Guild Wars 2

How can anyone say this boss takes skill when everyone that has beaten her refers to playing enough times to see the “pattern” of aoes and orbs which apparently depend on the arena you choose…. As in no skill just alot of time and money to play over and over again…….

And bad design as in the fact that everything is INSTA-DEATH? That unless someone is doing the same arena you have to rez and run all the way back only to get killed and rez and run all the way back only to get killed etc.? The fact that challenging her has to be farmed…… The way that the game shoots in almost impossible difficulty without warning? The way that you have to turn down graphic settings just to fight her?

technical issues as in other bosses still being in the arena? Bosses using moves other boss use? Orbs exploding causing knock back? Meat still on the floor from previous fight giving some characters a dps boost just by luck? How about the terrible camera angle? the fact thakittens SO HARD to see the aoes sometimes? or that the floor hides one or two of them near the wall?

Look im all for difficulty in a fight, but honestly the first phase of her fight is extremely unfair and is only really capable to people with LONG extended periods of play, and the gold to back up to the tickets and armor repairs. Not to mention if you have a laggy internet connection then you might as well bugger off cause you have NO SHOT.

How can anyone say this boss takes skill when everyone that has beaten her refers to playing enough times to see the “pattern” of aoes and orbs which apparently depend on the arena you choose…. As in no skill just alot of time and money to play over and over again…….

Because taking advantage of learned patterns and using them to defeat her takes skill. Some defeat her much quicker than others, but your point pretty much contradicts what you’re trying to state. Yes, most people can defeat her given enough tries. Translation? Don’t give up! I don’t think anyone can beat difficult content without any knowledge of the mechanics behind the fight. The more skilled players simply learn from their mistakes quicker and prevail sooner.

And bad design as in the fact that everything is INSTA-DEATH? That unless someone is doing the same arena you have to rez and run all the way back only to get killed and rez and run all the way back only to get killed etc.? The fact that challenging her has to be farmed…… The way that the game shoots in almost impossible difficulty without warning? The way that you have to turn down graphic settings just to fight her?

There are a lot of games that can 1-shot you if played on the highest difficulty settings. Just as there are dungeon bosses in GW that can 1 shot you. It’s the same as dodging a glaringly obvious attack circle underneath your feet. Dodge it and live. Otherwise you die. You just don’t have anyone to revive you in the Gauntlet should you fail to dodge… 1-shot mechanics are fine as long as the ability to evade said mechanics exist.

technical issues as in other bosses still being in the arena? Bosses using moves other boss use? Orbs exploding causing knock back? Meat still on the floor from previous fight giving some characters a dps boost just by luck? How about the terrible camera angle? the fact thakittens SO HARD to see the aoes sometimes? or that the floor hides one or two of them near the wall?

These things happen and it’s unfortunate. Though I think you’re overstating how often it does happen. Barring the lag (Never had any issue with the aoe circles being hard to see). The Gauntlet really should have been an instance.

Look im all for difficulty in a fight, but honestly the first phase of her fight is extremely unfair and is only really capable to people with LONG extended periods of play, and the gold to back up to the tickets and armor repairs. Not to mention if you have a laggy internet connection then you might as well bugger off cause you have NO SHOT.

?? The first phase of her fight is extremely easy. It’s the second phase most people have problems with.

…And the laggy internet isn’t Anets fault.

I agree with the OP. Love the fight, and hope we see more challenges like this in the future.

Pre-emptive tl;dr – This is my rant towards all the people constantly crying about buggy and bad mechanics. Feel free to ignore it, but I feel like I have to say something about this now.

Honestly, I’m getting tired of people calling out “bad mechanics” and “buggy fight” and “RNG luck” as excuses. I’m going to be the “bad guy” here and say that many of the complainers are simply not good enough to do this fight. I know it can be hard for some people to admit this, hence they complain about things they shouldn’t. Here are some of the frequent ones I see:

1. The Camera – This is buggy how? What do you expect a game camera to do when you back up to a wall? It seems to be working exactly how you would expect it to. It’s not buggy.

You could argue that the arena is poorly designed. But if you don’t like the camera against a wall, that means you don’t want walls which means you need to fight a) in a large wide open edgeless field, or b) a small platform without walls to obstruct the camera.

If you went with a, the fight would become harder for the people complaining. The further you are from the rotating center, the harder the aoe becomes to avoid for classes without lots of vigor or endurance traits. The aoe field is smaller towards the center and larger the further you get out. A larger open field would cause massive aoe fields unless you are near the middle. And let’s face it, the people complaining about the camera aren’t fighting near the middle like they should be.

If you went with b, people would be falling off the arena left and right. That would cause even worse crying than we have now. I’d be ok with it, but again, harder fight.

Solution? Fight near the center. At only 1 point in this fight are you forced near the edges (the second orb).

2. RNG – What is RNG about this fight? Nothing. The pools spawn in the exact same spot each time in a specific arena. The shadowfall aoe has a set pattern. Liadri has predictable attack patterns. The clones mindlessly walk towards you. The orbs spawn and pull at set intervals. Everything in this fight is fixed and learnable.

3. The Orb pulls – Set intervals and entirely predictable. Have trouble clicking them? Press the cycle enemies key until you get it. Or just aoe in its general direction and watch it die in one hit. Problem solved. I handled this by targeting it at range as a thief and killing it with mug. I had no issue targeting it.

4. One shots – See RNG ^^. The one shot mechanic (the aoe) is predictable and thus entirely avoidable. It takes SKILL to avoid it throughout the entire fight. If you lack the skill required, aka situational awareness and dodging, you lose the fight.

An aoe that only did half the damage would be viable, yes, but it reduces the difficulty substantially. Making it one shot simply increases the skill required to win. This is not a cheap design, this is simply a more unforgiving design. There is a difference. The people who cry about this either lack the skill to overcome it or lack the patience to learn how.

5. Time limit – Provides a sense of tension to the fight. Again, you COULD do this fight without a limit, but it provides additional challenge which causes !gasp! additional player skill to overcome. If people are winning this in soldier gear, I don’t think there’s a problem. If you land the first 3 orbs in a row and attack Liadri steadily with autos after that, you should still be fine.

The two things I think are viable complaints are the aoe color for colorblind people and the possible lag from the zerg below. Neither of them affected me (I am not colorblind and I have a good pc), but I will agree that they need work for those who they do bother. Hopefully Anet learns from these points, but does not cave in to the others.

Look im all for difficulty in a fight, but honestly the first phase of her fight is extremely unfair and is only really capable to people with LONG extended periods of play, and the gold to back up to the tickets and armor repairs. Not to mention if you have a laggy internet connection then you might as well bugger off cause you have NO SHOT.

Time? It’s a quick fight, succeed or fail. How is Phase 1 only for people with “lots of time”? That doesn’t even make sense.

Gold? Just how many tickets are you going through? =O

technical issues as in other bosses still being in the arena? Bosses using moves other boss use? Orbs exploding causing knock back? Meat still on the floor from previous fight giving some characters a dps boost just by luck? How about the terrible camera angle? the fact thakittens SO HARD to see the aoes sometimes? or that the floor hides one or two of them near the wall?

People exaggerate these issues so kitten much. They see it happen one time and then, “OMG LIADRI IS IMPOSSIBLE BECAUSE OF A BUG I SAW ONE TIME”

For the record, neither myself or anyone I know saw any of these game-breaking bugs while completing Liadri. I know some of them do exist, but they’re so rare as to make it absurd to claim they’re the reason you can’t do it.

I still think the big issue with Liadri is that nothing in this game really prepared people for encounters where what you do actually matters.

99.9% of the game is just standing there with auto attack on. Not really needing to pay attention to where you stand (That AE won’t kill you anyway), what buttons you’re pressing (Your DPS will be fine either way) what patterns the boss might have (You can’t really “mess it up” regardless) the details of your traits or utility skills (Most things don’t even require that you use them anyway), so on and so forth.

The game doesn’t even care what class you are half the time, the details of everything sorta end up being the same. (In PvE at least)

Then comes Liadri. Suddenly paying attention matters. The pattern matters. No one has had to deal with that before, so it all just seems like RNG or Luck or something. Suddenly where you’re standing and what what you’re doing matters. Suddenly how you built your spec, and what utilities you chose and why you chose them and how you approach the fight all matter.

The idea that things just don’t matter is one of the biggest draws of the game to some players, and also one of the biggest complaints for other players. It’s sort of the theme of the game, that you can just sorta close your eyes and roll your way through most things, no matter how you do it. Liadri goes against that theme, and I think that a LOT of players were simply not equipped to deal with that.

Blood Red Arachnid knows his stuff. Time limits have classically been used to artificially increase the difficulty, and 1HKOs have classically frustrated gamers. Liadri does need work; some people may be forgetting that games are supposed to be fun, and Liadri’s 1HKOs, time limit, visuals, and the time it takes to challenge her are not fun. Liadri is not a fun fight. That is undeniable, even if you had fun fighting her.

Vael Victus.2654:

Liadri does need work; some people may be forgetting that games are supposed to be fun, and Liadri’s 1HKOs, time limit, visuals, and the time it takes to challenge her are not fun. Liadri is not a fun fight. That is undeniable, even if you had fun fighting her.

I had lots of fun fighting her, and many others did too.

Vael Victus.2654:

Liadri is not a fun fight. That is undeniable, even if you had fun fighting her.

Uh… what?

Please realize that not everyone has the exact same definition of fun as you do. All those things you listed actually made the fight more fun for me to play. I enjoy challenges.

Blood Red Arachnid knows his stuff. Time limits have classically been used to artificially increase the difficulty

Time limits don’t even fall under the category of artificial difficulty. They’re a perfectly reasonable mechanic used in games since…gawd…how far back? I’ll just use Super Mario Brothers for an easy reference.

and 1HKOs have classically frustrated gamers.

Again, since when? Yes, dying can be frustrating, but dying to one hit as a mechanic isn’t something new or different. In fact it works just fine in plenty of game genres and is not an example of artificial difficulty at all.

Vael Victus.2654:

. Liadri is not a fun fight. That is undeniable, even if you had fun fighting her.

This is one of the silliest sentences I have ever read, to the point where Im not sure if you are serious. =D

Vael Victus.2654:

Time limits have classically been used to artificially increase the difficulty

In that sense, every mechanic put in to increase difficulty is artificial, even more damage. Yes, a time limit is a technique used to foster a sense of urgency. Some people will enjoy that, some won’t.

Vael Victus.2654:

and 1HKOs have classically frustrated gamers.

Two gamers engage a piece of content. Both are killed in one shot. Gamer A gets frustrated, closes the client and complains on the forums. Gamer B gets frustrated, and asks, “What did that and how can I prevent it?” If you never frustrate people, you run the risk of never challenging them, especially when there is a wide range of ability and skill in a player base. What’s really frustrating is one-hit kills, or other failure mechanics with no counter-play.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Two gamers engage a piece of content. Both are killed in one shot. Gamer A gets frustrated, closes the client and complains on the forums. Gamer B gets frustrated, and asks, “What did that and how can I prevent it?” If you never frustrate people, you run the risk of never challenging them, especially when there is a wide range of ability and skill in a player base. What’s really frustrating is one-hit kills, or other failure mechanics with no counter-play.

Exactly.

Part of the fight is learning how to counter the things that take place. There is no expectation to beat it the first time. I know folks are upset that this isn’t a faceroll fight like others, but I personally love that.