[IDEA] Raids in EoD - making Raiders and Casuals happy

[Lurana.7506]

I really hope for new raids in the new expansion. And I also hope that they are more like the first four/five wings which were tied to the story so that they gave a kind of added benefit to the story and gave many possibilities for theories. I see that lots of people didn't like that because they weren't able to fully enjoy the storys when not playing raids (Eye of Janthir...).

But maybe we could get a cutscene for each raid wing explaining what happened. Then Glenna could send a letter like "Commander, something interesting happened in ... Meet me in Lion's Arch." And the player can choose wether they want to play the raid or can watch the cutscene telling them the important stuff. We got cutscenes for the wings anyway so it shouldn't be too much work. 

 

Another possibility would be story instanced raids. The player can play a raid wing solo with a npc army (like Dragonstorm) and enjoy the story. Raiders can play the raid wing with their squad. For that to work we need many more and different mechanics in the raid mode so it doesn't feel easy because one can just play the solo mode and then know what's happening. Because obviously part of the fun is trial and error until knowing the mechanics.

In the second option, the raids shouldn't be part of the story journal (so no real story instance like Dragonstorm) but an added bonus.

And very important is that the raid mode offers more and better loot. The solo mode should give normal story instance loot and a few achievement points and the raid mode should give the raid loot - 2 gold per boss, achievements, chance of ascended gear and special skins, ...

 

What do you guys think?

Edited May 31, 2021 by Lurana.7506

[Ardenwolfe.8590]

I wish they would do this for raids and dungeons. We’ve been asking for years. On a side note, break up your paragraphs for more white space.

 

Walls of text dissuade readers.

Edited May 31, 2021 by Ardenwolfe.8590

[Raknar.4735]

I doubt your "solution" would increase player engagement with raids by a large margin. The average player will still ignore raids.

[mindcircus.1506]

2 hours ago, Lurana.7506 said:

But maybe we could get a cutscene for each raid wing explaining what happened. Then Glenna could send a letter like "Commander, something interesting happened in ... Meet me in Lion's Arch." And the player can choose wether they want to play the raid or can watch the cutscene telling them the important stuff. We got cutscenes for the wings anyway so it shouldn't be too much work. 

Because for someone who doesn't raid this would be a pretty hollow experience.

 

It doesn't play like "here's what you missed".

It comes off as "here's what people better than you got to see"

 

When the Saul stuff was wrapped up in a raid and the usual low-effort whiners got miffed that an important story beat for the franchise and a bunch great lore was gated behind a raid, what was the developer response to this?

One of the raid devs got up on reddit and said that the players who can't/don't raid should feel free to pick through a cleared instance for lore interactables.

Do you think that made people happy?... or do you think that it set these people off talking about how content had been stolen from them?

 

Anyways... dead horse.

They aren't making more raids.

They have said so.

[Lurana.7506]

1 hour ago, Raknar.4735 said:

I doubt your "solution" would increase player engagement with raids by a large margin. The average player will still ignore raids.

I don't necessarily want to increase the player base in raids. I want a solution that makes both raiders and story focused players happy. My solution gives both groups a piece of the cake. When some players start raiding because of that, well, it's an added bonus.

[Lurana.7506]

1 minute ago, mindcircus.1506 said:

Because for someone who doesn't raid this would be a pretty hollow experience.

 

It doesn't play like "here's what you missed".

It comes off as "here's what people better than you got to see"

 

When the Saul stuff was wrapped up in a raid and the usual low-effort whiners got miffed that an important story beat for the franchise and a bunch great lore was gated behind a raid, what was the developer response to this?

One of the raid devs got up on reddit and said that the players who can't/don't raid should feel free to pick through a cleared instance for lore interactables.

Do you think that made people happy?... or do you think that it set these people off talking about how content had been stolen from them?

 

Anyways... dead horse.

They aren't making more raids.

They have said so.

Okay, even if you are right, there is the second solution of a solo instance. Then they are able to play it. But to the first solution: I discussed it with a few non raiding friends and they liked it. They obviously don't speak for the masses, but there you go.

 

And where exactly did the mention they won't release new raids?

 

[mindcircus.1506]

Just now, Lurana.7506 said:

Okay, even if you are right, there is the second solution of a solo instance. Then they are able to play it. But to the first solution: I discussed it with a few non raiding friends and they liked it. They obviously don't speak for the masses, but there you go.

 

And where exactly did the mention they won't release new raids?

 

The solo instance (and by extention "easy mode" for groups)  defeats the purpose of raids in the first place.

Raids are what is called "aspirational content" in an MMO. They are meant to be that top-level activity that truly engaged players take on, and represent, for many players a form of goal. Not every player gets to that point and many chose to ignore it, but having that as a long term option is important for some people's interest in any given MMORPG.

Story mode erases that goal.

You don't sell raids to a player by saying "hey remember that easy AF instance you did last week, that you could autoattack to beat with your brownbear/longbow ranger in mismatched blue and green gear?... raids are that but harder"

 

The death of raid development was discussed by Andrew Gray in a post over a year ago.

[Lurana.7506]

1 minute ago, mindcircus.1506 said:

The solo instance (and by extention "easy mode" for groups)  defeats the purpose of raids in the first place.

Raids are what is called "aspirational content" in an MMO. They are meant to be that top-level activity that truly engaged players take on, and represent, for many players a form of goal. Not every player gets to that point and many chose to ignore it, but having that as a long term option is important for some people's interest in any given MMORPG.

Story mode erases that goal.

You don't sell raids to a player by saying "hey remember that easy AF instance you did last week, that you could autoattack to beat with your brownbear/longbow ranger in mismatched blue and green gear?... raids are that but harder"

 

The death of raid development was discussed by Andrew Gray in a post over a year ago.

 

It does not make raids pointless. You have a solo (solo! Not easy group content) instance where everyone can enjoy the wings and the story. And then you've got the raid with the same story and bosses, yes, but other mechanics, much more difficult, for ten people and with far better loot. That means raiders will still get the fun of a normal raid wing and the loot (and so the encouragement to tackle the raid) even if casual players can play it alone.

[Sobx.1758]

So you don't want raids, you want story instances. And you already have story instance by playing through the story. I don't know why some people feel the need to pretend "they want more raids" when what they want is... well, not raids.

[mindcircus.1506]

8 minutes ago, Lurana.7506 said:

 

It does not make raids pointless. You have a solo (solo! Not easy group content) instance where everyone can enjoy the wings and the story. And then you've got the raid with the same story and bosses, yes, but other mechanics, much more difficult, for ten people and with far better loot. That means raiders will still get the fun of a normal raid wing and the loot (and so the encouragement to tackle the raid) even if casual players can play it alone.

And if all that were true, they would have done it.

[Raknar.4735]

32 minutes ago, Lurana.7506 said:

I don't necessarily want to increase the player base in raids. I want a solution that makes both raiders and story focused players happy. My solution gives both groups a piece of the cake. When some players start raiding because of that, well, it's an added bonus.

 

The biggest problem that hinders Anet from creating more raids is the small player base.

Not tackling the actual problem is a fruitless endeavor. It won't make anyone happy in the long run.

 

Andrew Gray said it himself:

 

On 2/3/2020 at 7:01 PM, Fire Attunement.9835 said:

the biggest challenge in creating more is the small audience they attract

 

As long as your solution doesn't increase player engagement it is doomed to fail.

[Lurana.7506]

1 hour ago, Sobx.1758 said:

So you don't want raids, you want story instances. And you already have story instance by playing through the story. I don't know why some people feel the need to pretend "they want more raids" when what they want is... well, not raids.

 

You completely missed my point. I do want raids! I'm a raider and I really hope they will release more wings. But I also see the problem that raids have a small player base and that non raiding players feel left out if the raids contain story related stuff (which makes them more interesting for me on the other hand). That's why I made suggestions how to make both sides happy while enabling more players to enjoy the wings so that all the work from the devs is not limited to a small amount of players.

Edited May 31, 2021 by Lurana.7506

[Lurana.7506]

48 minutes ago, Raknar.4735 said:

 

The biggest problem that hinders Anet from creating more raids is the small player base.

Not tackling the actual problem is a fruitless endeavor. It won't make anyone happy in the long run.

 

Andrew Gray said it himself:

 

 

As long as your solution doesn't increase player engagement it is doomed to fail.

 

Well it would increase the amount of players who would enjoy the wings because everyone who's interested in the story (or the achievements or whatnot) would run the solo instance. So all the effort is not limited to the small raiding player base. And maybe some would start raiding.

[Sobx.1758]

2 minutes ago, Lurana.7506 said:

 

You didn't get my point. I do want raids! I'm a raider and I really hope they will release more wings. But I also see the problem that raids have a small player base and that non raiding players feel left out if the raids contain story related stuff (which makes them more interesting for me on the other hand). That's why I made suggestions how to make both sides happy while enabling more players to enjoy the wings so that all the work from the devs is not limited to a small amount of players.

There were already long threads about this, use search function (or just check instanced content subforum) and read those 20 pages so we don't have to repeat the same things again 😁

Overally if that's not "either or" kind of deal, then I don't have anything against it, except maybe for the fact that most people would play through the story once and never repeat it again, at which point I don't think it's worth the time and effort to suddenly rework those encounters to fit single player combat/mechanical capabilities. I don't see how that would help with keeping the raids around -if someone's interested in the story/cutscenes, pretty sure they can check those on youtube. If someone's interested in gameplay, they should start trying to get into raids. If neither then what is this even about 😜

[Ravenous.7281]

I would love a story mode from raids. In the game Aion we have a similar lore with dragons to, and there, we deafeat the dragons in raids. But also we have a preaty easy fight in the story mode to. This need to come to GW2.

 

I like to think in a five man run for enjoy with friends to. Something like a dungeon mode. They already have the contents, they just need a few manipulation for casual players enjoy this content to. Of course, not with the same rewards.

[Ravenous.7281]

2 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

There were already long threads about this, use search function (or just check instanced content subforum) and read those 20 pages so we don't have to repeat the same things again 😁

Overally if that's not "either or" kind of deal, then I don't have anything against it, except maybe for the fact that most people would play through the story once and never repeat it again, at which point I don't think it's worth the time and effort to suddenly rework those encounters to fit single player combat/mechanical capabilities. I don't see how that would help with keeping the raids around -if someone's interested in the story/cutscenes, pretty sure they can check those on youtube. If someone's interested in gameplay, they should start trying to get into raids. If neither then what is this even about 😜

Except to the fact that ppl will not doing raod for story. They even wait the dialogs.

[Sobx.1758]

2 hours ago, Ravenous.7281 said:

Except to the fact that ppl will not doing raod for story. They even wait the dialogs.

...so the argument about people doing raids for story -which is what I was responding to- is false? Ok then?

And I don't understand what "they even wait the dialogs" means here.

[Infusion.7149]

More raids are unlikely to happen given how DRMs work.
New story instances are likely to follow how Dragonstorm works (and to a lesser extent Forging Steel was a test before that):
* can resurrect at waypoint
* scaling from 1 player to 50 (private squad) or 80 players (public)
* can resurrect dead player that is too lazy to waypoint

ref:
https://www.pcgamesn.com/mmo-raids
 

Quote

“The core players of the game had spent most of their time in a five-player environments through [in-game content like] Dungeons and Fractals, and we wanted to ensure that the raid experience was uniquely different with a larger group size,” she says. “That definitely worked, but it came with the disadvantage that players suddenly needed to add five more players to their core Fractal group if they wanted to raid. It was an added challenge to players that for some created a barrier to entry.”

(opinion article) https://massivelyop.com/2021/04/20/flameseeker-chronicles-possible-futures-for-guild-wars-2s-strikes-and-dragon-response-missions/

https://massivelyop .com/2020/11/17/flameseeker-chronicles-first-impressions-of-guild-wars-2s-icebrood-saga-truce

Quote

We asked ArenaNet’s representatives why this new type of instance is capped at 5 players rather than 10 like Steel and Fire. Their reason was that Steel and Fire, while designed to scale from 5-10 players, becomes much more challenging in smaller groups, a frustrating experience that I think a lot of players have shared. They found that the mechanics scale much better in the 1-5 player range. While ArenaNet did not mention this, I think it is also important to note that allowing the player to complete this content solo also makes it possible for the dragon response missions to become part of the story without feeling like a content type bait-and-switch....ArenaNet was quick to assure us that the purpose of dragon response missions was not to replace fractals or strikes, but as something new and different, and that they have no plans to discontinue work on those any time soon.

Fractals have a future , raids not confirmed:

 

Edited May 31, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[Astralporing.1957]

8 hours ago, Lurana.7506 said:

 

Well it would increase the amount of players who would enjoy the wings because everyone who's interested in the story (or the achievements or whatnot) would run the solo instance.

Yes. Once. And never again. To make raids again a point of consideration for devs you would need to do something that would make more people willing to repeat them. And more than just a few times.

 

To know how it would end, just look at how succesful the dungeon story modes were (hint: not at all).

[Obtena.7952]

10 hours ago, Lurana.7506 said:

I don't necessarily want to increase the player base in raids. I want a solution that makes both raiders and story focused players happy. My solution gives both groups a piece of the cake. When some players start raiding because of that, well, it's an added bonus.

You're not really solving any problem if you aren't talking about increasing player base in raids. Why do you think raids have stopped being developed? 

Edited May 31, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Lurana.7506]

15 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

There were already long threads about this, use search function (or just check instanced content subforum) and read those 20 pages so we don't have to repeat the same things again 😁

Overally if that's not "either or" kind of deal, then I don't have anything against it, except maybe for the fact that most people would play through the story once and never repeat it again, at which point I don't think it's worth the time and effort to suddenly rework those encounters to fit single player combat/mechanical capabilities. I don't see how that would help with keeping the raids around -if someone's interested in the story/cutscenes, pretty sure they can check those on youtube. If someone's interested in gameplay, they should start trying to get into raids. If neither then what is this even about 😜

 

I never said anything about reworking old raids. I know there are discussions about it. But I don't think that would be a good idea because of what you said . I'm speaking about new raids.

[Firebeard.1746]

If the solo experience is the same difficulty on a per-player basis as raids, it would be fine. I don't expect this to happen though and I'm expecting an army of raider trolls to come and tell you you're stupid and they're the only ones that deserve any kind of reward from the content. I still don't understand why anet is dead-set on their raid designs as-is. There's huge holes in it. Like in any MMO tanking in and of itself is usually anxiety inducing and keeps many people out of that particular raiding experience. Why they chose to add more specialized roles with the same amount of pressure is beyond comprehension.

Why there are no proper raid instance locks allowing people to properly progress through the wings on their own time is also baffling. Especially in the context of the specialized collections for the legendaries. I find it hilarious there's a polling thread where a good portion of the people who respond say "raids are fine, there's bosses of many different skill levels" like these stupid collections don't exist.

Also, I think the lack of fungible raid sizes hurt too (in addition to them being based around small squads). When i had a static in WoW, I often couldn't make the start time, but they could add me later because of the raid size fungibility. Granted, I don't know how to make this improvement to GW2 raids. With the specialized roles and some of the corporal punishment mechanics, it's easily a liability bringing more people.

Compared to other MMOs lack of difficulty diversity is also baffling. Especially given this MMO was designed to be more casual than them. I feel like your solution would be a good middle ground - that way, the solo players still have to show competence but don't have to have KP or other things to just participate in and learn the content.

I also don't like the way the tanking role was built in this game. I feel like you're often pressured into wearing as much DPS gear as you can, but at the same time it's a liability. Also the focus on active mitigation in addition to dodging also feels off. I feel like a good group won't care if you choose to be more durable, but it's still annoying that expectation can come.

Edited June 2, 2021 by Firebeard.1746

[Linken.6345]

4 minutes ago, Firebeard.1746 said:

If the solo experience is the same difficulty on a per-player basis as raids, it would be fine. I don't expect this to happen though and I'm expecting an army of raider trolls to come and tell you you're stupid and they're the only ones that deserve any kind of reward from the content. I still don't understand why anet is dead-set on their raid designs as-is. There's huge holes in it. Like in any MMO tanking in and of itself is usually anxiety inducing and keeps many people out of that particular raiding experience. Why they chose to add more specialized roles with the same amount of pressure is beyond comprehension.

Why there are no proper raid instance locks allowing people to properly progress through the wings on their own time is also baffling. Especially in the context of the specialized collections for the legendaries. I find it hilarious there's a polling thread where a good portion of the people respond say "raids are fine, there's bosses of many different skill levels" like these stupid collections don't exist.

Also, I think the lack of fungible raid sizes hurt too (in addition to them being based around small squads). When i had a static in WoW, I often couldn't make the start time, but they could add me later because of the raid size fungibility. Granted, I don't know how to make this improvement to GW2 raids. With the specialized roles and some of the corporal punishment mechanics, it's easily a liability bringing more people.

Compared to other MMOs lack of difficulty diversity is also baffling. Especially given this MMO was designed to be more casual than them. I feel like your solution would be a good middle ground - that way, the solo players still have to show competence but don't have to have KP or other things to just participate in and learn the content.

I also don't like the way the tanking role was built in this game. I feel like you're often pressured into wearing as much DPS gear as you can, but at the same time it's a liability. Also the focus on active mitigation in addition to dodging also feels off. I feel like a good group won't care if you choose to be more durable, but it's still annoying that expectation can come.

The tanks in dps gear do so because they can do it, me being a healer go full minstrel chrono if tank is needed without much problem.

If someone whine they can tank themselfs.

[Blaeys.3102]

Raids have never fit well with the GW2 model - and that has created division in the game since the first VG fight.  It was an experiment and it just didnt work - which is exactly why were seeing them try new things like strike missions and larger instanced content like Dragonstorm. 

 

They still havent gotten it right, but they are getting closer. The one thing we can see clearly is that traditional raids arent the answer. 

 

And the fact that they gated some story (especially lore heavy stories such as Saul's) behind raid difficulties made things 100 times worse - creating tension that is not healthy for the game. The OPs idea seems like a good idea, but as you can see from the responses he got almost immediately, unfortunately - at this point - it would only create more drama. A small (very vocal - and almost always the same people) subset of players is going to resist any effort to make raids more inclusive in a meaningful way.

 

I know there are people on these forums who strongly disagree with this stance, but 5 years of forum (and in game) drama point to the underlying problems with this game mode.  Raids split the community and create ego-centric tension that works in progression focused games like WoW, but not in community focused games like Guild Wars 2. 

 

 

[LittleYoshi.2548]

The only way Raids will ever be easy/hard enough for everyone in this game are difficulty settings. The game is way too complex to the point where the difference between a good and bad player is just way too big to satisfy everyone. 
Maybe make like 4 different modes. 
1 EasyMode that's almost impossible to fail 
1 NormalMode with the same difficulty of raids right now
1 HardMode which would be the same as CMs now
1 ExtremeMode that maybe only like 100ppl could manage to beat as the ultimate endgoal

Imo raids are one of the best things this game has to offer and it would be a hard pill to swallow if we never gonna get any challenging content again.