Can you feel it? HOT HOT HOT
Personal Story and lots of deaths...
The storyline is not a cakewalk, correct.
HOWEVER, it is not a corpse rush either. If you expect to play through the game with one build and strategy consisting of button mashing, you’re doing it wrong. I for one am happy Anet made it at least slightly challenging. Don’t expect a change to come since most of your fellow players are able to complete these quests without a problem.
My first play through I was a Guardian, and I got away with slouching in the strategy dept for a long time. However there came a point where I was starting to get overwhelmed by the waves of mobs, and as such I adjusted my playstyle; eg, that fiery dragon sword + diamond aegis may look cool, but it’s hardly suited to dealing with groups— swapped for mace/focus and saw a world of difference. That way I could aoe with my greatsword, then swap to mace/focus for defense while GS skills were on cooldown. Rinse repeat. Also your utility skills. If you just take a bunch of random kitten and passive signets, you’re kittening yourself. I had a similar experience with my Engineer, which definitely has a higher skill curve than Guardian, so I had to adapt at an even earlier level. I could go on but hopefully people get the picture.
tldr: it’s only too difficult if you don’t use your brain
edit: ps to the poster above me, your problem lies in your reliance on the npcs. I had a similar mission freeing this chick from pirates in a Whispers quest. My npc buddy would run in and die, leaving me to fend for myself. Truth is, those npcs aren’t there to carry you, they are just there for fluff. How did I beat it? I switched up for some CC skills and utility, kept a weapon that could provide burst, and focus-bursted down one while CCing the others/kiting. Strategy. Not brute force. Switch things up and it’s a lot easier.
(edited by Nox.8967)
Got nothing to do with you being “old” (your words, not mine), I died many times in the personal story (was worst around the halfway point of the story), and, well… I wouldn’t call myself old.
Get overwhelmed by dozens of mobs was a common thing in the story.
I am having this problem too. I can take anything the non-story mode throws me and live most of the time but the story modes are killing me which is really putting me in a terrible mood because I was trying for the monthly undying achievement. That’s shot to heck now only because of the story modes. My first death was in story and most since. (one was discovering how sliding down an innocent hill can be deadly…)
I am an Elementalist who tries to have the best gear I can at all times and I KNOW how to play the class pretty well but stuff in these stories keeps mobbing me and my health is gone before I can really do much about it. When I have NPC helpers they just stand there doing nothing 90% of the time picking theirs noses while I get murdered. This is why I hate undying achievements. I like getting them and there’s always something silly and/or out of balance that wrecks my chances for them, even if I am careful and play the class well. In this game it’s the story missions. At least make the friendly NPCs not stand around doing nothing most of the time. In the one where you duel that guy and his second my chosen second stood behind a pillar the whole fight and did nothing. That was my first death. The last one I was fighting bandits to prove something about someone and 5 bandits ran at me and Captain Whoever took a swing once in a while but largely stood there while I died.
Seriously, reexamine story mode difficulty, especially for us Light armor wearers. It’s ridiculous.
Que all the other light armor wearers telling me they did it just fine and I don’t know what I am doing. blah blah Maybe I am doing something wrong but at least the NPCs could be of more use.
NPC allies seemed to work so much better in beta (at least for low level missions). I remember on my human noble being able to kite mobs around and eventually get logan to pseudo-tank, which made missions very manageable. But in release I just have to way overlevel everything, because npcs die too quickly to get them to tank, and even if I wanted too their attack speed is so slow they almost never get the mob’s attention. They should just be removed so you have no false sense of security and say, “oh there are 14 mobs, but I have 3 npcs to help me out.” Or give us control of some allies, like they are pets, or like in SW:TOR, so we have some chance of making them useful.
Having the same problem with the Starving the Beast personal storyline for human engineer. Every time I fire the turret, it says that I can’t fire in that direction or I am out of range. The turret has no directional controls just like the ones used in some renown heart quests.
It’s so frustrating to use the turret, knowing you don’t hit the target ship while groups of Risen mob you.
There should not be mobs in personal story quests. And your primary enemy should not have more functional allies than you do. Yes, the quests can be done as they are now but really, what’s the point?
The Human – Never joined the Circus story line has you face off against a Ringmaster who has three functional allies plus several mesmerized bystanders. And who do you have? Your NPC friend who dies pretty fast after getting hammered by the brute who accompanies the Ringmaster and the other guy who jumps around a lot. And where is your pal Logan Thackeray, the alleged Guardian? Oh, there he is … dead near the Ringmaster’s feet where you can’t get to him to revive him because you’re running around trying to stay alive while your skills cool down. Targeting an enemy in this game is another story. So you realize that your best option is to die repeatedly in order to regenerate health and skills faster. Failure is fun. Say it six times and you’ll believe it.
Later you get get to engage in trial by combat against an evil wicked Minister who chooses as his second … a brute with knock downs. And what are your choices? By this point I had figured out that Logan is not a great helper so I picked the Mesmer. She stayed alive and was actually useful.
From here on out when I make a Human character they are going with the Dead Sister story chain because the Ringmaster sequence just sucks. I have a Necromancer doing the Dead Sister sequence, as he levels, and so far it’s been somewhat more balanced. Although I still think mobs have no place in these quests.
ETA: Someone posted earlier that “you’re doing it wrong” if you expect to play through these quests with one set of skills. That may be true unless you play them as you level, in which case you don’t have a lot to work with. But let’s just erroneously assume that everyone who has trouble is just doing it wrong, m’kay?
(edited by RoxBuryNine.4210)
Personally, I think that the PQ are great, if you are a hardcore player. If I play a little off and on, I don’t stand a chance at all to finish without lots of help from my guildies (Thanks, Ty!). Maybe that’s the point, but I think this game should be for casual gamers too, not just the hardcore ones. Or am I wrong here?
I’ve had some difficulty in PS missions myself, though I have (so far) managed to get through them iwth only a few deaths in the more ‘difficult’ ones. (Charr Warrior, Vigil and very overleveled (in the fifties: not that it matters since you are scaled down…and I was a little undergeared for my ‘actual’ level))
“Set to Blow”
First part just had too many enemies, with respawns too quick and of course most of the NPC help died too easily (save for Forgal, he lasted quite a while). I was eventually over whelmed and had to respawn. I guess a bleed killed the last enemy needed to trigger the next part (the queen), but now I had the queen AND a bunch of minions to deal with. Fortunately, destoryers are not very social…and I was able to single pull the minions one by one with proper positioning. I still had Forgal by the time I had the queen by herself, though I ended up kiting her (dropping mines behind me as I ran), due to the AOE patches she liked to drop. Won in the end.
“Forewarned is Forearmed”
I did nearly bite it with the bats at the start, but I can chalk it up to not allowing Forgal to take his ‘share’ of the mobs. Having two jellyfish on you HURT, even with condition removing abilities, but that’s a flub on me for not guaging distance correctly to single pull with the one spear ability. No, the big issue I had was the mobs at the end: argoed on me before I was ready and would not break when I had to flee. Even after they killed me and I respawned, they came right after me again before I had even barely started to head back! I did eventually get all three mobs down…by grave zerging….(though I admit it was funny to see two Risen Sharks essentually out of water trying to kill me…in fact…I don’t think they were attacking at all…don’t remember).
“Killing Fields”
I spent much of my time either rezzing vigil NPCs, or kiting abominations. Then when I won…I saw the arrow cart I could have used that was sitting next to the Vigil commander (I forget her name atm) the whole time. Do’h…observation fail.
I have yet to get ‘far’ on my PS with my other toons to compare difficulty on other classes (though my norn Ranger did die once with the Jotan spirit battle). Not sure how ‘eager’ I am to find out with the squisher classes….
(edited by Slaskia.8376)
You need to tell the devs exactly what’s happening when you play it that way they have an idea what they need to adjust. For example, they recently discovered an enemy was regenerating its health way too fast for anyone to kill it and are fixing that soon.
My problem’s with the Defending The Keep mission – the undead come in way too many at a time to fight with any tactic and the NPCs are useless at fighting them with me.
User will be infracted for this post.
OK, now for my story.
I am on the Human street rat mission The Greater Good which is level 8. I am supposed to meet Logan Thackeray and stop the bandits from poisoning the well.
…I find this one to be particular hard as well. Played it in beta so knew what I was getting myself into during release, but I got myself killed again a few times in this one. I played this on a necromancer, not sure if I was level 8 or higher as I was a bit afraid from beta I might have outleveled the instance first. So far this is one of the few personal stories that I think are really hard.
I encountered this one during beta on my thief character as well. I hadn’t had a chance to try many weapon combos and had only basic abilities available. I died to spawns on the ramps numerous times and the boss killed me a huge number of times partly due to her glitching into a place that made her hard to hit – and the stupid number of swarms that spawned at the ramp top and ran down to pound on me. The truly useless NPCs did not help one little bit.
On release I choose to play a thief again and made my way to this quest again. This time I waited till I was 2 levels higher and made sure my gear was up to date. I had a shortbow this time around and was able to use my circle strafe skills to circle around the packs of mobs and take them out. I finished the quest with perhaps one death – I can’t recall for sure whether there was even that many.
While levelling I have chosen to wait until I was the recommended level or even higher before doing the personal quests because I had bad memories of The Greater Good. I carve groups of mobs to shreds with my bow and kiting techniques. Tough mobs are shredded with a sword and pistol (boring, only need to press one button for most fights). I have two stealth skills on my bars, one when healing (recently been using SoM instead) and one on a 1 min CD to take me out of combat (basically a lie, it’s like a brief moment of health renewal and a fairly long stealth). When the going gets tough I bug out either briefly or slink off and hope they de-aggro.
I have very few deaths in the PQ storylines now, even in the battle for Trinity that people are mentioning.
Some tips if you’re having trouble:
- learn to kite
- don’t be afraid to burn your CDs
- choose your weapon sets carefully to provide synergy e.g. one range AOE and one hard hitting single target melee
- pull it like it’s a dungeon run, carefully
- body pull packs of mobs but only hit one so the rest will hopefully smack the NPCs about while you deal with the first one. Nibble groups apart like this.
- learn from fights you lose (and win). If one type of mob uses a ton of debuffs and bleeds switch your build to counter this.
- burn your heal early. It should be on a short CD so burn it once you are at roughly 65% health. You want it to totally fill your health bar again with as little overheal as possible. Burning it early means it has a better chance to be ready again later in the fight when you are on the ropes.
- keep your gear up to date
*if all else fails, bring a friend
EVERY time I attempt any of my storyline quests, it makes me seriously think about if I want to keep playing this game.
There’s no fun in “Atacked by 8 mobs, kill one, respawn, kill another, respawn, when done, anotherkittenwave of 8 appear…”
Did any of these get tested?
The Old Timers Guild has great people, but horrible leaders.
I had to practically beg for people to help me in several personal missions, including Forewarned is Forearmed, Battle for Claw Island and Defense contract.
I managed to solo Killing Fields (nobody helped me with this mission) with only one death using my level 60+ guardian by ganking the undead abomination and slowly killing off one at a time.
There is almost no way to solo Defense contract. About 5 undeads at a time and later fire imps to boot. Not to mention that if you die, don’t even bother to continue where you left off. The undead will gang up on you at your spawn point.
I tried A light in the Darkness the other day using my level 74 Guardian and I could not survive one minute there. Not to mention that there is no way for you to flee and recoup they will follow you to no end. I couldn’t find any people to help me out with this mission. Since then I leveled up to level 80 and brought some masterwork armor from auction, maybe I can do better…
My guess is that the devs are probably busy fixing bugs and stopping people from exploiting the game so these personal story issues are on the bottom of their list. Maybe we can see some kind of fix for this in a month or two.
(edited by pugster.9378)
There was only one story mission I actually could not get past due to its difficulty. I actually rarely died on any of them, although some did seem too difficult given I was being downleveled for them.
The one mission I had issue with was one where you were killing some leader of the Svanir and his giant ice dog monster. I can’t remember the context because honestly, it wasn’t very important. But you had to kill the giant ice dog before his master, which proved next to impossible because he simply did so much damage that you couldn’t even kill his minion before you got downed, much less him. I had to zone out and repair my armor probably three times before I eventually managed a victory, and only because I stopped trying to mitigate all the damage and instead just DPSed the monster down as quickly as I could, just to get it off the field. I died, revived and then finished the cheater, who otherwise always revived as long as the dog was alive. All this was frustrating at the time, as in the betas I’d done the same mission with no problems. AND I was being downleveled this time, with armor above what was required.
I think what’s memorable about personal story difficulties is that if it’s too hard, you have to wait around for a patch that may never even come. It’s just there, and you can’t skip it. You can only wait, and hope ANet recognizes that it’s indeed too difficult.
The one i have a real problem is the one where you have to use the slow mortis verge to protect the queen. The npcs allies all died and then the undead just gang up on me.
The idea behind the downed system was that Anet wanted you to die. However I like how your all moaning about dying on a personal story, however in the last game the same character would save 3 continents despite dying 400 times on the way.
Come on guys dying on a personal story is nothing compared to saving the world after dying 400 times.
“For any difficulty issue (or bug, or any comment on a particular story step) please provide the name of the quest, your current objective, your class, and level.”
Level 80 (to be fair though with only level 75 gear and some 60s) elementalist on Through the Looking Glass. I figure I’d take out a few mobs and rez the team, but the spawn time is way too fast! Trahearne also just stays in one place and doesn’t follow us (and doesn’t know how to hold aggro). Shashoo and the quaggans kept dying (how we don’t know, they can’t hold aggro either).
The idea behind the downed system was that Anet wanted you to die. However I like how your all moaning about dying on a personal story, however in the last game the same character would save 3 continents despite dying 400 times on the way.
Come on guys dying on a personal story is nothing compared to saving the world after dying 400 times.
Downed should be made immune to knockbacks because people oftentimes set up AoE DoT fields and area damage because they know they’ll be downed. If you’re knocked out of those fields then your death is far more certain. I’ll wait until getting my level 80 exotics to finish my personal story, 8 silver repairs per quest is just way too expensive. Oh well, off to the level 45-55 zones as they’re the most cost effective and profitable trash pick up for my level. Trash value doesn’t really seem to scale up significantly enough to offset the time spent.
i cna only talk for my ranger who has lots of points in beastmastery and good pets, i too died at the battle in claw island it was the only time i used repar canister but i was 2. 3 levels under the recommanded level in the end I found out that they were many but slow so i kept running around and kiting them. but of course that works only for a ranged class i realy wonderd how a mele would do with all those undeads.
usually i died when i tried a story quest under my level, had to abandon one with undeads but i was “underaged”
but maybe i was always lucky choosing the easiest way when choices were given. I do upgrade my armor to my level or close before i do my personal story
i agree wiht the comments about the npcs some look bugged.
the personal story which i almost dropped was the one in the water where you had to find your way through, to get to some orb, i realy hated it; i think we have enough labyrinths and they should not put that in a personal stroy
the is some places i found harder than the personal story some caves for instance are not even doable for a single player
I’m posting just to agree. I mentioned in another thread where I am in the story and what I play, but wanted to add here that this is incredibly frustrating. I’ve also played mmos for years (about 15 or so) and have never encountered this level of frustration.
I suck at PvP and am more than willing to accept my deaths there. But I’m prettykittengood at PvE. Often not dying more than a couple of times in other games from character creation to max level. However, in GW2’s Personal Story line, I can’t get past the level 28 quest. I’m level 42 now.
This is frustrating as kitten.
The one i have a real problem is the one where you have to use the slow mortis verge to protect the queen. The npcs allies all died and then the undead just gang up on me.
That’s Queen’s Justice. The same one I can’t finish even 15 levels higher.
Starving the Beast – is total *. been working on it now for 2 days. Tried several different skill / weapon configurations. Can get the Mouth of Zhaitan down to about 25% health, and that’s it.. it is constant death city after that. He regenerates health WAY too fast.. he was at 50% health on second death, and at 100% health when I restarted from checkpoint after 3rd death.. Rezzing the NPCs is worthless.. you get hammered while you are doing it.. interruption, interruption, damage, damage, death.
I am really getting sick an tired of having to constantly spend hard earned currency to keep repairing damaged gear after personal story deaths. I am a Necro, and very well geared, and good stat spec.. but.. this one here is certainly making me dislike this personal story line. You definitely need to tone this down..
PS. I am level 76, this is a supposed lvl 75 quest. All my gear is in the lvl 70’s range, with exotics, and rares. 20k health, 1700 armor, 990 toughness, 2,544 attack etc, etc.. and I can’t make it past this quest.
(edited by chuloos.9541)
maybe ill find all that when doing another class and/or choosing other ways, killed the mouth of zhaitan few days ago no problem most of my gear is green with upgrades in it, as i said usually i upgrade my gear before doing a personal story part, so if i am doing a level 75 quest my gear was prolly beween 72 and 75, costs prolly not more then paying for deaths
As an antidote to previous posts, I would like to add that I completed Claw Island as an Elementalist at lvl 50 without too many problems. It was harder than the previous missions due to all the respawning enemies, but rather enjoyable for being so.
For anyone who is not aware, when you’re downlevelled your gear is as well, relative to your level. So if you are lvl 60 with lvl 55 gear, you might end up playing as a level 50 with lvl 46 gear for example. You would be amazed at the difference those few levels can make, so if you’re struggling with a mission, make sure to upgrade all your kit so it matches your actual level.
I usually try to upgrade my armor every 5 levels, but by the time I’m getting near to the next set of upgrades my sub-par gear can make a noticeable difference.
Personally, I think that the PQ are great, if you are a hardcore player. If I play a little off and on, I don’t stand a chance at all to finish without lots of help from my guildies (Thanks, Ty!). Maybe that’s the point, but I think this game should be for casual gamers too, not just the hardcore ones. Or am I wrong here?
No your not wrong. I think most people would agree with you. But is Arenanet listening? That i’m not so sure about.
I’m so glad I’m not the only one finding some of these stories difficult.
I’ve come to think of them as deathtraps, and it doesn’t help that I played lots of “dead is dead” campaigns in Skyrim right before I picked up GW2.
I agree the Personal story should be easier than the majority of the game, I’ve found several times having to redo a part of a quest because of the difficulty and dying repeatedly. I don’t think this is due to an imbalance in the game but in my own skill. I’m used to single player RPGs and have little experience with MMOs and thus find the play and combat style a bit daunting but being I’m only a couple dozen hours in total playtime I’m sure my abilities will improve.
Please don’t adjust the difficultly too much because everytime I die I am forced to readjust and learn new methods of combat which is really the way any good game should be, easy at first while I learn, until nearly impossible by the end. I understand with the immence amount of content, balancing is an enormous undertaking and I will be patient in the mean time.
Thanks for such a great game.
Best thing I can think of is to give certain NPCs in the storylines which follow you (such as Logan), 10x health (or more depending on their important in lore, such as the members of Destiny’s Edge who by rights are the premier heroes of the game) and the ability to self-resurrect after say, 10 seconds. You could always reduce their damage so they can’t kill boss characters on their own, just the odd minion or two.
Best thing I can think of is to give certain NPCs in the storylines which follow you (such as Logan), 10x health (or more depending on their important in lore, such as the members of Destiny’s Edge who by rights are the premier heroes of the game) and the ability to self-resurrect after say, 10 seconds. You could always reduce their damage so they can’t kill boss characters on their own, just the odd minion or two.
They sure do eat dirt a lot. In the final missions it really settled in that they were completely worthless. They do no damage and tend to die very quickly. In the final, final mission, phew… man, that airship was strewn with DE corpses at all times. I’d revive one and they’d literally die before I could even finish standing up.
Maybe they’re just old.
Starving the best I feel needs to be looked at.
I am Level 77 Thief. When it comes to go fighting the mouth the NPC’s Just do not dodge out of AOE. If they would just dodge it might be manageable.
I am sure I should be able to do it as a group but that should not be needed.
In Game: Storm Bluff Isle — Anzz, Anzenketh Kyoto
Starving the Beast
Are those friendly NPCs supposed to ‘protect’ me while I take out the ship? Am I suppose to press one button on the turret then step off and kite the 5-6 enemies around for 20 minutes, then get back on the turret and fire once and repeat (I’m an Elementalist)?
Would it make more sense if I just protect them while they use the turret to sink the boat? I’m not even sure how that turret is supposed to work, there isn’t a whole lot of time to read what the buttons are supposed to do or get any practice in?
“Ok, let’s see now…”
ugh 80% health
“…press this button…”
ugh 50%
“…to…”
ugh ugh ugh!
? You are defeated
:|
How does this work?
You mean the turret hits the ship at all for you? I just get out of range and can’t fire in that direction messages whilst the mobs are chewing on me.
Yes, it’s ridiculous.
i got that message a t first but i was not doing it right, i did all the mish exept the last alone and no problem, as i was told i will need a group i have not done the last mish yet, anyways had no real problem on ranger for the whole story, the pet helped a lot for the eye , once i manged to get it to attack, as i did have some problems with the distances in that last solomsih , told me i was too far when it didn look that way, (bug?)for the same reason my elite was useless and wasted the hound just would not attack
The biggest problem is that the personal quests
- vary a lot in difficulty
- are easier for certain classes
- are partially immensly unfair (enemies freely cause conditions at even low levels when you might not have the ability to remove them – or the ability is on cooldown)
Personal Story quests MUST be doable at level – so levelling up and getting better equipment is not the answer. They also should in my opinion be doable first try by a reasonably careful and experienced player – some of the quests definitely are not.
“Personal Story quests MUST be doable at level – so levelling up and getting better equipment is not the answer.”
Exactly. What is the point in these quests even having rewards, when you need better gear and higher levels just to do them?
“They also should in my opinion be doable first try by a reasonably careful and experienced player – some of the quests definitely are not.”
Maybe not always on the first try, but it shouldn’t need you to go to the lengths I went to in trying (and failing) to complete “Lines of Communication” on my engineer (and I must be a careful and experienced gamer, otherwise in WoW I wouldn’t have been able to main tank 7/12 bosses in ICC, on my first attempt ever tanking a raid).
I went out hunting skill challenges, to get the skill points needed to unlock new abilities (twice, because the first change of tactics failed as badly as my original strategy), levelling to over 10 levels higher than the content, and levelling trades/hunting down karma vendors with specific items, in order to change weapons from rifle to pistol/pistol and pistol/shield.
I guess maybe I should have changed my traits to tank better, and got a completely new set of gear and enhancements, but quite frankly, after all the repair bills, I could barely afford to make use of waypoints any more, never mind change my traits and gear over for just one quest, then back to what had been working flawlessly for everything else.
I know I’m supposed to be kiting the boss, but that just isn’t possible when I have cooldowns, and it appears he doesn’t, meaning as soon as he comes out of any CC I apply, he shadowsteps to me and takes off half my health in a couple of hits.
eg. I opened with net shot, and immediately started summoning my defensive golem, and he’d taken half my health off before I could finish the summon. He then proceeded to destroy the golem before I could even do 25% damage to him.
(edited by polarity.8906)
I’m not sure what the “defensive golem” is you’re using (I don’t know engineer very well) but I found that between net shot and the net turret he was immobilized most of the time, and with the thumper turret I was able to keep him occupied while I wore down his health. The turrets can be placed while you’re moving, so you don’t need to stand there and take it for the half second or so it takes to build.
Edit: I also noticed that Batana isn’t helping in the Rakt fight, which is probably making things harder than it should be. I’ll put in a fix for the 10/8 update.
(edited by Jeffrey Vaughn.1793)
It’s hell for an Elementist like me. I need my friends to actually help. I thought skipping a few levels would help, but I got downscaled anyway…One was the one in that wine place in Queensdale, with the cheif centaur comes asking to fight. Luckily I lured him into a wall, he kinda got glitched and Seraph held him there. Almost died again….
You sir are a Scholar and Gentlekitten.
With my Human Elementalist, I’ve got it to the point where I can wage a slow and grueling attrition war full of terrified skirmishing and panicked retreats against every story and leave with only one or two items damaged. About half the time, I make more in mission rewards than repair costs.
Or I can strip down at the beginning of each mission and zerg naked from checkpoints, with no risk or penalty, and frankly no noticeable drop in survivability or kill speed.
Former Guild Wars 2 fan. RIP, ArenaNet’s integrity.
Even the first Unknown Parents human mission as an elementalist is an exercise in frustration. You get ambushed by 2 (or 3?) guys with controls and disables.
I wanted to revisit this thread to add a few more thoughts.
I’ve been playing some temporary characters just to see the personal story lines. Latest versions were for Norn — the Lost Heirloom quest “Rumors of Trouble” and the earlier quest chains for the “Guard the Mists” as well as “Honor the Spirits.” I have been playing a warrior through these quest lines simply because it’s a class I enjoy.
For the quest “Minotaur Rampant” as the level 10 Honor the Spirits, I had no idea what to do when walking in. Just to be safe, here’s a spoiler tag for that quest. I attacked Vidkun right at the beginning. I didn't really have any problems with him, even though his Champion status made me wary at first. I "defeated" Vidkun, only to find that I needed to attack the dragon beast first. All right. So I did that. Again, I didn't have significant issues, Vidkun chilled me frequently so it was a bit annoying to chase after the beast when it charged past, but no real health issues. Defeated beast, defeated Vidkun again, profit!
For the quest “Rumors of Trouble” for the level 11 Lost an Heirloom… well, more spoilers. My warrior did the quest first. I had this quest active on my engineer, but my engineer hasn't been defeated yet (level 41) and after reading all the comments on the quest difficulty, wasn't too keen to rush in without knowing what to expect. Varg arrived, summoned ice imps... and it was no big deal. All the comments I'd seen mentioned the insane damage that the imps do, but it appears that they have been toned down. I went in with my engineer, and set up turrets before even speaking to Krennak the Short. When Varg summoned imps, it was rather easy. Did have a bit of an issue seeing red rings of icy doom on the snow, but I blame partial color blindness for that. Pale reds and greens are hard for me to see. Still prevailed, however, without the corpse rushing that so many have described.
TL;DR: I’ve done a number of the quests that have been described as overly problematic, and it seems like they’ve been reduced in difficulty. Much easier than my earlier experiences with similar level quests — though to be 100% sure I may have to make a character to run through those again. So this is just a note to say hooray. I don’t mind a challenge, but the earlier difficulty seemed to be too much (and I can easily find challenges in other parts of the world, like the fire elemental in Metrica Province).
2. “Deeply Tangled Roots”, lvl 8 quest on my Sylvari Necromancer (Shield of the Moon), the part where you have to defeat the nightmare courtiers and escape the gathering: this one was tough mostly due to the fact that it wasn’t clear that you had to kill all the courtiers to make Renvari killable. Also, it seemed a bit buggy. The first time I did it, I had killed everything that came at me but Renvari was still not taking any damage. The next time I tried it (at level 10, I was frustrated and came back later), when died I res’d outside the cave at the check point . . . the mobs followed me there this time! Renvari came out there too though and was vulnerable, so it worked fine. Caithe, one of my NPC helpers, was not completely useless; I suspect that is because I could stay alive long enough for her to actually do something.
I’ve been having trouble with this same story quest, for different reasons. I’m an Elementalist which, as Passiflora points out, is not NEARLY as durable as other light armor-wearing classes (coughNECROMANCERcough). I’ve levelled up to lvl 12 now, with up-to-date armor and weapons, and I even took the time to get utility skills unlocked and learned how to use them. But even with abilities such as Arcane Shield or Summon Storm, etc, the elementalist is not a profession that is designed to be mob-rushed. Add this to the fact that my party consists of Caithe (read: another light armor wearer) and Tiachren (who cares what he does, he’s useless) and we’ve really got nobody who can take the hits. Even a small group of enemies pulled from the larger group just attacks me, ignoring the NPCs. I get three enemy NPCs standing in circle around me so that no matter how often I rally, I’m knocked right back down again. It gets really old, really fast.
I understand there are hardcore gamers who relish the challenge. But I agree with others who have said they would rather have it too easy. And characters such as Caithe should be more powerful – it’s fine if we have our hands held a little bit in the beginning; it makes sense particularly for a sylvari that has just emerged in the world. The durability of ally NPCs can be scaled down in later combat, but for early missions where many people are still learning their character at level 8, the dramatic rise in difficulty really feels unfair.
tl;dr: I agree with the complaints so far.
I gave up and just leveled, then went back. Even then it was usually one death per mission, usually at the “oh wait, there is more” spam spawn. In all cases spawns totally ignore any NPC help and beeline straight to my characters. Forgal was decent help at times, Eir may as well not have been in the instance for any missions with her. For supposedly being solo missions they are very poorly designed and balanced. Good design is NOT zerging from a checkpoint till you eventually thin things out.
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Ah, a little update, did Rat-Tastrophe today. 3 helper NPCs dead in the second wave of destroyers, and no way to avoid aggro enough to rez. Your AI is too stupid to run out of AOEs.. did you forget how to program that? GW1 HM enemies aren’t that stupid. Anyhow, downed twice, stripped armor off and zerged the mission from checkpoint. Quality gaming.. no.
Level 43 war doing a 42 mission, in all rare 40 gear. (mystic forge and cultural weaps). All my good gear accomplished was a 3 silver repair bill for a reward of harvesting tools.
4 condition spamming destroyer crabs at a time, in a cramped area with no room to kite. Real nice. Prayer to Kormir, Shake it off, mending..enough to kill 2 in a wave before going down.
Know what.. the storyline isn’t worth 3 silver.
Oh. and for the person that undoubtedly will chime in on how easy all this is, and lrn2play.. I remember you.. you beat proph with starter armor, Alesia and a pre Rinblade, right?
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(edited by Teofa Tsavo.9863)
Claw Island was probably the hardest mission for me, what with the mobs of Risen running around like caffeinated squirrels and karate-kicking me in the face by the dozen. Aside from that one and possibly the one where you have to infiltrate a town to rescue someone (an Order of Whispers mission, I think)… I had a relatively easy time probably because I went back to do the story missions when I was at a higher level. I can only imagine attempting the story missions at or near the recommended levels. O_O
Other people in this thread have mentioned this, but it bears repeating. There appears to be an A.I. issue with the mobs and NPCs in the personal story.
Often, mobs will focus solely on the player character once in aggro range regardless of the allied NPCs. If the player is in the downed state, they will continue to focus on the character regardless of even if allies are beating on them.
For my Elementalist character, I had to give up doing the personal story at ‘Fort Trinity’ because of the mob rush at the outside gate. I will note that I have run through this step with an Guardian and Mesmer. The Guardian was able to easily complete this story and it seemed unchanged, on the Mesmer it appears you have toned it down somewhat so that wiping the mobs at the gate is not required, just that you survive (after killing X number of mobs?) long enough to close the gates.
I will add my frustration with the hardiness of the NPCs. On all three characters most NPCs were dead at the end of multi-mob storylines and is especially true if you’re a squishy class and tend to pull aggro carefully.
!(wired)?(coffee++):(wired);
Claw Island solo is particularly frustrating: especially when you have to rez that girl with a 10+ mob that constantly respawns.
I suspect that the issue really has to do with the NPCs: they just stand there (if they aren’t dead) -Trehearne being the worst offender.
I’m not sure what the “defensive golem” is you’re using (I don’t know engineer very well) …
Jeffery, I don’t mean to be confrontational but I don’t know how to interpret this quote. It makes me think the devs aren’t playing their own game. Polarity said he/she used a net shot and a defensive golem: just from this I knew Polarity is an asuran engineer with a rifle and the Defensive Golem Elite skill (Summon D-Series Golem). I “hardly know engineer” -I would like to think a content designer was more familiar with the game. I don’t know if this is going to sound backwards or not but maybe your employer should be giving the devs more time to play the game instead of building it -you probably wouldn’t need the forums to report the multitude of issues the rest of the player base already knows about.
It’s a crazy idea but maybe each department should take turns taking a week off to just play the game: I think they would come back with a fresh view.
(edited by Rain King.5914)
Apart from the fact that you’re replying to a 3 month old post, the rest of his post was him describing how he cleared the mission with the engineer that he ’doesn’t know very well’.
I also gave up on the Personal Story. I understand that some people enjoy a higher level of difficulty, but for me the Personal Story is just an exercise in frustration. Die, rezz, die, rezz, die, rezz. It is absolutely no fun at all (for me).
What would make it more fun? Well, mostly it would help if my NPC allies weren’t all weaksauce cannon fodder that died within the first minute of combat and cannot be rezzed because the mobs you are fighting will not allow it. Allies that actually helped would greatly improve my mood when doing Personal Story.
I think most of the problem, though, is that my idea of story content and the dev’s idea of story content differ greatly. To me, story is something that should be low-key and not overly challenging, since the object is to appreciate the story. There are plenty of other aspects of the game that offer a higher level of difficulty for the player who likes it a bit more hardcore. I simply don’t think story content should be this frustrating.
Obviously, that’s just my opinion. I realize the devs do not share it. :-)
Ah well.
The way I see it, all these story quest is about you and you only. The NPC are there just to narrate you the story and nothing else. They drop like flies. Like the one protecting the Queen. The Exmplars and even Logan should be holding them back from reaching the Queen Jennah, but no. Logan drops first! Then the Exemplars next, lastly that mesmer beside the Queen (i can’t remember her name) drops too and even if you had cleared the current wave of Risen and got that corrupted Seraph to almost die, several MORE risen appears. You are on your own. If you think clearly for, the corrupted Seraph can just ignore you and go straight for the Queen since you are too busy trying to fight off the hordes of Risen, even though we are targeting him and ignoring the rest while Logan and the rest are DEAD. And respawning at the checkpoint, you will be swamped by the Risen because they are “home-in” on you. So, you have to run around the the room while the Queen stand there staring. In the first place, why the hell Logan did not grab Jennah and RUN first before coming back to help?
Come on. Snaff died because LOGAN had to go protect Queen Jennah. Yet, he drops first when trying to protect her in that story quest??? And it is all up to us to save the day!!!!! Like some of the renown hearts. The NPCs need US (the players) to do their job! (which I don’t mind, but it seems ridiculous to me, especially some of the hearts quest).
Just to add. All NPC should be like Detha (AC P2). The only few NPC in the game that will come to your aid if they are not dead on the ground and can actually fight and kill mob 1 vs 1. I am not asking for NPC to do the players job. At least make them “assist” you in your fight and not just standing there doing nothing. Like good old Trahearne. All talk and full of hot air. And he is suppose to SURVIVE Orr before returning to meet you.
(edited by SirDrygan.1823)