Guild Wars 2

The following system may sound kinda familiar since it has been done before however I feel that it would greatly improve the game.

Currently bosses (Champions and higher) are given an effect known as unshakable.

Unshakable is an effect that grants resistance to control effects. Most champion and legendary rank creatures have this effect, especially dungeon bosses. Unshakable will grant one stack of Defiant for each player in the area, with a minimum of three stacks. For example, 13 players in the area will cause one use of control to create 13 stacks of defiant while one player in the area will create three stacks. -Guild Wars 2 wiki

Now a system of CC resistence is necessary to make bosses more challenging and engaging but I do feel it has too many flaws.

The system requires co-ordination and typically luck, which is something too prevelent in the game imo. The luck not the co-ordination. Anyways for example a thief is spamming headshot to get the defiant stacks off but right before the last one someone hits it with a stun. At this point the last headshot is used and a very poor stun is done. This becomes worse on group events where you get 50 people with possible interrupts making it virtually impossible to get a good stun done to the boss. Worse if no one is using stuns it makes that one guy who is useless. The system discourages stuns, and infrequent interrupts with powerful effects are seldom helpful. A quick knockdown or 3 second stun is good but it should not be considered equal to a 1/4 second daze one just because it was used too early.

My suggestion is to add system to replace it to function as follows. When a boss takes damage or gets hit with interrupting effects (Intterupts will drain it faster, also the stronger the intterupt the more it’ll bring it down) it will drain a meter. When this meter is depleted the boss loses unshakable (which will have its description changed) allowing for full condition durations (and effects) and CC effects to be applied constantly. I feel damage should also be increased by 10-50% (based on a decrease in armor to not make conditions useless). Once it is depleted it will start going up but CC and damage can be used to slow the speed at which it goes up. Obviously this will scale with the number of players present. When the meter gets to be full unshakable returns and can be brought down again.

This is mostly intended for dungeons but can be used on world bosses (Dragons and such), but should only increase damage since I don’t think they should be able to be stunned.

This is intended to improve the use of CC skills and reduce the feeling of wasting them.

Unfortunately the (pve) content in this game is considered to be too easy by many, as such I feel dungeons should recieve a revamp before a change like this is needed or at least have bosses given more survivability before unshakable is removed (depleting the meter) to compensate. The reason is most of the content is beaten using very little stuns and typically just dps builds.

I do have suggestions for dungeons but that can wait.

Also feedback is appreciated

Defiant is indeed the most broken mechanic in pve, and seriously hurts dungeon play. It should either be removed completely or be a stun resistance in the form of duration limitation.

Have you watched THIS video?

Proposed solution to defiant and to dungeons as well.

Imagine you’d be playing an interrupt mesmer … “sry, interrupt 20 more times to get your 4s fury”.

Well, well … your suggested system wouldn’t be must different to the current. Interrupts remove a bit from the bar … Like having 20 defiant stacks and removing one each CC. I understand your issue, but I think the current system is fine (except for “on interrupt” triggers – or do they apply anyways?). I hate the current world boss system a bit more. Most of them are crit immune and there’re tons of “on crit” effects. I’ve got three characters with builds based on “on crit”.

Back to the topic. ANet tries to encourage teamwork. It’s very hard in this game and doesn’t work with strangers. You can see this behaviour from defiant stacks and some anti-zerg bounty NPCs. ANet tries to make ppl work coordinated with a small~medium group. Yet, most ppls just flood those NPCs with zergs bigger than the upscaling.

Personally, I think they should make combo-ing stronger. So ppl learn to play together. I never hear “I’ll make a combo field, so prepare your finishers” in teamspeak (voice tool); it’s just too weak. And here, you could somewhat combine it with the thread’s topic … like “add 50% more stacks; let combos remove the stacks; but not reset them”

I do agree with making the combos stronger but they need to make ONLY the CROSS-PLAYER combos stronger.
I feel that the OP’s method would be a nice mechanic on some bosses but not the norm. It kind of splits off fighting the boss to offensive and defensive stages.

Kaaboose.3897:

Have you watched THIS video?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBxStGB6-UE

Proposed solution to defiant and to dungeons as well.

Don’t just self advertise on other peoples threads, since yours is clearly still there on the front page it shouldn’t be necessary.

Instead use written words to talk about what your proposed change is, I don’t like to watch youtube videos that try to teach things. If you want me to listen to your suggestion take the time to make a written version.

When I asked for feedback I meant on my suggested change, if you want to compare mine to yours thats fine but like I said talk about it.

WonderfulCT.6278:

Kaaboose.3897:

Have you watched THIS video?
SNIP!
Proposed solution to defiant and to dungeons as well.

Don’t just self advertise on other peoples threads, since yours is clearly still there on the front page it shouldn’t be necessary.

Instead use written words to talk about what your proposed change is, I don’t like to watch youtube videos that try to teach things. If you want me to listen to your suggestion take the time to make a written version.

When I asked for feedback I meant on my suggested change, if you want to compare mine to yours thats fine but like I said talk about it.

I don’t see what difference it makes me writing my solutions to the problem over presenting them verbally. If I was doing it just to self advertise I’d have put a link to my post here.

As I posted before your propsed solution would split fighting bosses into “phases” There would be the regular phase like we have now and then there would be the offensive phase where everyone spams every bit of CC they have to maximum effect.

The solution I offered for thoese put off from watching/listening to videos would be to have the defiance buff fall off naturally along with the ability for it to be stipped as well.

This way in groups players could strip it then stop at 1 or 2 stacks and time their control acordingly. It’s a system that allows players to time for important interupts and one that can still scale to the amount of players.

To fix problem of Control in pve simply changing defiant buff is not enough.
Fights have to be designed to promote control, for example boss should have an attack that will wipe players if the do not interrupt it.
Since it is not true as of right now, it is somewhat useless to change defiant.
P.S. And a.net would not add any “meters” to bosses.Solution has to be simple to fit current system.
P.P.S. For example defiant buff every 10(can be adjusted for different bosses) seconds give 10(can be adjusted as well) stacks of stability to boss.
If players have managed to destroy all 10 stacks, they can control the boss as they want for the rest of this 10 seconds.
Combined with uberpowered skills that will wipe players if they are not interrupted, this will make a little bit better system.

Goorman.7916:

To fix problem of Control in pve simply changing defiant buff is not enough.
Fights have to be designed to promote control, for example boss should have an attack that will wipe players if the do not interrupt it.
Since it is not true as of right now, it is somewhat useless to change defiant.
P.S. And a.net would not add any “meters” to bosses.Solution has to be simple to fit current system.
P.P.S. For example defiant buff every 10(can be adjusted for different bosses) seconds give 10(can be adjusted as well) stacks of stability to boss.
If players have managed to destroy all 10 stacks, they can control the boss as they want for the rest of this 10 seconds.
Combined with uberpowered skills that will wipe players if they are not interrupted, this will make a little bit better system.

This was gone over in the video linked as well :P

I’m not in a forum to watch videos, especially since I don’t have sound.

Well, your solution from video(if i understand it correctly) punishes players cooperation, because it is inefficient to use control in succession, it is better to wait for defiance stacks to go away naturally.Mine solution directly promotes cooperation.
However, the main idea is definitely the same – fix defiance buff and make control important in pve encounters.

Goorman.7916:

Well, your solution from video(if i understand it correctly) punishes players cooperation, because it is inefficient to use control in succession, it is better to wait for defiance stacks to go away naturally.Mine solution directly promotes cooperation.
However, the main idea is definitely the same – fix defiance buff and make control important in pve encounters.

Being able to use control in succession would make control too powerful. The METAgame that would become as much of a joke as it is now. Players would bring every control ability they had to empty the meter as quickly as possible and then spam every stun they had to keep the boss locked down and unable to anything while taking extra damage.
WoW’s solution to this was to make bosses immune to these sorts of skills and as such they were almost never used in PvE or if they were they were never speced to make them more effective.
GW2, since anet is trying to re-invent the trinity, trys to find some sort of middle ground to allow these sorts of abilities to be used on bosses but no so much that they would become overpowered.
Chaining control could be used to overcome any mehcanics a boss might have on offer, just as maxing DPS does the same thing now. (2:00 of the video linked for a visual example)
Control should be a regular part of an encounter but being able to chain it for too long (and since using more control keeps the meter down for longer this is inevitable) will simply shift the style of play from one extreme (MAX DPS!) to the other (MAX CONTROL!)
However, I don’t see why a bit of both systems couldn’t be put together to crate the middle ground anet is looking for.
The idea of having differnet control effects have differnt effects on the meter is a good thing. Though it would have to be carefully implimented so as not to make some control skills useless.
The idea of a time where all control effects could be used on a short period seems good but I wouldn’t combine that with a DPS increase. Also I’d have spamming control effects FILL the meter faster, not cause it to fill slower. That way control is encouraged to be used carfully rather then spammed.
Lastly I’d start with the meter empty as well as have it drain naturally as well as being able to be drained faster by control effects, Again this would have to be done carfully so as not to allow control spam to become the new META.