EOD Stream on July 27 has to say something about RAIDS.

[HotDelirium.7984]

8 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Might be. Except they visibly tried to keep casual players engaged (with the return to LS metaevent), they tried to keep the WvW players engaged (with the few weekend events, and with the announcement that alliances are, indeed coming, and not soon(tm), but soon), they tried to keep those interested in moderately challenging content engaged with stuff like Marionette, but they never tried to reach in any way to Raid community.

If they wanted to keep raiders engaged in waiting for the new wing that is so surely in the works, they would have dropped that bomb on the hardcore community long ago. Or at least sent some hints out to keep people interested. Instead, the last information we have is that Raids don;t have the population big enough for them to be worth working on, and hints (from a certain recent youtube interview with certain dev) that the population problems started way back, when they were still officially commenting how they are satisfied with raids (specifically - that the first fractal CMs were okayed partially due to that, which means the population problems had to be already visible even before November 2016)

 

See above. If they thought that keeping raider population was that beneficial, they would have sent out at least some hints to that community by now.

 

I guess we'll see in 4 days. Still, i would be surprised if they were to return to Raids, and not try some other forms of challenging content that is easier to develop and maintain, and more open to overall community instead.

This game is all about the story so if you lock all that story behind raids the PVE/casual community that makes up the majority of your game misses out. I think they are reevaluating this since we havn't had a raid in 2 years and got DRMs and Strikes. I prefer strikes over raids because at least they set it up to where that mode is a bit more accessible.  I wonder if every raid was a strike, how that would have went.

A label, for whatever reason, is everything in a product so they could still churn out "raids" but maybe they have the difficulty of an ez mode raid or a dungeon moving forward.

[yann.1946]

On 7/23/2021 at 6:06 PM, Teratus.2859 said:

Why should Anet bother to continue investing a game mode that most of their player base either has no interest in playing anymore or never could get into in the first place?

I've been saying for years in my numerous arguments with raiders that what raids needs more than anything is a larger active playerbase to justify it's continued support.. much of which was just ignored by people who were more focused on dismissing the numerous calls from players asking for more options.. such as easy mode raids for example.

I'm not going to just state that raids are dead or anything nor am I saying Anet has given up and will never make more raids.
But if you feel like the game mode is stagnating at this point and being actively neglected then you are feeling what I was trying to warn you about for a long time.

This is sort of a a posteriori justification for a bad argument. Because originally their where more then enough people to justify the continued development.   And you do not need the majority of the playerbase doing something to justify making that thing.

On 7/23/2021 at 6:06 PM, Teratus.2859 said:

If more people regularly play raids.. raids would probably have more support.
But something needs to change within raiding to get more people interested.
Strikes tried to be a bridge to help people get into Raid content but ultimately it failed to do so.
I'm still a firm believer in easy/story mode raids that help teach people the actual mechanics of each raid boss in a less punishing environment but that's just me.
I'm not interested in getting into another argument over that though XD

 

[mindcircus.1506]

On 7/23/2021 at 12:06 PM, Teratus.2859 said:

Why should Anet bother to continue investing a game mode that most of their player base either has no interest in playing anymore or never could get into in the first place?

Because focusing on what you believe to be the game mode that most of the player base is most interested in lead to the worst financial quarter this game had ever experienced.

[mindcircus.1506]

On 7/24/2021 at 2:12 PM, HotDelirium.7984 said:

This game is all about the story so if you lock all that story behind raids the PVE/casual community that makes up the majority of your game misses out. I think they are reevaluating this since we havn't had a raid in 2 years and got DRMs and Strikes. I prefer strikes over raids because at least they set it up to where that mode is a bit more accessible.  I wonder if every raid was a strike, how that would have went.

A label, for whatever reason, is everything in a product so they could still churn out "raids" but maybe they have the difficulty of an ez mode raid or a dungeon moving forward.

This game is most definitely not "all about the story".

If it were it would be dead right now., buried by the MMOs  that do story infinitely better than this one.

 

A true story driven MMO makes the player play through the story in order to progress your character. You cannot progress in a true story driven MMO.without playing it. Examples of this are FF 14, The Secret World Legends, or Star Wars: the Old Republic.

This game has always offered story tacked on and optional, gating very few tangible rewards behind it's completion.

 

The rhetoric calling this a Story based game or saying "Guild Wars is all about the story" is nothing more than an attempt to control the narrative by players who aren't interested in certain types of content. 

It's no more than a disingenuous attempt to wag the dog.

[HotDelirium.7984]

4 minutes ago, mindcircus.1506 said:

This game is most definitely not "all about the story".

If it were it would be dead right now., buried by the MMOs  that do story infinitely better than this one.

 

A true story driven MMO makes the player play through the story in order to progress your character. You cannot progress in a true story driven MMO.without playing it. Examples of this are FF 14, The Secret World Legends, or Star Wars: the Old Republic.

This game has always offered story tacked on and optional, gating very few tangible rewards behind it's completion.

 

The rhetoric calling this a Story based game or saying "Guild Wars is all about the story" is nothing more than an attempt to control the narrative by players who aren't interested in certain types of content. 

It's no more than a disingenuous attempt to wag the dog.

Imagine assuming another person's intentions based on one forum post. Can't relate. 

[Sobx.1758]

8 hours ago, HotDelirium.7984 said:

Imagine assuming another person's intentions based on one forum post. Can't relate. 

Apparently also can't respond to what people write, instead keep dodging like you just did.

 

Edited July 26, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[HotDelirium.7984]

5 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Apparently also can't respond to what people write, instead keep dodging like you just did.

 

I wish I could block you ❤️ 

[Sobx.1758]

1 hour ago, HotDelirium.7984 said:

I wish I could block you ❤️ 

Yeah, reading facts that go against your feelings and made up claims can be hard. Echo chambers filled with false information are so much better 😁 

 

Edited July 26, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[Teratus.2859]

21 hours ago, yann.1946 said:

This is sort of a a posteriori justification for a bad argument. Because originally their where more then enough people to justify the continued development. 

In the beginning sure, but there were a lot more people trying raids back then as well to varying degrees of success.
This dropped off though, in part for many reasons that have been said by myself and plenty of other players over time who have shared their negative experiences with the content.. and more specifically, some of it's players.

The established community, the hardcore raiders we'll call them for simplicities sake just don't make up enough of a playerbase to warrant such an investment into raiding.
Many of them too have dwindled away from the content, many probably because they're bored of existing raids and want something new.. one problem feeding another that in turn worsens the original problem.
Anet has confirmed that Strikes were made to counter this and entice more players into raiding but it just didn't work.
 

21 hours ago, yann.1946 said:

And you do not need the majority of the playerbase doing something to justify making that thing.

On this I have to disagree, especially with the model that GW2 operates on.
Anet has to make money though alternate means to your common Sub MMO in order to support and maintain this game.
That means they do have an obligation, a financial obligation to invest in the game where they are most likely to make the most money.
That means playerbases matter.. a lot in Gw2.

If Raids cannot entice a regular playerbase that is large enough to warrant investment in more raid development then it is both a waste of Anet's time and resources to continue developing them.
This is why I posed the question:
" Why should Anet bother to continue investing a game mode that most of their player base either has no interest in playing anymore or never could get into in the first place? "

That's not my personal viewpoint.. It's what I think, based on simple common sense that Anet is thinking when it comes to future raid development.
You can argue that raids are important and a lot of people enjoy them, and for the record I don't disagree with that at all, I want raids to succeed.. I've been very vocal about how I want options in raids and tools that will help get more people willing to try them again and teach them how to succeed there.

But Anet has confirmed that their data shows that the active raid community is a very small minority.. a lot smaller than they want it to be and that they had hoped it would be, hence again the whole point of strike missions.
And when it comes to the financial health of this game Raids as they are now.. simply are not profitable.
From Anet's point of view, again based on simple common sense.
That time, effort and resources that would need to be spent on developing new raids are just better off being invested elsewhere in the game.

You are right though, you don't need a majority of the player base doing something to justify continued development of it.. but you do need enough of that playerbase invested in it.. and raids just doesn't have that right now.

[Obtena.7952]

6 minutes ago, Teratus.2859 said:

You are right though, you don't need a majority of the player base doing something to justify continued development of it.. but you do need enough of that playerbase invested in it.. and raids just doesn't have that right now.

So true. People have already tried to justify 'MOAR RAIDZ' based on the success that raid were when they were released ... and not what raids are now. Just doesn't make sense. 

[Teratus.2859]

3 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

So true. People have already tried to justify 'MOAR RAIDZ' based on the success that raid were when they were released ... and not what raids are now. Just doesn't make sense. 

It's unfortunate..

I believe the same thing is also true for dungeons too, A lot of us do want more dungeons, like proper stand alone dungeons..
Personally I'd love to see elite ones like Gw1 had as well.. Underworld, Fissure etc.. they were fun 😄

But who knows what End of Dragons will bring.. new dungeons? new raids? new fractals?.. It's all possible.
Guess we'll hopefully find out tomorrow.
I'll have my fingers crossed for all of it ^^ even if I don't get to play some of it.

[Astralporing.1957]

On 7/25/2021 at 4:43 PM, yann.1946 said:

This is sort of a a posteriori justification for a bad argument. Because originally their where more then enough people to justify the continued development.  

But apparently they did not justify enough development resources to keep that community alive. basically, community was big enough Anet was willing to spend enough dev time/resources to make a new wing every 9 months or so. Except that he community wanted far more resources to keep thriving, and that was not something Anet was ever willing to give. So, the community died out, and Anet eventually decided to stop throwing good money after the bad. Sort of, because they were still willing to spend some on experiments like Strikes they hoped might have increased raid participation (but ultimately failed in that regard).

 

Whatever you look at it, the end result is the same. The amount of resources needed by Raids to remain alive was always bigger than the population of that mode warranted.

[Zalavaaris.5329]

On 7/20/2021 at 7:08 PM, Telgum.6071 said:

- New Raids & Fractals (I think this has been confirmed?)

- New elite specializations

- WvW Allainces + balance changes

- EoD exclusive new feature (like glider or mounts)

- Legendary trinkets for every game mode

- Deep explanation about the way forward even beyond the expansion

 

Those are my expectations for the stream, but I will agree with the people above my comment: I really doubt new raids are a deciding factor. They are hard to get started with and become repetitive really fast. IMO fractals or even new and harder strike missions would be more decisive in the long run. 

 

Not to mention WvW and PvP. There are tons of people who primarily main those modes, and I doubt new xpecs are a deciding factor for many of them if those game modes don't start getting attention.

 

PS. "The casuals". That's a mean comment. To me, those who see new raids as a deciding factor are the casuals, forever stuck on that repetitive PvE content where nothing unexpected happens, to the point of even making new accounts to replay the same thing twice a week. Step by WvW any day and prove you are not another "casual".

Oh you're 100% right lol I am a raid casual. I hop in for a 2.5 hour gaming session once a week to clear the raids and then work on stuff like vision solo every now and again.  But my life schedule means I can't grind how I'd like to 😞

 

Oh and obv I do the weekly story stuff for the meta lol that's been a blast!

 

Edited July 26, 2021 by Zalavaaris.5329

[Touchme.1097]

If you think about it, why would Anet release strike missions which are 10 man bosses that are supposed to be an entry level to raiding if the company wouldn't be interested in the game mode for future releases? 

Why would they release balance patch notes aimed to balance numbers on a PvE perspective?

Why would they organize competitions such as the Raid League if nobody played raids at all?

 

All the evidence suggests that the company is very interested in investing time and resources into raiding and we'll probably see new raids coming in the next expansion.

I can confirm there are a lot of people raiding and playing this game mode as I always see raid training events always full in all the guilds I am currently into.

Speed clear guilds wouldn't get a partnership with Anet if the company wasn't interested in raids either.

 

 

 

Edited July 28, 2021 by Touchme.1097
Change of mind due to EoD choices I am not happy with

[Fueki.4753]

3 hours ago, Touchme.1097 said:

If you think about it, why would Anet release strike missions which are 10 man bosses that are supposed to be an entry level to raiding if the company wouldn't be interested in the game mode for future releases? 

Why would they release balance patch notes aimed to balance numbers on a PvE perspective?

Why would they organize competitions such as the Raid League if nobody played raids at all?

 

All the evidence suggests that the company is very interested in investing time and resources into raiding and we'll probably see new raids coming in the next expansion.

All the evidence suggest that Arenanet tried to coax more players into raids, so they can have enough numbers to justify more raids.

Yet all that seemingly (and according to the forums) failed and raids still suffer from being played by only a handful of people.

 

At this point, multiple difficulties is the only thing left to somewhat revitalize raids.

Arenanet just needs to stop being stubborn and sit on their "raids are top-end only" stool.

 

If even a company like Blizzard with its massive resources had to do that to justify continued raid development, it's impossible for Arenanet to do it without.

Edited July 27, 2021 by Fueki.4753

[Cyninja.2954]

22 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

All the evidence suggest that Arenanet tried to coax more players into raids, so they can have enough numbers to justify more raids.

Yet all that seemingly (and according to the forums) failed and raids still suffer from being played by only a handful of people.

 

At this point, multiple difficulties is the only thing left to somewhat revitalize raids.

Arenanet just needs to stop being stubborn and sit on their "raids are top-end only" stool.

 

If even a company like Blizzard with its massive resources had to do that to justify continued raid development, it's impossible for Arenanet to do it without.

Blizzards entire progression and story system relates and is designed around raids in WoW. Similar to FF14 and its varying degrees of encounters.

 

So what you are saying is: Arenanet should change their approach to story telling and also start focusind on instanced content with multiple difficulty levels as primary means to deliver story?

 

That could be doable. I doubt in this appraoch a lot of resources will be left for open world content though given the size of the studio.

 

Or were youbjust being selective in your comparison?

Edited July 27, 2021 by Cyninja.2954

[Touchme.1097]

49 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Blizzards entire progression and story system relates and is designed around raids in WoW. Similar to FF14 and its varying degrees of encounters.

 

So what you are saying is: Arenanet should change their approach to story telling and also start focusind on instanced content with multiple difficulty levels as primary means to deliver story?

 

That could be doable. I doubt in this appraoch a lot of resources will be left for open world content though given the size of the studio.

 

Or were youbjust being selective in your comparison?

Part of the lore is already locked into raids, we can't compare WoW to GW2 because there is no gear tread mill in here where players have to do raids in order to get end game gear.

I did no comparison of the sort, if you read my post carefully you will understand that my comment is aimed at saving raids from being scrapped because they are a key feature on an MMO, not because of the gear but rather for the game mode challenges themselves such as group coordination, team play and game mechanics.

[Cyninja.2954]

12 minutes ago, Touchme.1097 said:

Part of the lore is already locked into raids, we can't compare WoW to GW2 because there is no gear tread mill in here where players have to do raids in order to get end game gear.

I did no comparison of the sort, if you read my post carefully you will understand that my comment is aimed at saving raids from being scrapped because they are a key feature on an MMO, not because of the gear but rather for the game mode challenges themselves such as group coordination, team play and game mechanics.

Did you skip an an entire other poster and response?

 

As to comparison, sure we can compare, even if only by amount of developer resources committed to specific content. 

 

That said, the lore and story in raids is miniscule in GW2 compared to WoW or FF14, where it is the central aspect, and it does no argument good to simply overlook this fact.

 

In either case, it would require a drastic shift away from how resources and which content is prioritized currently in GW2. The issue here: quite a few players are more than willing to demand things (multiple difficulties for exmaple) without actually considering or being willing to sacrifice in other areas (less open world content, less story content, less single player content).

Edited July 27, 2021 by Cyninja.2954

[Terrorsquad.2349]

+8k hours into the game, never done a raid once. Doesn’t interest me. Many of my friends with close or equal the time spent in game haven’t done raids. It’s not a deciding factor for the community. It’s yours. DX11 and bit updated graphics might be a good factor for many (just like BnS is going UE4 this summer in West) and perhaps new race/class/change in update intervals for PvP/WvW/PvE

[Touchme.1097]

I know Raids are not a very popular game mode in the NA servers, but they are very popular in the EU servers. Just because there are people who don't play raids it doesn't mean that the mode itself should be thrown in the bin and the game being focused on the most played game modes in the NA servers. We all paid our entry to the game and deprecating raids is not the right thing to do on all us raiders.

It looks like the problem is on those who don't play raids.

There are guilds for this purpose that can offer raid training for free, you have the choice to try them or not.

 

Added note: I want to point out something else as well. It's not uncommon to see a decline in players population when an MMO stops releasing new instanced content. There is a history of population decline due to lack of new raids being released and this affected more than one MMO. If you really play GW2 I am sure you really don't want this to happen to this game as well.

Edited July 27, 2021 by Touchme.1097

[yann.1946]

22 hours ago, Teratus.2859 said:

In the beginning sure, but there were a lot more people trying raids back then as well to varying degrees of success.
This dropped off though, in part for many reasons that have been said by myself and plenty of other players over time who have shared their negative experiences with the content.. and more specifically, some of it's players.

 

Small correction, their where lot of negative preconceptions from the beginning. Also the dropoff also correlates with a general dropoff in population of the game, what a curious point.

 

Quote

The established community, the hardcore raiders we'll call them for simplicities sake just don't make up enough of a playerbase to warrant such an investment into raiding.
Many of them too have dwindled away from the content, many probably because they're bored of existing raids and want something new.. one problem feeding another that in turn worsens the original problem.
Anet has confirmed that Strikes were made to counter this and entice more players into raiding but it just didn't work.
 

This would be true if you ignore the problems raids experienced which where not raid related.

 

Quote

On this I have to disagree, especially with the model that GW2 operates on.
Anet has to make money though alternate means to your common Sub MMO in order to support and maintain this game.
That means they do have an obligation, a financial obligation to invest in the game where they are most likely to make the most money.
That means playerbases matter.. a lot in Gw2.

If Raids cannot entice a regular playerbase that is large enough to warrant investment in more raid development then it is both a waste of Anet's time and resources to continue developing them.

Sure but this is a non argument, because you would have always said that the playerbase raids attract is to small. This is my point, you think you where right to make these arguments in the beginning but they where not correct then.

 

Edit: to clarify, if they suddenly revealed that the raid population was big enough to warrant more support, would you stop making that argument? Or would you still argue that they appeal to to little of the playerbase. 

 

Quote

This is why I posed the question:
" Why should Anet bother to continue investing a game mode that most of their player base either has no interest in playing anymore or never could get into in the first place? "

That's not my personal viewpoint.. It's what I think, based on simple common sense that Anet is thinking when it comes to future raid development.
You can argue that raids are important and a lot of people enjoy them, and for the record I don't disagree with that at all, I want raids to succeed.. I've been very vocal about how I want options in raids and tools that will help get more people willing to try them again and teach them how to succeed there.

But Anet has confirmed that their data shows that the active raid community is a very small minority.. a lot smaller than they want it to be and that they had hoped it would be, hence again the whole point of strike missions.
And when it comes to the financial health of this game Raids as they are now.. simply are not profitable.
From Anet's point of view, again based on simple common sense.
That time, effort and resources that would need to be spent on developing new raids are just better off being invested elsewhere in the game.

You are right though, you don't need a majority of the player base doing something to justify continued development of it.. but you do need enough of that playerbase invested in it.. and raids just doesn't have that right now.

You say you'll have to disagree, but then agree with me. That is pretty weird to me. 🙂 

But glad you agree with me though.

Edited July 27, 2021 by yann.1946

[yann.1946]

18 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

But apparently they did not justify enough development resources to keep that community alive. basically, community was big enough Anet was willing to spend enough dev time/resources to make a new wing every 9 months or so. Except that he community wanted far more resources to keep thriving, and that was not something Anet was ever willing to give. So, the community died out, and Anet eventually decided to stop throwing good money after the bad. Sort of, because they were still willing to spend some on experiments like Strikes they hoped might have increased raid participation (but ultimately failed in that regard).

Only if you ignore issues that appear outside of raids. 😛 Also what the community wanted was certainty. If anet had said, we will do a raidwing every x months, the raid population would have been way more stable.  Even if that x was 12 months for example.

 

Quote

Whatever you look at it, the end result is the same. The amount of resources needed by Raids to remain alive was always bigger than the population of that mode warranted.

Only if you purposly ignore lots of things that happened in the game.

(Also my bigger point is sort of unrelated to raids, you can not just say see my conclusion is correct, so my arguments where true.)

 

Edit: And to make my final point clearer, if they tonight suddenly said that they will add multiple raids with eod. Would you then say that it would be a good idea because obviously they have seen that the population is if enough to support it?

Edited July 27, 2021 by yann.1946

[yann.1946]

22 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

So true. People have already tried to justify 'MOAR RAIDZ' based on the success that raid were when they were released ... and not what raids are now. Just doesn't make sense. 

You completely missed what my post was about.

[Astralporing.1957]

37 minutes ago, yann.1946 said:

Only if you ignore issues that appear outside of raids.

Well, lack of resources is an out-of-raids issue, so no, we're not ignoring those.

 

37 minutes ago, yann.1946 said:

😛 Also what the community wanted was certainty. If anet had said, we will do a raidwing every x months, the raid population would have been way more stable.  Even if that x was 12 months for example.

Some of the still remaining players might be saying that now, but it's not what the community was talking then. Even nowadays you will find a lot of raiders saying that one wing per 9 months is simply not sustainable, and then there were quite a number of those that considered twice a year to be an absolute minimum, and anything below that to be an outrage and a sign of dev betrayal.

 

Basically, it may seem to the remaining members of the community that once per 9 months is okay as long as it is stable, but that is only because all those that did not consider it okay already left.

 

37 minutes ago, yann.1946 said:

Edit: And to make my final point clearer, if they tonight suddenly said that they will add multiple raids with eod. Would you then say that it would be a good idea because obviously they have seen that the population is if enough to support it?

Nah. I'd think they are just wasting resources. Because there isn't any more raiders now than there were when they abandoned that content (if anything, those numbers have probably went down since then), nor is there more resources to go around.

 

There's a saying about attempting to do the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, you know.

 

Thinking that they can just start doing raids again, without ultimately ending up in the very same situation we're here now is at best naive. It just won;t work - not without some major changes to the whole raid paradigm at the very least.

 

[Obtena.7952]

1 hour ago, yann.1946 said:

You completely missed what my post was about.

I doubt it. This has been discussed ad infinitum so ... it's not like we are seeing anything new here. Whatever your point is, it's been covered before and I'm certain I've felt the same way then  as I do now. 

 

Then again, if I 'missed' your point, you didn't exactly elaborate here either, so you probably already know how that was going to work out for you if you did. 

Edited July 27, 2021 by Obtena.7952