Guild Wars 2

Before I get jumped for saying that Liadri is actually kinda easy please read the rest of my post.

I defeated her on my guard on the second day of Queen’s Jubilee and made enough progress on my warrior for other achievement that I will eventually beat her.

However, many players are upset about her for multiple reasons and almost all of them can be summarized with help of tvtropes:

Fake Difficulty

I will approach the problem from the outside.

The first two major complains have nothing to do with Liadri herself ironically but have their strongest impact in her fight.

The Arena
First you have a glassdome arena that does not allow you to change your camera in a way that enables you to see the whole battlefield. Not only will the camera zoom in when you are near the edges but thanks to the rather limited space above your character a top-down view will actually decrease your sight. Additionally, the constant shifting is kitten my eyes and makes me nauseous.

The Floor
The nice orange grid floor not only makes for a nice cagefight experience but also makes any fight with -AoE-circles unnecessary harder. Fights become increasingly more difficult thanks to this if you have other aspects to look out for. It should also be noted that colorblind players are at a disadvantage because they cannot see the circle.

Both are problems before you face Liadri but there they are whole other story! With all the things the player has to pay attention to (Liadri, Illusions, pulling orbs, light crystals and the red-circles) he not only has to deal with his opponent but with the game itself too!
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Next on my list are the mechanics which again make any fight unnecessary more difficult than it should have been.

Time-Limit
While I agree that you should be punished for cheesing your way to victory the current time limit is just bad. Not only does it promote “moar DEEPS” without any strategy (the faster you kill the better) but a time limit also forces the player to engage in dangerous situations instead of waiting for an opening. However, the latter is most prominent in the Liadri fight.

Randomness
When skill is not important. This applies to Suriel, Salazan, Strugar and Chomper and of course Liadri. Sure, you can challenge them again and again but sometimes it is not about your skill but more about RNG. When Suriel refuses to move or Strugar throws meat everywhere like right beneath his pet there is no skill involved. Losing to Liadri not because you missed a dodge but because the orb appeared just somewhere (hello camera)- or her illusions sometimes explode on touch while othertimes they take like 1-2 seconds to do so – is not my definition of fun.

Time Limit on Shards
This one I do not understand. Why do the shards have to despawn after 20 seconds? Again, this makes the fight needlessly harder in unnecessary ways. Sometimes it is impossible to pick them up and when you want to throw them they disappear from your hands. What was the design decision behind this?

In conclusion we have five problems with the Queens Gauntlet and only one adressing Liadri directly. Of course, there a more problems than just these five but I will only name them:

- Some fights more difficult for certain classes than others.
- The random lagspikes thanks to the zerg beneath the arena.
- Post processing effects like the random blind on Liadri allowing you to cheat the fight by disabling them. Then again, why would you want to make any fight needlessly harder. ‘nudge, nudge’
- Bugs like mobs lingering around in the arena, multiple bosses, multiple players, random gambits, fights beginning with the time limit of the fight before…

Td;dr: I claim that Liadri is actually pretty easy but the design of Queens Gauntlet make the fight needlessly complicated.

edit: Somehow got her name wrong.

Grogba.6204:

I claim .

Your subjective opinion. Don’t generalize.

That being said, could you please create an example of a content that counts difficult and not “fake difficult”?

Nick.6972:

Grogba.6204:

I claim .

Your subjective opinion. Don’t generalize.

That being said, could you please create an example of a content that counts difficult and not “fake difficult”?

wvw

Camera :

yes, it sucks, especially with a norn/tall character.

Floor :

it’s not as bad as the camera, but it’s not very good either. It’s a mess if you’re colorblind.

Time limit :

seriously ? They’re regular mob, not even veteran. Even the most no-dps oriented character can defeat them in the time limit. Does it force player to engage in dangerous situation ? Sure. And it’s very nice to have that kind of situation. A game where you can wait for a good opening in every fight is boring as hell; I’m glad that sometime i’m under pression and i’ve to make a decision which could lead to m death.
The light in the darkness is doable by non-zerker character, but you’ve to hurry and take risks. Looks like it fit perfectly to an achivement defined as “difficult”.

Randonmness :

If suriel doesn’t move, wait. Pull her. Push her. Take a risk and get out of your safe zone. You’ve multiple options.
Event if strugar throws meat in a bad spot, you can cc this ugly dog. Even if he throws the meat sometime just beneath him, what’s the problem ? It’s not because the dog get 1 or 2 meat that you lose the fight.
The orbs int the Liadri fight are timed, just bring some stability/invu and you’ll be fine.

Time limit on shard :

if you can’t take them in less than 20 seconds, you don’t deserve to get the shard. The illusions are so slow, you’ve more than enough time to get the shards. It’s only a problem if you go for light in the darkness, but again, this achievement is designed to be hard.

Thanks for your post. I am susceptible to vertigo when game camera bobs all over the place for any kind of extended period (I got sick doing Troll’s End). I was planning to tackle this stuff today, but will not so as to avoid a very unpleasant hit to my health.

The only problem im having is camera and circles. Wasted some good chunks of time dodging and looking for orbs while looking at my characters butt

I do kinda agree. The boss itself isn’t that tough. I am to the point where I know the tactic to taking her down. The only real problem is how random some obstacles are. And these obstacles are also the ones that will punish you out of nowhere. So it’s not even skill at fault or anything. It’s luck, which seems like a big factor in this fight.

Lag from below will kill you. Random pulls into visions or a 1 second detonation on Shadow Falls from pulls will kill you. You can’t really avoid these. You just need a lot of luck. And it kind of sucks for people who knows this fight, but are forced to play the RNG game again. RNG is not bad when its done right, but when you add multiple ways of getting 1 shotted into that formula, it does suck.

Grogba.6204:

Randomness
When skill is not important. This applies to Suriel, Salazan, Strugar and Chomper and of course Liadri. Sure, you can challenge them again and again but sometimes it is not about your skill but more about RNG. When Suriel refuses to move or Strugar throws meat everywhere like right beneath his pet there is no skill involved. Losing to Liadri not because you missed a dodge but because the orb appeared just somewhere (hello camera)- or her illusions sometimes explode on touch while othertimes they take like 1-2 seconds to do so – is not my definition of fun.

Just because you don’t know the patterns doesn’t mean the fight is random.
But since you claim so, please explain to me where the randomness comes into
play.

The only randomness i can think of is where the vortex will spawn.
Imo the fight is only really ruined because of the terrible arena layout (orange floor + closed arena featuring bad camera).

Vortex spawn is the same every time.

Vortex spawn is the same, the orb pulling you to your demise is not. And since the orb sometimes is obstructed and sometimes not makes the whole ordeal random.

I disagree, the first orb generally spawn not so far from the initial spawn at my right but sometimes it spawns to the left or in front of me. Same goes for the next orbs.

Maybe it depends of the arena you choose, otherwise it’s definitly not fixed spawns.

At least that’s how it was the first day of the release.

Nick.6972:

Grogba.6204:

I claim .

Your subjective opinion. Don’t generalize.

That being said, could you please create an example of a content that counts difficult and not “fake difficult”?

Honest answer? Liadri has nice difficulty. It’s just the stuff happening around her that makes the fight frustrating and unfair. Clocktower JP was difficult but fair. That droid boss from the lost Island update in SWTOR was very difficult but fair.

Grogba.6204:

Vortex spawn is the same, the orb pulling you to your demise is not. And since the orb sometimes is obstructed and sometimes not makes the whole ordeal random.

Except that it only has like 6 spawning locations, and will spawn at the same time during the fight every time. So you know when to expect it and you know where you can expect it to spawn.

All of the stuff you people mention can be overcome by being smart. Which is what this is all about. How to outsmart the mechanics of the boss.

If it wasn’t for the stuff happening around the boss, then it wouldn’t be hard at all. Ofcourse, that’s why they added it. Or they would’ve come up with other stuff to make the boss hard. Luckily, adding tons of HP was finally not one of the picked options for every boss. Amen to that.

Who thought a fully-enclosed dome shaped arena was a great idea? It’s hell on the camera especially if you run near the edge! My camera sometimes ping-pongs between close and far at the worse possible time! Oh look… I lost. again. :<

About the despawning shards even while you are holding them, I agree that that one is very annoying.

Fake Difficulty, as defined in the article you linked, has 5 different Facets that can qualify something as having said difficulty.

Looking over those definitions, Only one of them has anything to do with your own points, that is that Bad Technical Aspects can increase the difficulty unfairly.

Only two of your complaints against the fight, those being that of the bad camera in the arena, and the weird floors, fit into this definition.

Considering the number of times I have lost because of poor camera angles or not being able to see the red circles (hint: Not very many.) I would say that the fight offers more Real difficulty vs. Fake difficulty, as defined by TVTropes.

The fight is approximately as difficult as the designers wanted it to be. Some people think that’s too hard, and that’s a valid opinion to have. Personally, I enjoy the challenge they have presented.

Grogba.6204:

Fake Difficulty

Seems that way, right? You just gotta keep your cool and pay attention.

But you ALSO need to understand your class traits and skills well, and be proficient at moving around in combat. It’s a very tough fight, but not as hard as it seems.