If you want players to do strikes, make them more accessible.

[zellurs.8601]

I like the idea of strike missions, but the way they're currently implemented is really bad. I was surprised to see strike missions listed as a feature of EoD. As far as I was concerned, it was dead content that I did once for the cheevo, and something a group of dedicated players could come back to in order to farm skins.

 

Now, a bunch of angry redditors have assured me that isn't the case and that it's VERY active through LFG(even though I feel this is a cope - I've been sitting in strike LFM for about 15 mins now and only one posting...) - I still feel I shouldn't have to wade through LFG in the first place to get this kind of content done. I can't help but feel that was the intent behind strikes, considering there is an option to join public strikes - that absolutely nobody uses.

 

The way I see strikes fitting into GW2 endgame is something that can be done with matchmaking. Something more difficult and rewarding than open world content, which requires more than just autoattacking, but less demanding than a raid or high level fractals where you need coordination and roles set up. The strikes I've done have been about this level of difficulty - mostly a faceroll with a few mechanics to break the monotony. Aforementioned angry redditors have assured me that some of the strikes do require a dedicated tank or healer to complete and that's just such a departure from the ones I've done that I'm just going to take them at their word on that.

 

Recently I've been trying out FFXIV and one of the few things I like more about that game than GW2 is the automated matchmaking system for dungeons. You join a queue and are free to wander around and do your own thing until the dungeon pops automatically. You are penalized if you abuse the system by leaving or ignoring your queue pop. The system is honestly great and way less toxic than some of the other LFG groups and postings I've seen in GW2. There's no "leader" so you're not beholden to one player who may or may not be a kitten.

 

My suggestions to make strikes fit into the endgame better are:

- flatten difficulty curve among strike missions. this content should require players using their full set of abilities, but not dedicated roles such as tank/healer

- setup an automated lfg strike finder that pulls one randomly from a playlist. remove the useless public option. allow us to autoqueue from our LFG panel.

- maintain a reward system that both newbies and veterans want to engage with.

- get rid of the daily priority strike, and instead make the daily achievement to complete 2 strikes from the playlist.

 

I feel all of these changes will put strikes into a better position than they are now. If people want to do CMs or minmax, the LFG option is still available to them - but for those who want to simply participate for their dailies, or newbies who want to dip their toes in endgame content and gear up I really think an automated queue is a solid option to cement strike missions as a core endgame feature for End of Dragons.

 

Thanks for reading.

[Ayrilana.1396]

You’re sitting in LFG an hour BEFORE reset after most players who do strikes have already done it for the day. 
 

Just an FYI: you have to use LFG for all other instanced group content.  If you’re complaining about having to use the LFG for strikes then you’re also complaining about having to use it for dungeons and fractals as well. 
 

Matchmaking wouldn’t work in GW2 due to the lack of defined roles. 
 

Getting rid of the priority strikes in favor of two strikes will just cause people to go with the easiest ones. 

Edited July 28, 2021 by Ayrilana.1396

[Eloc Freidon.5692]

I'm not a fan of Strike missions at all simply because you could wait in LFG for up to an hour for anyone to be interested in doing it.

 

If they want to implement more Strike Missions, they need to do something similar to FF14's dungeon roulette.

[zellurs.8601]

4 minutes ago, Ayrilana.1396 said:

You’re sitting in LFG an hour BEFORE reset after most players who do strikes have already done it for the day. 
 

Just an FYI: you have to use LFG for all other instanced group content.  If you’re complaining about having to use the LFG for strikes then you’re also complaining about having to use it for dungeons and fractals as well. 
 

Matchmaking wouldn’t work in GW2 due to the lack of defined roles. 
 

Getting rid of the priority strikes in favor of two strikes will just cause people to go with the easiest ones. 

1) I have limited times when I can play a day. I'm not the only one.

 

2) I'm not complaining about other content. I'm saying only strikes should work this way as an introduction to endgame content. Honestly seems like a pretty good way to meet other people you'd want to do higher end content with to begin with?

 

3) If you read my post you'd see I suggested flattening the difficulty of the strikes so that they do not require defined roles.

 

4) If you read my post, you'd see I suggested that they pull the strikes from a playlist and people are penalized for leaving or abandoning their queue.

[Ayrilana.1396]

1 minute ago, zellurs.8601 said:

1) I have limited times when I can play a day. I'm not the only one.

 

2) I'm not complaining about other content. I'm saying only strikes should work this way as an introduction to endgame content. Honestly seems like a pretty good way to meet other people you'd want to do higher end content with to begin with?

 

3) If you read my post you'd see I suggested flattening the difficulty of the strikes so that they do not require defined roles.

 

4) If you read my post, you'd see I suggested that they pull the strikes from a playlist and people are penalized for leaving or abandoning their queue.

1) You’re going to run into issues when trying to do any group content an hour before daily reset. 
 

2) My post wasn’t about you complaining about other content it was about your complaints of using LFG strikes being no different from using it for fractals and dungeons. 
 

3) They’re intended as a stepping stone for raids which has roles. Removing them defeats their purpose. 
 

4) If you intended it to be any two from a list, as part of your group finder suggestion where it’s random, refer to my post where I stated that a group finder for strikes wouldn’t work. 

[WindBlade.8749]

LFG is not dead at all for lfg, and i only look once a while when i want to do them on a whim, doing contents before reset is a bad idea.

Also, i play ffxiv, so you can't kitten by saying doing matchmaking like ffxiv,

Gw2 and FF have a big difference in their design which make the encounter design also different.

You litteraly can't make a matchmaking queue for gw2 because of the design.

For raids you need all kind of role that change between each boss, some class can be played in a thousand different way, and honestly just search matchmaking on forum you will see why it's can't work, i'm not gonna resay all the reasons of why it's willn ot work for the x time when you can just look the threads about it.

[SinisterSlay.6973]

Need content to bridge between players spamming skills and under optimized builds to actually following a rotation and properly dodging attacks and keeping up with complicated boss mechanics.  But not so far that you need defined roles, perfect high DPS builds and rotations.

[Linken.6345]

OP put up your own lfg with a tag go do what ever untill it fills and then use scroll to get to eye of the north.

 

[DanAlcedo.3281]

Strikes have the same problem as raids have.

 

Why exactly should I do them? 

There are better ways to get gear and gold. 

If I want a challenge I fight other players. 

 

 

 

 

[Walle.6045]

Want to mention the high end raids in FF14 do not use match making. You need to form a group to enter similar to gw2.

 

That said the normal mode versions of these raids you can use matchmaking. So in regards to the OP, yeah I agree the easier version should have matchmaking where this new challenge mode should not.

[Telgum.6071]

I assume the people who say Strikes are dead or takes forever to find group usually try to do them from 2:00 a.m to 7:00 a.m?

 

I have no problem at all to find groups.

Edited July 29, 2021 by Telgum.6071

[Dante.1763]

5 minutes ago, Telgum.6071 said:

I assume the people who say Strikes are dead or takes forever to find group usually try to do them from 2:00 a.m to 7:00 a.m?

 

I have no problem at all to find groups.

Usually when im on i dont see any groups posted. Now, i also dont have an issue posting my own lfg. But some folks do.

[zellurs.8601]

It really feels like you guys are coming up with any excuse you can as to why this won't work. How many years did we run dungeons and fractals with 5 dps? At least until HoT. We already have strikes that are essentially facerolls and do not require a tank or healer. I can attest to that. I simply do not buy that automated matchmaking "won't work" and that the game needs defined roles for relatively easy content. At least, I haven't heard a good reason as to why not. Stop telling me that the current LFG system is fine, because it is not.

 

11 hours ago, SinisterSlay.6973 said:

Need content to bridge between players spamming skills and under optimized builds to actually following a rotation and properly dodging attacks and keeping up with complicated boss mechanics.  But not so far that you need defined roles, perfect high DPS builds and rotations.

Absolutely, and I feel strikes should be this content.

 

And - just to make sure I don't sound like an FFXIV fanboy trying to change GW2 into something it's not - we've got the better mount, dye, and cashshop system by FAR.

[Cuks.8241]

Most strikes are already barely above open world and require only one dedicated healer. And only because people dont avoid mechanics. 

I have no problem finding groups with lfg. I do agree lfg should be improved though but not in the line of automated queue. 

 

10 hours ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

Strikes have the same problem as raids have.

 

Why exactly should I do them? 

There are better ways to get gear and gold. 

If I want a challenge I fight other players. 

 

 

 

 

Well many of us play for fun and dont need shiny pixels for that. You might have heard for this concept before, often associated with games. 

[notebene.3190]

I would do strikes if they worked like DRMs. Scaled. They start when they start.

 

And with that, I'm out. What follows is a comment about rewards, and there is no way for me to talk about those types of game design decisions without discussing the human condition and the real world philosophies that mirror the game design decisions, and that usually ends with me getting me a warning regarding talking about life so, yeah, I'd play them if they worked like DRMs. 😊

 

Actually, little bit sad to not her more about DRMs in the EoD rollout. I think they are a neat design idea. 😔

[Cynder.2509]

14 hours ago, Eloc Freidon.5692 said:

I'm not a fan of Strike missions at all simply because you could wait in LFG for up to an hour for anyone to be interested in doing it.

 

If they want to implement more Strike Missions, they need to do something similar to FF14's dungeon roulette.

Or maybe a matchmaking thing like in ESO where you have to select your role before enlisting into a queue. 
Yes, I'm aware of ESO having troubles with that due to lack of healers or fake tanks but GW2 is different in that regard as I've seen plenty of healers and tanks running around in LFG so far and people usually search for either DPS or boon support. Healer spots get filled rather quick as well as tanks. Also in most guilds I was those roles were always too overrepresenting and we all had lack of DPS. 

[Arewn.2368]

I think the main problem with group content in GW2 isn't that grouping is difficult due to a lack of standardization of roles.

 

The devs have to sit down and define what they want group pve roles to be.

 

To be clear, these roles do already exist. This wouldnt be changng any paradigm or adding anything new. They just aren't acknowledged by the game and tend to shift around a lot. But this makes grouping into a huge hurdle for players to get into group content.

 

In GW2, I think it  would look something like this:

2x Full Support - they do trivial dps but provide defensive boons (prot, regen, vigor, swift, etc) as well as a fulfilling a key role like healing or tanking

 

2x Half Supports - these build do reasonable DPS while bringing important offensive boons like alacrity, quickness, might, fury.

 

6x Damage dealers - straight forward full on DPS specs that maybe bring some useful utility on the side.

 

A five man group would have a Full Support healer, Half Support boon provider, and 3 dps.

Edited July 29, 2021 by Arewn.2368

[artcreator.4859]

YES!

With EOD please make strikes and raids more accessible, that's there biggest problem, I would do them all the time if I could, but you need to be in a guild and have 10 people whose schedules are all free for an hour or two.

please update the LFG or give strikes and raids there own menu so players can find each other more easily, you can even make a guild advertising menu so people can find strike and raiding guilds.

[Ashantara.8731]

16 hours ago, zellurs.8601 said:

I like the idea of strike missions, but the way they're currently implemented is really bad.

 

How so? They are easily accessible via the Eye of the North gate, you quickly get to the boss - all you need to do is learn the mechanics. How is this "bad"?

 

16 hours ago, zellurs.8601 said:

My suggestions to make strikes fit into the endgame better are:

- flatten difficulty curve among strike missions. this content should require players using their full set of abilities, but not dedicated roles such as tank/healer

- setup an automated lfg strike finder that pulls one randomly from a playlist. remove the useless public option. allow us to autoqueue from our LFG panel.

- maintain a reward system that both newbies and veterans want to engage with.

- get rid of the daily priority strike, and instead make the daily achievement to complete 2 strikes from the playlist.

 

Ideas 2-4 are okay (they already said that the reward system will be reworked), but suggestion #1 is plain terrible.

 

The whole fun part (and point) of Strikes is that - like in Raids - you need set roles (and partial variations in some of the missions) and learn to master the profession and build you're playing. If you changed Strikes the way you suggest they are just going to be another "noob content" - there is enough of that already (just look at how much they've reduced difficulty in post-LWS4 story missions because the "casual player" couldn't handle even those.

 

If you want easily accessible content that doesn't pose a challenge, go do world completion or something.

 

Oh, by the way: they've also mentioned that there will be the addition of adjustable difficulty in forthcoming Strike Missions, so no need to nerf anything already existing. The current Strikes are fine the way they are.

 

Edited July 29, 2021 by Ashantara.8731

[Cyninja.2954]

2 hours ago, zellurs.8601 said:

It really feels like you guys are coming up with any excuse you can as to why this won't work. How many years did we run dungeons and fractals with 5 dps? At least until HoT. We already have strikes that are essentially facerolls and do not require a tank or healer. I can attest to that. I simply do not buy that automated matchmaking "won't work" and that the game needs defined roles for relatively easy content. At least, I haven't heard a good reason as to why not. Stop telling me that the current LFG system is fine, because it is not.

 

There is automated matchmaking for strikes. Players are not using it. This has nothing to do with "making it work". It's in the game and not working because players make no use of it. Go ahead, give the public strikes a try.

 

Quote

By choosing public, members are placed into an instance but a squad is not automatically created.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Strike_Mission

 

Automated player grouping into the instance WITHOUT requiring players to be in a squad or group before or during the encounter.

Edited July 29, 2021 by Cyninja.2954

[Arewn.2368]

2 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

 

There is automated matchmaking for strikes. Players are not using it. This has nothing to do with "making it work". It's in the game and not working because players make no use of it. Go ahead, give the public strikes a try.

Public strikes don't work because there's no role standardization despite the fact that specific roles are needed (or At least highly desired) for group  pve content.

No one's going to blindly jump into a random strikes group with no pretense of the roles they need being there, and no one to organize people into having them.

 

We have to consider the reasons why players aren't using it if we want a working solution.

 

[shonefob.7091]

11 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

 

There is automated matchmaking for strikes. Players are not using it. This has nothing to do with "making it work". It's in the game and not working because players make no use of it. Go ahead, give the public strikes a try.

 

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Strike_Mission

 

Automated player grouping into the instance WITHOUT requiring players to be in a squad or group before or during the encounter.

I feel the current automated matchmaking doesnt work for two reason. 

1) you are put straight into the match lobby and have to wait for other players top filter in which will lead to people constantly leaving and joining.

2) It is inconvenient to have to go to the strike on the map to physcially access it.

 

GW2 could I feel turn this into something similiar to FFXIVs system as stated above jsut by using their current PVP matchmaker system just for pve content.  It can try and diversify classes so you dont end up with all of 1, they could also implment a feature if needed where you select a role before queing (support, tank, dps.)

 

Honestly I wouldnt mind seeing this in other places such as fractals/raids/ and dungeons aswell.

Edited July 29, 2021 by shonefob.7091

[Arewn.2368]

3 hours ago, zellurs.8601 said:

It really feels like you guys are coming up with any excuse you can as to why this won't work. How many years did we run dungeons and fractals with 5 dps? At least until HoT. We already have strikes that are essentially facerolls and do not require a tank or healer. I can attest to that. I simply do not buy that automated matchmaking "won't work" and that the game needs defined roles for relatively easy content. At least, I haven't heard a good reason as to why not. Stop telling me that the current LFG system is fine, because it is not.

Prior to HoT, when the content was a joke and there weren't any roles.

 

LFG works so well in ffxiv because the roles are so highly standardize. You know for certain that any group you get matched with is going to have everything it needs to be successful.

[Cyninja.2954]

16 minutes ago, shonefob.7091 said:

I feel the current automated matchmaking doesnt work for two reason. 

1) you are put straight into the match lobby and have to wait for other players top filter in which will lead to people constantly leaving and joining.

2) It is inconvenient to have to go to the strike on the map to physcially access it.

 

GW2 could I feel turn this into something similiar to FFXIVs system as stated above jsut by using their current PVP matchmaker system just for pve content.  It can try and diversify classes so you dont end up with all of 1, they could also implment a feature if needed where you select a role before queing (support, tank, dps.)

 

Honestly I wouldnt mind seeing this in other places such as fractals/raids/ and dungeons aswell.

Oh I fully agree. I'm just pointing out that the claim that automated matchmaking would work is flawed since it already is in the game.

 

Now we could discuss how to improve the system, which is an entire other argument because now we are admitting that the current implementation has failed (due to whatever reasons) or at the very least has severe limitations.

 

1. roles, as mentioned by others, are a lot more difficult to implement in GW2 and a matchmaker. It would require drastic changes to class design OR shifting a ton of responsibility onto players again. Say the matchmaker works as follows:

- Players need to sign up as a specific role, let's go with tank, support and dps. The matchmaker now creates a squad comprised of X tanks, X supports and X dps. That can work IF the players who sign up are on reliable classes able to full-fill the role AND are able to do the fight. Potential for toxicity: 200,000%

 

2. global sign up would be a benefit yes, but would work against hub areas which are focused to that content. There is a reason why the raid aerodrome is the global access to raids. Similar minded players with similar goals congregate in 1 spot. This would have to be carefully monitored to see how it affects player behavior.

 

and now we are knee deep in figuring out how to make a far more complex system work and work within the game as simply stating: give us auto matchmaking, and didn't even go into details which detriments this might have (hello afk players, hello trolls, hello leavers, etc.)

Edited July 29, 2021 by Cyninja.2954

[Cuks.8241]

Global sign up for and teleport to instanced content would be great. And it wouldn't do much harm to the hubs because most people wait in EOTN or Lions Arch (fractals). 

Last time I recommended this I was really shot down by forum people all though I don't understand why. Yes you can way point with one click. But that is at least one additional annoying loading screen.