Anvil.9230

The thread is so long and still alive because the same ca. 10 people are running in circles. Because some people flood that topic, and hope to obtain what they want just doing that: The possibility to obtain the skins as the legendary armor and other raids' rewards using a "pure farming" gameplay trough an "easy mode". "Pure farming" was the old way to obtain the old legendary weapons: just by luck and/or 'farming"...It was so boring that the game design team have introduce a more challenging way to unlock exclusive skins with maudrey bypack...A thing lots of players enjoy.But they do not care. They want a possibility to obtain the end game rewards just by "farming" an easy content....No matter raids were created to give players a valuable end game content,....No matter the fact that such a possibility would bring close to 0 the value players, who enjoy challenges, give to that kind of specific rewards. And no matter the answer already given by someone of the arenanet team about raid difficulty ( https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/113984#Comment_113984 ) :

People want a way to obtain original (not ordinary) skins without playing the game?...it already exist: it is called Black Lion Trading Company. But items like the legendary raid armor, ad infinitum, Warbringer, etc. are rewards of different part of the game....And it's a very good thing in term of challenge motivation, etc....They are like medals for the people who success the challenge proposed by game designers...A thing a lot of people appreciate, whatever they play: video game, irl sport like rugby, (cup, trophy, medals....). Nobody is in obligation to have a rugby tournament cup at home....but if someone want one, that person have to play the game in a way to win that price... Well it was sympathic to particpate to this discussion, but ....Come on people who complain the legendary armor is too difficult to obtain...The time you spend to fight here to change the rule of the game, you would have play, certainly find a way to kill some bosses and made some progress in the path to a skin that visibly haunt your Dreams. Hope to see you in game with the same kind of energy ;)

I'm well aware of SWG. SWG was a well constructed MMO, but a horrible Star Wars game, since it completely failed to deliver on most of what people would want from a Star Wars game (which actually was pretty in keeping with The Phantom Menace, come to think of it). If it had just released as a generic sci-fi MMO I'm sure it would have done fine, but they were right to try and make something better for a Star Wars MMO. If you design a Star Wars MMO with the expectation that not everyone can be a Jedi as soon as they log in, then you've failed at step 1 of the design process, go back and try again. According to my memory as long as Jedi were not implemented and before they sadly change the profession system (a failure as always multiple causes) the game was good and no body really care about becoming a jedi: Before it, people dreamed of Jedi, and were content, and had fun with the game. When they start to speak serioulsly about jedi most of the player I was playing with were interested by he system we thought they were going to implement (the permadeath system and a hunting system in wich the game would have send bounty hunter against the jedi who were not discreet enough (using to often jedi skills in public). But Finally LucasArt made the game design team in an obligation to implement jedi on a more classical way.....It finnaly killed the immersion.They could have release Jedi with success...but only on a very elitist way which would have preserve the game ambiance. Always remember what Syndrome (In the Incredibles movie) says about Super heroes: " when I'm old and I've had my fun, I'll sell my inventions so that everyone can be superheroes. Everyone can be super. And when everyone's super...no one will be". ;) Maybe...Maybe...but in a "theme park" MMO style like GW2, Raid is what seems to allow people to go as close as possible to the "hero" concept ;) For lack of anything else better in that kind of game, let's do with: The raids skins (legendary armor but also some ascended gears) is the reward proposed by the game designer to those who succefully meet their challenge.

Yeah, it's both. Honestly, if you didn't get that from page 1 then I don't know how to help you. Once upon a time was SWG, Star Wars Galaxies. A very good MMO released in 2003...It was a very immersive sandbox MMO....it has its issues as any game of course...but we can say one big mistake has been important in its final collapse...a mistake about the possibility to play a Jedi character. The MMO take place between "a New Hope" and "The empire strike back": Jedi should have been ultra-rare to boot. The early SWG game design team, debated making Jedi NPCs-only, reducing their power, or picking a different time period to begin with. Each solution was rejected. Some people of the game design team dreamed up the idea of a Diablo-inspired hardcore permadeath mode for Jedi, which was also rejected initially because .... permadeath....Sad decision...this last one would certainly have been a good idea....But the problem was Jedi inspire envy in everyone around them...And such an "elitist" system has been rejected by LucasArts, who finally demanded Jedi from “the second biggest MMO outside of Asia”. The Jedi system (build around a more or less classical "farming" system) was a go; SOE dropped Holocrons as hints into the game, and video gamers did what they always do: They brute-forced Jedi by just learning all the skills. By the time the Jedi Village rolled around and everyone was a Jedi...And as a result, playerbase felt betrayed” by the system. Satisfaction fell off a cliff. Of course Legendary skins are not as important in Gw2 as jedi profession were in SWG...but the mechanism is the same: If an element of the gameplay is supposed to be "heroic"...it must be looked beind a challenge different from "farming activity"... or no player should be allowed to acceess it. Nah. That's just a nonsense justification for "I got mine, now shut up." There's nothing "Legendary" about legendary armor aside from that they slapped the word "Legendary" on it. There's plenty of other "Legendary" stuff in the game much easier to get. There's absolutely no reason why raids should be the only PvE way to earn the armor. I have not done all the things i'd like to achieve with GW2 raids. It will certainly take some time to complete them and will need me to adapt parts of my gameplay to success what i want to do...But If I obtain the prize it would be because I'll finally find a solution...not because someone change the rule of the game to allow me to..."win"?.... Someone has an awfully high opinion of himself. Hope you have a good opinion of yourself too. It's an important success factor to progress whatever you do.

(...) Because the time to complete a single easy mod boss would be about on par with the time to complete a normal mode boss for a "farming" raid team, and yet would provide a fraction of the reward, so if the goal is to make the best use of your time, same time spent, more reward, it seems like a no-brainer. (...) The more I read that topic, the more I understand that finally the people who complain that raids are too difficult for them, complain in fact that they cannot access to the their specific rewards. According to me It would be a very bad idea to change that. As an exemple the legendary armor is....legendary. It means you have to do some legendary (meaning as always difficult) action to have it. The reward of people who triumph the difficulties of raids is not to obtain a gear with statistic the other players can't have...it's to obtain a look the others players can't have....a legendary one that underline their specific hability....And that solution is correctly balanced. Legendary weapons from the begining of the game finally rewarded "farming". Things have began to change with the introduction of mauldrey backpack...toward Something more interesting mixing farming and challenge in term of gameplay. Things continue to evoluate with the HOT legendary weapons to finnaly link the more sepctacular legendary items (armor) to the most difficult part of the game: raids. I hope things are going to continue toward that direction. People want to be dress as a Legend?...Ok...but They have to perform some kind of legendary....heroic... action...a thing that "pure farming" is certainly not. To be dressed as a legend...you have to become a legend.

Well...i think the game is correctly balanced, with very easy parts, some a little less...and well in fact we can find all the levels of difficulty until what seems here the most difficult part: raids. And beyond that, the raids are not equal in term of challenge: Cairn, mursat and samarog I help my friend to success are quite easy if we compare them with a boss like matthias. The game is vast...And every body can find something adapted to his capacity and desire. Finally raids are only a small part of it, dedicated to those who want more challenge...let's leave them this pleasure.

Well...I don't think so...I appreciate the two for different reasons...Like I enjoy to take a bike ride or to pilot my motorcycle: not exactly for the same reasons, but I guess with a common point.I think the main source of personnal satisfaction is to develop capacity to find solution and to progress. And it can be not so difficult. As an example, the friends I have spoken about and whom make me to play that game didn't want to play raids....too much frustration according to them. I bring them with me and 2-3 good raid players who has joined our guilde and...it was catastrophic. I and raid players have observed them, spoken with them...and we have dicovered a thing: they "mouse click"....What a simple thing....they "mouse click".... Something raids guides don't think to deal with so much that seems obvious.They played all the game like that, even lvl 100 fractal (I don't play myself due to a lack of time and interest). "Mouse click" the golem is perhaps possible...but in raid it is quite impossible...I try myself to see and it's hawfull due to the impossibility to develop a correct rotation, moving and doing boss mechanism at the same time. It take us 2 weeks to make them to accept to change and to use a keyboard: habits are stubborn....But well last week, they success their first bosses: cairn, mursat, Samarog and VG....And of course they were happy.

I mean...I play Eve for a long time...it has been by far my main game during several years.I play Gw2 because some of my close friends (who themselves do not play Eve) chosed to play it, and I simply wanted to play with them. I stay beacause the game Gw2 is pleasent in term of story telling. As death is not punitive and as there's no real stake to play mass or small scale pvp, it's a funny place to relax...even if the counterpart of this is the lack of adrenaline ;) Raids offer a coordination challenge I appreciate. But well...It's always a surprise to me to observe players asking to the team who develop GW2 to nerf this or that instead of trying to find solution playing the game....I'm always surprised by the amount of post asking to nerf playable character...the PVE game (I remember the amount of post asking that at HOT release...)... Anyway....As I said in a previous comment, it take me one month and a half starting from 0 and using LFG (no raid guild) to unlock the raid legendary armor....taking into account the obligation to loot Gorseval 5 times to do that (5 weeks...)....According to that experience, I think GW2 raids are not so difficult as long as you get information on them, adapt your gear and your gameplay, and socialize a minimum to facilitate access to the more technical boss in spite of a lack of LI or KP. The solution to success raids is in the player...not in the development team who only propose a challenge players can accept or decline.

I also play an other game you know perhaps: Eve Online. It's a different kind of MMO of course, a sandbox...and it has not the reputation to be an easy game....In this other MMO, it is to the players to improve themselves....Never, they ask the team who develop the game to decrease its diffiulty...or nerf this or that.A big part of people satisfaction is the progress they made.As death is very punitive in that game, people has to prove their capacity before to be involved into risky business....They have to progress and to socialize to join people who do interesting things (so with a big reward but also a big risk). The mantra is more Something like this: By comparison, access to GW2 raid is not difficult. ;)

I regularly play raid since mid december.I think they are a good challenge for an average player like me without being too complex. Some are quite easy (escort, trio, cairn, mursat, samarog...). Some Are more difficult...some can be more technic (Matthias, Dhum....), some are DPS test (Gorseval, KC...).People can increase diffciculty of most of them activating a challenge mode. It take me on month and a half to unlock the legendary armor, meaning it take me one month and a half to be able to play the W1 to 4, starting from 0. I play only with the LFG (no guild). So I mean it's possible to play raid, and it's not so difficult as long as you have an interest in what is needed to play them and as long as you make an effort to adapt yourself to their content (gear, rotation, mechanism, ...).Socialization is also interesting: I always try to discuss with people who find we had a good team on a boss to propose them to play together a boss I know less. They often accept without asking for KP, LI or Something else.I mean I use Boss I know well to try to push the raid team I play with to the next boss I know less. Of course I always prepare myself before to do that (looking for boss description and video on the net, etc.).And well...what more normal for an MMO to push people to socialize to be able to success.... I'll continue to play the raid, of course to complete the LI I need to finish the 6 pieces of the legendary armor: in one month and a half I played to unlock the armor, I had enough to craft two pieces. Actually, 4 month after I start Raids I have 4, nearly 5.And I'll although continue raid because I apreciate the coordination challenge...In fact, I think the real interest in raids is the mandatory coordination between the 10 players they actually impose to players.