Guild Wars 2

Josh Foreman.8250:

That was the goal. To the extent that some still feel excluded, we did not perfectly reach it. We will continue to learn and iterate.

I think it mainly comes down to how people are thrown in the deep end from the word go. I died the first time I went up to the third boss despite being told to “look out for bombs” because there were a bunch of red circles right as I got on (from the marionette, I believe) that I thought were the bombs. So I was just on the look out for those and got kind of destroyed by the actual bombs.

I’ve been on there a couple of times since and don’t really have any problems but that first time I died, my platform was the only one that failed. I’m obviously a bit biased but I don’t even think I am particularly awful, but people have no way to prepare for it without having a good chance of compromising their entire servers attempt at the boss.

If you had some better way of preparing them for that I think it would be good. Either a short immunity during which they can try learn the bosses skills, maybe a weaker mob that can be fought elsewhere (living story instance) that uses the same spells so you can learn there or something? I’m not too sure, I guess you don’t want to take away from the individuality of the fight.

For me, a not-hardcore-living-for-play any game, and with Demon Souls and Dark Souls as favorite games ever, just alongside the original X-COM, the Marionette event has a big issue to will make me not to care about it.

It will gone away, like, this week. Or the week after (do we even have a date to know when it will fade away?).

I didn’t bothered about the the previous one, the tower, because knowing that it will go away in 2 weeks, I would not have time to complete it, and certainly not time to do any achievement except the most basic “participate once!” ones. Then we saw it lasted for 6 weeks or 2 months, so knowing that in advance maybe I would try it. Not sure if it was my fault to fail to see that information.

In this case, I didn’t find info about in which date the marionette will become unavailable, I tried 4 times now, in the last 3 I landed in a platform who completed their boss, not sure in the first one because when I realized what was happening the event was finished. No clue at all about what would happen after the teleport, and then suddenly “too bad! 2 minutes to kill! kill!kill!kill!kill! finish!” I don’t even remember if the champion was defeated.

I don’t think that is good for the content to depend exclusively on out-of-game clues to succeed, or on to make anyone else fail while you learn, in order to have a possibility. Not because I get frustrated by difficulty, but because any repetition in which I could fail will make fail all the other players, while the other watch from their completed platforms.

I repeated before, this configuration is getting close to promote bullying, because there are few weeks to complete this, so many players to want to complete it and so, so many opportunities to make them all fail without pretending.

Even to please the bullier players that don’t stop at the “get better or quit the game you stupid noob!” one needs to fail some times while trying or getting practice, and this trying is much likely making other people to fail. So the repetition becomes more yelling at players and more frustration, in circles.

In Dark Souls, I can fail 1000 times at a boss, get better or kick the kitten console away if I want, and nobody else is not getting their rewards or any “you fail and dies because Randall, blame him, we put him in a separate platform so you easily identify it and blame him”

A bit exaggerating, but I just want to prevent GW2 to become a bully-friendly platform.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Ohoni.6057:

Nothing about the new content teaches players how to play better, it just requires that they DO play better,

That’s a fair point. Thanks. I’ll think about how to incorporate better direction in future content.

Hey, that’s great to hear. It’s one of the things I believe the game sorely needs, speaking from experience playing with friends that bounced off the game. So I’ve put in my thoughts about the lack of low level dungeons into a thread.

It would fill the dungeon-gap for those below lvl 30, and a good opportunity to teach players about dodge/combo-fields and all that early on, as well as offering a fun and challenging experience during the first hours of play.

On more thinking I don’t care if they want to make raid content. I’m not interested (been there, done that), I think it’s a poor use of developer time, but it’s Anet’s game and they have the numbers on player involvement and success rates.

However I’d like it off the main “living world” story. That’s meant to be the evolution of the world, a PvE story, and should be as inclusive as possible. So Wurm is fine, having hardcore optional material as bonus levels on the story is fine (even better if identified as such), but having raid content block completion of the story… not a good idea. Once a player disconnects from the story they’re less likely to care about the next instalment.

Andrige.5609:

Josh Foreman.8250:

Ohoni.6057:

Nothing about the new content teaches players how to play better, it just requires that they DO play better,

That’s a fair point. Thanks. I’ll think about how to incorporate better direction in future content.

Hey, that’s great to hear. It’s one of the things I believe the game sorely needs, speaking from experience playing with friends that bounced off the game. So I’ve put in my thoughts about the lack of low level dungeons into a thread.

It would fill the dungeon-gap for those below lvl 30, and a good opportunity to teach players about dodge/combo-fields and all that early on, as well as offering a fun and challenging experience during the first hours of play.

Never mind that the instructions that are in game can drive you batty.

Try the blocking “tutorial” in Queensdale for instance. It keeps trying to get you to block at the last possible moment. Meaning block when the split second animation ends, not when it begins. That just flies in the face of every last human instinct there is on the subject.

Randall.7306:

For me, a not-hardcore-living-for-play any game, and with Demon Souls and Dark Souls as favorite games ever, just alongside the original X-COM, the Marionette event has a big issue to will make me not to care about it.

Funny how you mention games that are either wholly single player, or has multiplayer only as a secondary feature. When the competition is between player and game, ramping the difficulty to 11 is much more acceptable. But trying to emulate that in a primarily multiplayer world, especially one where people can come and go at random and their actions can help and hinder in equal measure, is bound to cause rivers of grief.

End result is that every time i see someone here or elsewhere compare GW2 to Dark Souls i cringe.

I haven’t beaten Marionette in any OF, out of 15+, despite tactics being carefully explained every time, lanes are filled with 20 or more players and the dedicated ones move around to help other lanes once the debuff wears off.

Home server (FSP) on the other hand, almost never fail a single lane. Even with the same amount of bearbows, staff users and w/e people like to put the blame on for losing.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong or hard with this event. Kill champs and dodge AoE, that’s it. Overflows seem to be the root of all problems, some people doesn’t even try if they end up in one. Maybe the better players are also more keen on waiting around 30-60 minutes to get a slot on a main server, leaving OF to the “casuals”.

Andrige.5609:

It would fill the dungeon-gap for those below lvl 30, and a good opportunity to teach players about dodge/combo-fields and all that early on, as well as offering a fun and challenging experience during the first hours of play.

These teachers already exist in the world. If not before, the first time someone enter Kessex Hills or equivalent zone, they should quickly learn that AoE rings is a bad thing to be in when they are bombarded with catapult rocks or cannon balls. And not all leveling content is sleepwalking, mobs with torment and confusion can be a real pain if some stacks ain’t evaded. But the starting zone could have more forced-on hints for basic mechanics, new players are kinda thrown into the world to figure stuff out themselves as it is now.

Mikklesnickles.2635:

Stop giving arenanet crap for making something difficult. It’s not on them if you’re bad at the game.

“Crap”? No. Valid criticism and feedback? To whatever extent the forum’s TOS allow me.

It’s “on them” when 90 people can be good at the game and fail the event over and over because 10 people are not. And the reason it is “on them” is because there will always be a few people who are not good when you make an event that draws from the open world and where there’s no control over who participates.

This event is inherently designed to fail except under near-ideal circumstances. And only Arenanet can change that.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Gilgalas.7860:

You must also understand that fights such as the Marionnette one are meant as server events. The difficulty is set to an average level so that very skilled players compensate for lower skilled ones. This by itself should reinforce the community feeling as everyone can fit in. You would be right if the fight difficulty was set so high that it required to excluded lesser skilled players, but that is not the case for Marionnette.

That was the goal. To the extent that some still feel excluded, we did not perfectly reach it. We will continue to learn and iterate.

It’s not only that some people feel excluded. It’s also that the abovementioned design failed at it’s very core. Marionette is not a design where very skilled players compensate for lower ones (it can happen, but only if both those players are on the same platform, and even then there are notable exceptions). It is a design where the weak players drag the skilled ones down.

Josh Foreman.8250:

PowerGamer.2874:

As of this writing my server (which is designated as having “Very High” population on the world select screen) has beaten Marionette exactly ZERO times. Does anything else have to be said?

Nope. I hear you. We’ll take that sort of feedback into consideration when designing future open world boss events. We want to figure out ways to keep the events challenging while also providing enough direction to increase a server’s chance of success.

As long as those events won’t scale down to give a much smaller (20-30 ppl) groups a reasonable chance of success, anything else will not accomplish much.

If you want the event to be done across the servers, and not only on few chosen ones, you just canot design them based on assumption that 100+ people will be always doing them.

Josh Foreman.8250:

DiogoSilva.7089:

I believe that the problem with this event, and why it’s so difficult to finish it, is not the difficulty itself, but the very restricting victory conditions versus the nature of an open-world event.
No matter how many casual players become more skillful out of this, there will always exist a few randoms, who stumble upon or try the event for the first time, and compromise the entire server’s victory. This is because the event’s success is heavily tied to the weakest links – and all the other, better players can’t do much to prevent the situation.

I agree. This is the weakest part of the design. If I could go back in time I’d make sure our brilliant designers and content people had the time to make it so after you break a regulator you can /cheer to res the nearest downed player.

Consider also the situations like Warden I and II , that hinge on aggro management in a game where this mechanic doesn’t exist. If the boss aggroes on a wrong, inexperienced player, there’s not much other players on the same platform can do about it.

Also, ressing, while helpful, would not change the situation in most cases i have seen – they usually were failed either because people on the platform failed at comprehending warden mechanic, or didn’t have enough dps. Or didn’t have enough dps because they failed at comprehending warden mechanic. Or ran into the infamous “one person on platform” situation. Death just magnifies other problems, that are already present. It is rarely the main cause of failure (except perhaps for the other infamous problem – “dead before finished loading”)

digiowl.9620:

Randall.7306:

For me, a not-hardcore-living-for-play any game, and with Demon Souls and Dark Souls as favorite games ever, just alongside the original X-COM, the Marionette event has a big issue to will make me not to care about it.

Funny how you mention games that are either wholly single player, or has multiplayer only as a secondary feature. When the competition is between player and game, ramping the difficulty to 11 is much more acceptable. But trying to emulate that in a primarily multiplayer world, especially one where people can come and go at random and their actions can help and hinder in equal measure, is bound to cause rivers of grief.

End result is that every time i see someone here or elsewhere compare GW2 to Dark Souls i cringe.

Maybe I didn’t expressed myself correctly in the rest of my post, but precisely what I say is that the comparison is unfair, and that the design in the event is totally causing the current rivers of grief, specially because all the “try to do it better now” times that some novice players want to tries, they are hindering other players, and one single platform with one single fail can drag everyone else to failure. And players only can try once every 2 hours at best, maybe twice if there is a way to be in 2 platforms.

So, if ANet wants to do content with Dark Souls difficulty in Open World, and linking the global failure to the current “1 player fails, everyone fail, nobody can help but watch the other fails” what they are doing is unfair for the players, compared with difficult content in single player games, where your fails are yours only, and you are not making someone’s else achievements or success to fail.

So, there is another concept besides difficulty: fairness, *Souls-style difficulty is more fair than this events in Living Story, and not only for the single player aspect, but because you have different ways to approach content, and different builds are useful and valid. In those events, there is only one possibility: evade/DPS, and the artificial and temporal escape to this has been to divide the zerg (which is good, I applaud this), to link the global failure to the single worst or more unlucky player, and to do it in a temporal event (two weeks to learn! sorry if you are out!), with only one opportunity to learn every 2 hours.

The thing that I find surprising and excellent every time about the Marionette fight is just how crazy sideways it can go and still, somehow, end up in a win.

Last night the fight I was in seemed like a sure loss with several lanes in a row failing the same warden, then my lane got in (for the second time), killed it, and somehow the fight succeeded with the cannon power sticking at 99% for what seemed like forever.

I really have no idea how half the wins I’ve been in on have happened, because most of them looked like utter fail up until the last second.

This fight makes good things happen, both personally, as you figure out how to not fail on your own little part, and on a community scale when a huge number of players realize that if they try hard they can win it even when the odds look terrible.

I have not seen an encounter like that in any game before, where no matter how lost it seems, you still have a legitimate reason to keep pushing rather than just going /afk or giving up and kittening in chat.

All too often it’s the exact opposite; early on you reach a point where, if a couple of things go wrong, everyone can see that the fight likely is headed for failure and people just give up or leave, making failure certain.

I only have two minor gripes about the fight which are (1) the dodge achievements should be granted if you avoid all the puppet attacks and your platform kills its warden; and (2) it is maddening that I am at 4/5 on the defeat wardens achievement and have no way to tell which warden it is that I need to work on to complete this achievement; these checklist achievements ought to always show us the checklist so we know what we’ve done and what we need to do.

Another example of not learning from the Tequatl revamp (or the feedback) is they put events built and tuned to “push” dozens of competent lvl 80s in a lvl 25-40 zone (in the case of the mari) and 45 – 55 (tri-wurm)! Even lower lvl zones than Tequatl.

If you’re putting in content designed to “push” lvl 80s to the brink, and you don’t want to risk the elitism and exclusionary attitudes that certain other games have with raids and raiding guilds, then put the event in a lvl 80 zone! Just getting to the event or the wp near it would be at least a cursory skill and gear check.

It’ll prevent underleveled, underinformed or undergeared people from stumbling into the event. Messing things up for ~100 players and getting flamed so hard they contemplate dropping the game.

Cursed Shore or Southsun Cove preferably. Although anywhere in Orr or even north Frostgorge Sound would make much more sense than Lornar’s Pass, Bloodtide Coast or Sparkfly Fen.

Meadfreek.6789:

Another example of not learning from the Tequatl revamp (or the feedback) is they put events built and tuned to “push” dozens of competent lvl 80s in a lvl 25-40 zone (in the case of the mari) and 45 – 55 (tri-wurm)! Even lower lvl zones than Tequatl.

If you’re putting in content designed to “push” lvl 80s to the brink, and you don’t want to risk the elitism and exclusionary attitudes that certain other games have with raids and raiding guilds, then put the event in a lvl 80 zone! Just getting to the event or the wp near it would be at least a cursory skill and gear check.

It’ll prevent underleveled, underinformed or undergeared people from stumbling into the event. Messing things up for ~100 players and getting flamed so hard they contemplate dropping the game.

Cursed Shore or Southsun Cove preferably. Although anywhere in Orr or even north Frostgorge Sound would make much more sense than Lornar’s Pass, Bloodtide Coast or Sparkfly Fen.

I think this a very bad idea. Accessibility of Living World events should not be so segregated. Whatever way future events are constructed to prevent frustration, cutting out lower level players from that type of content just cuts them out of the community and treats them like second class citizens. I thought the inclusiveness of the Tower and the latest event were spot on. Zones and instances have enough gate-keeping – events should be inclusive.

Question – are all participants & npcs on the platforms upleveled to level 80? If not, that is definitely an issue, and I would qualify my response above based upon that issue.

Oddly, the notion that there is content in the game that I might never see doesn’t make be unhappy, in fact I’m glad it’s there.

Who wants a world with no challenges left?

As far as setting these events in level 80 zones – that would be harder on players with less than perfect gear, since the differences would be maximized.

Heezdedjim.8902:

The thing that I find surprising and excellent every time about the Marionette fight is just how crazy sideways it can go and still, somehow, end up in a win.

Last night the fight I was in seemed like a sure loss with several lanes in a row failing the same warden, then my lane got in (for the second time), killed it, and somehow the fight succeeded with the cannon power sticking at 99% for what seemed like forever.

I really have no idea how half the wins I’ve been in on have happened, because most of them looked like utter fail up until the last second.

This fight makes good things happen, both personally, as you figure out how to not fail on your own little part, and on a community scale when a huge number of players realize that if they try hard they can win it even when the odds look terrible.

I have not seen an encounter like that in any game before, where no matter how lost it seems, you still have a legitimate reason to keep pushing rather than just going /afk or giving up and kittening in chat.

All too often it’s the exact opposite; early on you reach a point where, if a couple of things go wrong, everyone can see that the fight likely is headed for failure and people just give up or leave, making failure certain.

I only have two minor gripes about the fight which are (1) the dodge achievements should be granted if you avoid all the puppet attacks and your platform kills its warden; and (2) it is maddening that I am at 4/5 on the defeat wardens achievement and have no way to tell which warden it is that I need to work on to complete this achievement; these checklist achievements ought to always show us the checklist so we know what we’ve done and what we need to do.

I have a similar attitude. Love the Marrionette. HATE the Wurm and Tequatl. I think the Marrionette is good design since there is always a possibility of success and have been in many runs where we though for sure we lost after three lanes in a row failed the same boss, but then won it anyways because we all really pushed to the end. With the Wurm and Tequatl there is always that stupid arbitrary timer instead of player skill that causes us to fail…been on so many attempts where if we had just a few more seconds we could have succeeded. I really hate timers on world events, it completely gets rid of any immersion I have in a battle to look at a clock to see if I am going to fail.

I also agree with another persons post that said these types of events should never be in low-level zones…for the Marrionette: I have been in a group with two 40ish characters (guildmates) and still beaten the marrionette…they were good players even though they were low level…for the Wurm or Tequatl, since both of these require less personal skill and more DPS (or use of mechanics in the wurm), these two are absolutely not do-able by low level characters…these should never have been placed in low-level areas. Put challenging content in the level 70-80 areas…that is where it belongs…having people who have never been to frostgorge or Orr trying to do these events is disaster.

Father Grimm.8467:

Meadfreek.6789:

Another example of not learning from the Tequatl revamp (or the feedback) is they put events built and tuned to “push” dozens of competent lvl 80s in a lvl 25-40 zone (in the case of the mari) and 45 – 55 (tri-wurm)! Even lower lvl zones than Tequatl.

If you’re putting in content designed to “push” lvl 80s to the brink, and you don’t want to risk the elitism and exclusionary attitudes that certain other games have with raids and raiding guilds, then put the event in a lvl 80 zone! Just getting to the event or the wp near it would be at least a cursory skill and gear check.

It’ll prevent underleveled, underinformed or undergeared people from stumbling into the event. Messing things up for ~100 players and getting flamed so hard they contemplate dropping the game.

Cursed Shore or Southsun Cove preferably. Although anywhere in Orr or even north Frostgorge Sound would make much more sense than Lornar’s Pass, Bloodtide Coast or Sparkfly Fen.

I think this a very bad idea. Accessibility of Living World events should not be so segregated. Whatever way future events are constructed to prevent frustration, cutting out lower level players from that type of content just cuts them out of the community and treats them like second class citizens. I thought the inclusiveness of the Tower and the latest event were spot on. Zones and instances have enough gate-keeping – events should be inclusive.

Question – are all participants & npcs on the platforms upleveled to level 80? If not, that is definitely an issue, and I would qualify my response above based upon that issue.

I agree that LV events shouldn’t be so segregated. I very much agree with that. LV events should be inclusive as possible. My suggestion was more aimed at permanent content like the tri-wurm. Sorry I should have made that clearer.

But that being said, putting an uberhard mass event in a lower zone doesn’t make it more accessible (Except in the physical sense). It just makes it misleading, and possibly even more frustrating. Anet already made mari segregated…on purpose. Not segregated by geography. But segregated by skill level, equipment level and type of player. If even a few without the requisite gear, fairly advanced skills or knowledge, or much under 80 tries that event, even if upleveled to 80 and being briefed thoroughly , I suspect they are going to die miserably and infuriate dozen of people in the process.

In many games you get to practice the skills you’ll need for a boss just by getting to the boss. That’s the “tutorial” most games have and that many in this thread are asking for. That’s what putting advanced events in advanced areas would hopefully do.

Actually, my friend has taken her ranger to the Marionette since level 34, used ranged pets and the revive utility, and has done very well several times in W2.

I appreciate at least one ANET employee finally getting on the forums and openly addressing people that didn’t have a good time with the events. It was starting to feel like we were being ignored since threads that were praising it had multiple employees posting in them. The best I can hope for is even if the event doesn’t change, at least someone is listening for next time. Please don’t make the success of my work hinge on 124 other people’s ability to effectively do a job they’ve no experience doing.

Massively difficult is anathema to temporary open world content. It will burn out and antagonize more than it will make people try harder.

Again and again it seems as if ANet stared themselves blinkered on the GW1 statistics, and tailored the game to the GW1 die hards (either exploring instances for hidden meaning, pushing for the fastest possible clear time of the hardest instances, or mastering the game mechanics in PVP). But was then blindsided by the up-swell of people coming from other games in search of something new, but not so interested in stressing themselves with lore, mechanics and PVP.

And it seems that rather than accept that there are more than the GW1 die hards out there, they are trying to make content to turn everyone into GW1 die hards.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Think of an MMO like a newspaper. Some people only read the comics. Some only want the sports page. Some like all the parts, but enjoy the local news the most, etc.

I think this is an excellent analogy. The problem though is with a newspaper, I get all the sections every day. If I don’t want to read the news ever, I can still check out the sports and cartoons sections every day. With GW2 living story releases (example this past release), if I don’t want to do HARD PvE content (but I love PvP and WvW and easy PvE), there’s nothing for me new to do in the patch. (Sure, I can farm the power cores, but then in order to benefit from the lair, I need ciphers which I can get ONLY from hard PvE content (marionette). ) (I’m not saying the marionette is hard for everyone, but it is MUCH harder for smaller servers that can’t even get the minimum numbers to show up)

I think this creates a lot of frustration for players. It has created some specifically for this patch, because there was a break from regular releases before that. Basically, if you don’t enjoy hard PvE content, you haven’t had anything new to do in a long time compared to the people that enjoy hard PvE content.

One more thing, because I want to make sure I cover my bases if ANET is checking this thread. No matter what happened in the living story, no matter how vested I was in it up until this point, all of it is moot when I never finish the marionette event. I haven’t beaten Scarlet. I didn’t win. If next week a cutscene shows the forces beating her, I’ve lost my connection to it. I don’t care because I was incapable of gaining a single victory. So my desire to carry on with living story becomes phenomenally diminished. If I failed to beat a boss in another RPG, the game doesn’t just fake it like I beat it and force me to keep going, and if it did, I’d stop playing, because the immersion is gone. If living story is the story for Guild Wars 2, and I cannot beat a boss within the story, then for me, the immersion is gone. I’m not a part of the winning team or the fighting team or any team anymore. I’m a bystander watching other people be heroes, and that’s not a fun place to be.

I haven’t beaten Marry – tried about 10 times, but mostly just to get the necessary code fragments to do the lair stuff and for dailies to get the meta. I have to say that I am really really glad Anet had the foresight to add the daily as a possible route to the meta, and full marks to them for that. However, the event as a whole to me was quite disappointing, primarily for two reasons.

I don’t know if I’m a “bad” player or not. I’m not even sure what that means. By definition, half the players in the game will be below average. I know how to dodge and the like, etc. etc. I’ve saved my dungeon group as the sole survivor to avoid the TPK. I read over and understand the event mechanics. I’ve only failed a platform once, and it was due to getting one-shotted by an attack I couldn’t see coming. Not the point. I have two main gripes about the setup.

I think, in general, that the living story should be pretty accessible to just about the entire player base. While everyone can PARTICIPATE in the Marry event and get the meta, the story, etc., the event is built in such a way that, quite predictably, will cause a lot of people to feel unwelcome. The setup is confusing. The game itself gives no sense of where to go or what will come or how to succeed. The design is such that a guide like Dulfy or something is all but required to do be widely read for the event to succeed. A lot of players enjoy gw2 but aren’t that devoted, which should be okay. But then you have players who ARE that devoted (and good for them!… until you realize), but for whom the work they put into figuring things out is “ruined” by people showing up to participate in the new release who aren’t so devoted. They then turn on these people as if they had been griefed. This fractures the community, makes the Marry event quite unpleasant and nasty at times. Other times, you have people being very kind and helpful and patient…. but OMG the hatered I have seen flung into chat! This isn’t good for the game, and it was absolutely 100% foreseeable. You see it to some extent in Wurm, but not as much, because it’s understood that’s elite content. I think with LS, it should NOT be elite. This was a misguided attempt to split the difference, and I don’t think it worked.

Second gripe: while I generally am not a fan of hard content, I do do it, and can do it. I’ve soloed all of Orr, despite the “challenge” of waiting in various ways and various places for a group event to be completed or whatever (I fail to see this as a challenge of any note, but more of a unnecessary inconvenience, and don’t get me started on map completion requiring access to places your server will never see because you happened to pick the wrong name from the hat when you signed up, but whatever….). What’s wrong with the dubiously-labeled “challenge” of Marry is success has basically nothing to do with you. Were I to try Marry again and succeed, I’d have ACCOMPLISHED nothing more than getting lucky with who else was there and how they did on that day. That’s not a compelling challenge.

As a result, once the meta was done, I said goodbye and good riddance to Marry. I’ve seen and will forever ignore from now on the Wurm and Teq, because I don’t find hoping 200 other people jump through the hoops with me very interesting. Since other people love it, I’m very glad it’s there. It just has no business in the living story, which should be universal, general, and far more forgiving. I thank Anet for making the meta at least work for anybody who can log in and slog through the negativity and frustration 1/day for 10 days, but I feel more like a part of a team, more like a member of a community, and more engaged by the story, frankly, when the centerpiece is a zerg.

Content that requires high percentages of people to succeed will succeed only in making large portions of the player base feel unwelcome, whether or not they are told as much in their chat window. And they are. In droves. The event made me like the player-base, and hence the game itself, a little less. That’s a failure.

tldr: 1) If a player is “bad” they shouldn’t have to choose between not participating in the living story or interfering with other “good” players. 2) It is a dubious success to manage a moderate challenge and then get lucky in that 95 others pulled it off too. 3) I don’t blame “bad” players for showing up, but others are, predictably, because the game is encouraging us to resent their presence.

These teachers already exist in the world. If not before, the first time someone enter Kessex Hills or equivalent zone, they should quickly learn that AoE rings is a bad thing to be in when they are bombarded with catapult rocks or cannon balls. And not all leveling content is sleepwalking, mobs with torment and confusion can be a real pain if some stacks ain’t evaded. But the starting zone could have more forced-on hints for basic mechanics, new players are kinda thrown into the world to figure stuff out themselves as it is now.

There are in the game elements that can teach certain tactics to certain players, but maybe not well enough. I consider myself a good player. Not a great player, far from the best, but good enough. I am pretty solid at picking up on necessary tactics and adapting to them, hit me once, shame on you, hit me twice, shame on me.

Not all players are as good at this, and could be hit by the same thing multiple times, and if you don’t tell them explicitly how to avoid it, they won’t figure it out on their own. Also, they may miss fighting certain enemies entirely. I’ve always found Ettin to be great dodge/block training against non-circle attacks, but maybe someone doesn’t fight any Ettins on their path to 80, that’s the price of an open world sandbox.

Another example of not learning from the Tequatl revamp (or the feedback) is they put events built and tuned to “push” dozens of competent lvl 80s in a lvl 25-40 zone (in the case of the mari) and 45 – 55 (tri-wurm)! Even lower lvl zones than Tequatl.

If you’re putting in content designed to “push” lvl 80s to the brink, and you don’t want to risk the elitism and exclusionary attitudes that certain other games have with raids and raiding guilds, then put the event in a lvl 80 zone! Just getting to the event or the wp near it would be at least a cursory skill and gear check.

On thing that would be nice if if they could design some sort of “newb” buff (probably with a better name for it). It would be something that would be designed to level off the lower geared players vs the higher. I’m not sure what tools they have available because this would be different from other buffs I’ve seen, but I’m thinking of either a buff that would only be applied to characters under level 80 (since they would be assumed to be under geared), or that applies to everyone but that shifts their stats at a flat level, so if you have a level 50 with 500 Power and a level 80 with 1000 power, the buff would maybe shift the L50 to 1000 power, or maybe fix both of them at 750, and balance the fight accordingly. That way, gear check would not have to be a factor for these events.

I don’t think they should do that for all content, mind you, but it would seem warranted in the areas of these sorts of events, and the Marionette already gives a lane-based buff.

Ohoni.6057:

I’ve always found Ettin to be great dodge/block training against non-circle attacks, but maybe someone doesn’t fight any Ettins on their path to 80, that’s the price of an open world sandbox.

I dunno. The ettins have a very pronounced weapon glow when winding up that you do not find so often on latter mobs. The wurms in diessa have something similar, but i don’t recall seeing it on wurms closer to Orr. This may be a good thing or bad thing, depending on who you ask. But to me, the removal of this element of the tell ups the workload for no good reason (outside of the purely aesthetic that is).

Thanks for the awesome content John, I truly appreciate being challenged and becoming more skilled as a player. Don’t let all the negative comments get you down!

Josh Foreman.8250:

That was the goal. To the extent that some still feel excluded, we did not perfectly reach it. We will continue to learn and iterate.
[…]

You have my fullest support m8

Love the fight, both how it’s designed and the reward system. From my experience, the main reason why it fails is because some people refuse to be flexible or adapt. Please do not let these people bar you from creating good content!

Almost got lynched by several people in mapchat earlier on when I suggested for staff guardians to equip something with more of a punch.

“How dare you tell other players to play the game, elitist.”

Oh well!

It seems like people still think marionette is a hard fight to learn.

But my first time participating was also on the first day when no one really knew quite what to do. I still could figure it out a little. We had NPCs yelling to not let enemies get to the portal, and a few other players saying to target champs. When it’s a lane’s turn to enter the portal, we get GIANT blue/green arrows moving to the portal which has turned green. When fighting a champ there is flavor text under the hp bar, as with all mobs in GW2, that tells players how to beat it and what to watch out for.

I feel this event was designed with a lot of direction on how to do it, and I am not sure how else Anet could teach players what they needed (although I’m sure people in the gaming industry can). Those hints listed above are helpful, useful, and easy to see and understand.

Far to much to look back and read. I will say that I do appreciate and even like the direction these events are going. The things I am having issues with are population attending the events.

I think the events should have some scaling to them. When 10 people show up to do the new Wurms and we all take one path… then have to fight 10+ champs… well you can imagine the issues. Even at somewhat off hours for Scarlet. We might see 15 people and have no way to complete the event. Making it pointless to even happen. I think scaling would dramatically help. So in all it feels like an attendance issue to the event. People working together will eventually happen. Just need to keep them from getting discouraged.

Outside of that I am enjoying the event. I do like the direction. Please keep it up!

Phoenixlin.8624:

For people who still want “Let us help them if we finish our platform earlier”, one of the devs said that they tried to implement it but they couldn’t do it in a good way. So that’s why there is no platform helping.

Oh. Interesting.
Then maybe when a platform gets the buff from an adjacent one, rezz players over the next 5-10 seconds.

Because currently the buff is mostly useless:

• If a platform doesn’t suffer lots of cascading deaths, they will easily finish in time anyhow.
• If a platform does suffer deaths, they’re wiped by the time the buff arrives.

i think the marionette is fine as is slight prob with numbers on the platforms being balanced but overall we win this event on piken more than we fail
the real problem is the 3 headed wurm ask your guild how many have managed to kill it so far and im sure you will find that at least 90% of most guilds are strugleing with 2 heads nm 3 on full overflows
amber is by far the worst i find this is the one where luck is more than just a small factor but quite a huge factor when trying to get swallowed by the wurm and those husks are just knocking you around silly while you try and hold your position and hope you get eaten before you go down or you just get knocked away and dont get eaten at all
the other 2 heads are fine tweak amber some so we either have less husks or less knockback and this will greatly increase everyones chances of actualy finishing the event
as it stands i have my acheivments for this event and wont be wasteing anymore time on it till the sucsess rate is improved drasticly coz its all just one big time sink of failure atm all time i could be spending doing something productive and rewarding

sumdumfoo.1025:

Far to much to look back and read. I will say that I do appreciate and even like the direction these events are going. The things I am having issues with are population attending the events.

I think the events should have some scaling to them. When 10 people show up to do the new Wurms and we all take one path… then have to fight 10+ champs… well you can imagine the issues. Even at somewhat off hours for Scarlet. We might see 15 people and have no way to complete the event. Making it pointless to even happen. I think scaling would dramatically help. So in all it feels like an attendance issue to the event. People working together will eventually happen. Just need to keep them from getting discouraged.

Outside of that I am enjoying the event. I do like the direction. Please keep it up!

There is something that makes me wonder if the wardens are actually scaling properly. Normally when you remove all defiant stacks and then use a CC on a champion it should regain a number of stacks based on scaling. When I fought it earlier and did that it actually regained 33 stacks implying that it was counting every person on every platform because under normal circumstances with only 5 people the number of stacks it regains should only be around 5.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Gene Archer.8560:

But players can put in all the hard work they can and still not break through to the next level. People have limits and thresholds.

I recognize this. I don’t expect every player, or even a majority to improve their skills. The hope is that ENOUGH of them will that we will be able to create more creative and nuanced content.

Upon reflection I have to take issue with the idea that these fights require individual skill. They don’t, they require organisation, and enough players in the fight to know what they’re doing and be geared and traited appropriately. And it is a failure of game design that players be forced to guest to other servers to get a win and be waiting in an empty zone for a significant time to be sure of getting a group that can do it.

Upon reflection I have to take issue with the idea that these fights require skill. They don’t,

Sorry but this isn’t true at all. Every fight and encounter requires some sort of skill set. Some are easier than others, but all require skill. The wurm fight is no different. Having a proper build, geared, utilities doesn’t ensure a win. Organization doesn’t ensure a win.

All of those together along with a certain amount of skill ensures a win.

Did they design it that you have to guest in order to win, or is that a state of the game on some servers? Players unwillingness to organize is the largest detriment.

morrolan.9608:

Josh Foreman.8250:

Gene Archer.8560:

But players can put in all the hard work they can and still not break through to the next level. People have limits and thresholds.

I recognize this. I don’t expect every player, or even a majority to improve their skills. The hope is that ENOUGH of them will that we will be able to create more creative and nuanced content.

Upon reflection I have to take issue with the idea that these fights require individual skill. They don’t, they require organisation, and enough players in the fight to know what they’re doing and be geared and traited appropriately. And it is a failure of game design that players be forced to guest to other servers to get a win and be waiting in an empty zone for a significant time to be sure of getting a group that can do it.

they require skill and organisation. you can organize as much as you want, ultimately you win or lose by the individual skills when you are fighting a warden. As for wurm, i have not done it enough to comment on it too much

Also note, its possible the skill required is low, to you, but apparently a decent amount of the population still has a bit to refine as far as meeting these challenges. Other wise wouldnt be seeing as much trouble with marionette

Finally beat it after 20+ tries, here is my take on it:

The first 5 tries were super fun and exciting. The next 15+ were an exercise in frustration. By the time I beat it my feels were “Wow, I’m glad I NEVER have to do that again.” not some overwhelming sense of victory.

And how did I finally manage to get a win? Did my server pull together and work as a team, using strategy and skill to defeat this monster? No, I guested on TC…

The most frustrating part, like many people have said, is that it only takes a handful of people who don’t know what they’re doing or just don’t have enough skill to fail the event for everyone. No matter how good I got at this event, and trust me, I mastered each warden by the time I beat it, it didn’t make any kitten difference because others were screwing up.

Also the event needs to scale better for smaller groups. As it is, this event will effectively be obsolete when the new content comes out because I don’t see 100+ people still lining up for this.

Barabbas.8715:

Also the event needs to scale better for smaller groups. As it is, this event will effectively be obsolete when the new content comes out because I don’t see 100+ people still lining up for this.

As much as I hate to say it, this is pretty common for living story updates. I remember the Labyrinth in Blood & Madness turned into a player graveyard after a week or so. The horror kept killing everyone, even if we could only barely kill the door boss.

It’s become pretty dead on my server. I logged in tonight, same time I normally do, and there were only barely enough players to fill a lane, maybe 30, 40 tops in all. We packed lane 1, and from the reports the other lanes had token forces of 2-3 people, but it was a joke. I was in 1, and we cleared the first string (although the last group only barely made it in time), and then we defended our lane for a couple minutes before the champs from the other lanes overloaded the event (I don’t think Lane 2 even got through their attempt). We still got at least the minimal consolation chest, but it was clearly a null session from the start, and I doubt it’ll get much better over the next few weeks.

It worked well enough when we had 100+ players and teamspeak was full, but now it’s just an exercise in lazily collecting the daily achievement. I’m sure if it were more reliable to beat that it would get run steadily enough.

Happened to be in LP when the event triggered, so I figured since I was about to have my armor broken unless I zoned out, might as well help out and get some fragments. Went to lane 4 and literally nobody was there. Lane 5 had one guy. I just logged off. Bad enough the event is dead (because it requires way too much for what it is), but throwing armor repair and WP costs on top of it?! I’m avoiding LP entirely until this garbage is gone.

1) Inexperienced players. Many events up to now have been too easy. If Anet continues to make more difficult content things should improve. Probably half the community can’t even use a dodge button.
2) No in-game tools (VOIP, can’t view other players’s traits/gear (gear check), no way to respect traits, every major boss fight like this should have respec options (much higher cost) because overflows kitten everything up.
3) Maybe make the event slightly easier and have a instanced guild version with better rewards.
4) My opinion on this current wurm battle is to increase final phase to 2:30 and fix the :10 bug. This should make the boss fight more manageable. Not everything should be timed or have DPS check. It’s just silly.
5) Lets be honest. The biggest problem with these events is overflows and achievement leechers.

Pray For Kosmos.5849:

1) Inexperienced players. Many events up to now have been too easy. If Anet continues to make more difficult content things should improve. Probably half the community can’t even use a dodge button.

I just flatly disagree. Some events are easy, but that’s okay. In the living story, especially, the content needs to be accessible. Erring on the side of easy is okay with me. I think stuff like the current Jormag and the wurm in Caledon are just about right, difficulty-wise. For a lot of people (and yes, far far more than 50% can use the dodge button), anything harder is just no longer fun, even if it is doable. I can absolutely hold my own in hard content. But I find it stressful. I don’t like it. Don’t confuse preference for incompetence. This is a theme with those who like hard content. They assume the only possible reason someone could disagree with that preference is inability. That’s mistaken. A lot of people play the game to unwind. I am all for harder content being there. And the skill required to beat the Marry really isn’t that much. But it remains frustrating and stressful for many, because what it requires of one makes the game not fun for those of us who come to Tyria to unwind. Again – hard content should be there for those who love it. Amen and huzzah for the wurm and Teq, both of which I ignore; but this is the living story.

3) Maybe make the event slightly easier and have a instanced guild version with better rewards.

I would love something like this. Give better rewards or titles to those who can do an instanced hard mode of an event. Give everybody the level they want and go ahead and give those who struggle with the hard stuff something in reward… so long as it doesn’t affect power balance, etc.

4) …..Not everything should be timed or have DPS check. It’s just silly.

Amen. The timers are getting very very old.

5) Lets be honest. The biggest problem with these events is overflows and achievement leechers.

Erm, not in my view. They’re bad by design in many ways, mostly requiring too much coordination to be enjoyable for a large segment of the base.

Pray For Kosmos.5849:

5) Lets be honest. The biggest problem with these events is overflows and achievement leechers.

Fun fact. Without leechers you wouldn’t get overflows. You wouldn’t have enough people to do the event either, so maybe the real problem lies elsewhere after all.

Josh Foreman.8250:

The other question that I hope is answered in the positive is this: Can the average player skill be raised by challenging content like this? We know that X% of players don’t know about traits. We know Y% never swap out their 7-0 skills to accommodate specific challenges. And there are probably dozens of other systems that go unused by some portion of the player-base. If even 10% of that group hits a challenge like the Marionette and the subsequent tension causes them to look into these systems and they learn a new depth to the game they otherwise never would have, I think that’s a win for everybody. The average skill level rises, and in turn, we devs can make more interesting events that utilize the depth of the systems we have.

I’ve worked as an educator myself, and I can say that this simply doesn’t work. The situation described here is the exception, not the rule. It is unfortunate that I see this method teaching in college all the time, and had been subject to this method myself growing up. I don’t know if there is any direct term for this, but I’ve come to call it Educational Darwinism.

Educational Darwinism is the brilliant idea of not teaching people directly, but simply punishing them for not already knowing what you want them to know.

I hate this method, mostly because it doesn’t teach. Sure, the average grades or the average skill level will go up, but not because people are learning. It is because the people who don’t know get expelled/drop out/quit playing, and thus only the people who already know keep playing. I see it used in college and highschool, since there the growth or achievement of any individual student isn’t of concern.

If people not utilizing game mechanics is a problem, then requiring them to know game mechanics isn’t a solution. Think about it:

*The game isn’t new. If someone wanted to look up builds, traits, dodging, combo fields, etc. they would have already done it.
*There is no indication that they should learn something new. This leads to players just getting frustrated and quitting.
*There is no indication what they should learn. If they come to the conclusion that they are lacking knowledge with no one telling them somehow, they don’t know where to look. This leads to wrong ideas, frustration, and quitting.
*The whole thing feels like punishment, and so the more sensitive or defiant players will quit out of principle against an unfair system.

There are so many ways it can fail, and only one way it can succeed. Alienating the playerbase has more negative side effects than you’d think, especially in an event that requires hundreds of people.

Mr. Josh Foreman, I’m totally a fan of yours since the SAB. I have posters with your picture on them all over the walls of my room, and I also have a tshirt with King Toad on it. Oh, and a storm wizard’s sword. The clocktower was one of the best things have ever been added into this blasted super-casual game, and I miss it badly. It was great. I love what you – and don’t know who else – did with TM and the marionette encounter would be even mildly decent if it weren’t for the oblivious players ruining everyone’s effort (and it being a completely open event with no way to form up a working team). Now…
-… are you going to freaking do more challenging content for dungeons?!?_ Yes, you, it seems like you could do challenging stuff if you wanted to. No, those depressing 5 minutes living-story-blabla dungeons don’t count! I mean real challenges for an organised team of players.
Meh, nevermind, don’t bother. I already know the answer.
Back to something else I’m playing while I wait for you to save me.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Josh Foreman.8250:

The other question that I hope is answered in the positive is this: Can the average player skill be raised by challenging content like this? We know that X% of players don’t know about traits. We know Y% never swap out their 7-0 skills to accommodate specific challenges. And there are probably dozens of other systems that go unused by some portion of the player-base. If even 10% of that group hits a challenge like the Marionette and the subsequent tension causes them to look into these systems and they learn a new depth to the game they otherwise never would have, I think that’s a win for everybody. The average skill level rises, and in turn, we devs can make more interesting events that utilize the depth of the systems we have.

I’ve worked as an educator myself, and I can say that this simply doesn’t work. The situation described here is the exception, not the rule. It is unfortunate that I see this method teaching in college all the time, and had been subject to this method myself growing up. I don’t know if there is any direct term for this, but I’ve come to call it Educational Darwinism.

Educational Darwinism is the brilliant idea of not teaching people directly, but simply punishing them for not already knowing what you want them to know.

I hate this method, mostly because it doesn’t teach. Sure, the average grades or the average skill level will go up, but not because people are learning. It is because the people who don’t know get expelled/drop out/quit playing, and thus only the people who already know keep playing. I see it used in college and highschool, since there the growth or achievement of any individual student isn’t of concern.

If people not utilizing game mechanics is a problem, then requiring them to know game mechanics isn’t a solution. Think about it:

*The game isn’t new. If someone wanted to look up builds, traits, dodging, combo fields, etc. they would have already done it.
*There is no indication that they should learn something new. This leads to players just getting frustrated and quitting.
*There is no indication what they should learn. If they come to the conclusion that they are lacking knowledge with no one telling them somehow, they don’t know where to look. This leads to wrong ideas, frustration, and quitting.
*The whole thing feels like punishment, and so the more sensitive or defiant players will quit out of principle against an unfair system.

There are so many ways it can fail, and only one way it can succeed. Alienating the playerbase has more negative side effects than you’d think, especially in an event that requires hundreds of people.

I think you are looking at anet wrong here, they arent exactly the educator, they are the world. Their job is to create a wide world, where people can interact. People havent learned these skills, not because the game didnt teach it, but because you almost never have to use these skill/knowledge to succeed.

Its like how people lose their math skills, not because they never learned it, but because for years, they never had to use any of it. Even if you got an A in math most people wont remember how to analyze a quadratic equation.

However, if the world starts using quadratic equations in everything, all of a sudden 90% of people learn how to deal with its uses, and some will gain/remember a deeper understanding.

Anet has to put more content that encourages coordination in order for people to actually use it, most people simply wont learn or use new things if there is no benefit Once Anet designs in that benefit, people can begin to remember their lessons, use new tools, and teach others.

I mean what is anet really going to teach people that they havent been exposed to here? observe the enemy? follow the instructions in map chat? kill monsters? Everything you need to win these fights is nothing new, Its just that about 20% of people never really have to observe, or listen to people, heck some people do large group events with mapchat off.

Astralporing.1957:

Pray For Kosmos.5849:

5) Lets be honest. The biggest problem with these events is overflows and achievement leechers.

Fun fact. Without leechers you wouldn’t get overflows. You wouldn’t have enough people to do the event either, so maybe the real problem lies elsewhere after all.

you are right here, overflows actually make the whole situation better, not worse. People lose in an overflow and complain, like not being able to play at all is a better solution. They also complain about achievement hunters etc, when its a pretty large playerbase, and they provide a great deal of the people they need for events, and to have a good time in general. For example, people complained about seasons, but like it or not, the participation was through the roof, which meant more fights, more people, more drama.

phys.7689:

you are right here, overflows actually make the whole situation better, not worse.

That was not my point. The overflows do not make this situation neither better, nor worse. They simply are. It’s the high participant requirement that is close to zone pop cap that is the problem.

… Wait, there’s a new boss? I’m still trying to figure out when and how Tequatl gets done.

phys.7689:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Josh Foreman.8250:

The other question that I hope is answered in the positive is this: Can the average player skill be raised by challenging content like this? We know that X% of players don’t know about traits. We know Y% never swap out their 7-0 skills to accommodate specific challenges. And there are probably dozens of other systems that go unused by some portion of the player-base. If even 10% of that group hits a challenge like the Marionette and the subsequent tension causes them to look into these systems and they learn a new depth to the game they otherwise never would have, I think that’s a win for everybody. The average skill level rises, and in turn, we devs can make more interesting events that utilize the depth of the systems we have.

I’ve worked as an educator myself, and I can say that this simply doesn’t work. The situation described here is the exception, not the rule. It is unfortunate that I see this method teaching in college all the time, and had been subject to this method myself growing up. I don’t know if there is any direct term for this, but I’ve come to call it Educational Darwinism.

Educational Darwinism is the brilliant idea of not teaching people directly, but simply punishing them for not already knowing what you want them to know.

I hate this method, mostly because it doesn’t teach. Sure, the average grades or the average skill level will go up, but not because people are learning. It is because the people who don’t know get expelled/drop out/quit playing, and thus only the people who already know keep playing. I see it used in college and highschool, since there the growth or achievement of any individual student isn’t of concern.

If people not utilizing game mechanics is a problem, then requiring them to know game mechanics isn’t a solution. Think about it:

*The game isn’t new. If someone wanted to look up builds, traits, dodging, combo fields, etc. they would have already done it.
*There is no indication that they should learn something new. This leads to players just getting frustrated and quitting.
*There is no indication what they should learn. If they come to the conclusion that they are lacking knowledge with no one telling them somehow, they don’t know where to look. This leads to wrong ideas, frustration, and quitting.
*The whole thing feels like punishment, and so the more sensitive or defiant players will quit out of principle against an unfair system.

There are so many ways it can fail, and only one way it can succeed. Alienating the playerbase has more negative side effects than you’d think, especially in an event that requires hundreds of people.

I think you are looking at anet wrong here, they arent exactly the educator, they are the world. Their job is to create a wide world, where people can interact. People havent learned these skills, not because the game didnt teach it, but because you almost never have to use these skill/knowledge to succeed.

Its like how people lose their math skills, not because they never learned it, but because for years, they never had to use any of it. Even if you got an A in math most people wont remember how to analyze a quadratic equation.

However, if the world starts using quadratic equations in everything, all of a sudden 90% of people learn how to deal with its uses, and some will gain/remember a deeper understanding.

Anet has to put more content that encourages coordination in order for people to actually use it, most people simply wont learn or use new things if there is no benefit Once Anet designs in that benefit, people can begin to remember their lessons, use new tools, and teach others.

I mean what is anet really going to teach people that they havent been exposed to here? observe the enemy? follow the instructions in map chat? kill monsters? Everything you need to win these fights is nothing new, Its just that about 20% of people never really have to observe, or listen to people, heck some people do large group events with mapchat off.

A person can only be reminded of something they already know in the first place. Anet isn’t doing this: they say they want to take people who don’t know, and punish them for not knowing under the idea that they’ll gain some mystical guidance from their failures. I’m not sure how much math you’ve done regarding real life issues, but one of the hardest things about math in real life is that real life doesn’t tell you something is a math problem. Giving a person a problem they don’t recognize will not suddenly increase their mathematical capabilities.

That is the big problem I have here. Anet should not revel in the discontent of the unfortunate, falsely attributing the increase in average skill level to be from player’s personal gain.