Difficulty vs. level while doing our personal stories

Difficulty vs. level while doing our personal stories

in Personal Story

Posted by: Jeffrey Vaughn

Jeffrey Vaughn

Content Designer

For “Free Rein”, the elementals have a 15-25 second respawn until you destroy the generators powering the portals they’re coming through.

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Posted by: ZetaStriker.9142

ZetaStriker.9142

Then I came up against Rakt.

  • As an engineer I rely on turrets to keep my damage in line with other classes. Rakt pretty much one-shots them, leaving me with poor damage output.
  • I have hardly any stun/blind/daze/confuse cooldowns that I could chain to reduce incoming damage, and while I do have plenty of slow and immobilise skills, they don’t stop him from damaging me, as he also has a powerful ranged attack.

He’s only one target, and Engineer has more than enough CC for the task. Rifle has an Immobilize and Knockback, and Pistol/Shield has a Blind, Knockback and Daze. You need to use these to keep him off your turrets, especially when you freely acknowledge that they can’t tank for you. It may work on random weak mobs, but the turrets in this game aren’t meant to hold aggro for the Engineer unless you specifically trait for it. And even then the Thumper is the only one really great at it.

Beyond that, your turrets have a lot of CC that can help as well. A net turret can help hold him away from your others, while rocket turrets provide Knockback and flame turret provide Blind. Thumpers have more health and can knock him away should he move to them, but you really need to keep track of where he’s moving and what he’s attacking to relieve your turrets.

If you want, you can also swap a turret or two for other utilities that may help further. Personal Battering Ram can help push him off turrets and slow him down, Bomb Kit packs a very useful smoke bomb that can Blind him through several attacks, Grenade Kit can cause Chill and slow his attacks down. Even the Flamethrower gives an extra knockback and blind.

All in all, you want him attacking you while you kite him. Given that he’s fast, that means you’ll need every trick you have to keep yourself alive as well, so don’t be afraid to immobilize and cripple during the fight. He isn’t that hard if you go in with the right strategy, but since I don’t use turrets very often myself I can’t tell you exactly how to do it. I went through with a Power/Vitality build using the bomb kit without trouble though.

The Battle of Claw Island (gw026.jpg)

Objectives:
Find and Revive Deputy Mira. – Endless spawns of Risen on beach. okay. Their resistance to most damage? very high. it took me 20 minutes to get an open window to revive, and i was still getting poisoned and attacked while doing so. I cannot do enough spike damage to wipe out a small group of Risen, then run in and revive (that was my plan, anyways). the time it took to get a window of opportunity, more Risen were charging on the beach. Not so hard when all the AI help was downed.

I felt your pain a bit. I actually had no problem reviving Mira, as once I realized the reinforcments were endless I just revived her a little bit at a time either between waves or when I was able to pop a smoke field. My partner, Magister Sieran, went down in the fight though, and for some reason I had much more trouble bringing her back up. The pack of undead actually killed me once, in fact.

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Posted by: ThiBash.5634

ThiBash.5634

It seems that in general, the personal story gets tougher when your armor decreases. It’s pretty hard to stay alive long enough when you get swarmed by enemies all the time.

All warriors I’ve met claim the game’s almost brainlessly easy, while the casters keep shouting that they hardly get a spell off before they’re downed.

If you can read this then it is proof that ArenaNet’s moderators just, kind and fair.

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Posted by: puffmouse.7189

puffmouse.7189

I abandoned my story for this very reason. The asura quest ‘beta test’. Every now and then as I complete other lands, level crafting, get new gear, etc. i stop by to see if it is any different. The second flying veteran thing one shots me every single time. I am starting to wonder if the leveling mechanism is just going to make things worse and worse as i go along. Someday in the far future when im in a big guild we will treat my personal stuck story as a big raid event and see how huge it will scale.

I am stuck at the exact same spot in Beta Test. It’s listed at a level 14 quest — at level 20, I cannot complete it. I’ve purchased armor and weapon upgrades, chosen different utility skills, and each time I have no chance of success. Just hit level 21, and I plan to try again with a food buff and potion, we’ll see, but at this point given the number of times I’ve easily died I don’t hold much hope. It’s so bad I’ve started leveling other characters, and have told myself that on my engineer, I just won’t be able to progress in my personal story.

Right now, I’m not in a guild and I don’t know anyone else in game. I assume if I found some people willing to go with me to this quest, we’d be able to finish it — but I strongly feel, for a personal story, I should be able to complete it solo. It’s my personal story, not the story of a group of adventurers! I almost wonder if this is designed to make solo players go out and find guilds or people to group with…

I finally beat this one at level 28. the trick to winning for me was to change how the staff worked. in options change the staff to fire off as soon as you push a number. if you do this while running it will drop a symbol on the ground where you are at. and then you kite and spam your symbols. to take a break, i filled my slots with all pet summons. this time the one time that veteran harpy thing hit me i didnt just instantly die, i had enough hps left to give me the .5 seconds i needed to hit my heal button before the dot finished me off. My pets also seemed to last a little longer so maybe it wasnt a complete scale down? If you run to far away the harpy will suddenly heal itself though. after that harpy is dead the crab veteran that follows is a laughable pushover.

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Posted by: ohac.8720

ohac.8720

I think allot of these issue would be taken care of if they brought back the npc hirlings, my one character I haven’t touched due to the personal story issue. My other toons got past theirs are going up and up so far. had to do some repeats but for whatever reason I beleive tanks in general are just kittened in this game. I am at the ghost story in my warriors story which is level 19, I have attempted that story 20+ times now at different levels. The boss at the end just regens faster then I and my npc partner can dish out period. Due to the auto level correction, there is NO WAY to do this solo. I dare another to say they did it .Each person I talked to said “yea, i had to get a few people”.

That would be great if your server was kind, however it seems on mine, getting a group is like getting a group in wow without the right gear for a raid. Good luck finding it, and good luck having fun in a game that is boasted as not a grind. This game is such a grind when it comes to stories and or missions. You get to many points where your repeating stuff over and over just to get to the next point.

The game for me at least is starting to loose it’s flavor quick due to these balance issues, I already have 5 friends who quit, seriously quit in 2 weeks of the game being out because of these very issues saying “well its free, might change in a few months”, sadly I might be right with them.

Tracker Maximous, Guardious Maximous, Arcanious Maximous, [DH] DragonHorn Officer
http://www.dragonhorn.net

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Posted by: Ameepa.6793

Ameepa.6793

I guess the difficulty depends on the class then. As a human thief, at lvl 79 quest now, I haven’t had big problems. I’ve had about 5-6 deaths in the whole story. Sure lots of tight spots and lots and lots of jumping and kiting but nothing too hard. Overall it’s been really fun and challenging, exactly the right tune for my thief. Gives the feeling of really accomplishing something

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Posted by: Khisanth.2948

Khisanth.2948

They’re still sorting out my account settings, so I’m not sure this will tag me as an ArenaNet employee. :P

Anyway, for any difficulty issues, it’s very important that you provide us with the quest name, your current objective, your class/level, and the issue (too many enemies, enemies are too tough, you’re being rooted or CCd for long periods, etc.). Just telling us “That LXX mission is too hard” doesn’t help because it’s likely that there are at least 3 different versions of any given quest.

Dead of Winter
lv73 Sylvari Elementalist
with the Priory in Mazdak’s tomb

The main lesson is DO NOT use the restart from checkpoint option. That is just a waste of gold because with most of the NPCs dead and a veteran glued to you there won’t be enough chances for you to attack.

List of issues.
- Why does the game give me the option to restart from checkpoint when it is just going to waste my gold?
- Failure becomes extremely disproportional if you don’t do the missions ‘at level’ due to repair cost. On top of the repair cost I also have to waste time because the closest repair NPC is on the other side of the map. I could use a waypoint but waypoint cost also skyrockets with level.
- How do you expect an Elementalist to tank a veteran? The room is tiny and the path behind me is has traps that oneshots. It might take two hits for the veteran to kill me but if the knockdown hits there is no way to avoid the second hit.
- Repeating here but why is the enemy glued to me like butter to toast? None of the other veterans in the game seem to behave this way. It didn’t seem to have much interest in my elemental either.
- I could theoretically dodge all the attacks but Caithe and Trahearne combined are apparently not enough to do any meaningful damage. Eventually I will just become too tired to keep up with the dodges.
- Speaking of dodges, why must I use dodges to avoid attacks? The veteran’s knockdown looks like a melee attack without any sort of AoE effect but I still get knocked down when I am several feet away. This makes it feel like the game is cheating. It’s fine to have a difficult game but not when it feels like the game is cheating.
- You should really reconsider having fights in tiny rooms. There is the obvious issue with kiting but it also means that you are fighting the camera at the same time. Ideally the camera would be fixed but this camera issue has been in place since GW1 so I am not going to bet on that one.

There is another obvious solution to my problem, just grab another person since Caithe and Trahearne are pretty much useless damage wise but if these are meant to be done with a party then please say so.

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Posted by: Khisanth.2948

Khisanth.2948

I guess the difficulty depends on the class then. As a human thief, at lvl 79 quest now, I haven’t had big problems. I’ve had about 5-6 deaths in the whole story. Sure lots of tight spots and lots and lots of jumping and kiting but nothing too hard. Overall it’s been really fun and challenging, exactly the right tune for my thief. Gives the feeling of really accomplishing something

Well that is the core of the problem isn’t it? Whoever designed these seems to have forgotten that the game has multiple professions. I am around the same area in the story with my human Warrior who joined the Vigil and that felt like it was a bit too easy at some points.

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Posted by: Ameepa.6793

Ameepa.6793

Well that is the core of the problem isn’t it? Whoever designed these seems to have forgotten that the game has multiple professions.

Can’t really say that because even in this thread there has been every class mentioned for not having any serious problems, so at least it should be doable for all.

If the overall difficulty is too high, or something is too hard just for some class, it’s the fault of the beta (and other) testers, not the designers. Designers cannot really evaluate their own designs because they know exactly how every encounter is supposed to be done.

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Posted by: Khisanth.2948

Khisanth.2948

If the overall difficulty is too high, or something is too hard just for some class, it’s the fault of the beta (and other) testers, not the designers. Designers cannot really evaluate their own designs because they know exactly how every encounter is supposed to be done.

Spread the blame if you want but a designer should also be considering all possible ways something might be encountered. If they create an encountered and thought “people should only solve it by doing X” then that is just as big of a failure. The designer should also be familiar with how EVERY class is played. In this game that also means every weapon combination.

Maybe I am just a bit naive but it seems fairly obvious how a 1 vs 5 encounter or 1 v 1 encounter where one side does 20%-25% per hit will resolve. Then just to be sure you give the 5 and the 1 Frenzy so they attack twice as often.

Edit:
Secondary issues, a tester probably doesn’t need to worry about running out of gold or paying for their trait book which will eat all their accumulated gold. Experimenting is not actually a problem in that case.

(edited by Khisanth.2948)

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Posted by: Altair.7560

Altair.7560

Yeah, I don’t find the story to be too fun to play through at all. Sure the cut scenes are entertaining to a degree, but the actual missions are just a chore. I can count on one thing and that is that I’ll die in a 1v4 battle. I’m downgraded to whatever level the mission was, but I have a gut feeling that the enemies are at least one level above me despite what that little number above their head says.

The large number of enemies is the biggest problem for me. High damages dished out from enemies for my level is a close second.

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Posted by: Udolpho.1209

Udolpho.1209

I finally beat this one at level 28. the trick to winning for me was to change how the staff worked. in options change the staff to fire off as soon as you push a number. if you do this while running it will drop a symbol on the ground where you are at. and then you kite and spam your symbols. to take a break, i filled my slots with all pet summons. this time the one time that veteran harpy thing hit me i didnt just instantly die, i had enough hps left to give me the .5 seconds i needed to hit my heal button before the dot finished me off. My pets also seemed to last a little longer so maybe it wasnt a complete scale down? If you run to far away the harpy will suddenly heal itself though. after that harpy is dead the crab veteran that follows is a laughable pushover.

I finished at level 22 with food buff and destroyer potion, and adapting your idea for the engineer by using the bomb kit: in a very similar way I ran away while spamming bombs behind me. Some combination of all this let me finally survive and finish the quest. I was very happy to see that Shodd got auto rezed before the third wave with the crab veteran. Even so this doesn’t seem like a level 14 quest, though to be fair, this is my first character in this game and I didn’t do any pvp. I just made a character, went out and started leveling doing quests and events… then a short 14 levels in I get this. :/

Another small detail: “Beta Test” as a name makes it even harder to goggle strategies on how to complete the quest. >_>

Edit: Oops, I should have written level 23, not 22.

(edited by Udolpho.1209)

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Posted by: Khisanth.2948

Khisanth.2948

I can count on one thing and that is that I’ll die in a 1v4 battle. I’m downgraded to whatever level the mission was, but I have a gut feeling that the enemies are at least one level above me despite what that little number above their head says.

I don’t see the downleveling as a direct issue, it just means you can’t use leveling as a solution. That in itself is fine assuming they get the other parts right. Out leveling to complete the content is pretty much the purest form of brute forcing it. That shouldn’t actually ever be or become the default solution in any game.

The game should provide challenges but the challenges should be fair. They talk about having fair fights in PvP but why shouldn’t that apply to PvE as well?

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Posted by: puffmouse.7189

puffmouse.7189

I finally beat this one at level 28. the trick to winning for me was to change how the staff worked. in options change the staff to fire off as soon as you push a number. if you do this while running it will drop a symbol on the ground where you are at. and then you kite and spam your symbols. to take a break, i filled my slots with all pet summons. this time the one time that veteran harpy thing hit me i didnt just instantly die, i had enough hps left to give me the .5 seconds i needed to hit my heal button before the dot finished me off. My pets also seemed to last a little longer so maybe it wasnt a complete scale down? If you run to far away the harpy will suddenly heal itself though. after that harpy is dead the crab veteran that follows is a laughable pushover.

I finished at level 22 with food buff and destroyer potion, and adapting your idea for the engineer by using the bomb kit: in a very similar way I ran away while spamming bombs behind me. Some combination of all this let me finally survive and finish the quest. I was very happy to see that Shodd got auto rezed before the third wave with the crab veteran. Even so this doesn’t seem like a level 14 quest, though to be fair, this is my first character in this game and I didn’t do any pvp. I just made a character, went out and started leveling doing quests and events… then a short 14 levels in I get this. :/

Another small detail: “Beta Test” as a name makes it even harder to goggle strategies on how to complete the quest. >_>

Did you happen to notice when the harpy first pops out of the portal the first thing that NPC says is “hey thats not fair”. I laughed. Well and then i ran.

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Posted by: Tremor.7481

Tremor.7481

I had as a very low-level Norm elementalist on Wild Spirits. The minotaurs, of which there were quite a few, seemed to take an enormous amount of killing (similar to the 5 DE minotaurs, and this quest is something like 3-4), and I had just water and fire yet. So I kept getting stomped. Wasn’t exactly the best introduction…

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Posted by: Khisanth.2948

Khisanth.2948

with the default button setup, i cannot use my Staff #2 fire skill, cause i have to set a location while running and dodging.

I assume you are an elementalist, what problem are you running into while trying to use Staff #2 fire while running and dodging? I have my strafe remapped to A and D so that might be the difference but I am actually using that skill all the time while running and dodging. In case you are not aware it is possible to pan with the mouse while that is active without canceling the skill. If you right click and drag instead of just right clicking it does not cancel the skill. This is true for all targeted skills.

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Posted by: Stron Magnesson.8017

Stron Magnesson.8017

its because isnt supposed to you to only do personal story,. you have to do the world job too, thats why you will lack of level sometimes

I’m assuming this was meant as a response to my comment earlier.

I understand that you’re not meant to JUST play the personal story, but for some players that can be the most interesting and important part of the game. Especially if you aren’t in a guild, don’t have a group of friends to play with, or maybe just feel like soloing with this particular character.

Normally, playing through the non PS content should be fine, but for some people it is sub par at best in some areas, and in other areas it’s the worst grind ever. (just citing what i’ve heard from other players)

Finally, the PS stories have had really poor gear thus far. Why are we getting mostly blue gear for completing important events in the game? Second to that, the EXP rewards for finishing a PS are significant, but not fantastic.

Compared to the difficulty of some PS, the rewards hardly cover it.

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Posted by: Isende.2607

Isende.2607

i just completed my level 28 sylvari/whisperer’s personal story. sadly, i can’t remember the name of the story/quest, nor the boss’s name, but it’s a lich boss. here’s the scenario: i’m a mesmer, who suddenly has to fight with this magical uber sword with a completely different skill set which does NOT utilize any of the abilities i, as a mesmer, utilize. ok. we can handle this, right? fight through five mobs … done. little battered, but lived. then, the lich spawns, and i have to go fight crowds of mobs (2-3 at a time) to get to him. again, done. no big. then we make it to the lich … and we, my allies and i, are fighting him, get him around 25ish%, and he calls in a group of … oh, i don’t know, 10? mobs. who eat my allies. however, all the mobs are dead, so i go toe-to-toe with the lich again, and he calls ANOTHER wave that eats my face in about two seconds flat.

now. there is no learning curve, here. i’m one of the biggest proponents you’ll find for having to learn a new way to play. i’m more delighted than i can say that this game is not a zergfest. but i will also state categorically that i do not believe all the personal story quests are tuned to the player’s level and ability, even max ability, for a solo story.

i’m lucky; i play with my fiancee, and am part of a guild who’s helped each other for years. so i called in two ranger pals, they aoe’d the mobs down, we made it through the fight. but for what it’s worth, i broke my armor to nakedness TWICE, repaired it from this state TWICE, solo, before i called them in. i tried multiple combinations of skill/spells i had available for 6/7/8/9 keys.

i don’t know what to tell you, anet. some of these, especially for casters in cloth, just have overwhelming numbers of mobs that eat your allies in an instant, then eat you even faster. it’s frustrating. i do NOT want this zerged, at all. but i want to be able to do it solo, if i choose to.

incidentally, as we were zoning back out from the fight, there was someone in /map, a thief, apparently having the same issues i was.

edit forgot to mention; when i died the times i died, WITH my allies all also dead — by the time i ran back to where the boss was? he’d completely reset. i had to get him back down to the point he spawned his mob of mobs, while trying to rez my players (utilizing phantoms and clones for battle), just in time for them to get eaten by the waves of mobs. not fun a’tall.

(edited by Isende.2607)

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Posted by: Vzur.7123

Vzur.7123

I’ve noticed some of the personal story quests are so hard, it’s as if we’re intended to die repeatedly, but win by taking advantage of the fact that you can keep throwing yourself at it, by restarting from the checkpoint.

I prefer to start from scratch and win without getting killed, so that it actually feels like winning.. but sometimes this just seems impossible.

I’d be fine with the option to just abandon the whole thing entirely though. Remove it from the HUD tracker, so it’s not there nagging me all the time. I don’t play MMOs for personal story, anyhow.

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Posted by: Udolpho.1209

Udolpho.1209

edit forgot to mention; when i died the times i died, WITH my allies all also dead — by the time i ran back to where the boss was? he’d completely reset. i had to get him back down to the point he spawned his mob of mobs, while trying to rez my players (utilizing phantoms and clones for battle), just in time for them to get eaten by the waves of mobs. not fun a’tall.

I’ve noticed some of the personal story quests are so hard, it’s as if we’re intended to die repeatedly, but win by taking advantage of the fact that you can keep throwing yourself at it, by restarting from the checkpoint.

Restarting from checkpoint doesn’t always work. With the flying destroyer from my quest, when you start over from the checkpoint, your ally is still dead and the destroyer has healed either back to full health or close to it. So now you have to fight him again, but this time without any help, so your chances of beating him have now dropped even lower. Basically you’re just adding more repair costs to your armor. If they made it so the destroyer wasn’t recovering any health, that method would work.

But yeah, for some types of quests, restarting from checkpoint does help.

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Posted by: PalmTrees.3796

PalmTrees.3796

My mesmer has been going the sylvari-priory-skritt line and there has been plenty of raging at the unbalanced missions and useless npcs.

Fights in tiny rooms against big heavy hitting abominations. Having to fight a lich boss with a weapon you just got a second ago.

Having to fight huge waves of destroyer crabs and harpies just to have the queen pop up in the middle of it. Quest text says to ‘stun next to the bomb’. Of course by stun they don’t mean the condition, they just mean defeat it. Died a couple times trying to stun it in various places on the map.

Trying to use thatkittensonic artillery against the mole people. Unequipped my armor and just let myself get killed a bunch of times learning it’s rate of fire and projectile travel time so I could finish the mission.

The mission after mission where waves of 4-5 mobs come after you and only you ignoring the npcs.

Mission after mission where you have to guess is this the endlessly spawning waves of enemies or am I supposed to fight them?

I’m at the level 75ish missions right now and only moving forward due to stubbornness and completionism, cause the missions suck.

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Posted by: Nycthemeron.7690

Nycthemeron.7690

OK, I think this is DEFINITELY a profession-based issue. My main is a mesmer, and that is where I have had all my heartache and grief. For the heck of it, I decided to try a warrior and see what happened.

SHAZAM! It’s like someone pressed the easy button. I think I went down a total of 3 times and only had to restart from a checkpoint once over the course of many personal story quests. My Mesmer wouldnt have stood a chance.

The dynamic scaling of personal stories has to take the character’s toughness/vitality into account somehow.

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Posted by: Sara.5308

Sara.5308

Through the looking glass, The battle of craw Island and many other personal story quests.

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Posted by: ohac.8720

ohac.8720

It seems after reading all of these it comes down to a few classes at points. Hmm I mean it would be great if the devs could go threw each one, but I doubt that will happen, I think the simple solution would be allow people to level past them if they are to hard to beat but allow maybe the players to have 3 levels max above personal story lines. So , if a player decideds they just want to make the whole story line simple and fun to get threw they could in theory just always be 3 levels above before attempting them. Those that love the challenges can do them at level. I see no issue with a solution like that, but I guess that’s just me?

edit: I should note to the devs: personally I love the stories and how we have so many unique paths depending on the class/race and the way we pick it. So a bravo from me for the concepts and stories, just a bit rough to get threw to a point where you just don’t want to do them, but interesting enough to keep pressing you to “want” to do them I guess, if they where not so great, we wouldn’t post about it and just pass on the whole personal story. So at least knowing we are posting about it, must say something about them

Tracker Maximous, Guardious Maximous, Arcanious Maximous, [DH] DragonHorn Officer
http://www.dragonhorn.net

(edited by ohac.8720)

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Posted by: rgrwng.4072

rgrwng.4072

I decided to give up trying to finish now, as well. Several difficult missions, and i am now stuck on Through The Looking Glass (73). maybe i will play another class, and try some different options. unfortunately, the personal story IS the story – wandering around exploring doesn’t lead to much once you finish.

i am exhausted after numerous Gold spent repairing, quick respawning enemies, monster hitting enemies, and lack of intelligent AI in the missions.

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Posted by: Ghoulina.2976

Ghoulina.2976

I’m at the end of my story now and won’t do it until they fix the known loot issues. Sylvari mesmer, I chose the stag, I’m priory, I helped the quaggaan all with charisma. Thankfully I had someone to duo the majority of my personal storyline with, and even then, we both died, a lot. We tried to keep our questlines as close to our level as possible, there were some areas that would not allow other people to enter though (I’m sorry, I don’t remember exactly what the names were). Duoing the eye of Zhaitan was epic, I can’t imagine people trying to solo play it.

Pretty much WHOLE line difficulty wise is that of a partied quest and not solo. The NPC mobs for most of the storyline are useless (little damage, not smart AI), whereas mobs will move out of some of your attacks, and the rewards you receive for numerous deaths and an epic story, are hardly rewards or incentive to do the line at all. They are below level of the quest, and they are no better than items you pick up off trash mobs. If it’s going to be this much of a challenge, at least give some incentive and reward us on par for it.

It’s like completing a level 80 only zone, and getting level 76 gear… O.o

Mîs: Careful what you say. The moderators are watching, and ignorance is strength.
JQ-80: Mes/Eng/Ele/Thief/Guard/Rang/Nec/War

(edited by Moderator)

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Posted by: Bogartan.2756

Bogartan.2756

I’m wondering if maybe the down-leveling is taking us too far down. Through this thread so far, it looks like some have tried PS instances early or at-level, but I think most have had trouble after being down-levelled. I’m going to try to catch my PS up to my level to see if that might help.

Yes, I’m a warrior who still runs into trouble in the PS occasionally.

Sorrow’s Furnace
{SN} Sentimental Nightmares
Darsveth, Warrior – Dexter Oliver, Thief

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Posted by: Khisanth.2948

Khisanth.2948

I’m wondering if maybe the down-leveling is taking us too far down. Through this thread so far, it looks like some have tried PS instances early or at-level, but I think most have had trouble after being down-levelled. I’m going to try to catch my PS up to my level to see if that might help.

Yes, I’m a warrior who still runs into trouble in the PS occasionally.

It’s really about the AI. Both from the friendly and from the enemy. Though surprisingly after Dead of Winter everything else so far(just finished Claw Island) seems easier. There has not been a single mission where I wasn’t down level by a significant amount since I started at 70.

There was one that spawned enemies next to you during an unskippable cutscene but that was somehow survivable as well.

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Posted by: Gomly.6128

Gomly.6128

On my Human Ranger, some of my story quests took far longer than I felt they needed to finish.

Due to the insane damage some of the mobs did in them (pet dying instantly, support characters the same) I spent 20 minutes running round in circles waiting for the mobs to die from the traps I was dropping behind me.

I’m all for challenging but that is a bit beyond that. Running round in circles dropping traps is not exactly my idea of fun so I just gave up on the personal story side of things. My Ranger is now 80 with my story still being around level 40.

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Posted by: Hologramx.6402

Hologramx.6402

Some are easy, some are just nightmares even for well-geared and skillful players.

I have to assume that they tested them without side-kicking while we are are side-kicked. The difficulty is far from anything I can imagine in my 8 years of MMO experiences. I know some of the very hard quests in WoW and I managed to complete them with a few levels above + some good gears, but with the side-kicking, everything you do is just useless. If they really want to give us challenge, test it thoroughly before they put the garbage for us to test. All you good impression of GW2 just GONE after experiencing these garbage.

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Posted by: Ameepa.6793

Ameepa.6793

Duoing the eye of Zhaitan was epic, I can’t imagine people trying to solo play it.

Not that hard to solo, just takes a long time, but it indeed is quite epic

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Posted by: Drake Phoenix.6158

Drake Phoenix.6158

Norn Elementalist, lvl15, Minotaur Rampant. After dozens of deaths, two complete restarts, I gave up. I came back with a friend whose Necromancer face-rolled the whole quest by himself. My first issue was the balista. It one-shotted me, and hides behind a corner. The first attempt, I was killed before I even knew what hit me. The entire strategy became `dodge the balista, ignoring the ice worms, dogs and Norns’. I could get past this by myself, but the balista definitely needs a damage reduction. When I got to the boss battle, I would be butchered every time. The Dragon constantly would go Invulnerable and heal to full, even if I did not kite it at all. By design, you cannot kill the archer until the dragon dies, but he does absurd damage to an Elementalist. My damage against the two of them was pitiful.

I have to agree that Minotaur Rampant needs some re-work. I’ve tried to complete that quest with my warrior since she was level 10 (the recommended level for the quest), and I have now died more times than I can remember. I have reached level 14 and done nothing since level 10 except attempt that one quest and a few of the dynamic events in the same area… that’s 4 level gains from repeated attempts at one level 10 quest and some dynamic events. I have maxed out armor and weapons, the best I could buy from the trading post for my level, I’ve tried numerous different utility skills setups, and numerous different weapon set combinations, and I still cannot beat that quest!

The Ballistae can kill me in one shot despite my fully upgraded Heavy Armor, full health, and Banner of Defense, so the only way to work that is to stay clear around the corner and draw other enemies to me, then take out the gunner. That at least works, but only once you know that it is necessary. This, in comparison to the same type of Ballistae elsewhere in the normal zone that barely deal any damage at all.

Then there is the fight against Vidkun and his pet dragon beast. You cannot kill him until you kill the pet, because he will reach downed state, become completely invulnerable, and the beast will come and tough-heal him back to full health. You cannot get Eir or Garm to target the beast, and their AI is apparently too stupid to change to the beast as a target even after it is obvious that they cannot kill Vidkun until the beast is dead.

The Minotaur Spirit dies in no time flat, and you can’t rez him because of the burst damage from Vidkun and his beast. You cannot avoid most of Vidkuun’s damage, because he has a bow and it is almost impossible to dodge fast enough except by accident, so the only thing you can do is try to get the beast far enough away that you are out of Vidkun’s range.

Even with all of that, at level 14 I can get the beast down to about 5%-10% health before I finally hit downed state. If I choose to use Vengeance, I can get him down a little more, but cannot manage to kill him before I become defeated. If I do not use Vengeance, I can do barely any additional damage at all. And Eir and Garm are so busy trying to waste time attacking Vidkun that they never try to revive me. On top of that, if I choose to restart from checkpoint, by the time I get back to the dragon beast, it has healed back to full again, so I can’t even death-zerg him.

All-in-all, this situation is totally unacceptable! The ballistae needs to have drastic damage reduction, so it at least takes 2 shots instead of 1 to kill a character, even a level 10 squishy. Eir and Garm should target the dragon beast until it’s dead, and never waste their time on Vidkun (or we should be able to kill Vidkun even if the beast is still alive). And I think the overall damage output of Vidkun should perhaps be slightly reduced as well, because he can kill me in about 10-20 direct hits even when I’m trying to kite him and the beast (and actively evade the beast’s charge attacks), and I don’t want to even think about how fast he could kill a squishy cloth-clad caster (yes, I am using my heal skill as often as I can).

In short, the quest should be achievable by any level 10 character wearing cloth or better, if they have decent tactics. Otherwise, the recommended level for the quest is WAY wrong!

[EDIT/UPDATE] I was finally able to beat this quest with my warrior, after reaching level 15 and upgrading all equipment to level 15 gear, and I only died once (downed 3 times), but I still came very close to dying a second time as well. A warrior, with heavy armor and Banner of Defense, actively dodging high damage attacks, and kiting, with full sets of upgraded level 15 crafted gear, and I was barely able to complete this quest that is “recommended” for level 10. Sorry ArenaNet, but you need to try again.

(edited by Drake Phoenix.6158)

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Posted by: Drudenfusz.2971

Drudenfusz.2971

Was the personal stories not tested during beta? The difficulty seems like all over the place, some are too easy, while other missions are insanely hard. Sure, it is nice to have a challenge, but it is in some missions so hard that it really discourages people to continue to play them.

For me the personal story would be the main reasons to play alts (as it was for me in SWTOR), because I would like to see more of the different stories (especially since I liked Ree Soesbee’s work back for L5R, so I would curious what she might have done here), but currently I have stopped doing all those personal story stuff in GW2 (I am so disappointed with this part of the game that it even spoils the fun I have with other parts of the game).

Gwenya Drudenfusz [Boon], Norn Mesmer on Desolation

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Posted by: Shooopa.5632

Shooopa.5632

The worst thing is if you play as a thief. Thieves are made exclusively for one-on-one and medium range support engagements only. So of course the story mode is now pitting my thief against a small army of enemies who overwhelm all the NPCs in seconds.

User will be infracted for this post.

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Posted by: Rolo.9248

Rolo.9248

I would also like to add i had much difficulty with the next lv50 mission “The Battle of Claw Island”. For the Risen, as they are undead, how do they all of the sudden become marathon sprinters?

That definitely falls under WTK? (“What The Kitten?”)

They pretty much teleport and there is always at least one on you no matter what you do. If the sheer volume of mobs and aoes aren’t enough, this definitely makes dodging useless as it can’t be sustained. Don’t tell me “l2dodge”.

The insane health/toughness they have requires high damage but anyone specced in high damage is a glass cannon and that doesn’t work in GW2. DPS is out.

Strong regen and condition removal only postpones the inevitable as there will always be more aoes on top of aoes and more mobs respawning every several seconds which also inflict poison, so condition removal is ineffective.

I can only get a few seconds of stability, blind, knockdown and they don’t compare to my getting knocked down every few seconds for several seconds—since I’m out of endurance, snares and in spite of my living and their not living, their diseased, rotten corpses can move far faster than I. WTK? What’s is left for me to try here?

The difficulty of this story mission requires high mobility, high aoe shut-down, high damage, high toughness, high vitality, high condition removal, high invulnerability (for rez ‘cos you aren’t mobile).

I don’t have that many skill slots; I have all skills but Charrzooka (which is inconsequential since the long casting time of the elite ensures its being interrupted and I’ll not survive the cooldown) and I have more trait points than the level of the quest.

I am not having fun at all. Perhaps those who say “GW2 isn’t the game for you” are correct. Now that it’s out, can we get more GW1 expansions? (pipe dream, I know, but GW1 is a fun game)

i5-2500K 4.2GHz | 8GB Mushkin DDR3-2133 | Gigabyte Z68XP-UD4, GTX580-882/2033
Crucial m4 128GB SSD (64GB SRT cache) | WD 2TB 2002FAEX | Antec Twelve Hundred
When I was your age, I could outrun a centaur…until I took an arrow to the knee

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Posted by: Baddestchica.2348

Baddestchica.2348

The gaming Madre

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Posted by: Drake Phoenix.6158

Drake Phoenix.6158

I’d also like to suggest that personal story quest instances should scale based on the character(s) that are present, particularly with regards to the armor type of the characters. I’ve found that characters that wear light armor tend to have a more difficult time, even when actively kiting, dodging, healing, and using knockdowns, stuns, pushback, etc. This is especially the case when there are enemies with ranged attacks, as they nullify most defensive methods. Combine that with the fact that companion NPCs generally do not attack until after you do, and you often find yourself dead before your companions have fully engaged in combat. Wearing medium armor makes this a little better, and wearing heavy armor, better still, but in the end I think that the damage output and armor and HP levels of enemies need to be adjusted dynamically based on the actual character(s) present in the instance. If a character is in their personal story by themselves, then the targets should be accordingly adjusted somewhat. If the PC is wearing light armor, then decrease target damage output, and perhaps increase armor and HP to compensate for the PC’s higher damage output. Thus, allowing us to survive long enough to try and actually wear them down. On the other hand, if a character wears heavy armor, then increase target damage output, but decrease their armor and HP. The idea here being that any character, whether a Guardian or an Elementalist, would have no better or worse chance than any other character of the same level and equivalent level of gear and tactical skill.

The short of it is that while the quests should be challenging, and should require active tactics, they should also be possible for an average player regardless of class, skill sets, or weapon choices. We shouldn’t have to be hard-core tacticians and strategists, forced to choose specific character set ups for each quest just to have half a chance to survive. And that is in reference to the harder ones, not the easy ones. With respect to the easy ones, they aren’t challenging enough and need o be adjusted as well.

On the whole, I have been most unimpressed with the general difficulty of personal story quests in the game. Many are far too easy, while others are far too difficult. And while some variation is desirable, there still needs to be challenge, and we still need to be able to overcome those challenges without being forced to spec full toughness and vitality, and/or gain levels and gear far above the “recommended” level for the quest. And similarly, we should be able to get through with whatever weapon and skills loadouts we choose to bring, rather than being forced to take certain limited sets simply because that’s what works.

It seems that the majority of personal story quests need to be revamped, and unless the dev team gets on the ball with it, I think ArenaNet will find a large number of people telling their friends that they should consider not buying this game until fixes are put in place or some other campaign/expansion is put in place. That is a sad state for the game to be in considering how much spectacular potential it has at this point.