Steam Release, Elitism, and Game longevity .

[Dreams.3128]

1) You can raid in exotics, you always could and that's how most people start out. Idk WHY people keep pushing this agenda you NEED Ascended in 2020

2) You went into actual raid groups, not the training ones. Training ones are hosted by guilds/discords you can work with in order to get better

3)Do not fake KP because that's the reason people rely on KP. Getting tricked by new people because they refuse to listen, refuse to ask people for help, and refuse to think of anything besides 'raiders are elitists' is the reason why no one wants to train new folks. Stop using this term and then raiders will be MORE than willing to get you up where you need to be training wise

4) You jumped right into the highest tier content when you should have been doing PoF/HoT content to get you up to speed. You're not going to understand anything if you throw yourself in the most high end content.

5) Ascended is not complicated. If you would have asked before hand, in HoT and PoF alone there is MANY ascended pieces scattered about throughout the expansions. In fact, those expansions made it EASIER to get it, if you played through them.You literally needed to just ask folks and you would have been fine.

[Fallesafe.5932]

I'm a very casual player. I wouldn't qualify for a single raid group or CM fractal group requiring any kill proof at all. But I totally understand and accept the concept. Just my experience with basic, T4 fractals has shown me how unbelievably slow and frustrating this game can be with people who are unprepared for the content they're trying to do. Its also shown me how unbelievably lazy and entitled a good number of players are (everybody just mashing auto-attack, standing in every AOE, breaking zero bars, and doing < 2500 dps.

I totally accept that if I ever decided to get into raiding or CM fractal groups, I would need to put in work and be able to show proof of that work. I think the most successful guild anybody could form in this game would be a guild for players who want to get into all this content, but feel intimidated and overwhelmed by the prospect. You'd probably have to beat off applicants with a stck. But I'll tell you this... you'd probably have three static groups clearing every wing by the end of a year. All you've gotta do is take the initiative.

[kanemi.4903]

@Fallesafe.5932 said:T4 fractals has shown me how unbelievably slow and frustrating this game can be with people who are unprepared for the content they're trying to do. Its also shown me how unbelievably lazy and entitled a good number of players are (everybody just mashing auto-attack, standing in every AOE, breaking zero bars, and doing < 2500 dps.

T3 in a nutshell >_<And when they died over and over again,it's the healer fault LAWL!!

[Ayrilana.1396]

@guardian of fortuide.1724 said:I completely understand Elitist communities will always exist, and Anet has removed kp in the past from cm fractals to try and curb Elitist. I think they should for sure consider something similar shortly after the steam release. Because I'm sure there will be a mass influx of new players who want to see what GW2 endgame has to offer, and I believe everyone deserves a chance to see it and shouldn't be gatekept by arbitration set by the Elite community that's BS.

They aren’t gatekept. Those players can simply create their own groups and play with others that don’t want those restrictions. No different from the warrior only groups way back near launch that farmed CoF P1. If players didn’t like those restrictions then they could have created their own group that included all classes.

[Pyriin.3291]

All the issues described can be solved by making your own group, I have raided mostly every week since HoT, and i never had to deal with any of the issues you described.Surround yourself with like minded people and just go clear the content

[Ototo.3214]

Scrolled down to see what the complaint was about raids and I'll outright say that trying to find a group in LFG is disastrous, and it is like that in most games from my experience.Not sure if someone has mentioned it, but I highly recommend looking up the discord server for Raid Academy. They regularly do raid training in gw2, even with groups that have never done any raids before. No "kp" required. On mobile so it's hard to link. I think there's a different discord for EU if that works better for you, but the name of the EU based one escapes me.

[Astralporing.1957]

If you;re there for raiding, you're a bit too late. Raids are kind of abandoned by devs at the moment, with nothing suggesting it is going to change anytime soon (or ever). As such, any major changes to raids are unlikely as well.

[WindBlade.8749]

@Astralporing.1957 said:If you;re there for raiding, you're a bit too late. Raids are kind of abandoned by devs at the moment, with nothing suggesting it is going to change anytime soon (or ever). As such, any major changes to raids are unlikely as well.

Well no they said they will restart it after the new dlc ...

[Astralporing.1957]

@WindBlade.8749 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:If you;re there for raiding, you're a bit too late. Raids are kind of abandoned by devs at the moment, with nothing suggesting it is going to change anytime soon (or ever). As such, any major changes to raids are unlikely as well.

Well no they said they will restart it after the new dlc ...They did? Must have missed that. Care to link a quote to this?

[orenwolf.1953]

Thank you.

I think you've provided a very succinct example of the general toxicity in GW2 raid culture, and why it is self-perpetuating. People assume raid groups are elitist and unwelcoming, so they do not try to raid, so the number of "raiding" users stagnates or shrinks (as people leave), making it even harder to get into raiding or to find non-"elitist" raiders.

It's an unfortunate cycle. I'm not actually sure ArenaNet can do anything about it though. They're certainly not going to make people play with folks they don't want to, and trying to get more folks interesting in raiding will likely just lead to those same "elitists" complaining that too many "newbs" are trying to create/join raid groups..

[Linken.6345]

@WindBlade.8749 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:If you;re there for raiding, you're a bit too late. Raids are kind of abandoned by devs at the moment, with nothing suggesting it is going to change anytime soon (or ever). As such, any major changes to raids are unlikely as well.

Well no they said they will restart it after the new dlc ...

And another question what dlc?

[Icewolf.1076]

@"orenwolf.1953" said:Thank you.

I think you've provided a very succinct example of the general toxicity in GW2 raid culture, and why it is self-perpetuating. People assume raid groups are elitist and unwelcoming, so they do not try to raid, so the number of "raiding" users stagnates or shrinks (as people leave), making it even harder to get into raiding or to find non-"elitist" raiders.

It's an unfortunate cycle. I'm not actually sure ArenaNet can do anything about it though. They're certainly not going to make people play with folks they don't want to, and trying to get more folks interesting in raiding will likely just lead to those same "elitists" complaining that too many "newbs" are trying to create/join raid groups..

I think you are wrong. as a new player to raids and new to the game as well, you cant start off at the top with the hardest content in the game after watching a few videos and think you will have an easy time. Every raider have gone trough the motions of starting with no experience and having to spend time learning and failing. After this point they raid for different reasons like fun, relaxing, having a challenge, legendary gear or other reasons. they might have a few hours a day to play due to family, work, school etc and dont want to keep failing by taking new and inexperienced players.

this is why raid training guilds exists. new players have to either go to them or find like minded people to raid with to get the initial experience. There is not elitism or toxicity about it. like many other games its also the reasons for requirements for the group and raid content, they want like minded people with the same experience to raid with.Not everyone is good at teaching either.

I will not add more to how to get into raiding and break down OP post as that has been done by a few people here who also included a lot of useful stuff.

[mindcircus.1506]

@WindBlade.8749 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:If you;re there for raiding, you're a bit too late. Raids are kind of abandoned by devs at the moment, with nothing suggesting it is going to change anytime soon (or ever). As such, any major changes to raids are unlikely as well.

Well no they said they will restart it after the new dlc ...No dev ever said this.

[Vancho.8750]

@"orenwolf.1953" said:Thank you.

I think you've provided a very succinct example of the general toxicity in GW2 raid culture, and why it is self-perpetuating. People assume raid groups are elitist and unwelcoming, so they do not try to raid, so the number of "raiding" users stagnates or shrinks (as people leave), making it even harder to get into raiding or to find non-"elitist" raiders.

It's an unfortunate cycle. I'm not actually sure ArenaNet can do anything about it though. They're certainly not going to make people play with folks they don't want to, and trying to get more folks interesting in raiding will likely just lead to those same "elitists" complaining that too many "newbs" are trying to create/join raid groups..Arenanet can move the goal post by adding easy mode as part of some progression into raiding. I think they tried to move the goal post with repeatable CM rewards but it was too late cause everyone is stuck on normal. For example fractals don't have this issue you can start and experience the content from t1 and it is quite easy to get into t4 groups without kp or whatever, CMs are kinda gated off but people are not missing out on the content.Also i think there should be ingame dps meter so people can see they are not performing well by themselves ( ARC exists but i think allot of people would not mod their game or download .rar fails from the internet).

[Ashen.2907]

@Linken.6345 said:

@"Ashen.2907" said:Just to make sure I understand you....2.5 weeks after returning you were in full ascended, but that is too difficult? How long or difficult is it to get max raiding gear in your other MMOs?

Personally I prefer the original stated goal for the game where characters, "by max level," would have acquired BiS gear.

That never happened even at the start of the game when you go to max level you were a mix of rare and exotic.

My point exactly.

people complained of nothing to strive for que ascended.

Some people certainly did.

[Linken.6345]

@Ashen.2907 said:

@Linken.6345 said:

@Ashen.2907 said:Just to make sure I understand you....2.5 weeks after returning you were in full ascended, but that is too difficult? How long or difficult is it to get max raiding gear in your other MMOs?

Personally I prefer the original stated goal for the game where characters, "by max level," would have acquired BiS gear.

That never happened even at the start of the game when you go to max level you were a mix of rare and exotic.

My point exactly.

people complained of nothing to strive for que ascended.

Some people certainly did.

How can the games stated goal be that your full exotic when you get to max level when that never happened tho?I assume your by max level would mean when people hit 80 right?

[VocalThought.9835]

@"guardian of fortuide.1724" said:Hello everyone, My Name is Guardian. I played GW2 religiously in vanilla many years ago I have almost 1,000 hours logged just in vanilla and Iv just returned to find all this new glorious content that has come out over the years. To my dismay I found it very unappealing to do what I find the most fun in MMO's which is raid content and ill get to the reasons why in a alittle bit but first I would like to talk about my journey up to this point after my return about a month ago.

So I seen recently that GW2 was going to release a new expansion in Cantha. Factions being my absolute favorite aesthetic of any game of all time I am very excited for this also I hear that GW2 will now be releasing on steam very shortly, and many of my friends hope to try out the game when it comes to the steam marketplace. So I hop back into the game and wow there is alot of new content. This is where I run into my first issue with the current state of GW2, not the players but the state of how complicated it is to get Ascended gear for new and returning players, even with tons of resources and guides out there I found it very convoluted and off putting figuring out how to obtain ascended armor, and if I wasn't such a massive fan of the Guild Wars franchise I would have probably played through the new expansion content HoT and PoF and called it a day, because its just way to messy figuring out everything needed to get the elusive ascended gear. and I feel like this is our first road block. When new players will come through steam I want there to be a second wave of Guild Wars fans I want the game to take off again but I feel this path to getting ascended gear will need to be made far more clear for this to happen, as Ascended gear is basically required to do Raid content and Raid content is what many people play MMOs for.However I digress, after learning all the intricacies and asking too many questions 2 and 1/2 weeks later I was fully ascended and ready to raid. Along my path every sub community I met, the hardcore fractal runners the hardcore PvE Meta grinders and everyone in-between was so friendly and I had some great times and met some great people who helped me stumble along.Now I'm there I'm ready to raid Iv watched every boss fight and I have practiced my rotations and my build and gear is perfect. So i go looking for my first Raid and I see every raid even training raids have this annotation.. kp, I'm like what is kp? I tried to get into several Raid "Training" groups and all asked for kp. so I asked in the Map chat and I was told by a friendly passer by that Kp stands for Kill Proof and most Raid groups want it even new player raid groups. So I asked well how is anyone supposed to get kp if you cant get into a raid without kp that makes no sense. He and a few others told me "Fake it till you make it" They actively encourage to study the bosses then just fake item chat codes to act like I have kp to get into groups.In all the MMOs I have played from Dark age of Camelot to mythic WoW raiding I have never herd of such an Elitist exclusive community based system that is so off putting and punishing to new players. This system will absolutely not be sustainable for a prolonged future, Casual players Raider or not are the heart of the game. We need Casuals to keep the game alive, We need a system over haul in my opinion that removes kp tokens from the game entirely and I propose to have a Gear score esc system similar to the Agony Resistance in fractals because that is also hardcore end game content at T4 and I don't see anywhere near the level of elitism there so maybe in Raids a similar system can work as well.So Between the convoluted path to a full Ascenened set of gear and the Elitiest end game community I don't believe the current climate is suitable for a prolonged future we may get a scourge of new players from steam and the new expansion but I guarantee as my friends where all new and returning players will be turned off of the game For these reasons.

Proposed solutions

• Have a Agony Resistance esc. system that locks raid wings based on resistance levels
• Have a INGAME clear and concise path to Ascended gear with details
• Possible some kind of true group finder system that automatically detects Gear score and will show you what wings you can queue for similar to WoWs.
• Remove all kp tokens
• Add an inspect future to other players so if people want to form there own groups they still can do that and do gear checks.

In Conclusion, I'm just a casual player I only have about 1,150 hours or so now and I know most of the player base now has far more than me. But this is just why I felt turned off from the game as a returning player and why my friends who where watching my journey on stream where turned off ,obviously this is just my opinion. Have a good day everyone! I hope to see you in Tyria

I think when it comes down to it, this game was not made for you. In order for you to achieve what you want, you must change. I know it seems like if the game changed, things would be so much easier, but there so many people that have done what your trying to do.

[Sarrs.4831]

Raids are the absolute last content you should try to sell people GW2 on. I don't think any of these things would really be a good idea, or even strictly necessary.

I think characterizing the community as elitist is completely unfair. There's still a big community of people who want to help out newer players, teach them how their characters work and how to gear, and help them get their foot on the raiding ladder. Yeah, there are some people who aren't friendly to new players - I think these are the minority.

[Ashen.2907]

@Linken.6345 said:

@Ashen.2907 said:

@Linken.6345 said:

@Ashen.2907 said:Just to make sure I understand you....2.5 weeks after returning you were in full ascended, but that is too difficult? How long or difficult is it to get max raiding gear in your other MMOs?

Personally I prefer the original stated goal for the game where characters, "by max level," would have acquired BiS gear.

That never happened even at the start of the game when you go to max level you were a mix of rare and exotic.

My point exactly.

people complained of nothing to strive for que ascended.

Some people certainly did.

How can the games stated goal be that your full exotic when you get to max level when that never happened tho?I assume your

by max level

would mean when people hit 80 right?

Well, it was stated by ANet prior to launch as one of the ways in which GW2 would be different from other games, one of the reasons to buy GW2.

[sokeenoppa.5384]

@"PeerlessArch.6547" said:If you post a group for raid TRAINING, why the kitten would you need KP? Isn't the point of a raid training group to train newer players on the raids and its mechanics?

If you don't want to "waste your time" then don't put training in your raid group description.

Ppl do this to train harder bosses with more experienced raiders. Some of the bosses are just much harder than others. Yeah it sounds a bit silly so think it more like this:You dont go to band practise before you have finished your guitar lessons.

For most raids tho (w1-4) ppl dont ask any experience ifnits a training.

[Swagger.1459]

@guardian of fortuide.1724

“Have a Agony Resistance esc. system that locks raid wings based on resistance levels”

• Players should be able to play whatever content they want.

“Have a INGAME clear and concise path to Ascended gear with details” and “elusive ascended gear”...

• Crafting gears in GW2 is a lot smoother than many games I’ve played. Ascended gear isn’t “elusive” either and wikis for all games exist for reasons. There are tons of methods to get Ascended gear, whether it be crafting, purchasable, rewards... so the game can’t realistically hold players hands through that in a practical way. Use the wiki.

“Possible some kind of true group finder system that automatically detects Gear score and will show you what wings you can queue for similar to WoWs.”

• We don’t have or need a “Gear score”.

“Remove all kp tokens”

• KP tokens serve as currency. That’s not gonna happen.

“Add an inspect future to other players so if people want to form there own groups they still can do that and do gear checks.”

• This was debated from the beginning and most don’t want it. It’s not here and it’s not necessary.

...Raid development as we know it is basically done because of the low population. Strike missions are new thing, and fractals will continue on.

GL!

Edit- Form your own casual guild to run content.

Edit 2- The Steam release has been postponed.

[Astralporing.1957]

@"Linken.6345" said:How can the games stated goal be that your full exotic when you get to max level when that never happened tho?That was one of the dev statements in one of the blog posts and interviews during game development. It was originally intended to follow GW1 model, where access to the gear was extremely easy and you could gear up in decent "max tier" gear even before hitting max level.

They later (much later) admitted they changed their mind on that one in the last moment.

[Linken.6345]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"Linken.6345" said:How can the games stated goal be that your full exotic when you get to max level when that never happened tho?That was one of the dev statements in one of the blog posts and interviews during game development. It was originally intended to follow GW1 model, where access to the gear was extremely easy and you could gear up in decent "max tier" gear even

before

hitting max level.

They later (much later) admitted they changed their mind on that one in the last moment.

Ty for the answer mate.So the other guy brought up a point Anet them self said was changed so shouldent have been brought up to begin with.

[Astralporing.1957]

@Linken.6345 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Linken.6345 said:How can the games stated goal be that your full exotic when you get to max level when that never happened tho?That was one of the dev statements in one of the blog posts and interviews during game development. It was originally intended to follow GW1 model, where access to the gear was extremely easy and you could gear up in decent "max tier" gear even

before

hitting max level.

They later (much later) admitted they changed their mind on that one in the last moment.

Ty for the answer mate.So the other guy brought up a point Anet them self said was changed so shouldent have been brought up to begin with.He did say it was the

original

stated goal.

[Linken.6345]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Linken.6345 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Linken.6345 said:How can the games stated goal be that your full exotic when you get to max level when that never happened tho?That was one of the dev statements in one of the blog posts and interviews during game development. It was originally intended to follow GW1 model, where access to the gear was extremely easy and you could gear up in decent "max tier" gear even

before

hitting max level.

They later (much later) admitted they changed their mind on that one in the last moment.

Ty for the answer mate.So the other guy brought up a point Anet them self said was changed so shouldent have been brought up to begin with.He did say it was the

original

stated goal.

Yes a later changed added after would have been nice otherwise it sounds like it was intended and implemented at the start