Guild Wars 2

Hard Mode

Hard mode was a mode in Guild Wars 1, that basically made everything harder with better rewards. I personally loved this system and so did many other people aswell.

Hard mode in Guild Wars 2 seems hard to be carried out, however I have found a solution, which would be ideal for this matter.

Also something like this should be added to the current dungeons.

The idea of 2 separate instances for each zone

Giving the world two separate instances on each server would make this possible and even further improve the “end-game”. One instance would be the current difficulty and the other would be the hard mode.

Downscaling and loot

I think that downscaling is awesome aswell, but it lacks the reward of going back to the old zones, since you get more valuable loot in the higher level zones.

This hard mode would have improved loot, while requiring a lot more skill and teamplay. By improved loot I won’t mean higher drop chance, I mean a chance for unique loot that you can’t get elsewhere.

Every zone should have a few unique items that you can only get from that zone. Guild Wars 1 was really fun, cause every zone was actually challenging and the excitement for loot was amazing.

I want to experience the same on this game, I find it dull that you get only unique exotics from the mystic forge and not as drops. This makes the game rather boring for some people including me.

The downsides of this “hard mode”

People could start abusing it by making huge groups and facerolling mobs for better loot. Partial solution to this would be that mobs have a system that decreases the drop chances and rarity for each player attacking it, this solution discourages teamwork tho.

It might cost a lot for ArenaNet to keep up this many servers.

Summary

I think that this would give people a more interesting and challenging way to explore the world and keep playing for longer time.

TLDR;

A harder mode for every zone, where you have a chance of getting unique loot, such as skins and minipets, while keeping you interested in the game for longer time.

Please give me your feedback and improve my ideas

Agree with hard mode. Much of the group content can easily be done with a random pickup group that doesn’t need to even communicate with each other.

hard mode is needed but the part about huge groups is what buggs me why not make it for 5 people max and have an instance for each group, yes this will require much from the server, but would be the perfect solution against huge group farming instead of more attackers less loot.

im a fan of hardmode so +1

After unlocking the HM, every player will have its own account based difficulty option sliderwhose effects will be stack-able with the current downscaling system resulting in a more obvious downleveling effect. The rewards from drops can be correlated to this and the specific player will get better loot. Of course if he has actively participated to the events

“Giving the world two separate instances on each server would make this possible and even further improve the end-game”

If you do this, no high level players will play with lower level players.

We need more rewards for downscaled players because it is almost just as hard kill some enemies. This would also bring life back to lower level areas.

“We need more rewards for downscaled players because it is almost just as hard kill some enemies. This would also bring life back to lower level areas.”

This is something I would definitely want to see. Just make downscaled areas rewarding with other stuff than just the experience of exploring.

But dungeons should have a harder mode than explorable mode.

I disagree with creating a second form of the persistent zones, as that divides the players too much IMO.

I would say that instanced areas (personal story and dungeons currently) could use a hard mode version though. And it’d be easily done too.

No need to create different areas. Just make a harsher downscaling option available and increase rewards accordingly.

[sigh] the problem is that dynamic events get either mobbed (15-20 players+) or you’re stuck with one or two and it’s not achievable…. I don’t think implementing hard mode instance of zones properly address this exist crack in the foundation.

So with that said, my idea of hard mode would be the option for players in parties to enter instances of dynamic events. The instances will always be for max level. Make the enemies harder, require level 80 team strategy and make the rewards great as well.

I think having an instance option for the individual events makes more sense the having an entire zone be hard mode, but if you do them by zone you’ll still have the zerg rush to the events…. Why not address two issues with one feature.

If had be in the entire zone instanced that would be better than nothing.

Just play a thief and there’s your hard mode.

They’re stupidly fragile against just about everything in PvE.

I wouldn’t mind the ability to flip on “hard mode” and phase into an overflow like server where all monsters are max level and veterans.

Yup all veterans.

Instantly segregates the community. Doubt Anet would ever do this. And there’s already explorables.
Totally different zones like in GW1 for HM? Worked great there with its co-op rpg setting but this is supposed to be an mmo whose main goal is allowing people to do as much together as possible while breaking the limits to this n previous games.

Would be a step backwards in their design goals.

The community’s already sergregated Squirrel. I can count the number of people I see on a sever said to be full by the world selection menu on one hand.

Either everyone’s just farming Orr like bots or they were just waiting for the WoW expansion to come out and jumped ship.

To use the word “community” when describing this game is a bad joke to me.

There’s still loads of people playing on my server.
The community’s role isn’t forced down certain paths in this game so it’s harder to know where people are and what they’re doing. But there’s many many people playing. I guess the added freedom and accessibility in this game just reduces gating and makes ppl feel like there’s no community, when really it’s more than likely just more spread out.

Potentially increased down-scaling of level would be hard mode. If and only if players don’t gang up on content to the point of easy mode. Which would be the leading counter effect to increased down-scaling to make a hard mode. Two instances of the world would fracture the community and is probably not a good idea at all. And would still suffer from the same counter effect. So the better of the two options would be increased down-scaling. The best area for challenging content is group instances where the group size is controlled which in turn allows control over the challenge. So a hard mode can be added to that sort of thing as long as the reward isn’t too much better than the standard reward because then those not able to do the hard mode would gripe about how unfair the better reward is.

“as long as the reward isn’t too much better than the standard reward because then those not able to do the hard mode would gripe about how unfair the better reward is.”

I was thinking about t6 mats and unique exotics as drops (With unique skins of course.) Keep the drop rates rather low, while having actually the chance for it to be rewarding.

Maybe make some of the events have instanced party modes, so they actually become challenging instead of having this Orr faceroll in many events.

The “hard mode” downscale should be something that doesn’t have the exactly same effect on our damage as currently if you face a 4 levels higher mob. It should definitely be reduced but not as much as it is now. You should take increased damage from the mobs tho.

Hard mode is great idea to restore low level maps in population, it is such a shame that the world right now to a level 80 is comprised of two to three areas, Cursed Shore, Frostgorge and Melchor’s leap… Why even create all these areas if you only use them one time?

I agree with this, i had the same sort of idea. I think it will improve map populations if they included a story instance for each map where you helped an order, helped an NPC, something with a party across the map with various challenges. It would give the player a more cohesive vision and insight to the personality of each area. Just an idea, i’m sure they could rework it to be better than it sounds.

Another suggestion is to re-introduce elite skill capping and unique bosses all over every zone. This will encourage people to group up and play together rather than shallowly playing alongside each other as it is currently.

They need more reason for players to group up in a tactical manner like in GW1 rather than the zergfest faceroll crapola we have right now.

Major issues i see with GW2 in the long run:

The rigid and stale skill system, the inflexibility and ambiguity of the progression and traits systems, narrowly defined roles, homogeneous number play and systems design with character linked attributes, homogeneous buff / debuff system, segmented and weak personal story rather than a cohesive narrative vision for the whole game.

I really think they need to work on things that get people playing together more than alongside each other. GW1 combat was top notch, synergistic, tactical, and mentally engaging. This game’s combat is a homogeneous zergfest with super long cool downs, marginally useful utility skills, a laughable amount of elite skills, and illusory flexibility in the weapon skill system. It just does not have the IT factor that GW had because of how homogeneously it is designed. I really think a dedicated healer class and a total re-vamp of classes should be considered. Right now you have lack of structure piled on top of lack of structure.

I hate hard mode in GW1. Hard mode in GW1 essentially turned normal mode into easy mode and hard mode. I enjoyed the game more when it was just one difficulty: difficult. Furthermore, I have no desire to separate from the local player base by going to a different parallel dimension where monsters are meaner and loot is shinier.

What you are proposing is similar in nature and scope to what was done in GW1, which was a clusterkitten of epic scale, in my opinion. I don’t approve of shortcuts to earned rewards. I also don’t approve of messing with drop rates in the way that you propose.

Just take downscaling a step further with increased damage taken from enemies + decreased DPS and WHAM! You have hardmode.

Would also like HM dungeons with 50% increase in tokens

Yeh not a bad idea, anything to reduce the impact of bots.

I agree. Dungeons are fairly easy to “speed clear” which is why I imagine the rewards are such garbage currently. Making a truely hard dungeon with much higher change of worthy rewards could really bring people into dungeons more.

My idea of Hard Mode for GW2

1) Unlock HM only by finishing 100% Map Completion. This will require as it is now, going in WvW and doing the Storyline.

2) In hero panel, there will be a check box for HM after this is unlocked.

3) Players who have the HM box checked in Hero panel will ALWAYS get a mini pop up window while entering a zone asking them "Do you want to keep this zone in HM, Yes/No)(teleporting into it from another zone or getting into it through the “door”)

4) When the answer is Yes, then the players stats will be drastically downscaled compared to normal mode and the Heart Events will be emptied

5) The HM CAN NOT BE Switched on within the zone after the initial answer on the pop up window was “No”. This will prevent players from cheating like going HM only when there is an event near by and he jumps is ad switch to HM just before the boss is killed. When he is in HM all the foes will be HM for him during the travel -similar ro HM in GW1

6) as i said on 4), the hears will be emptied in HM and they will need to be filled up again, this time with red color. This will encourage players to go and do all zone in HM similar to vanquishing in GW1. Adding achievements for this will be good too.

7)Players will be able to Switch back to NM at any time by uncheking the box in Hero panel, but only entering the zone again will enable HM if the check box IS marked.

8) this can be evolved into Nightmare mode after completing 100% Map Completion in HM. and so on.

How the sownscaling will work:
Now, a lvl 80 player equipped with respective lvl 80 gear going in a lvl 15 zone can kill a foe in 2 hits compared to a new player killing the same foe in 5 hits.
The downscaling will be done so the lvl 80 player will kill that foe in 7 hits if HM is enabled for him. So in a way he will be “doing worse then a new player” sort to speak

We already have some zones that are dead and some zones that are overpopulated. Adding HM zones can only result in A) even more imbalanced zone populations and People either jumping ship, leaving “normal” zones deader than before or C) people avoiding HM zones because of difficulty, leaving those empty.

Just so you know, HM dungeons would attract me even LESS….

Brilliant ideas here.

But i want to state something i hope most of you read.

Complexity is the word we all want to hear. Complexity is fun, but no harder, complexity makes things go diversified yet stay as dificult as ever, even if complexier things requiere a bit more attention things happening, that makes things only more deep and inmersion is possible.

Bosses: Harder bosses will be just change the HP/Armor/Attack values. Complexier would be bosses with the follow.

Inmmunity: No DMG recived what so ever. Already in game, very low used.
Ranged Inmunity: No DMG from ranged attacks -Includes magic-
Melee Inmunity: No DMG from melee attacks -Includes magic-
Utility Inmunity: No DMG from utility skills, all effects from utility skills denied.
Racial Inmunity: No DMG from racial skills, all effects from utility skills denied.
Elemental Inmunity X: No DMG from X element.
Condition Inmunity: No DMG from conditions, all conditions effect denied.
Bleeding, Stun, Staggering, Confussion, Burn, etc Inmunity: No DMG from the named condition, effect from named condition denied.
Twice HP: Double HP.
Triple HP: Triple HP.
Armored: High Defense against melee and ranged attacks.
All-In: High damage from normal attacks.
Summon Champions: Just as jormag, but more harder, boss should enter inmunity state while champion on the field.
Summon Veterans: Several Veterans with proper minion scort.
Summon Minions: Thousands of minions, enough minions to divert the focus from the boss to the minions.

Sectionated DMG, boss should implemente a “section DMG system” they should lose HP when you attack that one section of them, but when that section is destroyed, attacking it wont do more damage, even they should have unique stages where only one section is aviable to be damanged, every section should have his own inmunities so hard to reach sections should for example inmune to ranged attacks.

Jumping Puzzle in boss fights. Combine the two, almost like shadow of the colossus, you will have to jump (and hold) your way to the weakspots of the boss.

Enviromental weapons, enviromental weapons and elements should be important, WAY MORE important than they actually are. There should be stages of the boss where only enviromental weapons could harm them and others where they do nothing, so the guys on enviromental weapons should have a real role in the battle, and taking care of them added to new bosses swarms agains them, makes the players focus on defending their enviromental weapons, getting them, taking care of the carriers of them, etc.

And thats for bosses alone. Is not making the game harder, just more “diverse” cause actually at least for me, bosses are booring, they are just autoattack them, go to bathroom, come back for your medal and items. They need to be complexier, more fun battle, longer battles.

A easy way to do HM is: once reached lvl 80 you will have the oppertunity to activate “Hard Mode” it means you will get better drops, but you will be downscaled a few lvl’s behind the actual lvl of the zone.

No.

Creating an hard mode instance of the world would only divide the player base. Once people hits level 80 and gets their exotic gear they will stay most of the time in the hard mode instance leaving lower level players to deal with themselves in the regular.

I’m sure they already have plans on making new harder dungeons/areas in future expansion without the need of “hard mode”.

The only things to which I see hard mode option applicable are dungeons and, if they will ever add them, instanced bosses.

One extra zone for hard mode is good. The players facerolling mobs by zerging them is a seperate issue. This needs to be fixed by better scaling of mobs, so that mobs get a higher HP / armor stat, and the zerg takes a somewhat normal time to kill them, instead of the 0,1 second we see now.

Hello.

I’ve read every single reply and have come to a conclusion of this :

-Hard mode should be something that you can enable and disable, you go into the same zone as everyone else, you’re just a lot weaker than the normal mode players.
What makes this rewarding is that every heart gets reset and mobs have a chance of dropping unique and better loot.

-New hard mode legendaries which require ingredients from different zones. Every zone should have new rare ingredients unique to that area only, which are then used in crafting various items i.e legendaries.

-New boss attributes like Alexander Dragonfang said in his post.

-The main idea which would make this interesting would be the fact that every zone drops something unique to that zone, while making the mobs harder to deal with.

-As some people said, utility skills have indeed too big cooldown, let’s say bulls charge. I would definitely use that skill but it has too long cooldown for it to be effective in PvE. So I think you should reduce the cooldown on some utility skills for PvE and keep them the same for PvP, just like in GW1.

-Higher dungeon difficulty with guaranteed rare drop in the end from certain loot table unique to that specific dungeon.

Overall I don’t think that having 2 instances of the same world is good, as it would indeed make more zones dead. But the options you guys have been giving for this idea are insanely good and I really hope ArenaNet will look at this thread and atleast think about it.

Keep posting your ideas guys!