~Kasaeva
Sea of Sorrows
Sea of Sorrows
Candidate Trials T4
I think that covers most of the concerns I’ve read, but the team will continue to monitor feedback on the forums, and if further clarification is needed, rest assured that we will communicate that out to you, our amazing players! Thanks for taking the time to read this post.
Matthew Medina
Content Designer
Why is this very hard content a temporary one time thing?
-lots of text-
I have to agree with everyone else commenting since your post:
I love challenging content.
I love working with a small co-ordinated & skilled team over voice chat, and facing difficulties that force us to change our builds and think through tactics.
Despite this, I hate Candidate Trials.
It mistakes scaling for difficulty, and at no point does it ever threaten to be fun (a word that was sadly missing from your list of concerns :p).
I’m not claiming it’s impossible, but I think it’s fair to describe it as unfair, luck-based, favouring dull zerker builds and exploitation of mechanics, and unfun.
Not to mention the bizarre decision to put the achievement in for it twice!
Anyway, most of the rest of the game is fantastic. This is awful, I’m sorry to say.
—-
Hyinna, Gunnars Hold
[Ub] – My Life for Alesia
Hyinna, Gunnars Hold
[Ub] – My Life for Alesia
This is a total fail response by the Devs. GG Anet, keep releasing non tested content, can’t wait for next week!!!
so basically what I am seeing is that the devs saw that people were exploiting their mistake and getting the achievement; and in order to “fix” this they implement a system that requires you to exploit the leash mechanics and ai mechanics while forcing you to run solo or in ber gear in what was supposed to be a “group” event. In other words they rewarded people that exploited early and punish those that didn’t by making it 50x harder and gear specific? Seems to me that people that did this before they “fixed” it get free achievement while people that didn’t get, sry we don’t want to fix it again to make it fun or doable without ber gear or fixed classes. Just my opinion though.
….um where was that -1 button again?
Achievements – There was an initial bug related to how we were tracking player’s progress through the tiers, which did not quite match up with what achievements you had unlocked. We made fixes to that bug, and now player progress for the tiers should be tied to what you’ve unlocked, achievement-wise. There was also an unfortunate bug which was fixed earlier today involving an issue where some of the Aetherblade waves would not spawn. The first bug made the achievements hard to understand, while the second made the achievements easier to attain. I deeply apologize on behalf of our team that these issues led to a less-than-optimal player experience. With these issues fixed, our hope would be that the achievements for the Candidate Trials are clearer and better balanced for their intended difficulty.
Matthew Medina
Content Designer
Being deeply sorry or not sorry at all doesn’t change this situation. A large number of players had a 3 day window of opportunity where they finished this activity with practically zero trouble or effort because the middle and right sides were not spawning. The rest of us are pulling our hair out trying to do the same thing. What is going to do be done for people like me who still need the achievement and didn’t get to take advantage of this loophole?
Unfix the patch you released on July 26 and give everyone the same opportunity to get the achievements.
I’ve made a suggestion thread with this same information, if you think they should remove the July 26 patch and make this easier please voice your support.
Anet likely didn’t want to remove the armor stats entirely because…well,
we’ve all seen what happens in games where there’s no disadvantage to taking your pants off.
we’ve all seen what happens in games where there’s no disadvantage to taking your pants off.
(edited by XacTactX.6709)
I just wanted to make note, I made a post about this the other day, but I’ve done candidate trials ~100+ times (pre and post patch), go Kiel!
2 Aetherized weapon drops in those runs, all Tier 4, about 60 of those runs were post patch and almost all were 30+ kills, I don’t know how absurdly low the drop rate is on these item skins, but they’re randomized and it’s kind of crap that they’re so obnoxious to get.
(because I defy you to score the fourth loot bag solo)
my particular Tier 4 run method, sorry for the awkward sound/video, I’m just figuring out OBS for the first time.
To add my own thoughts in response to anet’s post:
A challenge is good. Difficulty is good. However, zerg fests and dps races are getting really old in this game. These “challenge events” feel lazy, half-done, and unoriginal.
Well having it so a group could faceroll through it is pretty much a zergfest in my opinion. That’s how a lot of the content in the game already is. This is only one out of maybe three DPS checks in the game. The other two being Simin and defend event on CoF Path 3.
Lazy because you made two of them that are exactly the same. For what purpose? One would have sufficed. If you wanted two separate events, you should have created something different for either Evon or Kiel. You made two completely different mini-games. Beautiful mini-games with a lot of skill and effort required. But you made one challenge event and pretended you had made two.
I agree with the duplication of content for this living story. It would’ve been nice if each achievement required you do different things rather than mirror each other.
Half-done because the scaling is almost ridiculous. You just kept adding more and more of these mobs. There is nothing different from Tier 1 to Tier 4 with the exception of the number of mobs and their health pools. In addition, doing it with a group is harder than doing it solo. I have yet to complete it with either but I noticed a serious difficulty drop when I switched over to soloing it. If my group is coordinated and working together (which they were for the most part) it should be easier than soloing it. Want proof of that? Take a look at a plunderer’s health pool with 5 people versus 1. I can burn down a plunderer all by myself when I solo. When there are 5 people in there, 2 dedicated dpsers can’t down one before he goes and comes back even with as many CCs as we can muster being used.
Adding more mobs and increasing their health is a common tactic in the majority of games. They could add advanced mechanics like in Aetherblade Retreat. People still complained about that just like people are complaining now. No matter how they choose to make things more difficult, people will still be unhappy.
I put what your problem is in bold. You’re expecting an event scaled up to FIVE people to be able to be done with two people who essentially carry the group with their DPS. You need the entire team working together and providing support and DPS.
Finally, unoriginal because this is no different than anything else in the game. When you go to a dungeon, bosses with the exception of AC, are just spam buttons until he dies. There is no strategy and no teamwork. There might be some dodging you have to do but beyond that, it’s nothing more than button spam. I thought the whole point of the changes to AC and boss encounters like in the Aetherblade Retreat was to get away from this button-mash system.
Actually, there is strategy to AC and AR. It’s just that a lot of players are lazy and rely on exploits that essentially allow you to faceroll through past boss mechanics and just auto-attack.
There’s strategy for the Trials in that you need to work as a team to kill the plunderers before they send off the loot while managing with the other pirates. For solo, there’s a strategy that a lot of us figured out by looking at the situation and analyzing what we should do. There is also a strategy for groups as well.
Regardless of whether or not this content is completable or not, I think this should be re-evaluated in terms of the goal and direction of the game as portrayed by Anet. If you want content to accessible to all classes and builds then all builds and classes should be taken into account. If I am supposed to be able to play the way I want, then I should not have to respec to complete this content. Changing out traits and utility skills, yes. But not completely respeccing my traits. If content can only be completed by a berserker warrior or if it cannot be completed by certain specs/classes then it should be told truthfully. (I am not suggesting that either of these are true about this content. I am making a point.)
The dev stated that they added Tiers 3 and 4 to be very challenging. It was intentional. Every class has been able to solo it since the patch. This is based on claims but I can personally say that warrior, ranger, and guardian can beat this solo.
There are a lot of games that require you to change your game play to overcome an obstacle. People need to learn to adapt. From what I heard from people on the forums, one of the areas in GW1 after you beat Abaddon was extremely difficult. Players figured out the correct builds and they conquered it. You can still complete 95% of the game however you want.
If you want people to play in groups then you should encourage group play by making things easier for coordinated groups and discourage solo play by making it hard to do solo. Yes, you will lose players but riding the fence makes no one happy.
Once again, this being very difficult was on purpose. If five people put as much effort into working as a group as they did to solo it, they will most likely succeed.
If you want people to enjoy your content, you should not make it a grind. Few people, if any, enjoy grinding. Having the same exact event twice with a different face and name on it does not promote happy feelings except in the few people who really enjoyed it and don’t care about repeating things.
This isn’t really a grind. Most games actually have a grind because that’s what keeps players occupied. You can only realize content so quickly as to not overwhelm casual players or too slowly to bore hardcore players. If content is rushed then it’s more prone to bugs and quality often suffers.
Doing tiers 3 and 4 is optional. You do not have to do it. This is meant as a challenge for players.
Unfix the patch you released on July 26 and give everyone the same opportunity to get the achievements.
You had the same opportunity as them to do the trials before they were patched.
I would also like to make note that trials are JUST as possible to do solo now as they were pre patch, if not easier.
[…]
You had the same opportunity as them to do the trials before they were patched.
That’s the same as saying “exploit bugs and faulty mechanics as much and as soon as you can”.
(edited by MithranArkanere.8957)
Greetings, Matthew Medina has asked me to pass on some explanations/clarifications:
Difficulty – From the beginning, we wanted to create an event that would truly test player’s abilities to survive, whether solo or in groups.
we stand by the decision to include content for those players.
And I have no problem with hard, difficult, even near impossible content.
That is, if it is permanent content that I can spend months practicing and learning.
You have made the hardest content available in game fit into a two week window, that I assume will never be achievable again.
There was also an unfortunate bug which was fixed earlier today involving an issue where some of the Aetherblade waves would not spawn. The first bug made the achievements hard to understand, while the second made the achievements easier to attain. I deeply apologize on behalf of our team that these issues led to a less-than-optimal player experience. With these issues fixed, our hope would be that the achievements for the Candidate Trials are clearer and better balanced for their intended difficulty.
Don’t apologize, fix it. If you’re not prepared to take away the rewards and achievements gained by people who benefited from the bug, then let the rest of us have an equal chance.
Think about this long-term. You are encouraging people to rush through new content to take advantage of bugs on the chance that they get fixed and it becomes harder.
[…]
You had the same opportunity as them to do the trials before they were patched.
That’s the same as saying “exploit bugs and faulty mechanics as much and as soon as you can”.
I was responding to the post I quoted. I wasn’t saying exploiting was right.
Well having it so a group could faceroll through it is pretty much a zergfest in my opinion. That’s how a lot of the content in the game already is. This is only one out of maybe three DPS checks in the game. The other two being Simin and defend event on CoF Path 3.
I never said I wanted anyone to be able to faceroll through. Protesting the design of the fight is not the same as asking them to make it ridiculously easy. I don’t enjoy faceroll content anymore than I enjoy nearly impossible content. I prefer balanced content that is fun and requires more from a player than merely button mashing.
put what your problem is in bold. You’re expecting an event scaled up to FIVE people to be able to be done with two people who essentially carry the group with their DPS. You need the entire team working together and providing support and DPS.
You misunderstand. When you have two plunderers spawning at the same time, the logical conclusion is that you need to split your dps team but it’s a huge hassle to push your way through the mobs to the other side to kill the other one. By the time you get there, the next one on the first side will be spawning. If you have two dedicated DPSers on each one, you should be able to get them down. Especially if you can solo it in one pass while soloing.
Kasaeva.4691:
Finally, unoriginal because this is no different than anything else in the game. When you go to a dungeon, bosses with the exception of AC, are just spam buttons until he dies. There is no strategy and no teamwork. There might be some dodging you have to do but beyond that, it’s nothing more than button spam. I thought the whole point of the changes to AC and boss encounters like in the Aetherblade Retreat was to get away from this button-mash system.Actually, there is strategy to AC and AR. It’s just that a lot of players are lazy and rely on exploits that essentially allow you to faceroll through past boss mechanics and just auto-attack.
Please re-read. I never said there was no strategy to AC and AR. I actually said that they were the exception and hinted that that was the kind of content I had hoped to see more of.
There are a lot of games that require you to change your game play to overcome an obstacle. People need to learn to adapt. From what I heard from people on the forums, one of the areas in GW1 after you beat Abaddon was extremely difficult. Players figured out the correct builds and they conquered it. You can still complete 95% of the game however you want.
That’s fine. I don’t have an issue with adapting personally. Especially since respecing is pretty cheap in this game. My issue with it is that they say one thing and do another. This is about them establishing a direction and sticking to it. I’m tired of chasing their ideas all over the map of directions for MMOs.
This isn’t really a grind. Most games actually have a grind because that’s what keeps players occupied. You can only realize content so quickly as to not overwhelm casual players or too slowly to bore hardcore players. If content is rushed then it’s more prone to bugs and quality often suffers.
I realize in hind sight that that portion of my post is a little confusing. I wasn’t actually referring to this content at the point but to the direction of the game in general. I apologize for diverting from the topic.
~Kasaeva
Sea of Sorrows
Sea of Sorrows
My friend did both Kiel and Evon’s t4 trials today on his thief. It took him a lot of tries but he finally did it. I on the other hand, won’t try it. I don’t enjoy this content so I’m not going to force myself to do something I don’t like for some achievement points.
Your name suits you.
Dunno what do you mean but I’m guessing you just wanted be an kitten.
That was to massdelusion, not you :P
I also am tired of these DPS races as well. The game keeps encouraging one build and one build only. It is not fun nor does it encourage players from playing anything other than a pure DPS build. I loved the Aetherblade dungeon, I loved Molten Facility, but this event, I hated. I completed it, but I had to resort to the pure DPS mechanic yet again, which 90%+ of the PvE content encourages.
Molten Facility was excellent because of the uniqueness of the bosses and required teamwork, not just DPS.
Aetherblade actually promoted other builds other than zerker, but even one of the achievements was totally tied into pure DPS parties to obtain it in the non cheese manner.
Can we please have challenges that allow for other builds to shine? Thanks.
I also am tired of these DPS races as well. The game keeps encouraging one build and one build only. It is not fun nor does it encourage players from playing anything other than a pure DPS build. I loved the Aetherblade dungeon, I loved Molten Facility, but this event, I hated. I completed it, but I had to resort to the pure DPS mechanic yet again, which 90%+ of the PvE content encourages.
Molten Facility was excellent because of the uniqueness of the bosses and required teamwork, not just DPS.
Aetherblade actually promoted other builds other than zerker, but even one of the achievements was totally tied into pure DPS parties to obtain it in the non cheese manner.
Can we please have challenges that allow for other builds to shine? Thanks.
The annoying part was that pre-patch I did it easily with soldier/valkyrie/berserker build with basically 100% success rate, and it was pretty easy. But after the patch you’re forced to go berserker or close to it. The build diversity was there, but they ruined it.
All is vain.
Yeah, I want to chime in and say I actually liked the two boss fights in AR. They were tricky (and maybe the jumping boxes in the first fight could have better hit detection) and required coordination and skill. Used many of the various character mechanics and wasn’t some tank and spank scenarios.
The candidate stuff is just badly designed. No bones about it. There is nothing fun about it at all. It is incredibly frustrating. Even when doing it with a group I trust and not having any success. There are certain classes that were just not taken into consideration. Especially with how loosey-goosey aggro is in GW2.
It is unlikely they can or will fix this before the content expires next Tuesday. All I/we can ask is that they avoid making the same mistake in the future.
Qwerkk – Asuran Engineer
I cannot believe how out of touch ArenaNet has become after reading that post. Yeah, let’s put this hard content in and give the player base only 2 weeks to even attempt to get a gold score for completing it.
Also, yeah, I too would like to see these hot-shot devs show how it’s possible to score gold for these broken trials in a video; I’ll believe it when I see it.
Difficulty – From the beginning, we wanted to create an event that would truly test player’s abilities to survive, whether solo or in groups. That’s when we came up with the concept of the [Challenge Event]. We wanted to create an event where it was easy to get bronze participation, moderately challenging to achieve silver, and difficult to get gold, and to provide an escalating difficulty curve by making use of tiers that got progressively harder, and progressively harder again with groups. We knew that this would not be everyone’s cup of tea, but we also know that there are many players who are eager to challenge themselves in this way, and we stand by the decision to include content for those players. We made sure to make the lower tiers as accessible for all players and play styles, and the upper tiers (III and IV) a serious challenge! Now, there’s hard and then there’s impossible. I can assure you that completing Tier IV with a group is absolutely possible, but it’s not in any way easy, or even feasible for an uncoordinated group. It requires the utmost concentration and communication, and so our expectation from the beginning was that only a small number of groups would accept the challenge, and even fewer would succeed. I’ve been impressed by the many different methods players are finding to solo Tier IV (Ii’s a feat even I myself have yet to achieve) but I’m just as eager to see what groups come up with to overcome this challenge!
Response: Wow, for 5 whole achievement points and near non-existent chance for a unique weapon skin. I’m glad you’re eager, the vast majority of the rest of us are just disgusted. Btw – you’ve successfully completely missed your mark – 99% of the GW2 player base cannot complete t3 or t4 on bronze let alone silver. After the recent patch, anyone claiming gold completion is either lying or just being a silly troll.
Rewards – There has been some confusion about the most optimal way to acquire the rewards in this event. We are seeing some players contend that the lowest risk option (staying up near the plunderer spawn points and away from the treasure piles) at the highest tier is the optimal path to acquiring an Aetherized weapon. This is wrong…somewhat. ? Employing this method will get you enough kill credit to earn one or two loot bags, but your chances for getting an Aetherized weapon actually increase with each subsequent loot bag that spawns. So if you really, really want to get your hands on some wicked Aetherblade gear, you actually stand to gain much, much more by taking more risks and defeating as many Aetherblades as possible at the highest tier you can manage. The greater the risk, the greater the reward.
So basically you are not supposed to complete this event but rather kill as many mobs as possible because success doesn’t improve your chance of being rewarded. Brilliant design philosophy. Wish you’d shared that earlier . . . some of us were stupidly trying to complete it. Oh wait . . . that was for those 5 Achievement Point silly me.
Achievements – There was an initial bug related to how we were tracking player’s progress through the tiers, which did not quite match up with what achievements you had unlocked. We made fixes to that bug, and now player progress for the tiers should be tied to what you’ve unlocked, achievement-wise. There was also an unfortunate bug which was fixed earlier today involving an issue where some of the Aetherblade waves would not spawn. The first bug made the achievements hard to understand, while the second made the achievements easier to attain. I deeply apologize on behalf of our team that these issues led to a less-than-optimal player experience. With these issues fixed, our hope would be that the achievements for the Candidate Trials are clearer and better balanced for their intended difficulty.
I think that covers most of the concerns I’ve read, but the team will continue to monitor feedback on the forums, and if further clarification is needed, rest assured that we will communicate that out to you, our amazing players! Thanks for taking the time to read this post.
Wrong. Here’s a thought bubble for you: If you’re going to call this “Elite Content” or “Challenge Event” shouldn’t something wonderfully elitist like a title, or a 100 achievement points or an exotic drop go with it? This feels a lot like one of those old comedy routines/movie moments where someone pratfalls, stands up and declares with as much dignity as possible “I meant to do that.”
Nerf Shadow Arts condition cleanse. Gut the
Acrobatics trait line. Then sell it back
to them for $50. Brilliant! – ghost of P.T. Barnum
Acrobatics trait line. Then sell it back
to them for $50. Brilliant! – ghost of P.T. Barnum
okay, after reading Matthew and Martin’s note, i can see where they’re coming from. it was unfortunate there were bugs present in the very beginning which i think cause most of the dismay because early on, it was “doable” and not that notion seems quite distant.
but if the devs meant for it to be only for a few people, then so be it. just saw videos of people completing it in group and makes me want to give it a shot as well.
though again, wish the “bug” hadn’t been in there to start with. :/// thanks for the responses.
Akaimon | Jolly Good Guardian
Akaigi | Warrior Made of Wood
[CDS] – Sanctum of Rall
Akaigi | Warrior Made of Wood
[CDS] – Sanctum of Rall
I’m going to have some extra time this week if anyone is really having a hard time getting through t3/t4 solo I’d love to help them out.
-snip-
Can u guys make it permanent content so more people have time to play it through?
We really want to get this as a group, not just solo.
Just my two cents here.
I remember Guild Wars (1) events that were limited time were more about participation and less about “only the best and most hardcore of players will succeed.” While I get that challenging things can be fun and even stimulating for hardcore players, putting super-challenging things in a limited-time format is very discouraging. Instead of enjoying the event, people are burning themselves out on trying to succeed at this achievement and rare drop that will disappear in two weeks’ time. I loved participating in the Guild Wars events but with the achievements tied to these Living Story events in Guild Wars 2, I feel like I’m rushed to succeed at all costs. I feel like I must buy special end-game gear, grind for the crafting materials, and make a specific build in order to win and do it all within 2 weeks. Oddly enough, I haven’t felt that way about any Guild Wars game until now. I think WoW was the last game I played that gave me that feeling of time-constrained pressure.
On the Matthew/Martin’s long explanation of “working as intended” and “you’re playing it wrong” paragraphs: The achievement is to succeed at tiers 1-2 then 3-4. The achievement forces players to focus completely on DPSing Plunderers in order to have a chance to get the 4 achievements tied to the Living Story before the 2 weeks expire. If the achievement was based more on Loot Bags or Number of Kills in one play session, that would be different. The “it’s a horde survival challenge” explanation is contradictory to the achievement.
Another note on the “working as intended” super-long paragraphs. The Trial challenge is, in fact, bugged. Putting crowd control on the Plunderers you can’t DPS to death within a few seconds does nothing once they reach one of their target points (loot pile or discard circle). As soon as the Plunderers reach one of these targets, they can loot or discard their loot from anywhere on the map, even if you manage to knock them back to the opposite side of the island. It’s like once they reach a target point they gain a tactical advantage which makes crowd controlling them while waiting on DPS to kill them far more difficult than “intended.”
If it gets to the end of the week and there is not a single group that has gotten gold, at least then hopefully he’ll realize where we are coming from. If there has been one, please post the video.
But think about this: achieving gold is arguably harder then any lvl 48 fractal. A level 48 fractal for something that’s available for 2 weeks. Shouldn’t the reward for that be something pretty special? At the moment, no one in the hard core pve is going to try this because there’s no reason to. Literally zero incentive, beyond the challenge of it.
If you’re going to make something that hard, it’s got to have a decent reward. And I’ll be amazed if there is a single group that gets gold before the end.
guildless hobo who likes to solo – [x]
If it gets to the end of the week and there is not a single group that has gotten gold, at least then hopefully he’ll realize where we are coming from. If there has been one, please post the video.
But think about this: achieving gold is arguably harder then any lvl 48 fractal. A level 48 fractal for something that’s available for 2 weeks. Shouldn’t the reward for that be something pretty special? At the moment, no one in the hard core pve is going to try this because there’s no reason to. Literally zero incentive, beyond the challenge of it.
If you’re going to make something that hard, it’s got to have a decent reward. And I’ll be amazed if there is a single group that gets gold before the end.
Totally agree. Hard contents might be intended for hardcore players but if the rewards are subpar they are not gonna bother. Why? One word: efficiency.
Given the devs reply, if a full group of 5 can post a video how they succeeded in T4 then I will not complain about the difficulty anymore. But until then…
But think about this: achieving gold is arguably harder then any lvl 48 fractal. A level 48 fractal for something that’s available for 2 weeks. Shouldn’t the reward for that be something pretty special? At the moment, no one in the hard core pve is going to try this because there’s no reason to. Literally zero incentive, beyond the challenge of it.
If you’re going to make something that hard, it’s got to have a decent reward. And I’ll be amazed if there is a single group that gets gold before the end.
Of course it’s harder than Fractals, Fractals were never hard, just long and tedious to reach high levels.
I’ve completed T4 with 5 players and 40 kills, but I didn’t think it was a big enough deal to take a picture since it only took 6 or 7 attempts. We finished incredibly sloppily (we were basically all dying at 40 seconds remaining), so I imagine 50 is easy enough with a good group comp and good execution.
I will agree that the reward isn’t worth the effort. It would seriously have to be 33%+ weapon droprate at 50 for me to bother. Too bad no one else has done it enough to tell me what the drop rate is like though!
(edited by Pinch.4273)
Hi Pinch, could you please describe your group composition and stragegy u guys used?
Thanks
Hi Pinch, could you please describe your group composition and stragegy u guys used?
Thanks
Full Support Guardian (Hammer/GS)
Zerk Ele (Lightning Hammer)
Zerk War (GS/Axe)
Zerk Thief (S/D & S/P)
Zerk Mesmer (S/F, GS, pick up the other LH)
Fight mobs next to the rock, rotate projectile blockers (100% uptime), spam blinds on the melee mobs. Pull the far plunderer to you, or have the Thief run out and daze spam if you get too many in a row. That’s honestly about it. Don’t forget to use consumables.
With a full support hammer guardian, projectile blockers, and a lot of blinds, you can facetank the mobs. The only thing you really have to watch out for is the swashbuckler’s bleed attack. I think most of us used lifesteal on crit food for sustainability. I certainly needed it as the Thief.
I’ve also done 35 kills with a Condi Necro and Zerk Engineer instead of the Ele/Mesmer. The one thing I noticed with that comp is that a lack of projectile blockers makes it much more difficult.
(edited by Pinch.4273)
I have a weird feeling that this mission was created by the last Southsun update, living story team that put to together that infamous “dungeon.” Yes, that one “dungeon” which got called out for not being a dungeon or even challenging. If it is then bravo for putting together a challenge mission that overkill’s us by simply up scaling the AI stats to obnoxious levels. Instead of actually improving the AI to make the mission challenging on a realistic level.
(edited by Sindex.9520)
Thanks very much. I’m going to get my guildies to try this.
I don’t like how things are turning out with these living story events. Stop catering for the ‘hardcore’ dungeon raiders, fact is not everyone is competent, the skill level will all vary between the players so the group composition will never be the best (even worse when you don’t have a proper LFG tool ingame). By making such difficult content with your average group of players, you are asking for a lot of criticism.
I’m still peeved about the molten facility dungeon and not even getting to complete it, so I don’t even know how the ‘living story’ progressed from that point onwards.
But adding to the trial t4 issues, scaling in this is broken, you know you have an issue when you need to solo it to complete it. If you believe that this is the way it should be done, you might as well make this game a RPG instead of MMO. I think it’s probably worse than the party scaling in diablo 3, and we all know how much that failed….
If no one can get Gold, you guys need to rework how you approach content in the future.
Whether its good challenge or too hard, what is clear is that it’s not of a difficulty that the event should be farmed. So why is the only decent reward RNG? You’ve made an event that will challenge the minority of hard core pve’ers, and expect them to repeat it over and over to get rewards? It makes no sense to me.
guildless hobo who likes to solo – [x]
I’m sure any hardcore pvper with a right mind won’t farm this event on t4. It’s horrible experience and simply not worth the time and effort invested in.
I have a few suggestions for next time you guys decide to develop challenging content. There’s potential in this type of swarm content, but what you created here doesn’t live up to the potential.
1. Do not tie it to two separate achievements. Duplication of content is not a sufficient method for padding these updates. If it is unavoidable without making them appear too thin, perhaps consider going back to a monthly update plan.
2. Do not make the sought after rewards RNG. It encourages grinding rather than playing for the experience.
3. Do not split the player’s focus between two mutually exclusive objectives. Killing mobs is one thing, and therefore encourages you to be in the fray by the treasure piles. Catching Plunderers, the only thing that forces you to fail (aside from death) encourages you to stay away from combat and play on the beach by the big rock. The messaging here is all over the map.
4. Tweak the difficulty scaling so that doing it in a coordinated group is the preferred method.
5. Avoid just increasing health pools for higher tiers as that tends to kill build diversity and forces people to overvalue damage over everything else.
6. Do not limit this type of challenging content to only two weeks. It encourages players to rush into it in search of exploits or bugs and it punishes those that didn’t. With time, players can learn from their mistakes, practice the content, and really feel like they accomplished something when they finally achieve it. Instead it encourages smashing your head against the content until you get lucky because its so transient.
7. There appears to be a nasty bug that, unlike the spawn issue, will likely not be fixed due to the limited time the content will be available. When Plunderers reach their pile and are pulled or pushed away from it, they will deposit their loot no matter where they’ve been relocated to. Its as if they reach a specific point and cannot be stopped. There’s no real indication of how the player has failed in their timing. Pushing them away should require them to head back to the little lightning area instead of being able to deposit it wherever they are.
8. Make it fun. Even if the rewards are trash, people will play it for the experience.
9. Be more upfront about this content being designed for very few people. Had I known this before hand, I would have stayed away from it completely. I know I’m not a particularly good player, so if I know content isn’t designed for me then I can just skip it and do something I enjoy more. Like eating glass or sticking my hand inside a bee hive.
(edited by Lemondish.3268)
yo anet
ignore all the kitten
pls keep making the content more and more challenging.
the world is a better place when the winners are few, and not everyone feels entitled to think they themselves are the best
I don’t like how things are turning out with these living story events. Stop catering for the ‘hardcore’ dungeon raiders, fact is not everyone is competent, the skill level will all vary between the players so the group composition will never be the best (even worse when you don’t have a proper LFG tool ingame). By making such difficult content with your average group of players, you are asking for a lot of criticism.
So they have one thing for hardcore players in a game that is 99% for casual players and you’re saying it’s too much? Am I getting that right? The challenging content is option by the way. You don’t need to do it.
Why is everyone so mad that getting gold is hard? You get the achievement for just finishing, which is super easy, even after the fix.
Getting gold means you put the effort in to get gold…
I don’t like how things are turning out with these living story events. Stop catering for the ‘hardcore’ dungeon raiders, fact is not everyone is competent, the skill level will all vary between the players so the group composition will never be the best (even worse when you don’t have a proper LFG tool ingame). By making such difficult content with your average group of players, you are asking for a lot of criticism.
So they have one thing for hardcore players in a game that is 99% for casual players and you’re saying it’s too much? Am I getting that right? The challenging content is option by the way. You don’t need to do it.
While I don’t agree with the poster you’re responding to, I just personally wish they told us up front that this was supposed to be challenging content for the hardcore group. I do applaud them in creating the content such that anybody can experience, but not everybody will complete all of it. I would have absolutely avoided it the past few days had I understood this when it came out.
I, like a lot of other players, would absolutely work toward completing this if given enough time. But to do it in a week? That’s absurd. I know what content I can do, and I feel like it was falsely presented as being doable given the early experiences prior to the patch.
(edited by Lemondish.3268)
yo anet
ignore all the kitten
pls keep making the content more and more challenging.
the world is a better place when the winners are few, and not everyone feels entitled to think they themselves are the best
This content encourages playing solo because its easier than in a group, which is kind of contrary to the whole philosophy of an MMO. It rewards exploiting while punishing those who missed the chance. It overvalues damage at the expense of build diversity, promotes cheesing due to mutually exclusive goals, and essentially forces you to grind and grind because it’ll only be here for another week. Not to mention the fact that luck in spawns plays a much larger factor than it ever should. All this without even guaranteeing you the real prize.
If this is the future of challenging content for GW2, then I think we should all be disappointed.
I don’t like how things are turning out with these living story events. Stop catering for the ‘hardcore’ dungeon raiders, fact is not everyone is competent, the skill level will all vary between the players so the group composition will never be the best (even worse when you don’t have a proper LFG tool ingame). By making such difficult content with your average group of players, you are asking for a lot of criticism.
So they have one thing for hardcore players in a game that is 99% for casual players and you’re saying it’s too much? Am I getting that right? The challenging content is option by the way. You don’t need to do it.
While I don’t agree with the poster you’re responding to, I just personally wish they told us up front that this was supposed to be challenging content for the hardcore group. I do applaud them in creating the content such that anybody can experience, but not everybody will complete all of it. I would have absolutely avoided it the past few days had I understood this when it came out.
I, like a lot of other players, would absolutely work toward completing this if given enough time. But to do it in a week? That’s absurd. If they could just come out and tell me that some of this content isn’t meant for me, then I wouldn’t sweat it. Instead it took a huge negative reaction to say anything about it.
Yes. Perhaps if they were more upfront about it at the beginning then maybe people would not have gotten so upset about it.
You people are all hypocrites. “GW2 is too casual!” In comes Aetherblade Retreat and Candidate Trials. “Not everyone is competent enough for these types of content!” In comes more fluff. “GW2 is too casual!” Ad infinitum. If you don’t like it, don’t play it. There isn’t a subscription fee – no one is forcing you to pay it. Hell, if you don’t regularly buy gems to support the company, you shouldn’t even be complaining about free content in the first place. The devs themselves have stated that T4 Trials is challenging, though not necessarily rewarding, content.
If you really want the skins, go get a competent group and complete T4s, or go buy them off the TP. RNG weapons are RNG because it’s suppose to be a “limited edition” type of content; in other words, Anet wants to keep them RARE. When you are farming for a chance to get these skins, you have to realize that you are risking your time and effort for a chance. So whose fault is it when you put so much time and effort for an RNG weapon, only to get nothing in the end? You.
Just saying, I’ve run 4 people through this event tonight, including a thief who was not in full exotics, and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. I’ve made some good friends/ties to people through this event and I find I mind it less and less.
That said, I’m still sour on the aether skin drops (and that they’re randomized)
That said, I’m still willing to help yet more people, if you’re struggling and you see me on, shoot me a message.
I have yet to fail anyone.
I don’t like how things are turning out with these living story events. Stop catering for the ‘hardcore’ dungeon raiders, fact is not everyone is competent, the skill level will all vary between the players so the group composition will never be the best (even worse when you don’t have a proper LFG tool ingame). By making such difficult content with your average group of players, you are asking for a lot of criticism.
So they have one thing for hardcore players in a game that is 99% for casual players and you’re saying it’s too much? Am I getting that right? The challenging content is option by the way. You don’t need to do it.
While I don’t agree with the poster you’re responding to, I just personally wish they told us up front that this was supposed to be challenging content for the hardcore group. I do applaud them in creating the content such that anybody can experience, but not everybody will complete all of it. I would have absolutely avoided it the past few days had I understood this when it came out.
I, like a lot of other players, would absolutely work toward completing this if given enough time. But to do it in a week? That’s absurd. If they could just come out and tell me that some of this content isn’t meant for me, then I wouldn’t sweat it. Instead it took a huge negative reaction to say anything about it.
Yes. Perhaps if they were more upfront about it at the beginning then maybe people would not have gotten so upset about it.
I think the fact thakittens so transient is also an issue. Content like this, even with all its flaws, could be accepted if it were permanent. That way players that aren’t the hardest of the hard core could work toward those goals and rewards at their own pace, learning from their mistakes and taking it on as often or as little as they wish.
Limiting the skins to the higher tiers feels like a big let down to me too. They’re not account bound or anything, so I can just buy them off the TP, which is actually a much more efficient and lazier method than doing it properly. At least if you could get the item in the lower tiers and it wasn’t account bound, you’d actually be doing something for it and thus feel that sense of accomplishment. Instead you can either achieve the item by buying it with gold, buying it with gems (through black lion chests), or actually doing the content.
You people are all hypocrites. “GW2 is too casual!” In comes Aetherblade Retreat and Candidate Trials. “Not everyone is competent enough for these types of content!” In comes more fluff. “GW2 is too casual!” Ad infinitum. If you don’t like it, don’t play it. There isn’t a subscription fee – no one is forcing you to pay it. Hell, if you don’t regularly buy gems to support the company, you shouldn’t even be complaining about free content in the first place. The devs themselves have stated that T4 Trials is challenging, though not necessarily rewarding, content.
If you really want the skins, go get a competent group and complete T4s, or go buy them off the TP. RNG weapons are RNG because it’s suppose to be a “limited edition” type of content; in other words, Anet wants to keep them RARE. When you are farming for a chance to get these skins, you have to realize that you are risking your time and effort for a chance. So whose fault is it when you put so much time and effort for an RNG weapon, only to get nothing in the end? You.
I think you’re missing the point here. A lot of the feedback folks are giving is that it isn’t fun. For GW2’s first foray into hardcore content territory, I think its pretty valid to tell Anet when it isn’t really doing it for them.
I don’t like how things are turning out with these living story events. Stop catering for the ‘hardcore’ dungeon raiders, fact is not everyone is competent, the skill level will all vary between the players so the group composition will never be the best (even worse when you don’t have a proper LFG tool ingame). By making such difficult content with your average group of players, you are asking for a lot of criticism.
So they have one thing for hardcore players in a game that is 99% for casual players and you’re saying it’s too much? Am I getting that right? The challenging content is option by the way. You don’t need to do it.
While I don’t agree with the poster you’re responding to, I just personally wish they told us up front that this was supposed to be challenging content for the hardcore group. I do applaud them in creating the content such that anybody can experience, but not everybody will complete all of it. I would have absolutely avoided it the past few days had I understood this when it came out.
I, like a lot of other players, would absolutely work toward completing this if given enough time. But to do it in a week? That’s absurd. If they could just come out and tell me that some of this content isn’t meant for me, then I wouldn’t sweat it. Instead it took a huge negative reaction to say anything about it.
Yes. Perhaps if they were more upfront about it at the beginning then maybe people would not have gotten so upset about it.
I think the fact thakittens so transient is also an issue. Content like this, even with all its flaws, could be accepted if it were permanent. That way players that aren’t the hardest of the hard core could work toward those goals and rewards at their own pace, learning from their mistakes and taking it on as often or as little as they wish.
Limiting the skins to the higher tiers feels like a big let down to me too. They’re not account bound or anything, so I can just buy them off the TP, which is actually a much more efficient and lazier method than doing it properly. At least if you could get the item in the lower tiers and it wasn’t account bound, you’d actually be doing something for it and thus feel that sense of accomplishment. Instead you can either achieve the item by buying it with gold, buying it with gems (through black lion chests), or actually doing the content.
The cheapest way right now is buying gems, trading them in for gold and then buying them, farming 50g takes a Loooooong time (capital L), and these items are only dropping every 40-50 runs on 3 loot bags per run (tier 4). (that’s one every 5-6 hours for what it’s worth, and as someone who’s only gotten 2, I cannot guarantee that rate).
The cheapest way right now is buying gems, trading them in for gold and then buying them, farming 50g takes a Loooooong time (capital L), and these items are only dropping every 40-50 runs on 3 loot bags per run (tier 4). (that’s one every 5-6 hours for what it’s worth, and as someone who’s only gotten 2, I cannot guarantee that rate).
Sure, farming 50g takes a long time, but I can’t imagine most long time players don’t have that much available to spend at a whim. I don’t, since I’ve only just returned to the game after a really long hiatus. On the other hand, most of my guild mates bought them the first day, and they fully expect to recoup their losses before the next round of whatever content comes up that they can buy the rewards from. A couple of them haven’t even stepped into Candidate Trials. It seems odd to me that people would applaud the fact that you can only acquire these items from challenging content while being perfectly okay with people not having to do anything but clicking ‘buy’ to get them. At least if they were accessible in the easier tiers you’d have to do something to get it lol
The cheapest way right now is buying gems, trading them in for gold and then buying them, farming 50g takes a Loooooong time (capital L), and these items are only dropping every 40-50 runs on 3 loot bags per run (tier 4). (that’s one every 5-6 hours for what it’s worth, and as someone who’s only gotten 2, I cannot guarantee that rate).
Sure, farming 50g takes a long time, but I can’t imagine most long time players don’t have that much available to spend at a whim. I don’t, since I’ve only just returned to the game after a really long hiatus. On the other hand, most of my guild mates bought them the first day, and they fully expect to recoup their losses before the next round of whatever content comes up that they can buy the rewards from. A couple of them haven’t even stepped into Candidate Trials. It seems odd to me that people would applaud the fact that you can only acquire these items from challenging content while being perfectly okay with people not having to do anything but clicking ‘buy’ to get them. At least if they were accessible in the easier tiers you’d have to do something to get it lol
I mean, I’ve been farming the trials to try and get weapons drops, so far I haven’t had that much success, and I’ve been farming Tier 4… :/
In the grand scheme of things my problem is, unless you’re doing it with a motive (mine is helping others through the content) this is a TERRIBLY unfun event to grind (and it is a grind), and you’re doing it for little to no reward. SOMEONE had to run the event (probably repeatedly) for those skins to be on the TP.
Also it’s randomized drop versus buying whatever skin you want with black lion chests, which is just frustratingly dumb to me.
I did not play any of the other mini games as they do not allow you to play/group up with friends.
And this one i love. It is really nice to have hard content. It is great to have content that is near to impossible and takes many tries to finish it. I really would like to have more of that content – and in best case reward that can only be obtained by finishing something like this on the highest possible tier (but then a guaranteed skin/some dungeon like tokens).
Well done now that the bugs are fixed.