly confused here.

First

: no one can take over content which is open to everyone. You are free to make your own group at any time. I do so daily with guild members from some of my guilds.

Second

: the vast majority of LFG tags on EU are without any requirements. How do I know? I actually spend quite a lot of time checking the LFG daily since I run all strikes multiple times. Most casual groups skip Boneskinner, some Boneskinner and Whisper, but many groups do the easy 3 strikes daily.

Third

: what you are perceiving is more dedicated players sticking to the content, even creating farm runs, while less dedicated players are slowly dropping out of the content after having seen it 2-3 times. That's not "raiders taking over", that's casual players dropping out. Those two might have a similar effect, but the cause is a vastly different one, as would be the place to put blame. If you want to blame someone, blame other casual players who decide to not stick with the content.

If casual player are 'dropping out' then strikes will become a niche like raids are, and therefore fail as the point of strikes is to attract the mjority/casual players.

Sure, that might be very well possible. If not enough players enjoy the content, then they will leave. That is hardly the fault of dedicated players who organize to clear content. If players stop playing the content, that is completely on them.

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:Broadly speaking there are 2 types of raid/strike consumer:

The majority, that want 10 man content. But not the baggage of tight tuned content while playing builds they enjoy.

The minority. That want tightly tuned content that requires some form minmaxing/build selection, sustained time commitment, vc ideally etc.

Both are valid and should get content, the majority more so obviously.

I wouldn't narrow this down to 2 groups, since the performance difference between these 2 groups is far to big. Also this does not account for the fact that certain players will play content a far less set amount of times compared to others. Absolutely unrelated to difficulty.

But yes, if strikes can not keep the attention of enough players, they will stop seeing development.

Yep and you can't target the same content at both sets of players at same time. Hence the friction.

Every other aaa mmorpg solves this problem with difficulty levels. The only people that are against this are raiders who want their content to be special, a viewpoint that us at odds with GW2. Wow made this transition to easy mode raids at the beginning of wotlk and the raider scene exploded with numbers - and the raiders made the exact same complaints then.

[Cobrakon.3108]

@Nephalem.8921 said:

@"Cobrakon.3108" said:Raids won't interest me until repetitive dmg rotations are erased from the meta. I need battle mechanics to be more of a constant thing, lower hp pool but make bosses harder, make it so top damage isn't someone with "standing in one place" damage meta. Instead, make it so top damage are those who get in their big attacks while surviving. Reduce reliance on healers or tanks for group survival and instead make healing and tanks save individuals instead of bulk healing.

You don't understand the meta. "get in their attacks while surviving" just sounds like you havent done raids or fractal cms. everyone would just play ip thief then with 6k hps selfheal.fractal cm bosses have quite threatening attacks. dps is just so high that you cant see them since they die during stuns. bosses need higher hp not lower, most mechanics are skipped now. experienced groups play without healers aswell now.

I do understand the meta. There is simply too much standing in one spot. It would be preferable if damage was less dependent on auto attack and instead relied more on well placed big hits instead of "meta rotations". It would be more interesting for healers if they had to heal individuals more than bulk healing. Raids need to be more Individual hard instead of just being organizational hard.

Look at it this way. The best fractal runs aren't speed runs where everything is optimized. The best runs are those pubs that know enough but are somewhat unorganized. Instead of everyone "backing in, backing out, and backing in" as with raids, you get this wonderful amount of chaos to where you dive hard on bosses or mobs, you notice someone has been downed so you run to them, dodge and put up a stealth or barrier to rez them, then you see a mob swarming part of your group and you dive in and pop a strong cc giving your team mates a chance to heal up.

Some raid fights do break people apart in interesting ways, but usually, everyone comes right back in and just does nearly in place dmg rotations.

[sevenDEADLY.5281]

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:Yep and you can't target the same content at both sets of players at same time. Hence the friction.

Every other aaa mmorpg solves this problem with difficulty levels. The only people that are against this are raiders who want their content to be special, a viewpoint that us at odds with GW2. Wow made this transition to easy mode raids at the beginning of wotlk and the raider scene exploded with numbers - and the raiders made the exact same complaints then.

LFR raids in WoW come with the lowest possible level of rewards as well though, in some cases (WoD I believe) LFR raids only gave out slightly upgraded versions of dungeon loot, not even raid loot. The problem here is some (not all) of the people asking for easy raids are asking to get the same rewards no matter what difficulty. If Arenanet wants to impliment tiers of raids with tiered loot. Sure why not. Tier 100 fractals don't give the same rewards as tier 1.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Cobrakon.3108 said:

@Nephalem.8921 said:

@Cobrakon.3108 said:Raids won't interest me until repetitive dmg rotations are erased from the meta. I need battle mechanics to be more of a constant thing, lower hp pool but make bosses harder, make it so top damage isn't someone with "standing in one place" damage meta. Instead, make it so top damage are those who get in their big attacks while surviving. Reduce reliance on healers or tanks for group survival and instead make healing and tanks save individuals instead of bulk healing.

You don't understand the meta. "get in their attacks while surviving" just sounds like you havent done raids or fractal cms. everyone would just play ip thief then with 6k hps selfheal.fractal cm bosses have quite threatening attacks. dps is just so high that you cant see them since they die during stuns. bosses need higher hp not lower, most mechanics are skipped now. experienced groups play without healers aswell now.

I do understand the meta. There is simply too much standing in one spot. It would be preferable if damage was less dependent on auto attack and instead relied more on well placed big hits instead of "meta rotations". It would be more interesting for healers if they had to heal individuals more than bulk healing. Raids need to be more Individual hard instead of just being organizational hard.

Damage is less dependent on autoattacks and is reliant on a correct synergy of skills to create big hits. The only class which has around 60% of its damage in their autos is Daredevil, and that's the only one. Most classes even have burst phases and high damage spikes before they see a drop-off due to cooldowns droping their overall dps as fights draw longer. That's literally how high damage pve boss skips work: burst as hard as you can to skip mechanics, have cooldowns tick down during non damage phases.

The more individual hard raids with unique roles and responsibilities are those which are usually the hardest and the ones which takes the longest to find groups for, unless running a static, since it becomes a job of finding enough players who can do the specific mechanic.

Healers having individual heals would require a complete rework of the targeting and group/squad priority system. Doubtful that is going to happen, and it's also not needed given the lax approach to trinity here. If a players drops low, I use cooldowns on my FB/Druid/Ren/etc no matter if others are low or not, I simply have the added benefit that many of my skills will also benefit others, no matter if they need it or not.

@Cobrakon.3108 said:Look at it this way. The best fractal runs aren't speed runs where everything is optimized. The best runs are those pubs that know enough but are somewhat unorganized. Instead of everyone "backing in, backing out, and backing in" as with raids, you get this wonderful amount of chaos to where you dive hard on bosses or mobs, you notice someone has been downed so you run to them, dodge and put up a stealth or barrier to rez them, then you see a mob swarming part of your group and you dive in and pop a strong cc giving your team mates a chance to heal up.

Best for whom? You? Sure, if you enjoy that.

For me and others it's pushing the limits and getting a smooth and clear run done. Maybe practicing a new class and see how well it performs to other builds. Not all of us are fresh fractal 100 players. Some have been playing this content for 7 years, the novelty of chaotic runs loses it's appeal after around 2,000 hours spent on the content.

@Cobrakon.3108 said:Some raid fights do break people apart in interesting ways, but usually, everyone comes right back in and just does nearly in place dmg rotations.

I could make a list of every single fight this does not apply to, but I doubt that would be productive given you seem to have set your mind to see raids in some way they are not.

[Nephalem.8921]

@"Cobrakon.3108" said:I do understand the meta. There is simply too much standing in one spot. It would be preferable if damage was less dependent on auto attack and instead relied more on well placed big hits instead of "meta rotations". It would be more interesting for healers if they had to heal individuals more than bulk healing. Raids need to be more Individual hard instead of just being organizational hard.

Look at it this way. The best fractal runs aren't speed runs where everything is optimized. The best runs are those pubs that know enough but are somewhat unorganized. Instead of everyone "backing in, backing out, and backing in" as with raids, you get this wonderful amount of chaos to where you dive hard on bosses or mobs, you notice someone has been downed so you run to them, dodge and put up a stealth or barrier to rez them, then you see a mob swarming part of your group and you dive in and pop a strong cc giving your team mates a chance to heal up.

Some raid fights do break people apart in interesting ways, but usually, everyone comes right back in and just does nearly in place dmg rotations.

You contradict yourself there. Something with backing in and out with people going down randomly without failing can't be a hard fight. Hard fight means almost no chance to heal downed players or everyone dying if reflects are not up at key moments.Try playing without heal firebrand healing through all mechanics and you suddenly have to use the combat system to survive. Soulbeast btw spikes up to 90k during his normal dps rotation and drops to 14k when auto attacking. Soulbeast is all about getting big bursts in and doing whatever in between. Maybe you are just playing the wrong class like thief who is one of the only ones being so auto attack reliant.

I really want higher tier fractals where you just cant skip through phases with burst or ignore mechanics with heal. Not sure why its limited to t4. Engineer was really good in fractals once when blind and chill were usefull. Everbody just instakills trash in fractals now. Most guardians dont even know what wall of reflection does which would have resulted in a kick in old 50s after swamp.Fractals were not always so dps focused. The old 50s had so many oneshots and over the top damage that you couldn't heal through damage you had to find ways to avoid it. Thats why healers were bad back then but anet nerfed fractals super hard and they are still in this nerfed state. Mobs in old 50 did way more damage than the ones in 100 now. Urban battleground mages hit me for 20k+ and warriors hit for even more.A boss in 100cm, the highest possible tier, has 3! second phase times in high end groups. Please give us something like mythic+ for fractals.

On topic. I saw a lot of non raiders in strikes so it seems to be a success for me. The only difference between strikes and easier raids is that mechanics are usually more punishing in raids but w1-4 are really not that hard with the current balance. They were balanced with way more supports in mind because 10target boons didnt exist when they were created.

[sevenDEADLY.5281]

I'll repost this because you purposely glossed over it.

"You can try to twist it all you want but when people come to the forums to tell arenanet they won't ever play strikes, its because they want arenanet to stop making strikes ---> they're asking for the removal of COOP content. If they were content to just let players play the things they like, they wouldn't be in the forums making statements like "small scale group content isn't MMO content"

People don't come to the forums contantly stating they'll never play raids or ever play strikes because they're content to just let people play those things. They do so to effect change in Arenanet and try to disuade them from making that content in the future. If you don't understand that then you really are only looking at things at a very base level.

[Zzik.5873]

Oky oky just to get back on track with my posr I dont mind at all coop content, in fact I quite like strike. The coop story content is another question on is own this post was only abput strike being stepping stond for raid wich I think, for my own opinion, is a failure. Like I said I like strike for what they are, bit no I wont strike and in fact I see a lot of group just skiping the hard one like the boneskinner. For me what I see, the more they will make strike closer to raid, the more people will stop doing it. Gw2 is not a raid game, its a casual open world game. I dont want them to start focusing on instance content, I want to feel like in a fantasy world, not in a hub game jumping from instance to instance, why not try open world dungeon like in ESO. A zone of the map with higher spawn rate and way harder enemy, which you can loot the end chest once a day for good reward, with the anet rng obsession of they want XD.

[Moradorin.6217]

I have avoided raids for the most part for a few reasons. They all seem pretty common. I think they are, therefore, arguably the real issue with raids and strikes.

@subversiontwo.7501 said:I've said it before and I'll say it again: Strikes are a cool concept but they make the mistake of implementing them backwards.

With raids you have way too much immersive design and resources going into a mode that ultimately is being played comptetively and thus will not really be played for the journey or to be experienced. So Strikes should not be an introduction to Raids, Raids should be an introduction to Strikes. Raids should be the journey and the experience. It should be where people go for an deeper extension of the experiences they gain on the open world maps. It should deliver the things that the maps may not be able to in terms of deeper PvE experience and storytelling. Strikes should be designed to be competetively challenging, so more Strikes can be put out to satiate the needs of the competetive PvE communities on shorter release cycles. They too could be closer tied to the maps but they should be their own competetive environment much more where focus is on challenging mechanics and bragging rights.

I realize that there is a substantial part of the GW2 community now that are not MMO-players and rather single-player type of players who have been seduced by the many years of focus on LS. However, in a broader perspective, this focus on LS has appearantly not served the company well. Their game ultimately is an MMO and excels as an MMO and that needs to be re-established for the game to have a future. Lately, it seemingly looks as if the company itself also has come to that realization with a return to replayability and good push-pull map design in the pipeline.

This discussion is in my eyes an extension of that. They should keep focusing on good map design first and foremost. They should put LS initiatives more onto maps and into raids. They should put competetive raid initiatives into strikes where the meat-and-potatoes boss is the focus and the focus is not the resource- or asset-demanding spice or garnish. The players who are annoyed over having to play with other players in this online world was never supposed to be the target demographic of a product like this. If you want to appease them, make a single player game. Having an MMO game where you prioritize single-player focus will not appease everyone, it will not suffieciently appease anyone and gives you marketing issues. If you want GW2 to stay healthy, focus on the social, competetive and cooperative multiplayer aspects it was designed around. That clearly was the working recipe.

^ One reason I WOULD want to raid is I would like to enjoy the story. However, in raid groups you dont really get to enjoy the story or it takes so much time to organize etc that it just isnt possible to be on that long or I get hungry, tired, bored before things even get going and end up feeling like WOW I dont ever want to do THAT again.

@"Rukia.4802" said:Strikes were never going to get people to raid. ANet are like a toddler in MMO-basics. An easy mode for casuals is the norm now but ANet didn't get the memo just like proper queue system for instances.

Its a shame because probably so few people actually see raids and they don't see it as a great return on investment. If they just implement a LFR then 90% of players will queue into it if all they have to do is press a button and do a couple ez mechanics and see the story. I bet the public option for strikes is very popular for example.

Then the content isn't "wasted" and THIS is what gets people to move onto pugging normal, heroic, etc. in WoW. Sure, most will probably stick to LFR which is fine, but you do get quite a few new raiders and in the end what does it matter if everyone gets to see the content you will still have your casuals and hardcores.

Strikes are so disconnected with raids its silly.

I actually think this is a good idea. That is I agree with both posts in that they are suggesting raids should be more enjoyable to people can experience the content. I mean, it really does seem like the worst possible use of development resources to put in so much time into content MOST of the player base (who pay for the game) NEVER see the content outside a youtube video. That is just shamefully bad design. I feel its bad design because they failed to make it accessible.

Now they are trying to make strikes as a stepping stone, but I think your idea makes a hell of allot more sense. I think raids should be easier to run to the point that everyone can faceroll through them like OpenWorld, Stories, etc. THEN make shorter strikes that are hard and have many different hard strikes for those who want new hard content. It would use less resources to keep the more demanding players happy and would allow more of the player base to enjoy the fun and pretty content that is hidden behind the Wall that is raiding.

TBH I think raids s it stands now was a large waste of resources and allot of delusional planning cause Im guessing Anet thought people would do them more which ignores how few people actually do T4s and CMs vs how many do fractals. Same thing. Fractals in general are accessible for average players to enjoy, but T4 and CM offers people more of a challenge. The difference is Strikes + Raids is BACKWARDS. Meaning, Raids should be the easy accessible content and Strikes should be the equivalent of T4s and CMs. You could have a variety of strikes with scalling difficulty or add instabilities as an option to raise the challenge even more. It seems like this kinda of change might actually give everyone more enjoyable content. THat said, Im sure some hard core raiding doodz will come tell me why this is wrong.

edit: Also the time factor. Pretty much every time I have tried to raid it becomes allot of waiting around thenwhen you finally get the "correct 10 players" someone has to leave, then another, and this can drag out all because of the complexity of what is required to basically enjoy some neat content. So after a few times of wasting an entire evening or day waiting with thumb up uknowhat I personally lost interest in the idea of raiding because it takes a long time and isn't designed to be fun. Also I have legendary armor already so really the only reason I wanted to raid was to experience the content, but its locked up in this fiasco so I for the moment moved on and just dont bother cause it isnt worth it at present.

[sevenDEADLY.5281]

@"Makuragee.3058" said:Oky oky just to get back on track with my posr I dont mind at all coop content, in fact I quite like strike. The coop story content is another question on is own this post was only abput strike being stepping stond for raid wich I think, for my own opinion, is a failure. Like I said I like strike for what they are, bit no I wont strike and in fact I see a lot of group just skiping the hard one like the boneskinner. For me what I see, the more they will make strike closer to raid, the more people will stop doing it. Gw2 is not a raid game, its a casual open world game. I dont want them to start focusing on instance content, I want to feel like in a fantasy world, not in a hub game jumping from instance to instance, why not try open world dungeon like in ESO. A zone of the map with higher spawn rate and way harder enemy, which you can loot the end chest once a day for good reward, with the anet rng obsession of they want XD.

Raids exist in GW2, therefore GW2 is a "raiding game" unless there's another definition of that you're using. I do really like your idea about open world dungeon type areas with higher spawn rates and harder enemies.

[kharmin.7683]

GW2 is not a "raiding game". It is a game which, among other content, has raids.

[Dreams.3128]

I mean that's fine, one less person getting ascended and other goodies they have within the strikes. Not Anet's problem that you want to waste opportunities and then complain that the 'elitists' are ruining everything. Same song and dance, same old casual vs hardcore argument.

[Aeolus.3615]

I didnt liked... to much requirements just like raids, but thats pve in a whole play this or gtfo.Uninteresting rewards like most of the game, but ill try to play more, maybe was a wrong party i cought :\

Forging steel should be 5 players... that thing is a low effort 11111 mission with a health sponge boss at the end, it was awfull...My overall exp with gw2 bosses is that they are pretty bad...

[wickedkae.4980]

I played this game because originally there were no raid requirements to get the best gearI lived that. I didn't have to deal with the toxic min/max people and could have fun while achieving goals.

Then raids were introduced and all chances for getting the best gear were once again locked behind forced min/max content. It was a good betrayal. Thanks anet.

I love variety, so I'm fine with raids being in the game for people who enjoy it. What is not fine, is that what little way players can progress their character is now blocked by an elitist community. No, I will not run your boring meta build. I am also not going to spend tons of time and money on gear that will be useless in a week because the meta changed. I am going to play to have fun. It is just sad that this game makes customization so difficult and annoying. If PVE players could earn legendary armor in open world PVE then we would be more useful in raids since we wouldn't be stuck with meta ascended garbage armor.

If is unfortunate that I will never be able to progress my character farther than ascended armor. Anet has absolutely lost an amazing opportunity to reward open world pve with actual character advancement that would be a net benefit to the game community.

I am confident anet does not actually understand basic game design anymore.

[Cyninja.2954]

@wickedkae.4980 said:I played this game because originally there were no raid requirements to get the best gearI lived that. I didn't have to deal with the toxic min/max people and could have fun while achieving goals.

Then raids were introduced and all chances for getting the best gear were once again locked behind forced min/max content. It was a good betrayal. Thanks anet.

Legendary gear does not provide any stat advantage over ascended gear. Legendary gear never provided a stat advantage over other gear at any point in time.

I do agree though that the recent announcement for legendary armor might change the value proposition in favor of legendary items even more.

@wickedkae.4980 said:I love variety, so I'm fine with raids being in the game for people who enjoy it. What is not fine, is that what little way players can progress their character is now blocked by an elitist community. No, I will not run your boring meta build. I am also not going to spend tons of time and money on gear that will be useless in a week because the meta changed. I am going to play to have fun. It is just sad that this game makes customization so difficult and annoying. If PVE players could earn legendary armor in open world PVE then we would be more useful in raids since we wouldn't be stuck with meta ascended garbage armor.

That is all fine. Now all you have to do is find 9 players who are willing to play with you under these conditions. It is now up to you to find 9 others who accept your approach to the game.

Given how many players often state they want to play the game with their own builds without having to run meta builds, that should not be that difficult. The challenge with group content is: it requires a group. In order for a group to work, players need to compromise and find as like minded players as possible. Unless you start paying other players to do your bidding.

Good Luck.

[sevenDEADLY.5281]

@"kharmin.7683" said:GW2 is not a "raiding game". It is a game which, among other content, has raids.

So what's a raiding game then? WoW is a game which, among other content, has raids, so by your definition WoW is also NOT a raiding game. GW2 is a game which, among other content, has solo story content. So is GW2 not a "solo story content" game?

If a type of content exists in a game, then that's part of the game is it not?

[sevenDEADLY.5281]

@Aeolus.3615 said:Forging steel should be 5 players... that thing is a low effort 11111 mission with a health sponge boss at the end, it was awfull...

I mean, you can choose to ignore the mechanics of the fight and turn it into a 30 minute health sponge, or you can do it the way its meant to be done and beat it in about 5 minutes. That's not the the encounter's fault you chose option 1.

@wickedkae.4980 said:I played this game because originally there were no raid requirements to get the best gearI lived that. I didn't have to deal with the toxic min/max people and could have fun while achieving goals.

Then raids were introduced and all chances for getting the best gear were once again locked behind forced min/max content. It was a good betrayal. Thanks anet.

This is blatently false. The best level of gear in the game (ascended, or legendary if you want stat swapping) was always and can still be 100% acquired without ever doing raids.

[Bladestrom.6425]

@sevenDEADLY.5281 said:

@"kharmin.7683" said:GW2 is not a "raiding game". It is a game which, among other content, has raids.

So what's a raiding game then? WoW is a game which, among other content, has raids, so by your definition WoW is also NOT a raiding game. GW2 is a game which, among other content, has solo story content. So is GW2 not a "solo story content" game?

If a type of content exists in a game, then that's part of the game. I thought that was self evident.

Wow is a raiding game because its entire game is centred around the gear treadmill, with raids at the core of this model. GW2 and GW1 for that matter targeted a very different audience and game style where raiding is a side activity. instead gw2 spreads content between open world pve/Collections , wvw, pvp.instanced content, then last of all raids. Achievement in GW2 is primarily about gameplay and collecting, Not power in an instance. This is why GW2 became as successful as it was. And not another wildstar.

[sevenDEADLY.5281]

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:

@sevenDEADLY.5281 said:

@"kharmin.7683" said:GW2 is not a "raiding game". It is a game which, among other content, has raids.

So what's a raiding game then? WoW is a game which, among other content, has raids, so by your definition WoW is also NOT a raiding game. GW2 is a game which, among other content, has solo story content. So is GW2 not a "solo story content" game?

If a type of content exists in a game, then that's part of the game. I thought that was self evident.

Wow is a raiding game because its entire game is centred around the gear treadmill, with raids at the core of this model. GW2 and GW1 for that matter targeted a very different audience and game style where raiding is a side activity. instead gw2 spreads content between open world pve, wvw, pvp.insysnced content, then last of all raids. Achievement in GW2 is primarily about gameplay and collecting, Not power in an instance. This is why GW2 became as successful as it was. And not another wildstar.

I don't think raiders are advocating for GW2 to suddenly have never ending progressive gear treadmill's attached to raids though. Personally, I'm down for more open world content, more WvW and PvP, content, and also more COOP content like dungeons or raids. I've never once been interested in a gear treadmill associated with any of them though. I don't think its a stretch to say that many GW2 players want to strive towards having the best gear they can have for their characters without desiring an endless treadmill, just the peak that exists as it has for a long time in this game (ascended, maybe some legendary here and there as a long term goal). The introduction of more ways to get that gear is nice. I don't think you'll find very many people who will say they literally don't care about their gear at all.

[Zaklex.6308]

@Moradorin.6217 said:I have avoided raids for the most part for a few reasons. They all seem pretty common. I think they are, therefore, arguably the real issue with raids and strikes.

@subversiontwo.7501 said:I've said it before and I'll say it again: Strikes are a cool concept but they make the mistake of implementing them backwards.

With raids you have way too much immersive design and resources going into a mode that ultimately is being played comptetively and thus will not really be played for the journey or to be experienced. So Strikes should not be an introduction to Raids, Raids should be an introduction to Strikes. Raids should be the journey and the experience. It should be where people go for an deeper extension of the experiences they gain on the open world maps. It should deliver the things that the maps may not be able to in terms of deeper PvE experience and storytelling. Strikes should be designed to be competetively challenging, so more Strikes can be put out to satiate the needs of the competetive PvE communities on shorter release cycles. They too could be closer tied to the maps but they should be their own competetive environment much more where focus is on challenging mechanics and bragging rights.

I realize that there is a substantial part of the GW2 community now that are not MMO-players and rather single-player type of players who have been seduced by the many years of focus on LS. However, in a broader perspective, this focus on LS has appearantly not served the company well. Their game ultimately is an MMO and excels as an MMO and that needs to be re-established for the game to have a future. Lately, it seemingly looks as if the company itself also has come to that realization with a return to replayability and good push-pull map design in the pipeline.

This discussion is in my eyes an extension of that. They should keep focusing on good map design first and foremost. They should put LS initiatives more onto maps and into raids. They should put competetive raid initiatives into strikes where the meat-and-potatoes boss is the focus and the focus is not the resource- or asset-demanding spice or garnish. The players who are annoyed over having to play with other players in this online world was never supposed to be the target demographic of a product like this. If you want to appease them, make a single player game. Having an MMO game where you prioritize single-player focus will not appease everyone, it will not suffieciently appease anyone and gives you marketing issues. If you want GW2 to stay healthy, focus on the social, competetive and cooperative multiplayer aspects it was designed around. That clearly was the working recipe.

^ One reason I WOULD want to raid is I would like to enjoy the story. However, in raid groups you dont really get to enjoy the story or it takes so much time to organize etc that it just isnt possible to be on that long or I get hungry, tired, bored before things even get going and end up feeling like WOW I dont ever want to do THAT again.

@"Rukia.4802" said:Strikes were never going to get people to raid. ANet are like a toddler in MMO-basics. An easy mode for casuals is the norm now but ANet didn't get the memo just like proper queue system for instances.

Its a shame because probably so few people actually see raids and they don't see it as a great return on investment. If they just implement a LFR then 90% of players will queue into it if all they have to do is press a button and do a couple ez mechanics and see the story. I bet the public option for strikes is very popular for example.

Then the content isn't "wasted" and THIS is what gets people to move onto pugging normal, heroic, etc. in WoW. Sure, most will probably stick to LFR which is fine, but you do get quite a few new raiders and in the end what does it matter if everyone gets to see the content you will still have your casuals and hardcores.

Strikes are so disconnected with raids its silly.

I actually think this is a good idea. That is I agree with both posts in that they are suggesting raids should be more enjoyable to people can experience the content. I mean, it really does seem like the worst possible use of development resources to put in so much time into content MOST of the player base (who pay for the game) NEVER see the content outside a youtube video. That is just shamefully bad design. I feel its bad design because they failed to make it accessible.

Now they are trying to make strikes as a stepping stone, but I think your idea makes a hell of allot more sense. I think raids should be easier to run to the point that everyone can faceroll through them like OpenWorld, Stories, etc. THEN make shorter strikes that are hard and have many different hard strikes for those who want new hard content. It would use less resources to keep the more demanding players happy and would allow more of the player base to enjoy the fun and pretty content that is hidden behind the Wall that is raiding.

TBH I think raids s it stands now was a large waste of resources and allot of delusional planning cause Im guessing Anet thought people would do them more which ignores how few people actually do T4s and CMs vs how many do fractals. Same thing. Fractals in general are accessible for average players to enjoy, but T4 and CM offers people more of a challenge. The difference is Strikes + Raids is BACKWARDS. Meaning, Raids should be the easy accessible content and Strikes should be the equivalent of T4s and CMs. You could have a variety of strikes with scaling difficulty or add instabilities as an option to raise the challenge even more. It seems like this kinda of change might actually give everyone more enjoyable content. That said, I'm sure some hard core raiding dudes will come tell me why this is wrong.

edit: Also the time factor. Pretty much every time I have tried to raid it becomes allot of waiting around then when you finally get the "correct 10 players" someone has to leave, then another, and this can drag out all because of the complexity of what is required to basically enjoy some neat content. So after a few times of wasting an entire evening or day waiting with thumb up you know what, I personally lost interest in the idea of raiding because it takes a long time and isn't designed to be fun. Also I have legendary armor already so really the only reason I wanted to raid was to experience the content, but its locked up in this fiasco so I for the moment moved on and just don't bother cause it isn't worth it at present.

From everything I've heard and read the raids in this game shouldn't be taking anyone 2 - 4 hours to complete, as far as I know, and someone can correct me if they want they're designed to be finished is a little as an hour(60 minutes and that isn't a speed run asfaik) up to 90 minutes(2 hours is pushing it from what I've heard through several sources). I'm not going to respond to the waiting around part because that sounds like you're trying to PUG it and that will take a lot of waiting around, best experience is through a guild that raids consistently or forming your own in-guild raid team. Obviously not everyone is going to experience the same thing, but I know that ArenaNet did not want the Raids in GW2 to be those long time commitments that you have in other MMO's. That being said, I still wouldn't do them even if they had a casual mode with reduced rewards, there's really no reason to do them for the story when I can just watch a video of the story/lore, that's the same as doing it myself only I didn't run through the content on my character.

[Moradorin.6217]

@Zaklex.6308 said:

@Moradorin.6217 said:I have avoided raids for the most part for a few reasons. They all seem pretty common. I think they are, therefore, arguably the real issue with raids and strikes.

@subversiontwo.7501 said:I've said it before and I'll say it again: Strikes are a cool concept but they make the mistake of implementing them backwards.

With raids you have way too much immersive design and resources going into a mode that ultimately is being played comptetively and thus will not really be played for the journey or to be experienced. So Strikes should not be an introduction to Raids, Raids should be an introduction to Strikes. Raids should be the journey and the experience. It should be where people go for an deeper extension of the experiences they gain on the open world maps. It should deliver the things that the maps may not be able to in terms of deeper PvE experience and storytelling. Strikes should be designed to be competetively challenging, so more Strikes can be put out to satiate the needs of the competetive PvE communities on shorter release cycles. They too could be closer tied to the maps but they should be their own competetive environment much more where focus is on challenging mechanics and bragging rights.

I realize that there is a substantial part of the GW2 community now that are not MMO-players and rather single-player type of players who have been seduced by the many years of focus on LS. However, in a broader perspective, this focus on LS has appearantly not served the company well. Their game ultimately is an MMO and excels as an MMO and that needs to be re-established for the game to have a future. Lately, it seemingly looks as if the company itself also has come to that realization with a return to replayability and good push-pull map design in the pipeline.

This discussion is in my eyes an extension of that. They should keep focusing on good map design first and foremost. They should put LS initiatives more onto maps and into raids. They should put competetive raid initiatives into strikes where the meat-and-potatoes boss is the focus and the focus is not the resource- or asset-demanding spice or garnish. The players who are annoyed over having to play with other players in this online world was never supposed to be the target demographic of a product like this. If you want to appease them, make a single player game. Having an MMO game where you prioritize single-player focus will not appease everyone, it will not suffieciently appease anyone and gives you marketing issues. If you want GW2 to stay healthy, focus on the social, competetive and cooperative multiplayer aspects it was designed around. That clearly was the working recipe.

^ One reason I WOULD want to raid is I would like to enjoy the story. However, in raid groups you dont really get to enjoy the story or it takes so much time to organize etc that it just isnt possible to be on that long or I get hungry, tired, bored before things even get going and end up feeling like WOW I dont ever want to do THAT again.

@"Rukia.4802" said:Strikes were never going to get people to raid. ANet are like a toddler in MMO-basics. An easy mode for casuals is the norm now but ANet didn't get the memo just like proper queue system for instances.

Its a shame because probably so few people actually see raids and they don't see it as a great return on investment. If they just implement a LFR then 90% of players will queue into it if all they have to do is press a button and do a couple ez mechanics and see the story. I bet the public option for strikes is very popular for example.

Then the content isn't "wasted" and THIS is what gets people to move onto pugging normal, heroic, etc. in WoW. Sure, most will probably stick to LFR which is fine, but you do get quite a few new raiders and in the end what does it matter if everyone gets to see the content you will still have your casuals and hardcores.

Strikes are so disconnected with raids its silly.

I actually think this is a good idea. That is I agree with both posts in that they are suggesting raids should be more enjoyable to people can experience the content. I mean, it really does seem like the worst possible use of development resources to put in so much time into content MOST of the player base (who pay for the game) NEVER see the content outside a youtube video. That is just shamefully bad design. I feel its bad design because they failed to make it accessible.

Now they are trying to make strikes as a stepping stone, but I think your idea makes a hell of allot more sense. I think raids should be easier to run to the point that everyone can faceroll through them like OpenWorld, Stories, etc. THEN make shorter strikes that are hard and have many different hard strikes for those who want new hard content. It would use less resources to keep the more demanding players happy and would allow more of the player base to enjoy the fun and pretty content that is hidden behind the Wall that is raiding.

TBH I think raids s it stands now was a large waste of resources and allot of delusional planning cause Im guessing Anet thought people would do them more which ignores how few people actually do T4s and CMs vs how many do fractals. Same thing. Fractals in general are accessible for average players to enjoy, but T4 and CM offers people more of a challenge. The difference is Strikes + Raids is BACKWARDS. Meaning, Raids should be the easy accessible content and Strikes should be the equivalent of T4s and CMs. You could have a variety of strikes with scaling difficulty or add instabilities as an option to raise the challenge even more. It seems like this kinda of change might actually give everyone more enjoyable content. That said, I'm sure some hard core raiding dudes will come tell me why this is wrong.

edit: Also the time factor. Pretty much every time I have tried to raid it becomes allot of waiting around then when you finally get the "correct 10 players" someone has to leave, then another, and this can drag out all because of the complexity of what is required to basically enjoy some neat content. So after a few times of wasting an entire evening or day waiting with thumb up you know what, I personally lost interest in the idea of raiding because it takes a long time and isn't designed to be fun. Also I have legendary armor already so really the only reason I wanted to raid was to experience the content, but its locked up in this fiasco so I for the moment moved on and just don't bother cause it isn't worth it at present.

From everything I've heard and read the raids in this game shouldn't be taking anyone 2 - 4 hours to complete, as far as I know, and someone can correct me if they want they're designed to be finished is a little as an hour(60 minutes and that isn't a speed run asfaik) up to 90 minutes(2 hours is pushing it from what I've heard through several sources). I'm not going to respond to the waiting around part because that sounds like you're trying to PUG it and that will take a lot of waiting around, best experience is through a guild that raids consistently or forming your own in-guild raid team. Obviously not everyone is going to experience the same thing, but I know that ArenaNet did not want the Raids in GW2 to be those long time commitments that you have in other MMO's. That being said, I still wouldn't do them even if they had a casual mode with reduced rewards, there's really no reason to do them for the story when I can just watch a video of the story/lore, that's the same as doing it myself only I didn't run through the content on my character.

Your response is nothing but a side line. It doesn't accually address what is stated as the issue. It doesn't agree or disagree, yet attempts to dismiss what was said.

What was said is basically, that most players dont and never will raid with the present raid system, yet most players WOULD like to experience the content and would enjoy it other than for all the reasons mentioned. Some posted suggestions I felt made sense. Specifically, I like the idea of making strikes much harder, and making raids much easier. I think its a stupid waste of resources for Anet to pour so much into Raid content when Most players will never use it. Rather, I think it would make allot more sense to have raid content much more accessible since its some of the best actual content in the game and is currently a waste. For those who want a good challenge, strikes seems like the logical format vs the raid content that presently takes up so much development and gives little to nothing for the average player.In other words, I see Anet using up so much development resources on raids that most players wont ever use a massive waste. I think should be obvious that this makes sense regardless of how long you think an experienced raid team takes. Its totally beside the point. I was just adding in why I myself dont raid. I don't raid because planning, prepping, training, and looking for 10 people of the right class, with the right gear, right build, right experience, ability to tie it all together and know all the mechanics IS SOMETHING MOST PLAYERS WILL NEVER DO SO ITS A WASTE OF RESOURCES! Again, that seems totally obvious and hard NOT to admit. Seems like you HAVE to be bias not to agree with that.

[Josiah.2967]

This thread just proves that one difficulty setting will not satisfy everyone. We need the ability to select the difficulty.

My idea:Base achievements are shared with all difficulties.Same loot regardless of difficulty.

Exclusive to the harder mode:Some exclusive non essential achievementsTitlesLeadership board (Top DPS, Top Heals, group with quickest kills, etc...time to balance this content)

This will also be a great test for the company. It will allow them to track what content people do. What is replayed more.

The hub is also an archaic design. Please implement a true LFG system.

[keenedge.9675]

@Rukia.4802 said:Strikes were never going to get people to raid. ANet are like a toddler in MMO-basics. An easy mode for casuals is the norm now but ANet didn't get the memo

Anet has found and catered to a great following with hyper-causals (like me) who started the game with minimal skills.

Each expansion has raised the bar, brought new skills and increased challenge level.

Even though these are gw2 raids and not WoW raids, I still have little interest in having my relaxation time be tethered to herding 10 cats in one squad for 2 hours.

[Linken.6345]

@keenedge.9675 said:

@Rukia.4802 said:Strikes were never going to get people to raid. ANet are like a toddler in MMO-basics. An easy mode for casuals is the norm now but ANet didn't get the memo

Anet has found and catered to a great following with hyper-causals (like me) who started the game with minimal skills.

Each expansion has raised the bar, brought new skills and increased challenge level.

Even though these are gw2 raids and not WoW raids, I still have little interest in having my relaxation time be tethered to herding 10 cats in one squad for 2 hours.

A typo I assume since there can be only 9 others with your self in a raid instance.Or are you one of those oddballs with catmanders walking with you =P