EoD expansion should have new RAID

[mindcircus.1506]

@"Asum.4960" said:Every time Anet tells people how to do something, or expects them to do it, they at the same time are so afraid of the potential of failure (and with that learning), that they show a way around having to actually engage with the systems.The systems aren't the primary issue, the content just utterly fails at conveying how to work them, to the detriment of the casual/average player.The problem here is actually the business model.The game cannot (like other games) assume a player builds knowledge and skills in any individual instance because in many cases Arenanet cannot be sure the player has access to the previous content.The "showing a way around" the challenges at hand is needed in order to be inclusive to a player who potentially does not own the episode or expansion in which the skill was taught. You can't tell someone who paid for LW 3.4 that they cannot progress without something they were supposed to learn in LW 3.2 so they paint in the workarounds.It's not poor design any more than it is "catering to casuals", it's a necessity of the game's business model.

[Asum.4960]

@mindcircus.1506 said:

@"Asum.4960" said:Every time Anet

tells

people how to do something, or expects them to do it, they at the same time are so afraid of the potential of failure (and with that learning), that they

show

a way around having to actually engage with the systems.The systems aren't the primary issue, the content just utterly fails at conveying how to work them, to the detriment of the casual/average player.The problem here is actually the business model.The game cannot (like other games) assume a player builds knowledge and skills in any individual instance because in many cases Arenanet cannot be sure the player has access to the previous content.The "showing a way around" the challenges at hand is needed in order to be inclusive to a player who potentially does not own the episode or expansion in which the skill was taught. You can't tell someone who paid for LW 3.4 that they cannot progress without something they were supposed to learn in LW 3.2 so they paint in the workarounds.It's not poor design any more than it is "catering to casuals", it's a necessity of the game's business model.

I get where you (or rather Anet) are coming from with this, but I disagree - and I do think it's poor design. And yes, it's born out of the desire to cater to casuals, but actually at their detriment.Especially concerning Core (and why it desperately needs an update/rework) it should require and teach many/all of the core game functionality/mechanics, and should be expected to have been played.

Beyond that, LW4 could and should expect people to either already know, or if not then have to learn to how to CC (for example), without work around, either in repetition of or despite of potentially not having already learned that while playing LW3.There is no harm in that, unless you only ever design something in a teachable environment once (which may be missed), and from then on expect people to have mastered it. Story can and should provide repeated learning experiences, to then be applied to the rest of the game.

The idea that players should be able to jump into max level or even max level expansion content without any struggle, with or without having played any of the content leading up to it, is a philosophy that eternally stagnates the game, it's mechanical complexity, appeal, content variety and therefor it's playerbase itself.It's actively harmful.

One of the great things about GW2 is that it is very generous to it's players - but there is no need to go way overboard with that to a point where it actively harms the game and it's player experience.Expecting players to have bought and played previous content to at least some extent, or being fine with some initial struggles of players if they didn't, imo isn't just acceptable, but almost mandatory for the game's (and communities) health and longevity.

[mindcircus.1506]

@Asum.4960 said:

@mindcircus.1506 said:

@Asum.4960 said:Every time Anet

tells

people how to do something, or expects them to do it, they at the same time are so afraid of the potential of failure (and with that learning), that they

show

a way around having to actually engage with the systems.The systems aren't the primary issue, the content just utterly fails at conveying how to work them, to the detriment of the casual/average player.The problem here is actually the business model.The game cannot (like other games) assume a player builds knowledge and skills in any individual instance because in many cases Arenanet cannot be sure the player has access to the previous content.The "showing a way around" the challenges at hand is needed in order to be inclusive to a player who potentially does not own the episode or expansion in which the skill was taught. You can't tell someone who paid for LW 3.4 that they cannot progress without something they were supposed to learn in LW 3.2 so they paint in the workarounds.It's not poor design any more than it is "catering to casuals", it's a necessity of the game's business model.

I get where you (and Anet) are coming from with this, but I disagree - and I do think it's poor design. And yes, it's born out of the desire to cater to casuals, but actually at their detriment.Especially concerning Core (and why it desperately needs an update/rework) it should require and teach many/all of the core game functionality/mechanics, and should be expected to have been played.As nice of a meme as "core tyria rework" is, these things are prohibitively expensive and do not serve the needs of a largely veteran population. You're not going to sell expansions by saying "made the content you've done a dozen times easier to understand!" I personally do not care how much better you make the core personal story, I'm not doing it again.The game does have a breakbar tutorial, it's called Ember Bay. What happens is low-effort players simply don't finish the content or they metagame by jumping on the forums and going full Karen until Arenanet relents (See: Eater of Souls, Confessor's End, Serpents Ire).The game has an sak tutorial. It's also in LW3...but the moment a Bloodstone crazed beast spawns, it's corpses everywhere.Corpses that often refuse to waypoint and jump back into the fightAre we also going to say the game needs to tutorialize waypoints better?At what point do we just say that the onus is on the player?Beyond that, LW4 could and should expect people to either already know, or if not then have to learn to how to CC (for example), without work around, either in repetition of or despite of potentially not having already learned that while playing LW3.And this is an unfair assumption to make.New player jumps into the game, falls in love with it, buys PoF and sees someone on a Skyscale and decides they want one. Are you prepared to gate a main feature of a customer's purchase further than it is already gated?"So yeah you need to own all of PoF, then you need to purchase 6 episodes of DLC, then you need to work through the story from the expansion and DLCs, after that you will need to put away some gold and start grinding map currencies"And now you want to say "oh and by the way, you also need to complete dozens of hours of poorly delivered narrative called "the personal story" in order to even unlock that so that we are sure you know how to deal with a common mechanic from other MMOs... the bright side is you get to play Belcher's Bluff!"You've seen this forum, you understand the entitlement as much as the next person. You know full well this will not fly.The idea that players should be able to jump into max level or even max level expansion content without any struggle, with or without having played any of the content leading up to it, is a philosophy that eternally stagnates the game, it's mechanical complexity, appeal, content variety and therefor it's playerbase itself.This is a philosophy held by the players. Not Anet.... not all players either (as both you and I can attest).The reality is that all of the "Big 5" MMOs, (WoW, FF14, ESO, GW2, BDO) struggle with the issues at play here.It can be in a game that overtutorializes itself like Final Fantasy or one that doesn't teach a damn thing like Black Desert. It predictably happens in Guild Wars 2 which falls pretty much in between them. It's happening this very day in World of Warcraft which with it's last expansion, delivered a revamped introduction experience to address player knowledge gaps... to zero effect.No amount of tutorialization can overcome lazy entitled gamers. Those that want to learn about things like breakbars, or proper builds will, the tools to learn are in the game. Those that don't will have to be spoonfed lowest common denominator content and be showered in rewards just for showing up.Just like every other MMO.

[Asum.4960]

@mindcircus.1506 said:

@Asum.4960 said:

@mindcircus.1506 said:

@Asum.4960 said:Every time Anet

tells

people how to do something, or expects them to do it, they at the same time are so afraid of the potential of failure (and with that learning), that they

show

a way around having to actually engage with the systems.The systems aren't the primary issue, the content just utterly fails at conveying how to work them, to the detriment of the casual/average player.The problem here is actually the business model.The game cannot (like other games) assume a player builds knowledge and skills in any individual instance because in many cases Arenanet cannot be sure the player has access to the previous content.The "showing a way around" the challenges at hand is needed in order to be inclusive to a player who potentially does not own the episode or expansion in which the skill was taught. You can't tell someone who paid for LW 3.4 that they cannot progress without something they were supposed to learn in LW 3.2 so they paint in the workarounds.It's not poor design any more than it is "catering to casuals", it's a necessity of the game's business model.

I get where you (and Anet) are coming from with this, but I disagree - and I do think it's poor design. And yes, it's born out of the desire to cater to casuals, but actually at their detriment.Especially concerning Core (and why it desperately needs an update/rework) it should require and teach many/all of the core game functionality/mechanics, and should be expected to have been played.As nice of a meme as "core tyria rework" is, these things are prohibitively expensive and do not serve the needs of a largely veteran population. You're not going to sell expansions by saying "made the content you've done a dozen times easier to understand!" I personally do not care how much better you make the core personal story, I'm not doing it again.The game does have a breakbar tutorial, it's called Ember Bay. What happens is low-effort players simply don't finish the content or they metagame by jumping on the forums and going full Karen until Arenanet relents (See: Eater of Souls, Confessor's End, Serpents Ire).The game has an sak tutorial. It's also in LW3...but the moment a Bloodstone crazed beast spawns, it's corpses everywhere.Corpses that often refuse to waypoint and jump back into the fightAre we also going to say the game needs to tutorialize waypoints better?At what point do we just say that the onus is on the player?

Yea, a major rework of the whole core experience is never going to happen. Adding something like one or two massive AoE attacks (that you can't walk or wastefully and nonsensically double dodge out of) which you need to time to dodge into some personal story instances, as well as a couple small but rapidly regenerating breakbars which need to be broken, with ones own timed CC skills, absolutely are in the realm of possibility and not prohibitively expensive to implement, considering their potential benefit for the average new player.Similarly, checks for core mechanics like that should on occasion pop up in contemporary story as well, for the veteran players who never picked up on such things.Not just once or twice, somewhere. I can't stress that enough, the game requiring the use of a core game mechanic Once or twice over the course of hundreds, if not thousands of hours of gameplay, is not enough, in any case, in any world.People learn by repetition. These things need to become instinct, muscle memory. Suddenly bosses like Eater of Souls are easy for the average player who went through that.Oh right, it's this Breakbar thing again, let's see, right, this and this ability. Rather than asking them to recall what maybe they did once in in some personal story or single LW episode 200 hours ago.

@mindcircus.1506 said:

@Asum.4960 said:Beyond that, LW4 could and should expect people to either already know, or if not then have to learn to how to CC (for example), without work around, either in repetition of or despite of potentially not having already learned that while playing LW3.And this is an unfair assumption to make.New player jumps into the game, falls in love with it, buys PoF and sees someone on a Skyscale and decides they want one. Are you prepared to gate a main feature of a customer's purchase further than it is already gated?"So yeah you need to own all of PoF, then you need to purchase 6 episodes of DLC, then you need to work through the story from the expansion and DLCs, after that you will need to put away some gold and start grinding map currencies"And now you want to say "oh and by the way, you also need to complete dozens of hours of poorly delivered narrative called "the personal story" in order to even unlock that so that we are sure you know how to deal with a common mechanic from other MMOs... the bright side is you get to play Belcher's Bluff!"You've seen this forum, you understand the entitlement as much as the next person. You know full well this will not fly.

I think you misunderstand. I don't want to hard gate anything. What I want is for people to have a choice. An opportunity to learn via repeated tutorialisation, or to learn via struggle, rather than nothing ever mattering because everything is and has to be eternally easy to a point where the game mechanics are irrelevant - except for the very few instanced places where they aren't, which then appear as near impossible wall to climb.Something to point people to that they can go to and learn if they struggle skipping to HoT, or into Fractals, into Raids. Rather than just having to shrug and say, well.. you kind of just have to get good. There is nothing in the game to help you, you just have to want it.

I don't see how having 1-3 Story (mini) bosses that rely on self-contained breakbar breaking per major story step, to repeatedly acclimate players to a) knowing what the mechanic is and b) where they find it on their character and how much is appropriate to generally carry, would gate anything.Then you can at least design the new content in an interesting way that expects that knowledge of it's players. Anyone can still skip all content, but it has to be okay if they then struggle a bit until they figure that out by themselves, or go back to previous content to learn. Like how pretty much every other video game and common sense game design does it.

@mindcircus.1506 said:

@Asum.4960 said:The idea that players should be able to jump into max level or even max level expansion content without any struggle, with or without having played any of the content leading up to it, is a philosophy that eternally stagnates the game, it's mechanical complexity, appeal, content variety and therefor it's playerbase itself.This is a philosophy held by the players. Not Anet.... not all players either (as both you and I can attest).The reality is that all of the "Big 5" MMOs, (WoW, FF14, ESO, GW2, BDO) struggle with the issues at play here.It can be in a game that overtutorializes itself like Final Fantasy or one that doesn't teach a kitten thing like Black Desert. It predictably happens in Guild Wars 2 which falls pretty much in between them. It's happening this very day in World of Warcraft which with it's last expansion, delivered a revamped introduction experience to address player knowledge gaps... to zero effect.No amount of tutorialization can overcome lazy entitled gamers. Those that want to learn about things like breakbars, or proper builds will, the tools to learn are in the game. Those that don't will have to be spoonfed lowest common denominator content and be showered in rewards just for showing up.Just like every other MMO.

I'm not saying it's a problem that can be entirely eliminated.But I've met a lot of players ingame and out who simply, genuinely, just didn't know how much they didn't know. It simply never occured to them how many mechanics they were missing out on, how little damage they were actually doing, etc., which needlessly made the game more difficult for them, because the game flat out never checked them for it.Yes, if you are heavily invested you will find those things out on your own, eventually, but not every "problem" player like that is of the lazy entitled type - which yea, those you just can't reach with anything.But the average skill level can be raised significantly (unsurprisingly, considering how ridiculously low it is currently) with a couple fairly easy steps that probably some interns could implement over the course of a couple weeks/months with some minor help.

[Firebeard.1746]

@Astralporing.1957 said:They already said, that at the current size of the raiding community they cannot justify putting resources into making more raid content. And that community won't get bigger unless Anet is ready to put way, way more resources into raiding than even that. One raid release per expansion, per year, or even per 9 months would not be enough to make the community grow. It might not even be enough to stop it from getting smaller and smaller. And it's clear that Anet, even if they wanted to do so, simply do not currently have enough resources that they could dedicate enough to raids to guarantee even 1 wing per year rate, much less two. Not without negatively impacting the rest of the game anyway. The current state of LS clearly shows that.

(personally, i think that even far more frequent releases would not make the community grow, it would only reduce the diminishment rate because it would make veterans to stay for far longer, without actually solving the problem of attracting more new players, but that's not the place for this kind of discussion)

So if you look at games in general, the successful ones pander to both their elites and lay players in some way. I was in this boat, but i think that there's some value in having challenging PVE content in the game, even if they don't implement raids, imo they should at least do strikes + CMs that hit raid-level difficulty. And the only differentiation between the rewards is magnitude. That way, the community has a long-term reason to be involved as a whole, but hardcore players still get to show off/beat everyone to the punch on the next raid armor set or whatever.

[Astralporing.1957]

@"Asum.4960" said:The game occasionally tells people, rather than consistently shows. Learning by doing, in repetition, is how the majority learns.Sure, that's how it ususally works. But, notice, how the learning of the build/gear system is something that is not done by doing and repetition. Those things can help you learn mechanics, and parts of the active combat system (like dodging, moving out of aoe, and dealing breakbar damage), but they will never help you improve your understanding of the build system. That is where the system gets binary: you either understand it, in which case you suddenly become one of the top percenters that soar the skies high above, or you don't, in which case you crawl slowly down on the ground, far below. In practice, there's no "partial understanding" here.

The game can teach you all it can about mechanics, but would that even matter if your "damage dealer build" is still doing 4k dps?

@Firebeard.1746 said:So if you look at games in general, the successful ones pander to both their elites and lay players in some way.Yes, definitely. And they do it in such a way, where movement between groups (both ways) can be quite smooth, and the game is designed from ground up with the both groups in mind.

I was in this boat, but i think that there's some value in having challenging PVE content in the game, even if they don't implement raids, imo they should at least do strikes + CMs that hit raid-level difficulty. And the only differentiation between the rewards is magnitude. That way, the community has a long-term reason to be involved as a whole, but hardcore players still get to show off/beat everyone to the punch on the next raid armor set or whatever.The problem lies not in the fact that hardcore content exists in GW2 - as you say, that is a good thing. The problem lies in how wide the gap is between casual and hardcore here. The game is practically two completely different games in one - and adjustments done to the game for the sake of one group usually hurts the other.

And, as i've been mentioning it before, it's due to the game being built on several systems that were designed with only hardcore players in mind.

[Astralporing.1957]

@"Cyninja.2954" said:You are not obsoleting them but making them side grades.

Stats can be soft capped. Literally deals with all boon related issues as well, if desired. This is not something new. It is being done by a LOT of games.That still does nothing about the Power/Prec/Ferocity stacking issue compared to all the other stat sets.

It would cause a lot other issues, btw. Too weak soft cap, and everything remains unchanged. Too strong cap, and suddenly there's no point to, say, giving out might (or banners), as it is better to just take a damaging utility in that slot. And no point to food if the damage increase is not big enough to even register (almost noone's going to spend gold on food if it brings an at best two-digit dps increase). All traits that increase stats will likely become useless as well (unless there will be literally no other good option to pick, or they will offer something else worth taking them for).

Btw, what damage difference you would assume there should be between full zerker and, say the completely other side of the spectrum - full Nomad? (currently the difference is around 365% if we exclude everything else - it gets a bit smaller if we allow for other sources of power, precision and ferocity)

Then multipliers, easy to cap at say 30% instead of allowing 80-90% as is now (and more). HOW that multiplication cap is achieved is then up to each player individually. Are you taking the traits which increase your modifier, or are you using a sigil of force? Are you using a proc from one of your traits, or not?You are counting multipliers for traits, sigils, runes, skills and boons together in this?Well, that means that, at the minimum, Frost spirit and skills that give some temporal dps increases become useless immediately. No point to them anymore.

The only issue would be traits and procs from those, but last I checked, none of those make up a majority of the damage and all of those effects would again scale with the aforementioned changes.

You are counting down a lot of different contributing factors without just going strait to the underlying issue: damage multiplication. The fact this comes from different sources is only significant if there are huge issues in addressing the source. I'm saying it is not. It's 2 things in this case:

• stat stacking
• multiplier stackingYou forgot about quickness and alacrity. Those are also a very major damage multiplier, while technically not being a multiplier.

No, that's IF stats need to be capped or adjusted as additional possibility to FURTHER reduce the performance difference. Capping the damage multiplier would already have the mentioned effect I was talking about.No. A +80-90% stacked damage multiplier (the example you brought up above) is nowhere close to be responsible for 1000% damage difference gap. Between top and average. Those become a massive problem only when stacked atop other sources of damage disparity (like the abovementioned damage difference from stats). The system is basically built on a ton of different factors multiplicatively enhancing each other. You singled out only one of many those factors, and not even the strongest one.

So, basically, the "simple" thing you proposed would require:adding a multiplier cap to a system that currently does not track the total amount of multipliers (might be trivial, might be a bit harder, depending on how it's coded).adding soft stat caps.rebalancing traits that suddenly became obsolete.rebalancing skills that suddenly became obsolete.complete rebalance of all mobs (that use at least part of that system, like stats, and would need their damage and hps adjusted)rework of the scaling system (which currently assumes linear scaling of stats).Probably looking at food again, as most of it would become generally useless.Rebalancing of condition damage system (because with the changes you propose it would be hit far less than the power one, which would disrupt the balance between them)cleanup and fixing of all the cases where doing that would cause something to break

...and they'd still have to do a massive balance pass for WvW and SPvP.(remember, that a much smaller in scope, even if still major change to the condition damage caused ripples in PvP balance that are still felt to this day, and that even smaller changes to confusion alone took close to a year of rebalancing to deal with)

That's absolutely massive work, not comparable to anything they have done so far.

They literally added a modifier for condition damage duration which was not present at release. They can just as easily add a line of code which checks if a damage modifier exceeds a tolerance value.There were actually condition duration modifiers already present. They existed on some of the food, and rune sets (for example melandru runes had a -%incoming condition duration modifier). They were just called a "condition duration" (or specific condition duration, like bonuses to bleed or burn duration) % bonus/penalty and were hidden "under the hood", not existing as a visible, separate stat.It's the same thing like it was with boon duration.

[maddoctor.2738]

@"Astralporing.1957" said:The problem lies in how wide the gap is between casual and hardcore here. The game is practically two completely different games in one - and adjustments done to the game for the sake of one group usually hurts the other.

I'm curious which parts of the game you put into the "casual" and which into "hardcore". I mean even among dungeons there are some easy ones and some hard ones, Fractals as well, Raids, even living world episodes, some are significantly easier than others. Heck even jumping puzzles have variation in their difficulty. So I'm gonna call this opinion of yours extremely biased and off target.

[maddoctor.2738]

@Astralporing.1957 said:No. A +80-90% stacked damage multiplier (the example you brought up above) is nowhere close to be responsible for 1000% damage difference gap. Between top and average.

Let me guess, you base that on that comment by the developers which was completely devoid of any context. They never explained what they were comparing and under what situation, so I simply call that comment as bogus and irrelevant.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:You are not obsoleting them but making them side grades.

Stats can be soft capped. Literally deals with all boon related issues as well, if desired. This is not something new. It is being done by a LOT of games.That still does nothing about the Power/Prec/Ferocity stacking issue compared to all the other stat sets.

It would cause a lot other issues, btw. Too weak soft cap, and everything remains unchanged. Too strong cap, and suddenly there's no point to, say, giving out might (or banners), as it is better to just take a damaging utility in that slot. And no point to food if the damage increase is not big enough to even register (almost noone's going to spend gold on food if it brings an at best two-digit dps increase). All traits that increase stats will likely become useless as well (unless there will be literally no other good option to pick, or they will offer something else worth taking them for).

Btw, what damage difference you would assume between full zerker and, say the completely other side of the spectrum - full Nomad?

I'm not the one advocating for this. I am stating that FIXING the issue is simple.

Softcap on stats gives diminishing returns on stacking more of them. This would allow players with full boons to take more defensive stat combinations, or forfeit boons and take different classes. This is widely used in the industry and genre. It's not rocket science to implement.

No one said this is better than the current system, because it is not. What it does do is BRIDGE and REDUCE the gap rather easily. Which was your prime complaint. I simply stated that "fixing" this issue is easy, not that the resulting system would appease every type of player. In fact most min-max players would certainly dislike these changes.

IF reducing the gap was the goal, there would be ways to achieve this within the system.

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:Then multipliers, easy to cap at say 30% instead of allowing 80-90% as is now (and more). HOW that multiplication cap is achieved is then up to each player individually. Are you taking the traits which increase your modifier, or are you using a sigil of force? Are you using a proc from one of your traits, or not?You are counting multipliers for traits, sigils, runes, skills and boons together in this?Well, that means that, at the minimum, Frost spirit and skills that give some temporal dps increases become useless immediately. No point to them anymore.

No, again they would be sidegrades since bringing those spirits would allow for forgoing other damage multipliers.

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:The only issue would be traits and procs from those, but last I checked, none of those make up a majority of the damage and all of those effects would again scale with the aforementioned changes.

You are counting down a lot of different contributing factors without just going strait to the underlying issue: damage multiplication. The fact this comes from different sources is only significant if there are huge issues in addressing the source. I'm saying it is not. It's 2 things in this case:

• stat stacking
• multiplier stackingYou forgot about quickness and alacrity. Those are also a very major damage multiplier, while technically
  not
  being a multiplier.

Quickness and alacrity make up around a 30% damage increase. That's more than manageable

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:No, that's IF stats need to be capped or adjusted as additional possibility to FURTHER reduce the performance difference. Capping the damage multiplier would already have the mentioned effect I was talking about.No. A +80-90% stacked damage multiplier (the example you brought up above) is nowhere close to be responsible for

1000%

damage difference gap. Between top and

average

.

Yes, it does. The remainder is accumulated via better itemization, better boon uptime and better rotation overall. This is multiplicative, NOT additive.

@Astralporing.1957 said:So, basically, the "simple" thing you proposed would require:adding a multiplier cap to a system that currently does not track the total amount of multipliers (might be trivial, might be a bit harder, depending on how it's coded).

It's basic math and coding. If not currently already in place, all multipliers could be separately tracked and added up in a variable and that variable checked for not exceeding a maximum amount. It IS trivial.

@Astralporing.1957 said:adding soft stat caps.

No. Again, softcaps would work ON TOP of this change. The cap would already address the issue at hand. I am giving you soft caps as freebee to the idea since you are concerned with performance difference between low and high end.

@Astralporing.1957 said:rebalancing traits that suddenly became obsolete.rebalancing skills that suddenly became obsolete.

Most traits would not need rebalancing because they'd be sidegrades since the multipliers are not useless. Simply mutually exclusive. There is a difference.

@Astralporing.1957 said:complete rebalance of all mobs (that use at least part of that system, like stats, and would need their damage and hps adjusted)

You mean like the rebalance/rework we have had in the past for core Tyria, HoT, PoF? Yes, unthinkable that this could be done.

@Astralporing.1957 said:rework of the scaling system (which currently assumes linear scaling of stats).

Yes, terrible lot of work. Finding proper stat break points.....

@Astralporing.1957 said:Probably looking at food again, as most of it would become generally useless.

This is the same argument as soft caps for stats in general. You are simply fluffing points here.

@Astralporing.1957 said:cleanup and fixing of all the cases where doing that would cause something to break

As they have to do with all past changes in these areas. Pretty much every balance patch at that.

@Astralporing.1957 said:...and they'd still have to do a massive balance pass for WvW and SPvP.(remember, that a much smaller in scope, even if still major change to the condition damage caused ripples in PvP balance that are still felt to this day, and that even smaller changes to confusion alone took close to a year of rebalancing to deal with)

That's absolutely massive work, not comparable to anything they have done so far.

Spvp and WvW would need reworks yes. Given the focus on pure PvE atm, hardly something which would fall out of the scope though.

Again, I am not saying this change should be done. I am saying it IS doable and would have been doable in the past IF IT WAS DESIRED. Obviously the developers never desired such changes. Aka this game is NOT made for casual players only. There is no system which is more rewarding to min-max players AND rewarding to not min-max players than an open ended system like the one currently. The changes I propose meet a middle ground, yet suddenly you are more concerned what happens at the top end instead of what these changes would mean for "regular" players in performance output.

[Astralporing.1957]

@Cyninja.2954 said:I'm not the one advocating for this. I am stating that FIXING the issue is simple.Sure, you are stating it. Nothing you say however explains how and why it would be simple. You are just ignoring addressing all the complications.

@Astralporing.1957 said:Well, that means that, at the minimum, Frost spirit and skills that give some temporal dps increases become useless immediately. No point to them anymore.No, again they would be sidegrades since bringing those spirits would allow for forgoing other damage multipliers.A constant, passive damage multiplier would always win with any conditional ones or ones requiring active management.

Quickness and alacrity make up around a 30% damage increase. That's more than manageableIndividually, maybe, after removing all other sources of damage difference. But, as you say, the effects are multiplicative, not additive.

@Astralporing.1957 said:No. A +80-90% stacked damage multiplier (the example you brought up above) is nowhere close to be responsible for

1000%

damage difference gap. Between top and

average

.Yes, it does. The remainder is accumulated via better itemization, better boon uptime and better rotation overall. This is multiplicative, NOT additive.Capping +80-90% multipliers at, say 30% would reduce that gap from 1000% to maybe ~700-750%. Which, while better, would still be massive. That's because, as i said, flat damage multplier traits/effects are only one of

many

factors behind the wide damage gap - and not even the biggest one (i.e. as i pointed out, the damage difference gap between different gear sets is actually much, much bigger than that - bringing down

that

difference to 30% at most and leaving multipliers unchanged would thus actually bring out far better results).

No. Again, softcaps would work ON TOP of this change. The cap would already address the issue at hand.As i pointed out above, it would slightly decrease the issue, but not to the point where it could considered to be solved.

@Astralporing.1957 said:rebalancing traits that suddenly became obsolete.rebalancing skills that suddenly became obsolete.

Most traits would not need rebalancing because they'd be sidegrades since the multipliers are not useless. Simply mutually exclusive. There is a difference.If you introduced soft stat caps, you would end up needing to rebalance all traits/skills offering stat bonuses. If you capped multipliers, you would probably need to buff the conditional/temporal multipliers to make them competitive with passive permanent ones. You would also need to rebalance skills that currently offer bigger bonuses that cap would allow (like Maul).

@Astralporing.1957 said:complete rebalance of all mobs (that use at least part of that system, like stats, and would need their damage and hps adjusted)You mean like the rebalance/rework we have had in the past for core Tyria, HoT, PoF? Yes, unthinkable that this could be done.There was

never

a rebalance/rework of mobs on that scale.

@Astralporing.1957 said:rework of the scaling system (which currently assumes linear scaling of stats).

Yes, terrible lot of work. Finding proper stat break points........you didn't really thought that out, right? Hint: with the soft cap on stats, event scaling simply stops to work beyond certain level, as adding more stats to mobs just don't make them any stronger anymore.

@Astralporing.1957 said:Probably looking at food again, as most of it would become generally useless.

This is the same argument as soft caps for stats in general. You are simply fluffing points here.Yes, in a way, but then it's not like you addressed that point yourself. You just keep saying that it is simple and it will work.

@Astralporing.1957 said:...and they'd still have to do a massive balance pass for WvW and SPvP.(remember, that a much smaller in scope, even if still major change to the condition damage caused ripples in PvP balance that are still felt to this day, and that even smaller changes to confusion alone took close to a year of rebalancing to deal with)

Spvp and WvW would need reworks yes. Given the focus on pure PvE atm, hardly something which would fall out of the scope though.So, basically, you ignore that point and amount of work it would require.

Again, I am not saying this change should be done. I am saying it IS doable and would have been doable in the past IF IT WAS DESIRED. Obviously the developers never desired such changes. Aka this game is NOT made for casual players only. There is no system which is more rewarding to min-max players AND rewarding to not min-max players than an open ended system like the one currently. The changes I propose meet a middle ground, yet suddenly you are more concerned what happens at the top end instead of what these changes would mean for "regular" players in performance output.

Because those changes would mean absolutely nothing for "regular" players. They would still be where they are already, as they don't take use of any of those multiplicative factors at all.For a regular player there's no difference if the harder content is balanced around 500% or 1000% of the damage they usually do. It's still way above what they can achieve with their "regular" understanding of the build system. You'd have to bring down the difference to around 200-300% at most.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"Cyninja.2954" said:

Again, I am not saying this change should be done. I am saying it IS doable and would have been doable in the past IF IT WAS DESIRED. Obviously the developers never desired such changes. Aka this game is NOT made for casual players only. There is no system which is more rewarding to min-max players AND rewarding to not min-max players than an open ended system like the one currently. The changes I propose meet a middle ground, yet suddenly you are more concerned what happens at the top end instead of what these changes would mean for "regular" players in performance output.

Because those changes would mean absolutely nothing for "regular" players. They would still be where they are already, as they don't take use of any of those multiplicative factors at all.For a regular player there's no difference if the harder content is balanced around 500% or 1000% of the damage they usually do. It's still way above what they can achieve with their "regular" understanding of the build system. You'd have to bring down the difference to around 200-300% at most.

These changes would reduce the performance difference literally to similar levels that other MMORPGs have. So no, you are wrong. You just dislike the idea that changes like these COULD have been implemented to reduce this existing gap, but that those changes were not desired or on the agenda, because it would go against your theory that this game is only for casual players.

I'm just to tired to go in circles again on each and every point. You obviously disagree that a simple variable addition and potential soft cap introduction would have been possible. This was just a 5 minute idea I came up with on the spot. I'm sure the developers working for years on expansions, new specializations, balance and all the other areas which affect this could come up with a way more elegant solution.

Thing is, they never wanted to so far.

[Astralporing.1957]

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@"Astralporing.1957" said:Because those changes would mean absolutely nothing for "regular" players. They would still be where they are already, as they don't take use of any of those multiplicative factors at all.For a regular player there's no difference if the harder content is balanced around 500% or 1000% of the damage they usually do. It's still way above what they can achieve with their "regular" understanding of the build system. You'd have to bring down the difference to around 200-300% at most.

These changes would reduce the performance difference literally to similar levels that other MMORPGs have.Err, no. You might want to look at other MMORPGs first and verify how big the differences are there.

I will link to you an example i gave from FF XIV in some thread half a year ago - it should be illuminating, and show how massive the current gap in GW2 is compared to other MMORPGs

To summarize:It's a log from content practically all max level players ran at that time - both casual and hardcore (as such, it is a good example to show the dps breakdown in the FF XIV community). And it shows, that the dps of top players are no more than 3 times higher than those of absolute bottom players (and somewhere between +50% to +100% greater than the "average" ones)

Now, compare that with the current situation in GW2. And compare that with the gap that would exist here if we only capped the trait/rune/sigil/skill direct multipliers at +30% (and, as such, move from ~1000% difference between top and average to around 700-750% one).

Now, tell me again how those levels of performance difference would be "literally" similar.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:Because those changes would mean absolutely nothing for "regular" players. They would still be where they are already, as they don't take use of any of those multiplicative factors at all.For a regular player there's no difference if the harder content is balanced around 500% or 1000% of the damage they usually do. It's still way above what they can achieve with their "regular" understanding of the build system. You'd have to bring down the difference to around 200-300% at most.

These changes would reduce the performance difference literally to similar levels that other MMORPGs have.Err, no. You might want to look at other MMORPGs first and verify how big the differences are there.

I will link to you

an example

i gave from FF XIV in some thread half a year ago - it should be illuminating, and show how massive the current gap in GW2 is compared to other MMORPGs

To summarize:It's a log from content practically all max level players ran at that time - both casual and hardcore (as such, it is a good example to show the dps breakdown in the FF XIV community). And it shows, that the dps of top players are no more than 3 times higher than those of

absolute bottom

players (and somewhere between +50% to +100% greater than the "average" ones)

Now, compare that with the current situation in GW2. And compare that with the gap that would exist here if we only capped the trait/rune/sigil/skill direct multipliers at +30% (and, as such, move from ~1000% difference between top and average to around 700-750% one).

Hence why I gave you the additonal option of stats capping.

@Astralporing.1957 said:Now, tell me again how those levels of performance difference would be "literally" similar.

You are grasping at staws now. Did my 5 minute example changes not meet the exact spot at which this games performance difference would meet that of FF14 precisely? Sure. They were examples, not set in stone but clearly used to demonstrate what could be done.

Also what you seem to forget:Those 1000% of dps differences in this game are also a result of far shorter fights for some players (far more than possible in other games), far less phases as a result and far longer and higher damage multiplication in during that alpha burst. I certainly have a very different dps at the end of a boss depending on if any phases are skipped or if a phase takes even only a few seconds longer. This can be as little as 2-4k not sufficing on a burst on Adina, having to go out 1 extra time instead of not at all. The end fight log will show a far larger disparity, even if only 2k dps were missing initially, because this small lack of dps causes huge ripples down the road (more on how this differs to other MMORPGs below. Hint: global cooldowns).

All of that would also be affected with damage multiplication cap.

No top end player has a consistent 1,000% higher dps than average players here and certainly not compared with average players who clear challenging content based on stats and damage alone. The major final factor is: way shorter fights and more high damage cooldown uptime. You should know that from back when you were raiding.

Here let me explain:Other MMORPGs like FF14, WoW, etc. allow for a far lower alpha. In general players reach and maintain their average dps a lot faster there (mostly due to global cooldowns, which are a HUGE deal when comparing GW2 to other MMORPGs, but the biggest difference is in the alpha and how fights here are designed). Versus in this game where certain alphas can reach multiple hundred thousand dps, 10 times the potential average dps of the class (not of the average player but what a top end player can put out on average). Damage here is severely front-loaded because ideal situations are not upheld 100% of the time (or even possible to be upheld given cooldowns). The more phases a boss has for players to align all the damage modifiers perfectly, the shorter the fight compared to players who do not align those modifiers. That would change if this front-loading was reduced.

Which in turn leads us to: top end player performance is not needed in this game for success and the difference in required output versus possible output is grossly higher than that in FF14. As such, even IF the difference between players did remain higher, yet still smaller than now, the net result against PvE content would still benefit weaker players.

So you see, instead of just focusing on the numbers, you need to actually take in the entire picture and what leads to the numbers and differences and how all of it is interconnected. The reason I am and was focusing on multipliers first and stats second is because I HAVE taken these differences into account. The linear stat growth is not responsible for the huge differences even if it is a large contributing factor. It's the multipliers which push the top end players far beyond even good players (given both of these player groups will have near identical stats and boons). Any player who has played with top end players has seen this at work.

None of which changes anything about the point I was making: if the developers WANTED to close the gaps in player performance, they could have easily done so by now.

EDIT:You want to talk logs? The record for Gorseval is https://dps.report/JGz4-20201108-000520_gors (

). 246k group dps. That's nearly 2 times the amount of "regular" very good groups (which should be reaching 150k+. Not average, not semi good, but very good). Why? Shorter phases due to better skill use and better damage cooldown uptime. Those same chronos would have had a far lower total fight dps IF those phases had been longer. This applies to almost ALL fights in this game and is most often not related to fancy chrono pulls totally in sync but simply better damage alphas (this log just best demonstrates this point of how shorter fights and phases affect final log performance). What do alphas benefit from the most? You guessed it: the way damage multiplication works in this game. There is a reason most logs here have huge damage spikes at the beginning of most damage phases in this game, contrary to most other MMORPGs.

That gap you like coming back to all the time. It has a strong foundation in the first 5 seconds of every fight, and every subsequent damage phase after. Having a bad opening on a fight can easily put you behind 2-4k dps (from 25-30k fights) for the entire fight right then and there in those first couple of seconds. Less on damage golem type bosses, more on bosses with multiple burst phases.

[Evil.1580]

@"yukarishura.4790" said:It's been ages since we had a new RAID. I think the expansion should be providing challenging end-game content again, given the failure of strikes and DRMs...I personally think that raids and fractal CMs keep the game alive, (Sunqua is a great addition), because casuals just log in to play through the story and some events and leave, but RAIDING has built a nice dedicated community, there are discords/guilds that specialize on raiding. This game type cannot be ignored, it gives the full fetched combat experience of the elite specs that you cannot really enjoy in open world etc. Please ANET, new RAID.

When you say that strikes and DRMs are failure, do you realize that they are kinda introduction content for new players into raiding?I want new raids also, but lets face it - this "dedicated community" is 1-2% of the gw2 players. Without proper entry level for raids ANET are right to completely abandon this content. If new people don't start raiding I will understand if they abandon it.

Anet should do raiding activities and other improvements to make this content more accessible to new players. However this so called "dedicated community" should increase the efforts to make the raiding a beginner friendly place.

There are 3-4 big training guilds which new players can easily find in the snowcrows website but this is just not enough.Every serious raiding guild, which players want new raid content should do this:

1. Make raid training and look for more beginners to train them.
2. Lower their elitism a little.
3. Make their guild a friendly place where people can learn about mechanics, rotations and tips and not only read "google this" and "google that".

It is not enough to call Anet and ask for new raids - the guilds should make serious efforts into expanding their community too.

[yukarishura.4790]

@Evil.1580 said:

@"yukarishura.4790" said:It's been ages since we had a new RAID. I think the expansion should be providing challenging end-game content again, given the failure of strikes and DRMs...I personally think that raids and fractal CMs keep the game alive, (Sunqua is a great addition), because casuals just log in to play through the story and some events and leave, but RAIDING has built a nice dedicated community, there are discords/guilds that specialize on raiding. This game type cannot be ignored, it gives the full fetched combat experience of the elite specs that you cannot really enjoy in open world etc. Please ANET, new RAID.

When you say that strikes and DRMs are failure, do you realize that they are kinda introduction content for new players into raiding?I want new raids also, but lets face it - this "dedicated community" is 1-2% of the gw2 players. Without proper entry level for raids ANET are right to completely abandon this content. If new people don't start raiding I will understand if they abandon it.

Anet should do raiding activities and other improvements to make this content more accessible to new players. However this so called "dedicated community" should increase the efforts to make the raiding a beginner friendly place.

There are 3-4 big training guilds which new players can easily find in the snowcrows website but this is just not enough.Every serious raiding guild, which players want new raid content should do this:

1. Make raid training and look for more beginners to train them.
2. Lower their elitism a little.
3. Make their guild a friendly place where people can learn about mechanics, rotations and tips and not only read "google this" and "google that".

It is not enough to call Anet and ask for new raids - the guilds should make serious efforts into expanding their community too.

there are way more training guilds and training runs in the lfg, guilds regularly recruit new people to train themwith failure I mean they are not really enjoyable and motivational enough to do, I already specified that I think strikes are good 10 man instanced content that can prepare ppl to get into raids, but besides doing them once in a while there is no appeal to them, they are boring, DRMs are even worse of an example, escort, defend, kill waves, kill a champion boss..yikes

[maddoctor.2738]

@"Evil.1580" said:There are 3-4 big training guilds which new players can easily find in the snowcrows website but this is just not enough.

Raiding guilds cannot exist without Raids. Which is why a "stepping stone" for Raids cannot work without more Raids. It's gonna be a "stepping stone" for what? The current Raids that the community is bored running the last 6 years? For "stepping stone for Raids" content to work, it must be released alongside regular Raid content.

[yukarishura.4790]

@Asum.4960 said:

@mindcircus.1506 said:

@Asum.4960 said:Every time Anet

tells

people how to do something, or expects them to do it, they at the same time are so afraid of the potential of failure (and with that learning), that they

show

a way around having to actually engage with the systems.The systems aren't the primary issue, the content just utterly fails at conveying how to work them, to the detriment of the casual/average player.The problem here is actually the business model.The game cannot (like other games) assume a player builds knowledge and skills in any individual instance because in many cases Arenanet cannot be sure the player has access to the previous content.The "showing a way around" the challenges at hand is needed in order to be inclusive to a player who potentially does not own the episode or expansion in which the skill was taught. You can't tell someone who paid for LW 3.4 that they cannot progress without something they were supposed to learn in LW 3.2 so they paint in the workarounds.It's not poor design any more than it is "catering to casuals", it's a necessity of the game's business model.

I get where you (or rather Anet) are coming from with this, but I disagree - and I do think it's poor design. And yes, it's born out of the desire to cater to casuals, but actually at their detriment.Especially concerning Core (and why it desperately needs an update/rework) it should require and teach many/all of the core game functionality/mechanics, and should be expected to have been played.

Beyond that, LW4 could and should expect people to either already know, or if not then have to learn to how to CC (for example), without work around, either in repetition of or despite of potentially not having already learned that while playing LW3.There is no harm in that, unless you only ever design something in a teachable environment once (which may be missed), and from then on expect people to have mastered it. Story can and should provide repeated learning experiences, to then be applied to the rest of the game.

The idea that players should be able to jump into max level or even max level expansion content without any struggle, with or without having played any of the content leading up to it, is a philosophy that eternally stagnates the game, it's mechanical complexity, appeal, content variety and therefor it's playerbase itself.It's actively harmful.

One of the great things about GW2 is that it is very generous to it's players - but there is no need to go way overboard with that to a point where it actively harms the game and it's player experience.Expecting players to have bought and played previous content to at least some extent, or being fine with some initial struggles of players if they didn't, imo isn't just acceptable, but almost mandatory for the game's (and communities) health and longevity.

I think where this big gap happens is that many players who want to try harder content like fractals CMs, or strikes, are not aware of the existence of rotations and nobody tells that in the game. They think dps is auto attacking and that's it, but on the other hand they are also less willingful to check out on guides or meta builds because they want to "play in their own way"... which becomes the toxic entitlement thing. so yeah anet cant fix the human psychology, ppl need to put effort into learning the game, which is not for everyone, but then excluding raids and appealing to only these players is sad, I found the combat unique and complex, would be a shame if they would dumb it down tbh

[HotDelirium.7984]

@yukarishura.4790 said:It's been ages since we had a new RAID. I think the expansion should be providing challenging end-game content again, given the failure of strikes and DRMs...I personally think that raids and fractal CMs keep the game alive, (Sunqua is a great addition), because casuals just log in to play through the story and some events and leave, but RAIDING has built a nice dedicated community, there are discords/guilds that specialize on raiding. This game type cannot be ignored, it gives the full fetched combat experience of the elite specs that you cannot really enjoy in open world etc. Please ANET, new RAID.

Not till we get our storymode raids!!! hmph! (lol)

[HotDelirium.7984]

Other games use something like a gear score to tell players they aren't ready for specific content. Maybe Guild Wars 2 needs a "skill score" instead, although that would be much much harder to calculate.

I think strikes failed to be a stepping stone due to the fact we can ignore most of the mechanics. In raids...mechanics are a do or die. They hit the mark a little bit with boneskinner and whisper but these things need SUPPORT and a story. Shiverpeak pass is great good it has a lead up, hint of story of BAM the boss but it still fails because we can ignore the mechanic.

[Obtena.7952]

Playing your own way is not leading to a toxic entitlement thing. That's absurd considering that's literally the way the game was intended to work from the beginning and still does. Even raids to some extent allow people to do this, though there are more conditions to be successful in raid content; the few exceptions doesn't change the fact this game is VERY committed to allowing players to play how they want.

The raid development situation here isn't the result of casual players not 'upping' their game so raids can be a successful game element. The situation is due to Anet creating raid content that ignores a significant demographic of the playerbase. Most casual players aren't willing to 'train' to play content, or able to schedule around other people or their RL responsibilities, or commit and focus that gametime to a committed raid party. There are LOTS of things that make raids unappealing to most players. THAT is the problem here. You want more raids? THAT is the problem Anet needs to address to do it.

I know it's contentious ... but raids are not popular with the general player base and that makes raids not meet whatever criteria to make them content worth developing. If they were successful, we would see lots of raids being developed to this day.

[yukarishura.4790]

@Obtena.7952 said:Playing your own way is not leading to a toxic entitlement thing. That's absurd considering that's literally the way the game was intended to work from the beginning and still does. Even raids to some extent allow people to do this, though there are more conditions to be successful in raid content; the few exceptions doesn't change the fact this game is VERY committed to allowing players to play how they want.

The raid development situation here isn't the result of casual players not 'upping' their game so raids can be a successful game element. The situation is due to Anet creating raid content that ignores a significant demographic of the playerbase. Most casual players aren't willing to 'train' to play content, or able to schedule around other people or their RL responsibilities, or commit and focus that gametime to a committed raid party. There are LOTS of things that make raids unappealing to most players. THAT is the problem here. You want more raids? THAT is the problem Anet needs to address to do it.

I know it's contentious ... but raids are not popular with the general player base and that makes raids not meet whatever criteria to make them content worth developing. If they were successful, we would see lots of raids being developed to this day.

wrong, you will always have METAs, especially in an mmo, there is always a proper way to play it and a bad way to play it, that is, as long as there are gear stats, this game will figure out metas

[Obtena.7952]

@yukarishura.4790 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:Playing your own way is not leading to a toxic entitlement thing. That's absurd considering that's literally the way the game was intended to work from the beginning and still does. Even raids

to some extent

allow people to do this, though there are more conditions to be successful in raid content; the few exceptions doesn't change the fact this game is VERY committed to allowing players to play how they want.

The raid development situation here isn't the result of casual players not 'upping' their game so raids can be a successful game element. The situation is due to Anet creating raid content that ignores a significant demographic of the playerbase. Most casual players aren't willing to 'train' to play content, or able to schedule around other people or their RL responsibilities, or commit and focus that gametime to a committed raid party. There are LOTS of things that make raids unappealing to most players. THAT is the problem here. You want more raids? THAT is the problem Anet needs to address to do it.

I know it's contentious ... but raids are not popular with the general player base and that makes raids not meet

whatever

criteria to make them content worth developing. If they were successful, we would see lots of raids being developed to this day.

wrong, you will always have METAs, especially in an mmo, there is always a proper way to play it and a bad way to play it, that is, as long as there are gear stats, this game will figure out metas

No, I'm not wrong because the existence of a META has NOTHING to do with my point. If content doesn't appeal to a wide range of players, that's a problem if you want to justify adding more of that content. I understand how important it is to continually push the idea that raids are successful enough in this game to make Anet revisit their development, but that's simply not the case. If it was, raids wouldn't have gone away in the first place because Anet investing in raid content is a long game strategy. What is wrong with raids is how they are implemented and how that implementation is NOT a winner with enough people to make it worth it for Anet to continue doing them.

Furthermore, there will be no meta-pushing here ... ANY way people want to play and can be successful doing so is a 'proper' way to play it. If anything, the raid community should be thankful that these 'proper' ways include more than just meta because limiting sucess in raids to only meta builds would result in the raiding population being even SMALLER than it is now. You want Anet to add more raids but you seem to be on the side of making them more exclusive with such a view. You got no chance.

[Asum.4960]

@yukarishura.4790 said:

@Asum.4960 said:

@mindcircus.1506 said:

@Asum.4960 said:Every time Anet

tells

people how to do something, or expects them to do it, they at the same time are so afraid of the potential of failure (and with that learning), that they

show

a way around having to actually engage with the systems.The systems aren't the primary issue, the content just utterly fails at conveying how to work them, to the detriment of the casual/average player.The problem here is actually the business model.The game cannot (like other games) assume a player builds knowledge and skills in any individual instance because in many cases Arenanet cannot be sure the player has access to the previous content.The "showing a way around" the challenges at hand is needed in order to be inclusive to a player who potentially does not own the episode or expansion in which the skill was taught. You can't tell someone who paid for LW 3.4 that they cannot progress without something they were supposed to learn in LW 3.2 so they paint in the workarounds.It's not poor design any more than it is "catering to casuals", it's a necessity of the game's business model.

I get where you (or rather Anet) are coming from with this, but I disagree - and I do think it's poor design. And yes, it's born out of the desire to cater to casuals, but actually at their detriment.Especially concerning Core (and why it desperately needs an update/rework) it should require and teach many/all of the core game functionality/mechanics, and should be expected to have been played.

Beyond that, LW4 could and should expect people to either already know, or if not then have to learn to how to CC (for example), without work around, either in repetition of or despite of potentially not having already learned that while playing LW3.There is no harm in that, unless you only ever design something in a teachable environment once (which may be missed), and from then on expect people to have mastered it. Story can and should provide repeated learning experiences, to then be applied to the rest of the game.

The idea that players should be able to jump into max level or even max level expansion content without any struggle, with or without having played any of the content leading up to it, is a philosophy that eternally stagnates the game, it's mechanical complexity, appeal, content variety and therefor it's playerbase itself.It's actively harmful.

One of the great things about GW2 is that it is very generous to it's players - but there is no need to go way overboard with that to a point where it actively harms the game and it's player experience.Expecting players to have bought and played previous content to at least some extent, or being fine with some initial struggles of players if they didn't, imo isn't just acceptable, but almost mandatory for the game's (and communities) health and longevity.

I think where this big gap happens is that many players who want to try harder content like fractals CMs, or strikes, are not aware of the existence of rotations and nobody tells that in the game. They think dps is auto attacking and that's it, but on the other hand they are also less willingful to check out on guides or meta builds because they want to "play in their own way"... which becomes the toxic entitlement thing. so yeah anet cant fix the human psychology, ppl need to put effort into learning the game, which is not for everyone, but then excluding raids and appealing to only these players is sad, I found the combat unique and complex, would be a shame if they would dumb it down tbh

This goes way beyond the (lack of) understanding of rotations or meta builds though, both of which (while they help, a lot) are not needed to complete any of the content in the game, including Strikes or even Fractal CM's and Raids.

Playing your own way works in GW2, but I do think there are two unhealthy mindsets reinforcing each other there, which is for one primarily the "Play my own way (but incredibly poorly)" casual mindset, completely lacking the knowledge and game understanding to actually make that work, drastically underestimating the power of multiplicative damage modifiers and such, and then on the other hand, as a result of that, most hardcore players seeing those incredibly poor performances of most casual players and either thinking meta builds and rotations are the only way, or understandably just demanding them to filter out the vast majority of the bad play your own way crowd as response.

You can tank Raid bosses as Necro (stuff like SH, doubling as Epi, even quite effectively), you can DPS as power Herald basically just autoattacking without any rotation whatsoever and do a somewhat reasonable ~20k DPS, which is enough to clear any content in the game reasonably, you can do still Druid + Chrono in Fractals even though it's not meta anymore, or could have done Ren + FB before it was meta, and clear the content just fine. I have done all of those things and many more. It works just fine.

What you can't do, in those few harder pieces of instanced content exclusively, is have an awful build and play terribly.And that is unfortunately where the majority of players are at, which is then why the minority which isn't, practically has to gate behind Meta and KP in order to get anywhere, and to save their time and sanity.

Play how you want, within reason, does work. It's just fundamentally misunderstood by the majority of the community as play whatever no matter how objectively bad and still fly through the game, because that's what Story and OW content taught them, by never checking them on it. That's plain and simple bad content design.And at that point it becomes a toxic entitlement for many - when people insist not to have to adapt, within what and how they want to play, even for and in the content that clearly requires reasonable performance.

If someone insists to play something objectively bad which contributes only a tiny fraction of what others do who put in effort and thought, clearly doesn't work and just wastes everybody else's time, they are not standing up defiantly against the meta culture by "playing their own way", they are just being a toxic bad actor making other's work harder on their behalf/wasting other's time by making content completion impossible.

Playing your own way does not excuse anyone from doing extremely poorly, but not doing extremely poorly does not require meta.But as long as the game allows it's players to beat literal in lore Gods, Dragons or even just hundreds of years old Liches subjugating entire nations by slapping a wet noodle at them, it's hard to blame anyone for thinking they are doing just fine wielding that wet noodle - and that they then feel entitled in a way to being able to defeat Strikes, T4 Fractals, Fractal CM's or Raids that very same way.

"Like come on, I can kill the literal human god of War with my build, but I have to change to kill this big sloth?"

What the average player needs initially are not out of game resources that tell them what and how to play exactly (as awesome as these resources are after), it's an introductory ingame experience that gently tells them how not to."Sorry, if you want to be able to defeat the literal God of War, you are going to have to look at your build and figure out how to do more than 3k DPS."

Of course Story and such should never expect top performance, never require 40k, 30k or even 20k DPS to beat, but some checks that people can do some bare minimum >8k DPS, understand crowd control and dodging, guiding them to look at and understand their Traits, Gear, Skills - that really doesn't seem like asking to much to me.

[Vayne.8563]

@"yukarishura.4790" said:I will quit this game if we literally GET NO END GAME challenging content again. Who the hell is gonna play for a story and few cosmetics??

Most of the player base. Far more people than actually raid. People who love end game challenging content assume that they're in some sort of majority. They ask questions like who would play the game for story and a few cosmetics. That would be pretty much everyone in my guild. 90% of them at least. I mean we have probably five, six raiders in the guiild, but we have 350 people in the guild who don't raid. And this isn't an abberation.

What you consider to be the reason to play the game is just that, your reason to play the game. But let's not pretend most of the player base would just into raids just because a new raid happened to come with the expansion.

I always thought raids were a mistake in this game and I continue to think raids are a mistake in this game. But I"m relatively sure more people play for story and skins than play for raids and challenging end game PvE content. If that weren't the case, Anet wouldn't keep making it.