If you wanted to keep raids as a game mode, how would you increase participation?

[Astralporing.1957]

2 minutes ago, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

 

In OW though, a bad farmer doesn't affect others as directly as in a raid.  You didn't get enough keys, that is on you.  Didn't hit enough events to optimize your returns, that is on you.  Didn't start a Squad or put it in LFG, that's on you, didn't check LFG for a full map.....on you..... and it really only affects you.

 

 

If I slow down my raid group because I don't have the right gear or buffs, I am messing with 9 other players time.

 

If I am an average raider in a group with excellent raiders, I am slowing them down.

 

If I am an average player in an OW Meta, I am generally not slowing anyone down.  Mostly due to the idea that OW Meta only really need 5-10 players actually doing the right thing.

Not sure how it's relevant. We've been talking about a gold per hour income between OW and raids. If someone insists that we should not be considering best raid clear times, and should look at average raider groups, it should follow that on the other side we should also look at an income of an average farmer, not a best efficient one in a most advantageous situation. It doesn;t matter if it's on you or not - in the case of that raid group doing full clear much slower it's also completely on them after all.

[maddoctor.2738]

1 hour ago, Firebeard.1746 said:

No one has ever told me that the reason they don't raid is the lack of rewards. The legendaries as a cost, are valuable enough to get people involved, this is an undisputed fact. Yes a static will fail, or will incur costs on a new encounter, but asymptotically, they earn more. Especially if you consider the value of the legendaries they're building. Heck, they only need to succeed on the harder encounters once for the collections, and the value of the LIs/LDs they get from just doing the easy ones weekly would handily beat OW farming, particularly if the OW farmers want the same legendaries.

 

Legendaries are good to pull people in. Once you get them though (and other unique rewards you might be after) you'll start thinking, why are you even raiding anymore. The requirement to succeed once only reinforced my point, as even among Raids themselves there is huge variation in completions. The idea of increasing rewards is to keep players playing after they get their unique rewards, and to entice them to get away of the meta trains in the first place. Right now Raid rewards are in no way competitive compared to open world rewards. Not even close.

[Sobx.1758]

1 hour ago, Firebeard.1746 said:

No one has ever told me that the reason they don't raid is the lack of rewards. The legendaries as a cost, are valuable enough to get people involved, this is an undisputed fact. Yes a static will fail, or will incur costs on a new encounter, but asymptotically, they earn more. Especially if you consider the value of the legendaries they're building. Heck, they only need to succeed on the harder encounters once for the collections, and the value of the LIs/LDs they get from just doing the easy ones weekly would handily beat OW farming, particularly if the OW farmers want the same legendaries.

And a single failure is usually just a few minutes, tops. It's not like a static constantly wiping on an encounter forever. Heck, my seller failed on their first try, but because they were selling and because they succeeded, they still easily broke the g/hr benchmarks on that stupid site.

Ok, so the rewards don't help here. What helps then?

[maddoctor.2738]

17 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Buffing rewards isn't going to make raids attractive to reluctant players so raids can be long-term sustainable game content. 

 

Given the choice, what do you think players in this game most likely want to do?

 

1. Content they don't like that showers them with loot

2. Content they really like that doesn't. 

 

I can tell you EXACTLY what happens to the players that do content they don't like in an MMO, whether it showers them with loot or not ...

 

The first one is the obvious answer. You can't possibly tell me that Silverwastes, Drizzlewood and Dragonfall is the absolute best (based on participation) content in this game. Auric Basin ML, Istan and other old metas that got their rewards nerfed are also proof of that "1" being the solid answer, at least when it comes to the casual open world players.

[Obtena.7952]

7 minutes ago, maddoctor.2738 said:

 

The first one is the obvious answer. You can't possibly tell me that Silverwastes, Drizzlewood and Dragonfall is the absolute best (based on participation) content in this game. Auric Basin ML, Istan and other old metas that got their rewards nerfed are also proof of that "1" being the solid answer, at least when it comes to the casual open world players.

That's true, I can't tell you that; that simply depends on personal preference.

 

What I do know is that if players are doing content only because of loot, they are only going to do it until there is a better way to get loot ... or until they hate the game so much they leave. The fact is that 'loot-focused' decisions in choosing game content to play are bad ones and if raids are made to be THAT way to get loot, it's not a long-term sustainable solution for them. 

 

I think it's worth repeating again here ... the point of the thread is how to change raids so they are justified as long term sustainable content. It doesn't matter how much loot drops in a raid if players have barriers to doing them. 

 

Edited May 2, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Firebeard.1746]

25 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Ok, so the rewards don't help here. What helps then?

How about you answer that question, I've already given some suggestions, this is in response to others' commnents. What do you think would help outside rewards?

[Mungo Zen.9364]

45 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Not sure how it's relevant. We've been talking about a gold per hour income between OW and raids. If someone insists that we should not be considering best raid clear times, and should look at average raider groups, it should follow that on the other side we should also look at an income of an average farmer, not a best efficient one in a most advantageous situation. It doesn;t matter if it's on you or not - in the case of that raid group doing full clear much slower it's also completely on them after all.

 

 

 

 

38 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

What I do know is that if players are doing content only because of loot, they are only going to do it until there is a better way to get loot ... or until they hate the game so much they leave. The fact is that 'loot-focused' decisions in choosing game content to play are bad ones and if raids are made to be THAT way to get loot, it's not a long-term sustainable solution for them. 

 

I think it's worth repeating again here ... the point of the thread is how to change raids so they are justified as long term sustainable content. It doesn't matter how much loot drops in a raid if players have barriers to doing them. 

 

 

I believe this has more to do with the raiders optimizing the environment of raiding rather than the designers issue here, however I do think the designers should be the ones to make a change.

 

Let us assume that, in a vacuum, raiding is not actually that hard.  Mechanically you can go in, do the dance, kill the boss.  You learn how to do the dance with 9 friends, and you tweak your build and group composition to give you the best chance of success.

 

Raiders have taken this system and optimized it to the point that the community has collective stress over raiding.  What I mean is, looking at these forums, hearing players talking in guild and map chats, about the terrible experiences they have had trying to raid, due to other players pushing their expectations upon them.

 

Why do I need to join a Raid Training Guild in order to get into raiding?  Because other players expect me to meet their standards in a game mode I have never played.  This adds a layer of additional nonsense just to play some PvE content?  and this layer was created by the community to cover.....issues with the community supporting new raiders.  While not all raiders are the same, many have caused friction within this gaming community because their expectations were not being met and has in turn caused potential new raiders to not continue down the path to raiding (or even start).

 

There is very little reason to actually raid.  I can basically AFK farm Legendary Armor in WvW (or win-trade in PvP if that is still a thing).  I can farm gold at a very good rate on my own time in many different settings many times a week.  I don't get forced into groups with players I may not care about, who may behave like angry choya, and waste my time stuck in an instance with them.

 

So, what can the Devs do to incentivize more players in Raids?  The more loot reasoning comes up a lot because quite simply, Raiding is not efficient gold farming.  The ease of access for OW combined with the limitations of Raiding give both average and above average OW farmers less incentive to raid. 

 

I would opine that if Raid based farming was possible, you would see a shift for the better farmers away from OW towards Raids.  As well, new players would have another positive to think about when looking at Raids.

 

Edited May 2, 2021 by Mungo Zen.9364

[Sobx.1758]

44 minutes ago, Firebeard.1746 said:

How about you answer that question, I've already given some suggestions, this is in response to others' commnents. What do you think would help outside rewards?

 

Oh, I already did. The idea I supported involves potentially slightly better learning curve [easy mode] without lege components so there's incentive to learn the content/mechanics (at which point it's not a problem to move up to normal mode) instead of just brute forcing through it for drop and then leaving. It was shot down because:

1. I adressed problems that were mentioned by other people ("so it's not a problem for me, so it's not a fix and I'm arguing in bad faith" ??)

2. It didn't involve easier lege acquisition I guess?

 

Basically what was being mentioned many times throughout many pages of this thread.

 

On the other hand if you think it's not about loot, then I don't know what's the point of arguing about loot, gph and lege as a pull for the content type.

Edited May 2, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[mindcircus.1506]

18 minutes ago, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

Raiders have taken this system and optimized it to the point that the community has collective stress over raiding

This community had a self imposed collective stress about the concept of raiding since it was announced. There is a very vocal minority of this game that has never set foot into Spirit Vale, never even tried a single encounter and proudly state that they never will.... and yet feel the need to constantly armchair dev the encounters, disparage those who enjoy them as jerks and sow fear whenever they can.

The stress is largely fed by these players and their use of fear mongering in an attempt to wag the dog, believing in their hearts that anything they personally don't want to do should not be worked on by Anet.

It has zero to do with Raiders minmaxing.

24 minutes ago, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

What I mean is, looking at these forums, hearing players talking in guild and map chats, about the terrible experiences they have had trying to raid, due to other players pushing their expectations upon them.

How many of these anecdotes of woe are straight up fiction?

How many more are entitled players angry that they aren't being quietly carried like they are at Tarir?

How many of the posts and comments about these incidents include phrases like "the game isn't supposed to be like this" as if the player making them had a seat at the developer's table?

31 minutes ago, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

So, what can the Devs do to incentivize more players in Raids? 

They put a mount in it.
If the devs really wanted to increase raid participation all they would have to do is gate a mount in it.

[Firebeard.1746]

16 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

 

Oh, I already did. The idea I supported involves potentially slightly better learning curve [easy mode] without lege components so there's incentive to learn the content/mechanics (at which point it's not a problem to move up to normal mode) instead of just brute forcing through it for drop and then leaving. It was shot down because:

1. I adressed problems that were mentioned by other people ("so it's not a problem for me, so it's not a fix and I'm arguing in bad faith" ??)

2. It didn't involve easier lege acquisition I guess?

 

Basically what was being mentioned many times throughout many pages of this thread.

 

On the other hand if you think it's not about loot, then I don't know what's the point of arguing about loot, gph and lege as a pull for the content type.

Reward matters on some level, I'm just saying I don't think throwing even more reward at it is going to fix things, there's plenty to go for there, in a static you would be more efficiently grinding legendary armor from raids than any other game mode. In fact it's the only legendary armor acquisition method where you have direct control over how much time it takes. In PVP you;'ll be matched against other people eventually that match you skill, in WvW, it's an insane time sink that only gets better if you hit high rank. But .75% to .375% of the total progress for a single boss kill is a lot. And you can do up to 25 a week if you convert LDs.

The learning mode kind of helps, at the end of the day people will want to earn the leggies from them at some point because that's the unique thing about it. The issue I think we might run into there is people would want to eventually graduate and that requires a static, because you need people experienced in specialized roles to kill the bosses. It might help get enough people's feet wet that you could PuG, and that might work, but at the end of the day, I think that what would really save raiding is finding a way to help people reliably PuG them. Everything else in this game that works is because it's PuGGable and people are used to not being committed to schedules, etc to accomplish stuff in this game. And this doesn't necessarily mean making them easier, but changing how mechanics work. There's more individual effort from each player in boneskinner and WoJ than in a lot of raids.

 

Edited May 2, 2021 by Firebeard.1746

[Mungo Zen.9364]

2 minutes ago, mindcircus.1506 said:

 

How many of these anecdotes of woe are straight up fiction?

How many more are entitled players angry that they aren't being quietly carried like they are at Tarir?

How many of the posts and comments about these incidents include phrases like "the game isn't supposed to be like this" as if the player making them had a seat at the developer's table?

 

But they exist, and they cast raiding in a negative light.  It isn't like there are a bunch of players saying Raiding is easy and fun and friendly.  If someone comes to these forums and read just this thread what are the takeaways they would have?  Raiding is struggling and the community is divided.  That there is a lot to learn to get involved with raiding and that player expectations might lead to a bad experience.

 

2 minutes ago, mindcircus.1506 said:

They put a mount in it.
If the devs really wanted to increase raid participation all they would have to do is gate a mount in it.

 

A single item does not fix the issue.  How many players will actually care to go for a mount when a huge number of players can't be bothered to go for BIS Legendary Gear?  Once a player gets the mount will they go back?  Or perhaps there should be a new mount skin every quarter that can be farmed in raiding?

[mindcircus.1506]

2 minutes ago, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

A single item does not fix the issue.  How many players will actually care to go for a mount when a huge number of players can't be bothered to go for BIS Legendary Gear?  Once a player gets the mount will they go back?  Or perhaps there should be a new mount skin every quarter that can be farmed in raiding?

For a player to engage with the content it needs to benefit them.
in GW2 other than the horizontal progression of the mastery system, (which the developers often struggle with making relevant), the only benefits  the developer can provide to the player are currency, QoL and Cosmetics.

Yes it is as simple as a dedicated mount.

Or even a mount skin skin via collection for each wing.

The addition of the Warclaw pulls people into WvW to this very day. A mount that is essentially useless in PvE other than a symbol of cosmetic progression

 

Without fresh content this is the cheapest easiest way to draw people into content in GW2 is via QoL )a mount like the warclaw) or cosmetics (a mount skin for each wing based on mutliple completions).

[Obtena.7952]

2 hours ago, Mungo Zen.9364 said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

I believe this has more to do with the raiders optimizing the environment of raiding rather than the designers issue here, however I do think the designers should be the ones to make a change.

 

Let us assume that, in a vacuum, raiding is not actually that hard.  Mechanically you can go in, do the dance, kill the boss.  You learn how to do the dance with 9 friends, and you tweak your build and group composition to give you the best chance of success.

 

Raiders have taken this system and optimized it to the point that the community has collective stress over raiding.  What I mean is, looking at these forums, hearing players talking in guild and map chats, about the terrible experiences they have had trying to raid, due to other players pushing their expectations upon them.

 

Why do I need to join a Raid Training Guild in order to get into raiding?  Because other players expect me to meet their standards in a game mode I have never played.  This adds a layer of additional nonsense just to play some PvE content?  and this layer was created by the community to cover.....issues with the community supporting new raiders.  While not all raiders are the same, many have caused friction within this gaming community because their expectations were not being met and has in turn caused potential new raiders to not continue down the path to raiding (or even start).

 

There is very little reason to actually raid.  I can basically AFK farm Legendary Armor in WvW (or win-trade in PvP if that is still a thing).  I can farm gold at a very good rate on my own time in many different settings many times a week.  I don't get forced into groups with players I may not care about, who may behave like angry choya, and waste my time stuck in an instance with them.

 

So, what can the Devs do to incentivize more players in Raids?  The more loot reasoning comes up a lot because quite simply, Raiding is not efficient gold farming.  The ease of access for OW combined with the limitations of Raiding give both average and above average OW farmers less incentive to raid. 

 

I would opine that if Raid based farming was possible, you would see a shift for the better farmers away from OW towards Raids.  As well, new players would have another positive to think about when looking at Raids.

 

I acknowledge that making rewards better in raids makes them more attractive to more people, but that's not really the question here. The question here is if doing that is enough to make raids sustainable as long term content. I don't think it will because the people that are choosing content to maximize their gold per hour don't ignore parameters like accessibility when they make that choice. I mean, let's look at Silverwastes. You can go in there with whatever build you want, do whatever events you want to do, whenever you want to do it, playing however you want without being in any teams holding you back or bad players trashing your earning potential. 

 

Can you do that in a raid? Not a chance.  The bottomline here is that there is a relationship between earning potential of content and it's accessibility to players. IIRC, Silverwastes wasn't even the TOP earning potential content in it's day, but because of how accessible it was to most players, it was the most popular. If raids (or any other endgame instanced content) are to be successful, accessibility has to be considered. At some point, the loot reward is just secondary, so the content has to be something that people are willing to do without the loot to tempt them. If that's not true, then NO content in this game can be sustainable. 

Edited May 3, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Mysticjedi.6053]

On 3/27/2021 at 4:53 PM, Rhiannon.1726 said:

The only raid bosses where I've seen the enrage in the last two or three years were Largos and Cardinal Sabir (with unexperienced players). It's also been ages since I've seen a training group doing updrafts at Gorseval. 99% of fails are due to other mistakes and not the timers.

If anyone is actually afraid of the timer, they can start raiding with Cairn, as there is no real enrage mechanic.

My suggestion to improve participation:Let us open the raid wings at any boss we've killed at least once, to get more flexibility if you don't have much time and just want to do your favourite bosses. Additionally with this possibility there could be a daily to kill a single boss with rewards (even if you've already killed this boss).

I'm not a fan of easy mode raids as we already have different difficulty levels in raids:Easy: Mursaat, Escort, RiverDifficult: Dhuum, Largos, Qadim1Hard mode: some of the CMs(my own opinion, every other boss is "normal mode")

 

Considering that point, it is more than likely that those inexperienced players had somewhat optimized gear. Removing the timer takes away the "need" (notice the quotations) for gear optimization and can allow for a group of ten to take their time. If they want to spend 30 minutes on Vale Guardian, go ahead. Mastering the mechanics would still be something to be proud of in the end. Removing the time limit is also probably the easiest fix. They could implement the Strike Mission version of a timer. Completing a boss in X amount of time provides additional loot, maybe an extra LI or maybe a mystic coin? 

 

I completely agree about once we've cleared a boss allowing us to go to that boss any time. That would probably make training easier and be less of a time sink for the trainers. They just open the instance people want to train on. 

 

"Easy" mode has never made sense to me either. 

 

Edited May 3, 2021 by Mysticjedi.6053

[Bakeneko.5826]

7 hours ago, mindcircus.1506 said:

For a player to engage with the content it needs to benefit them.
in GW2 other than the horizontal progression of the mastery system, (which the developers often struggle with making relevant), the only benefits  the developer can provide to the player are currency, QoL and Cosmetics.

Yes it is as simple as a dedicated mount.

Or even a mount skin skin via collection for each wing.

The addition of the Warclaw pulls people into WvW to this very day. A mount that is essentially useless in PvE other than a symbol of cosmetic progression

 

Without fresh content this is the cheapest easiest way to draw people into content in GW2 is via QoL )a mount like the warclaw) or cosmetics (a mount skin for each wing based on mutliple completions).

So, your solution is like fractal event - everyone and their mother comes to do CMs with 0 experience, it takes hours to clear CMs, everyone ends up miserable and burned out of the game. How about actually making fun and engaging raids and raid community being less obnoxious?

[maddoctor.2738]

10 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

What I do know is that if players are doing content only because of loot, they are only going to do it until there is a better way to get loot ... or until they hate the game so much they leave. The fact is that 'loot-focused' decisions in choosing game content to play are bad ones and if raids are made to be THAT way to get loot, it's not a long-term sustainable solution for them. 

 

Agreed. It's why Arenanet contiously nerfs old meta events so their newer ones can be played. The alternative would've been to make newer meta events even more rewarding, but that would lead to a completely out of control economy. Choosing what content to play based on loot might seem a bad decision, but that's what happens in the game (maybe all games?), there is more than enough proof of that. You can play something because it's "fun" only for so long, after the 100th repetition it loses its charm.

 

Quote

The question here is if doing that is enough to make raids sustainable as long term content.

 

Alone? Not really. There is no magic solution that can work on its own and increase participation, a combination is needed. What increasing the rewards can do though is increase the longevity of Raids, because once someone earns the unique rewards from Raids, they have less and less incentive to continue playing. Same goes with Ascended, Raids are a good source of Ascended gear, but after a while you start trashing them, making them useless rewards. Thus keeping players interested in Raids for a longer time.

 

Of course more rewards would entice more players to enter Raids in the first place. @Firebeard.1746 keeps on talking about raid rewards from the perspective of a full clear in 2 hours, but most players that actually tried Raids left long before reaching that point. By increasing the rewards of Raids, it will make progression all the better. Because even if you manage to kill a few bosses, or clear one wing in your Raid day, you will still have some rewards to talk about.

 

Those are the two major benefits of increasing the rewards of Raids, both leading to increased participation. Is it a solution that will solve everything? No. But it's probably an easy solution to implement when it comes to development resources.

[maddoctor.2738]

I decided to make a suggestion on the subject of Raid rewards. There are the following concerns:

a) Raid rewards are bad, unless you are in a good static that can do full clears. They are especially bad if you are in progression runs, with a new static, learning the encounters. Or if your group isn't able to clear more than 1-2 wings.

b) Those that indeed do full clears get enough rewards already, compared to other parts of the game, maybe they shouldn't get even more rewards

c) This is from another thread on the subject of Raids: we have "enough" Raid wings, that having more of them would put extra pressure on groups to actually finish them in one day. Finishing all of them (full clear) on one day is a requirement because getting 10 players together on multiple days can be problematic due to real life schedules. At the same time, as the number of Wings increases, the time required to beat all of them increases.

 

Solution/Suggestion:

The idea is to make Raids work more like Fractals. Fractal rewards are loaded on the daily and recommended, with very few players running any other Fractal on a given day. Nobody is "forced" to do a "full clear" of all 25 T4 Fractals (or all 25 fractals of any other tier), as there is barely any reward for doing so in one day. Add a system of weekly/recommended Raid wings, that will increase the rewards of those wings/encounters, also put LI/LD in that system, so a player is no longer pressured to do full clears to earn the maximum LI/LD for a week. This means you'd reach the cap of LI/LD much sooner than today (with fewer Wings), on the other hand, since different wings will be chosen every week, this would give players incentive to do more varied Raid encounters, than finishing Escort over and over.

 

The rewards should be similar to what we get now from a full clear of all 7 Wings, but the bulk of the extra rewards would come from finishing, let's say the first 3 Wings, and the rest will be "just a bonus" for those interested in them (without LI/LD rewards). Alternatively, the system could pick specific HOT and POF Raid wings every week, so there is a source of LI and LD every week, plus extra incentive to run those POF Raid wings. Achievements would work for a Wing, even when it's not "chosen" for a week, just like in Daily/Recommended Fractals.

 

This solves all the concerns given at the beginning.

a) By giving the bulk of the rewards early, you no longer have to do full clears to be "competitive" with other types of content

b) Those that do full clears every week won't get a massive benefit, as they would if the rewards were universally buffed for all Raid encounters

c) The pressure to do full clears every week on a single day would disappear, as the cap of LI/LD would be reached much sooner than a full clear

 

PS: Before someone brings it up, this is NOT the ONE solution to solve the participation issues of Raids alone, but it's a good first step, and much easier to implement and maintain than other solutions presented in the thread so far. 

Edited May 3, 2021 by maddoctor.2738

[Sobx.1758]

20 hours ago, Firebeard.1746 said:

The learning mode kind of helps, at the end of the day people will want to earn the leggies from them at some point because that's the unique thing about it. The issue I think we might run into there is people would want to eventually graduate

 

Yup, that's the idea.

 

20 hours ago, Firebeard.1746 said:

and that requires a static, because you need people experienced in specialized roles to kill the bosses. It might help get enough people's feet wet that you could PuG, and that might work,

 

See, I don't know why you keep claiming you need statics to reliably complete raids. You absolutely don't. You need roles to have some synergy (which doesn't mean running meta/optimal squads), yes, but IF you manage to get more people into raiding then you'll also have easier time finding those pugging squads to join.

[Sobx.1758]

6 hours ago, maddoctor.2738 said:

This solves all the concerns given at the beginning.

a) By giving the bulk of the rewards early, you no longer have to do full clears to be "competitive" with other types of content

b) Those that do full clears every week won't get a massive benefit, as they would if the rewards were universally buffed for all Raid encounters

c) The pressure to do full clears every week on a single day would disappear, as the cap of LI/LD would be reached much sooner than a full clear

This is not "a solution to save raids", this is "a solution"(?) to get more rewards faster.

[Firebeard.1746]

30 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

 

Yup, that's the idea.

 

 

See, I don't know why you keep claiming you need statics to reliably complete raids. You absolutely don't. You need roles to have some synergy (which doesn't mean running meta/optimal squads), yes, but IF you manage to get more people into raiding then you'll also have easier time finding those pugging squads to join.

because I've done enough training runs to know that even when it's not my fault, I can still fail a raid for some random person failing their role (slubs, pusher, tank, etc) and if you don't have a reliable way of being a in a group with someone that's learned the particular role, you can end up in training run hell. Which by the way, training runs are everything you've described minus rewards and they don't exactly work as a method for engagement. I'm by no means perfect, but have experienced this. Many times. And is actually why I don't muck around in raids often. I guess I could hypocritically post LF X members for Y raids, 100 kp and spoof KP if people ask me, but that's just dumb and a game shouldn't be asking me to do this.

Edited May 3, 2021 by Firebeard.1746

[Sobx.1758]

3 minutes ago, Firebeard.1746 said:

because I've done enough training runs to know that even when it's not my fault, I can still fail a raid for some random person failing their role (slubs, pusher, tank, etc) and if you don't have a reliable way of being a in a group with someone that's learned the particular role, you can end up in training run hell. Which by the way, training runs are everything you've described minus rewards and they don't exactly work. I'm by no means perfect, but have experienced this. Many times. And is actually why I don't muck around in raids often. I guess I could hypocritically post LF X members for Y raids, 100 kp and spoof KP if people ask me, but that's just dumb and a game shouldn't be asking me to do this.

Training raids are training raids. These people would be meant to be in the easier difficulty, that's the whole point here? (well, not whole. The other point would be to make it less scary to start raiding for new players)

I almost exclusively pug the raids, so I know for a fact that you don't need statics to easly and reliably succeed in raids. You claim it's hard to pug, but then as a justification of that claim you bring up... trianing raids? Doesn't make much sense to me, but maybe I'm just missing something.

Edited May 3, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[Firebeard.1746]

1 minute ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Training raids are training raids. These people would be meant to be in the easier difficulty, that's the whole point here? (well, not whole. The other point would be to make it less scary to start raiding for new players)

I almost exclusively pug the raids, so I know for a fact that you don't need statics to easly and reliably succeed in raids. You claim it's hard to pug, but then as a justification of that claim you bring up... trianing raids? Doesn't make much sense to me, but maybe I'm just missing something.

Do you ask for KP when you PuG? How and where do you PuG? I've also done progression raids that have failed too in the same situation, as recently as last week. I bring up training raids because those are usually not groups asking for 100+ KP.

[maddoctor.2738]

16 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

This is not "a solution to save raids", this is "a solution"(?) to get more rewards faster.

 

Since this is a game that is clearly reward driven and there are many who play for the rewards, easier access to those rewards can indeed help with participation problems. As I said in the same post, this isn't the only thing that should be done for Raids. But it should be included in any "total" solution that might appear.

 

But I don't think Arenanet should wait to develop a complete solution. You see, Arenanet fell into this trap before, when they designed the Build Templates, they wanted them to be "perfect" and "do everything", which meant it took them YEARS to bring them out, and even then, they weren't what was promised anyway. I don't want any "solution" to the Raid participation issue to be perfect, or complete, before it's implemented. They can start with much easier fixes, to see what works and what doesn't, and then go for more complex solutions. And increasing the ratio at which players acquire their rewards is a very good way to make Raids better.

[Sobx.1758]

15 minutes ago, Firebeard.1746 said:

Do you ask for KP when you PuG? How and where do you PuG? I've also done progression raids that have failed too in the same situation, as recently as last week. I bring up training raids because those are usually not groups asking for 100+ KP.

 

um... Do you understand we're still talking about easy>normal mode transition here? Easy modes can drop KP, who cares, you'll have proof you know the encounters when you move on to normal encounters and you definitely dont need ANYWHERE NEAR 100+. Stop trying to demonize it so hard or it'll start to look like you didn't really pug that much other than maybe joining/organizing TRAINING raids and then "normally" doing raids in statics.

Edited May 3, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[Firebeard.1746]

5 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

 

um... Do you understand we're still talking about easy>normal mode transition here? Easy modes can drop KP, who cares, you'll have proof you know the encounters when you move on to normal encounters and you definitely dont need ANYWHERE NEAR 100+. Stop trying to demonize it so hard or it'll start to look like you didn't really pug that much other than maybe joining/organizing TRAINING raids and then "normally" doing raids in statics.

The easy mode is pointless if people aren't graduating and I'm pointing out how it will fall apart (especially as you're take the legendaries out in your suggestion, that's what people will want in the long run). There's not really a difference between your suggested easy mode and the existence of training groups.

Edited May 4, 2021 by Firebeard.1746