Guild Wars 2

Hi everyone! I’m Weißer from the German server Riverside.

For the last few weeks we have been farming Tequatl pretty consistently with all sorts of people. From casual to pro, everyone is working together. No guilds, no hierarchy, no flaming, just pve.

And this brings me to why I am making this post. Ever since release people have been crying over how Guild Wars 2 lacks proper endgame content. And yes, for a long time I was on the same train. I have a history of organized raiding and while I love Guild Wars 2 I was kinda missing the feeling of achieving something with a huge group of players.

Now we have Tequatl. And let me tell you, as soon as you accept that you need to work together as a community, this boss is a hell of a fun. Guild Wars 2 needs more of Tequatl’s caliber.

We need bosses that demand communication and organization. We need bosses that punish egoism. And we need epic encounters that people will remember. The design of the world bosses, their appearance and the whole theme of fighting the dragons aims at this very thing. It is just the rewards and the encounters themselves, which need a proper rework.

One of those bosses that are severely broken is the Shatterer. I think we all know how the Shatterer is currently done. And I also think we all want something more.
So, if you have some time, enjoy the following concept and feel free to discuss, suggest or talk about it.

Edit: Made the post a bit shorter.
Edit: I thought I could add a little eye catcher. I have been thinking more about the rewards associated with Tequatl and possible rewards or reward system for the new Shatterer.
I know it takes time to make new skins. Time that is needed elsewhere. However I also think that world bosses deserve at least some skins. Not a full set maybe but some special skins spread over the various weapon types would be a nice addition.

I will add more stuff to this post or this thread eventually. For now, a concept for an axe skin.

The Shatterer

1 General Concept
2 The Fight
2.1 Phase 1
2.2 Phase 2 / Aerial Phase
2.3 Phase 3 / Maze Phase
3 Cannons
3 Rewards

1 General Concept

The Shatterer is a powerful champion of Kralkatorrik. As his master he commands over crystals and the corrupting fire that caused the Dragonbrand. The general concept of the fight will revolve around this very corruption.
Players will face a slow and painful process of crystallization, devastating attacks of fire and crystals, waves of branded minions and all sorts of dangerous crystals.

The way players have to work together here will be kinda similar to the current Tequatl fight. There needs to be communication between different teams and positioning will be extremely important.

While Tequatl has two mechanics that require the players to defense structures there is only one defensive mechanic and a rather offensive one.

But, just like Tequatl there will be phases the players will have to survive and complete in order to win.

The fight against the Shatterer requires something around 100-150 players. The fight will involve the Shatterer, various branded minions, special branded champions, four cannons and two artillery commanders.

2 The Fight

2.1 Phase 1

100-75% / xx%-50% / xx%-25% / xx%-0%

When the fight starts the Shatterer will land as usual.

The most important skill is Crystallizing Presence. As it can be seen in picture I the skill’s range spans almost the entire area. The skill will have a significantly higher range as player skills have. Crystallizing Presence adds one stack of Crystallization to each player in range every few seconds. Once the stacks reach a certain number the player is caught in a crystalline prison.

A second skill the Shatterer is using in the first phase is Pulsing Crystal. Pulsing Crystal spawns a pulsing crystal at a random location in front of the Shatterer.

Pulsing crystals as well as Crystalline Prisons empower the Shatterer granting him one stack of Empowerment. Once the Shatterer has a certain number of stacks he will cast a devastating attack that should almost kill players in range. This Chaotic Pulse will on the one hand consume the stacks of Empowerment and on the other hand destroy Crystalline Prisons or Pulsing Crystals equal to the number of stacks consumed.

The real problem now is this: Crystallization can only be removed by a special attack from the cannons. This attack is Screeching Grenade. Crystalline Prisons and Pulsing Crystals can only be destroyed by this attack as well.

This ensures, that players will fight and move in front of the dragon, because as you can see in picture II and III the range of the cannons only spans across a limited area. People will have to move to pulsing crystals in order to get their stacks removed. Crystalline prisons need to be announced so the cannons can destroy them properly. If too many players move around outside the cannon’s range they will quickly end up in crystalline prisons, empower the Shatterer and wipe the whole group.

While people try to fight the slow crystallization they will have to deal with three other attacks as well. One of them is the current breath attack where the Shatterer spits fire on the area in front of him. Those projectiles will be block- and reflectable.

The current Impale will be there as well. Now that players need to be in front of him it will be quite dangerous.

The last skill he will use is Crystalline Chaos. This is a trail skill as some might know it from other fights or bosses. Players affected by Crystalline Chaos will lose stacks of crystallization and spawn exploding crystal shards for every stack lost. Those people need to run away from others or they will quickly blow up the zerg or group.

Once players have damaged the Shatterer to 75% he will lift up. This starts phase 2 and ends Crystallizing Presence. The timer for the whole fight will be paused, just as it does at the Tequatl encounter.

2.2 Phase 2 / Aerial Phase

75% / 50% / 25%

In this phase the Shatterer tries to let his branded do his dirty work. He sends out huge masses of minions that try to destroy the cannons and players defending it.
There will be champions, kamikaze minions and a huge load of regular enemies.

This phase requires the use of snares, cripples, walls and every skill the players have to stop the branded from reaching the cannons. If a cannon gets destroyed it will be repaired by Charr mechanics. However, this will take until phase 1 starts again.

On a side note: This works as a, as I like to call it, “soft fail mechanic”. When you failed to defend a battery or the Megalaser at the Tequatl encounter the whole zerg gets wiped. This is a “hard fail” mechanic where failing results in a completely missed damage phase and thus, in most cases, a failed fight. On the new Shatterer you will be able to do phase 3 even when you failed to defend all the cannons, if there is at least one cannon still alive. This ensures that one bad phase 2 doesn’t automatically result in a failed fight.

When all waves are defeated the Shatterer will land and phase 3 will start.

2.3 Phase 3 / Maze Phase

75%-xx% / 50%-xx% / 25%-xx%

When the aerial phase ends the Shatterer is exhausted and tries to defend himself with two powerful skills. When he lands the first skill he will cast is Chaotic Cascade. Chaotic Cascade deals 10 000 damage to every player in range every 2 seconds. With the start of Chaotic Cascade he will also cast Crystalline Cascade. This will spawn a maze of three different types of crystals around the Shatterer. When the maze is completely spawned Chaotic Cascade will end.

Unstable Crystals will be small and deadly. Players coming near them will be instantly killed.

Stable Crystals will be bigger and indestructible.

The third type of crystals are actually powerful branded minions caught in a crystalline prison. Those prisons will automatically burst as soon as a player comes near them, releasing a powerful branded champion with knockback attacks.

All of those crystals are immune to player’s attacks. Unstable Crystals however can be destroyed by the cannons. In order to do this the players need to gather Resonating Crystals from branded packs around the crystal maze. The Resonating Crystals will be just like the kegs in Keg Brawl. Being fast is key in this phase. The phase will have a separate timer that starts as soon as the maze is completely spawned. This means, the faster the players build a way through the maze the more damage they can do.

When the cannons shot a way through the maze players must use the time to damage the Shatterer as much as possible. While being exhausted the Shatterer will suffer additional damage.

Once the timer for this phase runs out the Shatterer will wake up and phase 1 will start again.

3. Cannons

Cannons will play an important role in this fight. There are four cannons in this fight that need to be operated properly.

One new thing is, that the cannons do have a method to buff the zerg, but not as easy as the Hylek Turrets could. The cannons can create a fire field that applies swiftness, but in order to gain might from it players need to use combo finishers.

In phase 1 the main job of the cannons is to destroy Pulsing Crystals and Crystalline Prisons as well as “shower” off Crystallization from players.

There is room for a mechanic, that requires the cannons to save themselves as well to spice things up. A possible mechanic would be, that the cannons can get crystallized by the Shatterer and need to be shot free by other cannons.

In phase 2 the cannons will have to do as much damage as possible to stop the waves from reaching them.

In phase 3 the cannons can support the nearest teams with damage but will mainly have to wait for the Resonating Crystals to come in. Once they shot a way through the maze, which will require a lot of communication to be effective they can support the zerg by doing damage to the Shatterer as well as buffing the zerg.

4. Rewards

This part is just a compilation of tips and hints for you ArenaNet.

Players want to play – Give us fun stuff. We love fun stuff. Give us a fun item that crystallizes us or produces a crystalline prison around us. Give us a everlasting potion that transforms us into a branded or makes us burn with purple flames. There is more fun stuff than just minis.

Players want loot not load – More rewards don’t mean better rewards. Don’t drown us with green stuff. Instead of 10 greens just give us one yellow.

Players want fairness – Add a daily token system to the world bosses. Players can exchange tokens for materials or currency, or, save them up for special rewards like minis or skins.

So, that’s it for now. Let’s see what you guys think.

And please excuse any strange grammar or spelling. I hope everything is understandable.

So far so good nice concept, but i see some problems.
First of all how can you organise more then one “Open World Raid” and how can you schedule these Raids?
Besides on the non crowded servers there are problems with getting an organised raid together. But i have to agree that teq has revived the active community a little.
How about joined servers for boss events if the server is not crowded or couldnt do the boss for more then one week?
Anyways thanks for your effort im looking forward to maybe see some of these ideas implemented in the new shatterer fight.

Very nice concept. And yes – shatterer needs some love. But i see a problem with the maze-phase: a mesmer could lay a portal by the shatterer when he comes down, port to the waypoint, run to the zerg and lay the second portal when chaotic cascade ends. So, the zerg could use the complete damage-phase without dealing with the maze.

Jaya.2760:

Very nice concept. And yes – shatterer needs some love. But i see a problem with the maze-phase: a mesmer could lay a portal by the shatterer when he comes down, port to the waypoint, run to the zerg and lay the second portal when chaotic cascade ends. So, the zerg could use the complete damage-phase without dealing with the maze.

That’s what I intended Chaotic Cascade for. Now that you wrote it I checked how long the portals are standing and I kinda agree that this might become a problem.

There would be two ways to fix this.

One way would be that the maze is very tight around him. This way it would be possible to use portals, but, they would be every hard to use and the cannons would still need to destroy at least some Unstable Crystals.

The other way would be, that Chaotic Pulse just lasts longer than just until the maze is created.

Both ways would offer the portals as a clever use of class mechanics without breaking the encounter too much. As long as it doesn’t break the whole phase using Mesmers as an advantage would be okay for me.

Edit: I just had an idea for another method. The Chaotic Cascade could be powered by a fourth type of Crystals that are randomly scattered across the maze. This way the zerg would still need to gather some resonating crystals before they could use portals. This could also take enough time to make any possible portals run out.

In short. I think there are various ways to ensure portals don’t break the maze mechanic.

Love the game plan drawings, pictures help explain a lot better. The only suggestions I would make is not making the flying phase so similar to the tequatl flying phase and making the event only occur when enough players report it, otherwise we get what tequatl is like these days.. not enough people.. Each dragon should be unique in its fight. Otherwise loved the read ^^

NinjaEd.3946:

Love the game plan drawings, pictures help explain a lot better. The only suggestions I would make is not making the flying phase so similar to the tequatl flying phase and making the event only occur when enough players report it, otherwise we get what tequatl is like these days.. not enough people.. Each dragon should be unique in its fight. Otherwise loved the read ^^

You know, I see it that way: the dragons can fly so they should fly. The dragons command armies of minions, so they should command.
All the dragons have some unique form of corruption they use to create armies.

Of course you are right, every dragon deserves a unique thing to his fight. In this case I intended the maze and the crystallization to be the unique factor.

I like the idea of a shatterer rework. Personally if we could use what happened in the beta it’d be great in that dead players would come back as branded versions of themselves(complete with new skillbars) who would then have to go after the living players.

Basically dead players PvP live ones trying to kill the shatterer.

Shanaeri Rynale.6897:

I like the idea of a shatterer rework. Personally if we could use what happened in the beta it’d be great in that dead players would come back as branded versions of themselves(complete with new skillbars) who would then have to go after the living players.

Basically dead players PvP live ones trying to kill the shatterer.

Mechanics like that would be fun, indeed. However, you need to provide a motivation for the dead players to actually fight the live ones. Just for the lulz might be enough for some trolls, but not enough for everyone.

A simple solution would be, that, like it has been done in other games, the player loses control over his character. As far as I know there is no such mechanic implemented in the game right now. (Speaking of complete control here. Think of Mind Control on WoW.)

Not a bad concept. I would like to see a Shatterer Mini.

Very nice fight for real world boss.
Very impressive picture you have.
Creative event and must have to change.

But

-Not friendly event for most random people on server.Or low number player server.
-Must add more choice for fight not only way to defeat.
You must1 2 3 4 5 can’t think out of box you can’t 5 4 3 2 1 or 2 then 5 or add 7 8 9to you.
-Make it friendly way to fight love to come whatever it’s up.
“It’s challange let’s do this” , “We can try one more time” , “Shatter up jump in!!”
not
“if you not on ***server forget this kitten you can’t make it” , “Try to do and forget this event untill gw4 come out” , “No core people come noone do it”.
-1misstake pay your life even you have700k HP.
(Then throw out HP system and use heart in SAB system it more reasonable)
-Give more change for downstate player sunless is better example
you down=go to WP noone have time to rest you=don’t die again you moron…

Another idea..

Add more support from NPC.(we not alone and we have more choice if you do.)
You can do event without help but if sometime give your life better you will have it?

-The pact if you guys help them BEFORE event start the pact will send back up with full support banner protect in aera.
-Iron/Blood/Ash Legions.We fight on Charr land they must send they support if you have contract them(little event around)Those 3 will come and help aid to fight repair subject fire heavy support from backline help player solve some problem.
-Ascalon soul,well you fight on ascalon place those vengeful spirit not stay still they will come to join party too and they look both as enemy,yes!! and it make more chaos.
If you help iron legion/pact(small event)build anti ghost station they will not see player as enemy.
-If dragon too powerful player MUST crip them break them cut them make them weak in middle of phease fight,Brake his wing/tail/horn/claw/jaw to make more way to go and pop another way Boss fight.
-More killing toy on field not only cannon it random pop ascalon weapon/shatter fragment it can use in another way.
-back then,If you are dragon and today your wing is broken what are you trying to do?If those mortal try to open warp you will let’s them happen?OMG my tail was cut and my power control is in my tail my minion is out of control how can I handle this!!
Think like a Boss!!

Silverkung.9127:

But
-Not friendly event for most random people on server.Or low number player server.
-Make it friendly way to fight love to come whatever it’s up.
“It’s challange let’s do this” , “We can try one more time” , “Shatter up jump in!!”
not “if you not on ***server forget this kitten you can’t make it” , “Try to do and forget this event untill gw4 come out” , “No core people come noone do it”.

What you posted there is very interesting. Let me explain why.

Juts today it happened, that the Tequatl farm community (as described in the first post we are 100% random) failed to kill Tequatl at around 13pm I think. We went on to kill the Karka Queen as we always do and then, almost 60 minutes before the next Tequatl, we already had around 40 people stuck in Sparkfly Fen overflow. I myself wasn’t on overflow and sent two people to Elona Reach and Abbadon’s Mouth to see if we can start a second run on either of the two worlds. I decided for Abbadon’s Mouth and we went there.
When we arrived I sent people to Lion’s Arch to promote it. Abbadon’s Sparkfly Fen was a graveyard, no people there except for us. After about 5 minutes the map was full and we successfully killed Tequatl. All this with random players some of which haven’t even killed Tequatl yet.

Why am I writing such a long post? Because in my humble opinion I think that everyone can kill and farm a boss like Tequatl or my version of the Shatterer. There are enough players out there who can, thanks to guesting, play everywhere they want. The things that prevent players from being successful at farming such a boss aren’t numbers. Such bosses aren’t killed with strategies or equipment. You actually just need social competence to kill them. And as I see it there are plenty of players out there who underestimate what they can achieve if they play the social side of GW2.

What you describe in you post is what we all know from overflow. Flaming and hating without anything productive coming from it. I just don’t see this being the fault of the boss. I see this as the fault of the players. I am not saying “L2P”. I am saying “L2Socialize”.

Edit: I hope this doesn’t come of as if I am saying “L2anything” to you or to anyone. In short I just meant that I don’t see the problems with the bosses but with the communities. I don’t tell anyone to learn anything.

Thank you phild.7862 for answer me.
I think I will fire up to learn more about socialize and more commu with people.

Seems like a fun encounter. I’d definitely like to try this.

Good suggestions. We need more stuff like that.

Very impressive. So much work put into visualization via graphics and pictures. I can see some common things with WoW bosses, but I totally like it since they’re fun. Honestly, I’d play that more than one, same like rest of community, that’s for sure.
Once again great, solid german work ^^.

Thanks for the feedback.
I chuckled when I read Rym’s post and the part about solid german work.

I am definitely not just writing this to get the thread back to page 1 btw. :P

Looks great! Let’s hope Anet is taking some notes!

What’s most important, regardless of how they change him, is that they spread people out. I even thought of giving his feet a seperate health bar and you need to lower them all to get to a next phase, but that can be done through more interesting mechanics as well.

Cannons need love, placement needs more spread out, minions need to be tougher and have little mechanics themselves (the minions at The Claw for instance are not far off during the 2nd phase for them to be interesting).

Overall good job on this though!

Thanks for the feedback again.

I have to agree. When I made the concept and checked the area I kinda had the same concern Direksone is voicing here.
We all know what we get when there are too many players crowded in a small area. In my concept a huge portion of the fight takes place in front of the Shatterer.

I think the only simple solution would be to have to defend the cannons in phase 1 against adds with static numbers i.e. add waves that don’t scale up or down and always require a certain number of players.

The problem with such mechanics is that you want to get players away from the dragon while still providing a feeling of participation. It is not impossible to achieve this, but it is very hard.

Ok, i had a text, far over 5k Words, that the editor wouldn’t let me post… and tbh… i don’t need to… so its probably for the better
It contained all those detailled thoughts of how phase 1 and 3 were horrible, and how to overhaul em, but… thats not what this should be about.

So heres my idea to this:
Thank you for working on this, honestly, you did a decent job of designing a fight, but… do we need to do this? Honestly? I don’t think so.

A-Net have proven by now, that they can handle a challenge, and the new Teq fight was just that. There is so much stuff in that fight alone that was brilliant – design wise. So I’m sure were in good hands, even if we don’t give em concrete ideas and concepts of how fights should be mapped out

All we, as players, actually need to do, is give em inspiration – tell em what we liked and what we didn’t like – and mb give vague thoughts about what direction we want the game to take in the future. We don’t need to write their game, we just need to play it

For me this is fairly easy to summarize:
Id love the living story to actually… get going… (this sounds so weird)
I want more focus on the dragons, i really wanna know how it all ties together, i wanna know more – instead of running from scarlet chaos to … well… other scarlet chaos – without seeing the ties or the reason. I mean… her invasions didn’t even do anything… it was literally just to cause chaos… i don’t see the bigger picture… or at least i hope i am the only one not seing it T_T
If for what ever reason, while pushing the world story farther, you get the chance to rework the Shatterer, possibly before the end of the year, that would be a dream come true… pretty much… and i agree, the world bosses give GW2 the possibility of raid bosses, without actually needing raids.
But if it doesn’t – we still have A LOT of elder dragon fights to look forward to. When we get there, well probably have our ultra late game raid boss content, so im not too worried about that.
I’m more worried at the moment that we’re not gonna see any more elder dragons, because of this “civil war on the sentient races” that scarlet seems to be leading for no particular reason whatsoever X_X

Greetings from Riverside

BlindGirl.3428:

So heres my idea to this:
Thank you for working on this, honestly, you did a decent job of designing a fight, but… do we need to do this? Honestly? I don’t think so.

Let me summarize.

You wanted to write how horrible my concept was.
Then you abandoned the idea and instead wrote how useless my concept is.
Then you tell us that having ideas, sharing them and discussing them is all together useless.
All that while talking about everything but the new Shatterer concept.
To be honest I would have preferred the critique over what you wrote.

Also just two things for you:
Do I need to know how to build a street to identify a road hole? No.
And does having a certain job mean you are automatically good at it or above critique? Also No.

Yeah this is a suggestion sub forum, don’t bash people for suggesting. In fact several suggestions in the past have taken effect. You may not see them but if you used the forums as intended you would know.

One thing phild on the “lose control” part of becoming a branded, I think it could work even if no such thing exists atm.

We have spectator mode, so a camera following another player (or mob) is doable, all that is really needed is an animation of us resurrecting as a branded and going to fight things. Maybe an idea would be similar to the legendary jellyfish in fractals where it eats you.

You try to break free, and if you succeed the branded influence shatterers damaging nearby players or they can kill you and free you of the influence. Ofc #1 is a bad result for the zerg but good for you because you release earlier, and #2 is vice versa. Either way you die once the branded influence has left you but it does two things.

1. Takes away player dps, the longer they are branded/dead the less time they’re being used against the Shatterer.

2. Gives the zerg more side objectives, while the turrets will be needed, it’s also vital to raise the down more than before (tequatl) or finish the branded re-animations off.

The risk being if too many player’s are running around as branded, you kinda start to feel a pinch from them, that’s the incentive to kill them.

Yeah, I mean tbh I totally love the idea of players becoming branded and fighting the normal players. I think this was kinda hard to read from my post.

It is just that such a corruption will hardly work if the players have full control over their character. How you described it NinjaEd would be totally doable though.

Then again being branded is nothing reversible as far as I know. Now that I wrote this, it sounds almost perfect for a future story element regarding Kralkatorrik. You know, some Asura doing research on the branding etc..
I’d say the branded players should just be killed not released when their branded counterpart gets killed. (Just nitpicking at this point.)

Very nice I’m impressed.

I dont know why, but somehow i knew youd react that way.

First off: I didn’t intend to “bash” anyone.
I misjudged my wording when i put the “horrible phase 1 and 3” before the “decent fight” passage. I never said your concept was horrible, i actually said it was decent – but phase 1 and 3 need major reworking for it to work out (Details later since you seem to want those).

I also never said we shouldn’t make suggestions. Think about A-Nets dev team, why they do what they do. They probably have as much fun creating those concepts as you and me have (and i have fun with that, otherwise the 5k+ word block wouldn’t have happened, and neither would your post) – and by now they probably have more ideas for fights than we can think of.

All i actually said was that we should keep it more general, like: “what do you guys think of a crystal prison mechanic that stacks over time in a fight” – as that is what id like to hear as a dev – instead of “hey, i got this fight done you can implement”.

“Do I need to know how to build a street to identify a road hole? No.” That was kind of exactly what i was saying – we don’t need to build their street, we just have to tell them about the holes we find.

Also i never said anyone was above critique, i said they did good before, and i trust em to do it again in the future – if they fail we can tell em what went wrong, and get on with it.

Lastly: I didn’t even go off topic, you started the thread with how you’d like a shatterer rework, and i said that i agreed, but only as long as it wouldn’t hinder the living story from finally getting somewhere.

I honestly hope i could shed a little light on the situaion – i never ment to be disrespectful or even hurtful, if it came out any other way im sorry about that.

more next post, since i kinda know this is gonna be long…

So, now to the fighting phases, mainly 1 and 3, and why i think they have… issues…

Phase 1:
Crystalline Prison is essentially another downed state. That in itself is not that bad – problem is: it lacks counter play on a per player basis. Its essentially like having Teqs fingers shoot irreflectable instagib fields in terms of counter play. This is also the first time in your concept you want the few cannoniers to have total control over how the zerg works out. If the canons fail to shatter the crystals, its all over.
The Teq fight did this a lot better in terms of counterplay on a per player basis: you see the projectile? You dodge! You see the tendril rise? Feedback! Even as a player in the zerg, you have options.
Second: Players can get immobilized and crystal-stunned while not in cleanse range? What if that happens? Is the player then supposed to just sit there and watch the rest fail without his “critical help”? Every single player wants to feel special. Dodging waves or poisonous fields does that exactly, every one feels good when we bridge that next obstacle. But having a timer to our doom that we don’t have any control over is not the best idea. Also this forces the zergs to stack up even more – for an easier cleanse target.
GW2’s biggest strength is all the movement that is possible. Moving while casting and dodging around is an amazing concept for a MMO so why not use that in this phase?

On to the second phase: I like it – a lot. Having a good old zombie defense never gets… well… old.

So, on to the third phase:
Make everything invincible to player dmg and again put the main focus on the cannons… sounds like a plan… cough
Same reason as before: Players need to do something fun OR frustrating all the time – and should never be punished for not doing anything wrong. Having to collect stuff while waiting is like being punished, its the same as whiping and having to run back to the teq fight – gameplay wise.

A-Net keeps saying they want the players to always have fun, and no period of waiting for the fun to start. I agree with that concept.
You could have the cannons weaken the crystal shells, and the players then smash the weakened crystals, instead of having the zerg stand around while the canons clear the way.
You could have smaller crystals spawn that the players can throw at the Crystal walls in front, in order to take em out. Just give the mob something interesting to do that has direct results, rather than indirect.

Speaking of indirect results: the canons have too much responsibility without having a tangible impact on the situation.
Lets assume the cannons do their job here: The zerg will happily DPS until the next phase starts, while the cannons will be pretty much invisible. You dont really get stronger from them, unless you combo with their fire, but in the zerg it wont really matter whose fire it is you just stacked your might with. All they really do is keep a number on your screen low. So the reward for being a cannon is… not there. You know you did a good job, but no one else really does.

Now lets see what happens if they don’t do their job: You have a ton of frozen players that have all the time in the world to think and rage about why the canon group are brain dead monkeys. For the zerg player “all they need to do is spam cleanse” – i mean… how hard can that be, right?

Again, thats really well thought through on the Teq fight: The cannons don’t stop the fields from appearing, or the fingers from shooting – they cleanse the effect the fingers have – its more of a “come to save the day” situation here, and it was forced by design.

Rest on third post i guess… X_X

So, to summarize: Canons do too much, mechanics lack counter play on the individual level and force frustration over a special group of people, while not giving players incentive to criticize themselves, aka: “oh my – im terrible at dodging those waves X_X”

To make it better try to think about how things affect each other on a worst case per player base, as that’s how every one plays this game – think: how would most people feel if they got into this situation? Is this something i want players to feel?

I honestly hope this didn’t end out to be too much of a bash – this is why i didn’t want to do this… this sounds like a thousand words of me saying: “your design sucks” – even though i don’t intend it to sound like it.

I like the idea of reworking the Shatterer, i like that you took so much time to think about all this different mechanics, and i really like the idea of each boss having his own little special rewards – just like in GW1 – not to mention that tasty axe design

Greetings from Riverside

dude, are you a project manager? I could see you setting up a slide presentation for some big names. a high quality portfolio there dude.

BlindGirl.3428:

Its essentially like having Teqs fingers shoot irreflectable instagib fields in terms of counter play.

Crystalline Prisons only occur once a player has a certain number of stacks of Crystallization. There is nothing instant about the whole mechanic.

BlindGirl.3428:

This is also the first time in your concept you want the few cannoniers to have total control over how the zerg works out. If the canons fail to shatter the crystals, its all over.

If the Cannons fail to shatter the prisons or the pulsing crystals it is not all over. It is just a massive damage spike due to Chaotic Pulse that will most likely kill a few players.

BlindGirl.3428:

Players can get immobilized and crystal-stunned while not in cleanse range? What if that happens? Is the player then supposed to just sit there and watch the rest fail without his “critical help”?

Crystalline Prisons get destroyed when the Shatterer casts Chaotic Pulse. Chaotic Pulse consumes stacks of Empowerment. For every stack it consumes it destroys the related pulsing crystal or prison.

Secondly, this mechanic ensures, that players have to fight in front of the Shatterer. If people are fighting from anywhere but in front of him they will get caught in prisons and quickly wipe the group. Yes.

BlindGirl.3428:

Also this forces the zergs to stack up even more – for an easier cleanse target.

The melees will have to move out of the cannon range to do damage and back into it to get their stacks of Crystallization cleansed. This means we will have at least two groups, just as we have it with the most common Tequatl strategies right now.

BlindGirl.3428:

Make everything invincible to player dmg and again put the main focus on the cannons… sounds like a plan… cough

Not everything is invincible. There are, as it can be seen in the pictures, groups of branded around the maze that need to be killed.

BlindGirl.3428:

Having to collect stuff while waiting is like being punished, its the same as whiping and having to run back to the teq fight – gameplay wise. (…)
You could have the cannons weaken the crystal shells, and the players then smash the weakened crystals, instead of having the zerg stand around while the canons clear the way.You could have smaller crystals spawn that the players can throw at the Crystal walls in front, in order to take em out. Just give the mob something interesting to do that has direct results, rather than indirect.

The players have to constantly collect Resonating Crystals and throw them from position to position. Every shot of a cannon consumes one Resonating Crystal. There is no waiting as you describe it. Players will have to fight champions and normal branded as fast as possible and play basketball with the Resonating Crystals.

BlindGirl.3428:

Lets assume the cannons do their job here: The zerg will happily DPS until the next phase starts, while the cannons will be pretty much invisible.

This is just like with the current Tequatl damage phase. The cannons use their skill 4 two times and do some damage. (Assuming you are talking about phase 3)

BlindGirl.3428:

You dont really get stronger from them, unless you combo with their fire, but in the zerg it wont really matter whose fire it is you just stacked your might with. All they really do is keep a number on your screen low. So the reward for being a cannon is… not there. You know you did a good job, but no one else really does.

Again I have to compare with the current Tequatl. No one knows when the Hylek Turrets did a good job. Most people don’t even understand what exactly they are doing.
Again a comparison: the Hylek Turrets just apply might directly. The fire field would force players to use the combo field mechanic.

BlindGirl.3428:

Now lets see what happens if they don’t do their job: You have a ton of frozen players that have all the time in the world to think and rage about why the canon group are brain dead monkeys. For the zerg player “all they need to do is spam cleanse” – i mean… how hard can that be, right?

When the Hylek Turrets fail to do their job we have a ton of dead players or a bone wall. However, flaming and insulting each other is not the fault of the encounter.

Oh, you edited that out… thank you for that
I was really sad to see that reaction, but its all good now ^^

Ok, since i have no idea how to comment on stuff, i’m just gonna use numbers here.

1. Considering the thing the player can actually do to stop it, apart from passively letting a cannon hit him, it is. For that to be different, you’d have to incorporate some kind of counter-play. Lets not just stack it up passively, but stack it up with something the player has control over. Like when the Dragon breath or the shockwave hit you, you get stacks. Or he randomly spawns areas in front of him that stack players up when they are in em. Good players can dodge roll and avoid that, and feel good about themselves for it, without having to rely on the cannons, while the bad players, who can’t dodge as well, get stacked up and frozen, until someone shatters em.

2. I was speaking of a major fail from the canons in the first fighting phase. Like… 2 canons empty, 2 filled with trolls, leading to everyone being frozen in ice without anything the frontline can actually do against that.

3. My fault entirely, i completely skipped that for whatever reason – i plead insomnia induced temporary insanity… that was one of the biggest no-goes, too, it all makes so much more sense now – people don’t just freeze until their account expires… O_O

4. Interesting concept with the melees running back and forth… but wouldn’t that just be abused by people saying: PACK RANGE! Because that allows for the far cleaner phase? Also: is the bonus in melee dmg worth it, if you have to stop every now and then to run back and get the cleanse?
Stuff to think about – theory-crafting is haaard X_X

5. Ok, sorry, wrong formulation here: make everything important invincible. The thing with the counter play again here: Instant death caused by an irreflectable, non-timed source causes frustration. So does not being able to get to the vulnerable target, because a cannon misses the shot.
Also I’m a bit worried the instant-death-shards might be a good way for trolls to just whipe a huge group of players if they try that.
And third – considering how annoying Sparkfly gets when Teq hasn’t been defeated and the fish are around… there’s gory bloody death everywhere… and that place isn’t even a maze…
This sounds like a fun idea for a 5 man dungeon – fighting enemies in confined space with detonating mines all around, waiting to punish each and every wrong step… but i cant really imagine that on such a huge scale… the fight is massive, large enough that most models cant be rendered at the same time, and so many people crowd the area that its hard to act on any visual cue. Might be just me though…

Second Part follows, silly limit X_X

Ok, heres the rest:

6. So even on the… “dmg phase” branded are gonna pour into the player base and annoy them? Interesting idea… i kinda like it… Leaves the problem of how to make sure the “solve time” is roughly the same for each try? I take it the maze is gonna be somewhat random? Ill have to think about this some more… hmmm… getting highly technical here though… could just leave it at that…

Well… I still think an easier approach might work here, too… like… just let the players bash through the crystals, without giving em any real meaning for the dmg phase… with a time of like 10 seconds for fast groups, up to like… 18 for slow ones or so, with anything after up to 40 seconds to just do free dmg to him.

Got another Question here, too… how would you handle players just running to where hes gonna land, before the crystals spawn? Just kill them all with chaotic cascade? How would you handle invincibility there? Does he – like Teq – take additional Dmg in that phase? Because 5 eles just running there with invul. and starting the head-bashing with flame swords and summons might throw the fights balance off quite a bit… just like powder is doing right now. Mb give chaotic cascade a knockback effect that pushes players out of the maze… but then again… invul+stability would solve that, too… highly specific problem again though, so not really that urgent unless this really gets into the game.

7. Sorry, unclear again – i was referring to phase 1. The cannons are close to invisible there, to the players. If everything goes well they remove stacks, if it doesn’t… well… xD

8. Well… idk… it’s not that easy to miss when the whole melee zerg gets cleansed from like 4 field thingies in the current Teq fight. And the Tequatl fields are pretty much the same as the crystals – they are intended to slow player progress and be a reasonable danger in the fight. The difference being: on Tequatl the cannons don’t stop the fields from appearing, they just cleanse them. That’s a clear visual cue showing: a person just helped you!

Going back, if it doesn’t just… happen passively but has a mechanic to it, people are reminded that the cleanse thingie exists, and forced to check their status bar for it all the time. That might be enough here… im not sure though…

and 9th:

That’s the interesting part, it kind of is sometimes
On Tequatl players have the option of just… getting out. They tumble to the side and are out of harms way. When the turrets fail, that is still an option. When the bone wall comes up, its the Zergs who mostly DPS it down, not the cannons.
But when half the frontline is iced out of the fight, they have a pause, in which they are able to think something else than: “skill 1, skill 5, skill 1, skill 3, dodge, skill 1” – as they actually cant do anything. Having a breathing pause in a situation that feels like is not even your fault is a pretty toxic environment. People have the time to flame chat and be mad, instead of doing something productive.
When ever a person is downed / long term stunned / whatever, it is important for them to feel like it was at least partially their fault they are in that situation. Otherwise they just shed all blame and don’t learn anything from it.

I partially agree with you here, it shouldn’t be the devs fault when people are ill mouthed or otherwise toxic, but i find the thought amazing, that you can make people like each other more, just by not putting em in situations where they are unhappy with each other.

And last, because i might’ve sounded like a major pain in the kitten (btw. i love how the forums make every fowl word just… kitten) before:

I like your work, and i like you (at least from what i’ve heard from you on the ts up to now), and i think its really examplary of you to put so much work into seeing a game we all love mb get just that bit better – and for trying to open a portal to the devs, hoping they may answer our calls.
I know i tend to come off as arrogant and condescending, because of the way i formulate things. That’s not my intent. You asked my opinion, and nice people are worth long texts, and also deserve the truth… i tried to deliver on both.
Misreading/Overreading the whole “gets shattered when Shatterer does his AOE” didn’t help at all X_X

I’m sorry i got you so worked up – that was not my intend at all

Hope we’re good now

P.S. I CANT BELIEVE I COMPLETELY MISSED THAT PART o0

See, now we are discussing the concept and possible mechanics for the Shatterer.

As I see it you have two concerns.
One is Crystallization not providing something for the players to actively counterplay.

The other one is the maze phase not providing enough ways for the players to participate in the main mechanic i.e. the shooting your way through the maze.
On a sidenote you voiced a concern about Chaotic Cascade. Let me answer to that first.

Chaotic Cascade’s sole purpose is to get players away from the area where the maze will spawn. I know the main problem will be people that can bypass that mechanic via stability or mesmer portals.
However I think there is an easy and a not so easy fix for this.
As I already wrote in a different post Chaotic Cascade can last much longer and even, as you suggested, knock players back. There are immunity and stability skills, but none of them lasts longer than some seconds as far as I know and chain immunity is not possible.
This would be a easy fix against players trying to stay at the boss.
The not so easy fix would require a slight overhaul of the phase.

Alternate Maze Phase

The Shatterer lands and starts to cast Chaotic Cascade. Then he starts to cast Crystal Cascade and the maze begins to spawn.

Players can damage Unstable Crystals but deal reduced damage to them.

There are five packs of powerful branded enemies defending Huge Resonating Crystals around the maze. Players need to defeat the packs to gain Resonating Shards and Resonating Crystals. Resonating Crystals need to be brought to the cannons as usual. They deal increased damage to crystalline structures. Resonating Shards can be used by players to also deal increased damage to crystalline structures.

Once all the Huge Resonating Crystals are destroyed Chaotic Cascade ends.

First priority is to end the Chaotic Cascade. Second priority is to shoot a way through the maze. Players need to coordinate to not waste shards or crystals.
The tricky part here is to balance the number of shards and crystals. Players should need to work together in order to reach the Shatterer. There should be enough shards and crystals for about two ways through the maze. If people try to build more ways they will fail to reach the Shatterer.

As for the problem with Crystallization I actually like your idea.

Alternate Crystallization
Crystallization stacks much slower. Skills like Breath and Impale apply stacks of Crystallization. Players will still be most likely caught in a prison if they don’t fight in front of him. But, if they avoid all additional stacks players will only have to get them removed once or twice a phase.

What do you think about those two alternatives?

I like those a loooot more

The dmg to the unstable crystals takes a bit of responsibility from the canons and allow their players to fight their own way through the maze, as long as not too many of those are stacked at one place. This should shift the main danger towards the branded packs. The Huge resonating crystals (hrc) will give players a clear goal to fight towards. Also players who don’t wanna throw the crystals around have the option to start clearing the path to the next hrc.

Also the Shatterer channeling chaotic cascade until the hrc’s are down completely negates any potential of getting to him early.

Only problem left i see right now is the insta-kill from the unstable crystals and their troll potential towards players. You could make the unstable crystals give the players stacks of crystalization instead – since the shatterer is not doing anything in that phase worst case scenario would be like 20 frozen players blocking the way – something the cannons can easily fix. It would waste players time without being fish-head-frustrating. Also in this case well playing canons could balance “bad” players out, while well playing zergs could take pressure from the cannons.

The Alternate Crystallization forces players to move a bit more while simultaneously allowing the melee group to do their job that tad more efficiently, playing out GW2’s strength and again taking a bit of responsibility from the cannons. So the only way to “really” fail this horribly now is both parties messing up – and when everyone messes up on a raid like this its okay it would fail.

I mean… its the same in the Tequatl fight: if the melee mob ignores the fingers and doesn’t cast a single projectile-destroyer AND the cannons don’t cleanse, a lot of players will die to the dps. Those mechanics are healthy and provide opportunity for teamwork, while at the same time not putting direct blame on anyone who “didn’t do their job” as there’s always multiple safeguards.

Ok, long text short, like i said before: i like it. Still a bit worried about instagib crystals, but other than that this sounds like a ton of fun now

About the Unstable Crystals. Someone had a problem understanding them earlier.

So, just to make it clear. They function the same way as the spikey fields in the Super Adventure Box hardmode did. If you come near them you get killed.
This is just to ensure, that players can’t just jump through the maze.

I’m not sure what trolling potential you mean there.

Maybe I will edit those changes into the concept if I find the time. Right now studying is keeping me busy.

Also, I would love to hear more critique, feedback and suggestions from everyone here!

Oh, i thought they would work like the fish heads after Teq. – meaning: trigger radius < explosion. Trolls could wait until enough players are in the explosion radius and then walk into the trigger.

But if its just essentially an “enter here and you die”-zone… why not just block the path?

I thought it would be much safer this way.

Invisible walls or physical obstacles could produce all sorts of bugs.
People getting stuck between spawning crystals.
People getting stuck under spawning crystals.
People exploiting mechanics to jump over them or end up on top of them.
Etc.

I thought more of a mine field maze than a maze with high walls.
This also ensures, that someone from far away, the cannons for example, still has a good overview of the maze.

Time to carefully necro this thread.

Partly because I want some more feedback and partly because I might be adding some more concepts to it soon. Stay tuned.