New path to legendary armor?

[Ayrilana.1396]

19 minutes ago, Firebeard.1746 said:

Okay but if you use GW2 wingman, at least half the bosses have a 50% kill rate, some even way higher. If we use that to assume # of attempts for average player, it's still blazingly obvious raiding is more efficient. Sure there's the overhead of learning, but it's obvious after a certain point it pays off pretty easily.

https://gw2wingman.nevermindcreations.de/raid/dei
 

 

Does that site include logs from brand new players starting?  Or does it primarily include raiders themselves who already have experience clearing the bosses?

[Ayrilana.1396]

9 minutes ago, Endilbiach.4132 said:

 

I'm also ignoring that 242 hours of wvw time is a hysterically unreasonably IMPOSSIBLY low amount of time to do what you need to to finish wvw legendary armor.  Do you really want to try to start accounting for those levels of variance?  Because I sure as kitten don't.

 

So you're just making up numbers?

[Firebeard.1746]

5 minutes ago, Ayrilana.1396 said:

 

Does that site include logs from brand new players starting?  Or does it primarily include raiders themselves who already have experience clearing the bosses?

It aims to be pretty universal given its splash page. Its datasets are also fairly massive, you only also need 1 person in any given group to capture it.
 

Edited July 20, 2021 by Firebeard.1746

[Ayrilana.1396]

8 minutes ago, Firebeard.1746 said:

It aims to be pretty universal given its splash page. Its datasets are also fairly massive, you only also need 1 person in any given group to capture it.
 

 

Whether it needs one person or not wasn't what I had issues with but the skill level of the players the logs capture.  If this is from primarily skilled players then it's not something you could realistically used for new players.  Aside from those logs, there's still the amount of time it takes players to learn their rotations and improve their skill level in raids high enough to consistently clear them.  This part seems to be consistently ignored over and over.

[Endilbiach.4132]

8 minutes ago, Ayrilana.1396 said:

 

So you're just making up numbers?

 

Look, you asked for numbers, I'm giving you the best I have.  I'm not making up anything, I'm taking what I know to be possible, and crafting plausible scenarios involving them.  You want to know a realistic estimation for the wvw track?  First of all, a realistic one is you're not going to cap out Skirmish Tickets every week, so it's going to take more than 22 weeks.  You're also probably not going to get Outnumbered pips every tick you're in there, so it's going to WELL over 11 hours every week, scrubbing that 242 hours number into oblivion and cranking it into the stratosphere.

The purpose of those numbers is to illustrate that a competent player with a competent group doing raids can get 3 suits of legendary armor almost as fast as an impossibly perfect person can get 1 set of legendary wvw armor.

I was being optimistic when I said you could do all the raid legendary armors in roughly half the invested hours it would take to craft the wvw legendary armors.

[Ayrilana.1396]

21 minutes ago, Endilbiach.4132 said:

 

Look, you asked for numbers, I'm giving you the best I have.  I'm not making up anything, I'm taking what I know to be possible, and crafting plausible scenarios involving them.  You want to know a realistic estimation for the wvw track?  First of all, a realistic one is you're not going to cap out Skirmish Tickets every week, so it's going to take more than 22 weeks.  You're also probably not going to get Outnumbered pips every tick you're in there, so it's going to WELL over 11 hours every week, scrubbing that 242 hours number into oblivion and cranking it into the stratosphere.

The purpose of those numbers is to illustrate that a competent player with a competent group doing raids can get 3 suits of legendary armor almost as fast as an impossibly perfect person can get 1 set of legendary wvw armor.

I was being optimistic when I said you could do all the raid legendary armors in roughly half the invested hours it would take to craft the wvw legendary armors.

 

Include the time it takes for those going the raid route to learn their rotations and improve their skill on the raids themselves to consistently clear them at whatever full clear time you decide to assign.  Also account for raids requiring significantly more skill than WvW as well.

 

If one can do WvW and just sit at SMC repairing a wall every 10 min versus doing the highest challenging content in the game, I'd say the latter should be quicker.

Edited July 20, 2021 by Ayrilana.1396

[Firebeard.1746]

45 minutes ago, Ayrilana.1396 said:

 

Whether it needs one person or not wasn't what I had issues with but the skill level of the players the logs capture.  If this is from primarily skilled players then it's not something you could realistically used for new players.  Aside from those logs, there's still the amount of time it takes players to learn their rotations and improve their skill level in raids high enough to consistently clear them.  This part seems to be consistently ignored over and over.

I killed SH on my second training session as the tank. And learning those things is just a start up cost, I'm sure the 28% kill rate is a reasonable average across both skilled and training raiders. Note I'd get a lot more reliable kills if I decided to be picky about who I grouped after that 2nd session. This also completely ignores the fact that it doesn't matter how skilled you are at the other game modes, you never get close to the same progression curve of even the top players. I.E. a top WvW player is not rewarded the same as a top raider.

And I've seen some WvW commanders pull some impressive crap. There was a commander I ran with that took SMC in a 30 man raid completely numbered. You could even argue that doing that with a group of randos like they did takes way more skill than raiders who are usually choosy about who they run with to make things as easy as possible. I doubt even top raid leaders know how to do that. In fact some raiders are fodder with their builds being how they are XD.

 

Quote

If one can do WvW and just sit at SMC repairing a wall every 10 min versus doing the highest challenging content in the game, I'd say the latter should be quicker.

And let's just ignore the people who do way more than that and kill other players in uneven matchups as the underdog, am I right? Sounds pretty arrogant and judgy of an entire population. Also like you feel you're entitled to more than WvW players I'm sure are better at that game mode than you'll ever be. raids are static content. in WvW and any PVP mode, if you're actually playing, you have to have some level of skill in adjusting to far more dynamic situations.

Edited July 20, 2021 by Firebeard.1746

[Endilbiach.4132]

16 minutes ago, Ayrilana.1396 said:

 

Include the time it takes for those going the raid route to learn their rotations and improve their skill on the raids themselves to consistently clear them at whatever full clear time you decide to assign.  Also account for raids requiring significantly more skill than WvW as well.

 

If one can do WvW and just sit at SMC repairing a wall every 10 min versus doing the highest challenging content in the game, I'd say the latter should be quicker.

 

Spoken like someone who's never tried to farm pips.  If you have SMC, you're not consistently outnumbered in EBG, which means you're getting crap pips.  Also wall repairs don't give you 10 mins of participation, it's like 2 minutes.

And, sure, I don't disagree with the fact that the highest challenging content should give you rewards faster, but it's a hell of a tangent from this thread's original point, which is that there should be a pve route to a set of legendary armor that doesn't go through raids, because raids are terrible content.

WvW can be all skill levels.  Wanna be good?  Better get REALLY good.  Wanna be terrible but still get rewards?  Better get clever at avoiding the enemy long enough to kill guards and take sentries and drop dolyaks and other small time stuff.  Basically turns wvw into a giant game of cat and mouse.  Raiders aren't better players than wvw players, they're just better at what they do, and it's high time they realized that and stopped pretending that they are the be all and end all of the GW2 playerbase.

[Ayrilana.1396]

1 minute ago, Endilbiach.4132 said:

 

Spoken like someone who's never tried to farm pips.  If you have SMC, you're not consistently outnumbered in EBG, which means you're getting crap pips.  Also wall repairs don't give you 10 mins of participation, it's like 2 minutes.

And, sure, I don't disagree with the fact that the highest challenging content should give you rewards faster, but it's a hell of a tangent from this thread's original point, which is that there should be a pve route to a set of legendary armor that doesn't go through raids, because raids are terrible content.

WvW can be all skill levels.  Wanna be good?  Better get REALLY good.  Wanna be terrible but still get rewards?  Better get clever at avoiding the enemy long enough to kill guards and take sentries and drop dolyaks and other small time stuff.  Basically turns wvw into a giant game of cat and mouse.  Raiders aren't better players than wvw players, they're just better at what they do, and it's high time they realized that and stopped pretending that they are the be all and end all of the GW2 playerbase.

 

I've farmed a legendary armor set and the ring from WvW.  I never said anything about outnumbered.  I was comparing the skill level differences between WvW and raids.  Being highly skilled in WvW has zero impact on how quickly you obtain pips.

 

 

 

 

[Firebeard.1746]

1 minute ago, Ayrilana.1396 said:

  Being highly skilled in WvW has zero impact on how quickly you obtain pips.

And you don't think that's broken in any way? I would argue it is, given some of the conditions I've seen my commanders win fights in.

Edited July 20, 2021 by Firebeard.1746

[Ayrilana.1396]

21 minutes ago, Firebeard.1746 said:

I killed SH on my second training session as the tank. And learning those things is just a start up cost, I'm sure the 28% kill rate is a reasonable average across both skilled and training raiders. Note I'd get a lot more reliable kills if I decided to be picky about who I grouped after that 2nd session. This also completely ignores the fact that it doesn't matter how skilled you are at the other game modes, you never get close to the same progression curve of even the top players. I.E. a top WvW player is not rewarded the same as a top raider.

And I've seen some WvW commanders pull some impressive crap. There was a commander I ran with that took SMC in a 30 man raid completely numbered. You could even argue that doing that with a group of randos like they did takes way more skill than raiders who are usually choosy about who they run with to make things as easy as possible. I doubt even top raid leaders know how to do that. In fact some raiders are fodder with their builds being how they are XD.

 

Well if other players could be able to clear raids as quickly as you then surely there would be no need for all of those easy mode threads or threads for alternative ways to get legendary armor. 

[Ayrilana.1396]

1 minute ago, Firebeard.1746 said:

And you don't think that's broken in any way? I would argue it is, given some of the conditions I've seen my commanders win fights in.

 

Why would it be broken.  How would you suggest changing that in a way that it wouldn't be abused/exploited?

[Firebeard.1746]

1 minute ago, Ayrilana.1396 said:

 

Well if other players could be able to clear raids as quickly as you then surely there would be no need for all of those easy mode threads or threads for alternative ways to get legendary armor. 

Just because someone doesn't choose to do a piece of content doesn't mean they're not capable of it. And forcing people to do something they don't want to just for a reward isn't good game design.

[Firebeard.1746]

6 minutes ago, Ayrilana.1396 said:

 

Why would it be broken.  How would you suggest changing that in a way that it wouldn't be abused/exploited?

Why this? I've seen and heard of exploits on raid bosses. So let's be real here, no matter what is suggested will be exploitable on some level. But I would assume counting targets capped and/or kills much like the emblem achieves do would be a sane start. It could be further tweaked if need be. 

I've heard there's a way to sneak onto a ranged platform on dhuum and bug him. I've heard of people exploiting the griffon attack to 1-shot bosses and I would argue teapot's all-ranged Sabetha kill is pretty close.

Edited July 20, 2021 by Firebeard.1746

[Endilbiach.4132]

10 minutes ago, Ayrilana.1396 said:

 

Well if other players could be able to clear raids as quickly as you then surely there would be no need for all of those easy mode threads or threads for alternative ways to get legendary armor. 

 

Except you're missing the base point.  Raids are terrible and not everybody wants to play content they hate.  I'd like to see a pve option that doesn't include raids, not because I can't do wvw or something, but because I don't want to spend all my time every week stuck focusing on that.  I like open world content, I play open world content, I'd like to see a path where, with enough time effort and expense, I can get legendary armor from open world content without needing to go into a raid.  I'll accept dungeons, hell I'll even accept some fractals, just keep your damned dirty raids away from me.

[rrusse.7058]

Since we are on the topic of Teapot, raids and the skill ceiling for raids. He did post not too long ago a team comp that makes raids look fairly silly to the point that mechanics could be ignored.

 

The main take away is that even with a very safe team composition they were able to clear all the raid wings. Staying alive and pushing buttons beats being dead in raids every single time. Sure it's not going to win you can speedclear times, but if we are talking just clearing content for the sake of clearing it, there ya go.

 

 

[Ayrilana.1396]

14 minutes ago, Firebeard.1746 said:

Just because someone doesn't choose to do a piece of content doesn't mean they're not capable of it. And forcing people to do something they don't want to just for a reward isn't good game design.

If there was an easy mode raids that awarded as many LI as normal raids, people wouldn’t care. Or at least nowhere near the level as they seem to now. 

[Ayrilana.1396]

11 minutes ago, Firebeard.1746 said:

Why this? I've seen and heard of exploits on raid bosses. So let's be real here, no matter what is suggested will be exploitable on some level. But I would assume counting targets capped and/or kills much like the emblem achieves do would be a sane start. It could be further tweaked if need be. 

I've heard there's a way to sneak onto a ranged platform on dhuum and bug him. I've heard of people exploiting the griffon attack to 1-shot bosses and I would argue teapot's all-ranged Sabetha kill is pretty close.

Therea a difference between exploiting a boss and sitting there killing your alt character, trading captures, or whatever. 

[Ayrilana.1396]

6 minutes ago, Endilbiach.4132 said:

 

Except you're missing the base point.  Raids are terrible and not everybody wants to play content they hate.  I'd like to see a pve option that doesn't include raids, not because I can't do wvw or something, but because I don't want to spend all my time every week stuck focusing on that.  I like open world content, I play open world content, I'd like to see a path where, with enough time effort and expense, I can get legendary armor from open world content without needing to go into a raid.  I'll accept dungeons, hell I'll even accept some fractals, just keep your damned dirty raids away from me.

People only say it’s terrible because they’re challenging. If there was an easy mode that awarded the same number of LI, there wouldn’t be nearly as many people complaining. 

[rrusse.7058]

2 minutes ago, Ayrilana.1396 said:

If there was an easy mode that awarded the same number of LI, there wouldn’t be nearly as many people complaining

Do you think having a Beginner Mode or Easy Mode would be helpful for the raiding scene? Would that motivate people to engage with raids more, in turn making legendary armor an option for more players?

[Cyninja.2954]

Okay, let's once again put some things in perspective because while openly criticizing how toxic and unfriendly players who raid supposedly are, once again players who have no clue or at least are no where near the performance required to make such judgements are giving numbers as though they are pure facts. (and yes, it gets very tiring to face the same ignorance in every such thread.)

 

So what is my experience? Let me put it in numbers:

My total WvW claim ticket amount is over 35k. (24,298 current tickets + 3x2,620 mistforged+2,800 Warbringer)

 

My PvE raid experience, with a total of around 1.5 years of break from the game, extends all the way back to the first week when raids were introduced with experience during nearly every raid cycle since. Currently running in an approximately 3 hour full clear static, while helping out in another full clear static (which did it's first 1 day full clear yesterday in 3h10m) and in a casual raid group to help friends (usually around 3-4 wings in 2 hours). I've trained and run dozens of trainings over the years and I have all the raid achievements done, most of them 2-3 times without taking advantage of heavy cheese or broken classes or bugs. Here is my killproof.me: https://killproof.me/proof/rLDW

 

I'll do a pro and con for each with some interpretation and observation from myself:

PvE raid armor

PvE Pros

- can yield the fastest return to acquire a legendary armor IF one excludes training times (which somehow everyone arguing this does)

- shortest time needed per armor is 6 weeks for the first armor (150 LI), 12 weeks for any further armor (300 LI) at 15 LI+10 LD per week.

- raid difficulty is highly flexible which allows easy acquisition of some LI per week, which still leads to comparable time to legendary compared to say WvW

- here is the big one: there is nearly no full inexperienced raid squad today at all. Be it trainings, LFG, discord, guildes, etc. Most new raid squads have at least some semi experienced members to help out. This is a huge deal given 3-4 experienced players can carry an entire squad easy through most fights. This is also the disheartening part with players in this thread making wild claims about how fast they were in clearing raid fights. You didn't, you got carried and if you were able to read arcdps logs past the dps done, you'd know that.

- there is so much information, guides, videos, builds, etc available by now provided by other raiders. A large aspect of this modes difficulty can be circumvented for many players

- the amount of available LI/LD per week has increased drastically over the years. It took me 12+ weeks for my first 30 LI back when raids released. Given there was only wing 1. This time required has shifted by now

- raids are NOT hard to experienced players

 

PvE Cons

- this is not solo-able. You need X amount of other players per week to progress

- it requires a specific amount of time commitment in segments, unlike spvp or wvw where these increments are far smaller

- as mentioned earlier, if you want at least partial success and ease of access to reward, you need at least a few experienced players to take over roles and mechanics. Bringing mediocre dps and a bad boon uptime will not suffice

- the vast disparity between top end raiders and inexperienced raiders (who still succeed) is still huge and can swing as far as clearing 3 wings per hour versus not even 1

- the initial investment until payoff is far higher than either spvp or wvw and there is a high chance it will remain far higher for the entirety of your first legendary armor even at reduced cost

 

WvW armor

WvW Pros

- hop in and out as you please, very low fixed time commitment required

- accessible at nearly any time of day (unlike raids)

- can be done absolutely solo with minimal engagement if desired

- requires absolutely 0 game play skill. None, nada, zilch! You could run into this game mode naked and still get it done

- reward structure is not fluctuating (aka it's a reliable reward you can count on). You get X reward for X time spent and thus X progress, with very small deviations based on pips/tick, which in some cases can be affected by players choice (keep wood chest done, outnumbered map)

- the reward structure is based on an account progression system. The higher your WvW rank, the more reward you get, absolutely unrelated to your performance or engagement

 

 

WvW Cons

- highly dependant on personal WvW rank. The payoff of playing the mode is heavily pushed to higher ranks. This is as much a con at lower ranks as it is a pro in the long-run

- from a dedicated player perspective it is the slowest legendary armor to acquire in hours spent until completion (you trade time in favor of reliable rewards)

- the benefit of being "good" or successful at the mode is reflected in a less obvious progress for legendary armor. Growing faster in WvW ranks or acquiring more loot is less tangible as acquiring 1 or 2 more LI per week. It does make a difference in the long run (again a pro and con, personal performance not being a huge factor is a benefit and detriment)

 

To sum it up:

both approaches to legendary armor are vastly different with different benefits and detriments. They were never designed or meant to mirror each other. That would be non sensible. These different approaches are meant to enable players with different play habits to have some access to legendary armor. For a new player to either mode, the time required will not differ as greatly as some like to make it out to be.

 

The irony of it all (and what really bugs me I have to say):

Some players who constantly rant or complain about how difficult raids are, how toxic the community is, how much they wished the mode was never added, etc. are the first to mention how fast raid access to legendary armor is (so I guess they are not that hard after all?) when it comes to comparing time to acquisition to other modes. Here is my advice: before making any claims as to how easy or hard something is, how about you manage it yourself first, then advice others on the content.

 

TL;DR:

The total time it takes to acquire legendary items should NOT be the deciding factor for an individual for which mode they should play to achieve their goal. There is a difference here yes, but it is by far not as great to a new player as one might expect. That large difference is only present among top tier players, most often players who by that time could care less about the legendary armor to begin with.

Edited July 20, 2021 by Cyninja.2954

[Fuchslein.8639]

20 minutes ago, rrusse.7058 said:

Since we are on the topic of Teapot, raids and the skill ceiling for raids. He did post not too long ago a team comp that makes raids look fairly silly to the point that mechanics could be ignored.

 

The main take away is that even with a very safe team composition they were able to clear all the raid wings. Staying alive and pushing buttons beats being dead in raids every single time. Sure it's not going to win you can speedclear times, but if we are talking just clearing content for the sake of clearing it, there ya go.

 

 

 

The thing with videos like this is that Teapot probably did it with people who have experience. Since he was in a training raid of mine a few years ago and streamed it without us wanting to, I don't think much of him and therefore haven't watched much of him.
Seeing that they skip almost or even all(?) mechanics and partially zero dodging is impressive for me personally.
I'm raiding now for 3 days again. Yesterday we had a few problems with sloth, because the nekros killed the Shroom-muncher a few times with epi and I personally always play it safe and dodge, if I'm not about to burst my dps where I don't want to move since i am not allowed to interrupt my attacks, because it is not always 100% clear whether the support works.

 

 

Of course, this does not mean that it is not possible. I'm just about to bring a few absolute, partly mega confused people in the raid. What we have done with our guild years before and which went great.

The only thing that keeps people from raiding is their own attitude. Many prefer to farm for hours braindead any metas, than to stand a few hours at the golem and learn their class.
Which is of course okay. But I'm not okay to simplify rewards just because you want something, but do not want to put effort in it :/.

Edited July 20, 2021 by Fuchslein.8639

[ArchonWing.9480]

I mean, it's obviously easier to leech in WvW and get carried.

 

But to a new player with no mount and whose server is getting farmed and there are no tags because they play at an odd time of day; well the experience can vary.

 

I've seen people die to NPCs before sooo....

 

I mean I'm sure that there are people that afk farm and just kill a sentry every now and then, but at the very least if you know how to play the game mode, you'd get ranks faster and that'll help you get pips faster too. And also I suppose you could tag for more pips; can't expect randos to do that.

 

Some of you probably don't realize how awful pip gain is at low ranks and are probably overestimating patience/ability of inexperienced players to even maintain pips.

Edited July 20, 2021 by ArchonWing.9480

[rrusse.7058]

12 minutes ago, Fuchslein.8639 said:

But I'm not okay to simplify rewards just because you want something, but do not want to put effort in it :/.

No disagreement there. I only brought the video up because I wanted people to at least know that there are team comps out there that make raids more manageable. That is a good point though that most of the people in the video have perhaps the most important factor, experience and skill.

 

They know how to play their class because they took the time to get to that point.

 

My input on this topic thus far has just been to find different ways for players to put time and effort into making legendary armor.

 

Outstanding post by @Cyninja.2954. Everyone should take a moment to read that! That said, yes there is no way the WvW or PvE legendary armor acquisition methods are going to match one another as was said. They were never meant to be.

 

So, is there another way? What about what we are doing with the EoD amulet and precursor weapon now with the Living World replays? Does this feel like a reasonable time commitment to get a legendary amulet and a precursor weapon of your choosing? Is this something Arenanet should do more?

Edited July 20, 2021 by rrusse.7058
Formatting

[Firebeard.1746]

1 hour ago, Ayrilana.1396 said:

Therea a difference between exploiting a boss and sitting there killing your alt character, trading captures, or whatever. 

You know exploits on bosses in other games are almost immediately patched? Right? So basically you're saying it's okay for raiders to take shortcuts, but if it was possible for WvWers to get more progress actually doing activities that contribute to your server score (Killing other players, capturing things, the essence of the game mode) it shouldn't be rewarded?

Killing your alt character would take too much time (you'd have to corpse run them back to a secret place, or risk camping too close to an enemy spawn point. Trading captures also has a timer on it. And what would be wrong with people killing and capturing?

It's way more useful than someone who maybe just tapped SMC's wall every now and then.

Also trade captures would be more difficult to pull off because you'd need cooperation from other members on your server.

I'm sure despite your "exploits" organized groups that play the game mode properly would still progress faster than people attempting to exploit for as little effort as possible which it sounds like is an MO you're very familiar with, regardless of game mode.

 

Edited July 20, 2021 by Firebeard.1746