Guild Wars 2

Hey people, I created this topic to get feedback on a boss encounter idea/template specifically designed for a group of 5 people.

First of all lets examine GW2 combat. The model here is a semi “action combat” one,
and is not designed around the trifecta (Tank/Heal/dps), the was to put more pressure on a player to ensure his own survival.
So going away from the precedent model might be good, but it also requires encounters to be tweaked and designed around this new model. The actual problem with Gw2 is I think that the encounters are still designed with an old model in heads,which would lead to pretty abusive way to play the game (didn’t say exploit don’t jump on me).

Now lets build the model.

First of all a encounter isn’t just about the enemy or the group of enemy the players will be facing but also about the environment in which it is taking part. The area must incite the players to use some mechanisms (Ex: soft LOS, positioning).

The enemy:
The players must know what they are facing, before adding some specific mechanisms to the encounter the encounter must be as clear as possible:
– the boss must be visible: have a bigger character model.
– his important abilities must be really well telegraphed.
Lets now add the mechanics. The goal here isn’t to have specific mechanics but to stay at a higher level of description.
*Adding artificial roles to the encounter: The goal here is to change the dynamic of the encounter, two application of this method are the ghostbusters phase in AC path 2 fight against the ghost eater and the ooze management in the fight vs Slick & Sparki.
*Multiphase Encounter: Here the goal is also to change the pace of a fight but in another fashion, the subtleties of this method are the triggers to the start of a new phase, inducing\suggesting gameplay changes to the players.One last thing it shouldn’t only be about empowerment phase the should also be ways to trigger phase with a weakened opponent.
*Engaging abilities: Abilities that would force the players to react to them here it isn’t just about dodging , these abilities would need to be countered through triggers(interrupt, small scale events.).
*Finally a intelligent stat distribution: This is a way to tweak the efficiency of some builds and gameplays in a encounter. Exps: lot of toughness + protection(boon) with a decent health pool reduce the efficiency of Berzerker build, lot of power + retaliation punishes spam heavy gameplay.

All the above must be used in a intelligent way and could really make a change to the state of groups encounters in Gw2. But one thing that definitely need an improve is the AI, even with the best encounter design poor AI could make it degenerate from the intention of the designers.
I would love to have as much feedback as possible so if you want me to elaborate more on some of the concepts i would be happy to. Also if you think that there are some high level elements which would increase the power of the model feel free to put them here.
Thx for your attention.

If they ever make the bosses harder need to do 2 things:
1) deacrease their health pool because people will start to run full cleric , so GG on completing a dungeon

2) buff the gold reward at the end, if I have to complete CoF p1 in 1 hour with a party that can’t dodge , i want more $$$$

So what do you think about the most recent dungeon boss encounters? The ones in Twilight Arbor?

I’d say they’re on to something already. As you’ve said, the Slick & Sparki encounter already has quite a few of these elements. The Clockheart has big, telegraphed attacks as well, and phases. Oh and interrupts work extremely well in that encounter, though by now, the interrupt plan as a strategy is seen by most as a relic from the past.

I think that they are making some good progression in this area.

However:

I think dungeons need some challenging unskippable non-boss events.

In GW1 most of the challenging content came in the form of difficult events. Groups of enemies that had a lot of variety. Some ressurecters, some casters, some healers, some interrupters. Sometimes led by a champion.

Fighting these groups would often be harder than fighting bosses. (And often the end boss would come with a lot of these strong adds.)

(Eternal Grove HM/Slavers Exile HM/4 Horsemen UW HM/DOA HM/Winds of Change HM) All these were fairly difficult for most groups and this was due to the ‘trash’ mobs more than due to the bosses.

In GW2 we get to interact with mobs & lieutenants all the time. But the defiance mechanic of bosses and champions throws a way a lot of the skills we can use in combat. Mob fights allow for more interaction. (Which might be why most of these fights are too easy right now. Even if not skipped.)

I suggest bringing up the strength of trash mob encounters, perhaps even replacing some of the ‘inbetween’ bosses and making them mandatory. Have the enemies come at us, instead of us coming at them. They would be ‘dynamic events’ scaled to be difficult enough for 5 people in dungeons.

The Lost Witch.7601:

So what do you think about the most recent dungeon boss encounters? The ones in Twilight Arbor?

I’d say they’re on to something already. As you’ve said, the Slick & Sparki encounter already has quite a few of these elements. The Clockheart has big, telegraphed attacks as well, and phases. Oh and interrupts work extremely well in that encounter, though by now, the interrupt plan as a strategy is seen by most as a relic from the past.

I think that they are making some good progression in this area.

However:

I think dungeons need some challenging unskippable non-boss events.

In GW1 most of the challenging content came in the form of difficult events. Groups of enemies that had a lot of variety. Some ressurecters, some casters, some healers, some interrupters. Sometimes led by a champion.

Fighting these groups would often be harder than fighting bosses. (And often the end boss would come with a lot of these strong adds.)

(Eternal Grove HM/Slavers Exile HM/4 Horsemen UW HM/DOA HM/Winds of Change HM) All these were fairly difficult for most groups and this was due to the ‘trash’ mobs more than due to the bosses.

In GW2 we get to interact with mobs & lieutenants all the time. But the defiance mechanic of bosses and champions throws a way a lot of the skills we can use in combat. Mob fights allow for more interaction. (Which might be why most of these fights are too easy right now. Even if not skipped.)

I suggest bringing up the strength of trash mob encounters, perhaps even replacing some of the ‘inbetween’ bosses and making them mandatory. Have the enemies come at us, instead of us coming at them. They would be ‘dynamic events’ scaled to be difficult enough for 5 people in dungeons.

I think the new TA is really a step forward taken by Anet.
As you say, this new path implement a lot from this model Clear telegraphs, big models, artificial roles (ooze, shield break ). Slick and sparky might be the best encounter of the dungeon with a very good pace and a lot of phases in the fight, while the others ones might be lacking in term of polish.

For the encounter with strong enemies groups, I thin that Anet need to first of all work on a better AI, if the enemies could avoid being stacked in a small corner it would be a good start. If the enemies could also coordinate spikes, disables i could make very interesting encounters, last a group of enemies needs priority targets(strong spikers, buffers etc) , but in the end it,s all about AI.

Enemies balling up and dying has been a problem in GW1 too.

I think a few things that were different there from GW2:

• Foes ran out of AoE

• Non-boss foes used powerful AoE as well. (nothing broke up the group like a couple of churning earths)

• Stacking up was less effective, there weren’t as many – give all nearby allies x- kind of abilities. And some of the more potent ones had a huge range (Aegis/Heal Party). Oh, and no combo fields ofcourse. The main reasons for stacking was Ward Against Harm. Which was good, but not too impressive.

• Groups were often divided in frontliners and backliners. Not so much tanks & dps, just those that could take melee hits and those that couldnt.

• There were often strong foes in the back of the mob that would need to be taken out first. So killing the nearest foe wasn’t always an option. (It could be a healer or a churning earth caster ^^)

• Fights were often based around NPCs that weren’t allowed to die. So if you went to stack up in a corner, the foes would just kill the NPC. (This lead to a lot of Togo-haters)

• Without dodges and invulnerability spells, most players in the team just weren’t able to ball up in one spot. So they left the balling up to a more tanky character.(Or spirits/minions)

Now ofcourse GW2 can’t just copy these ideas (which weren’t all perfect either) since the combat system is wildly different. And we play the game in an entirely different manner aswell.

A few non-AI related problems that could prevent anti-stacking measures from working:

• The damage difference between berserkers and the rest: If monsters die fast enough, a player stack will have enough defense (dodges, blocks, reflects and invulnerability) to last until they have killed them all. If monsters get more health, they take ages to kill for non-berserker groups.

• The attacker determines the rules of the game. When players need to defend something, they’re forced to adapt to a situation imposed on them by the attacking force. Otherwise they’ll just create the same profitable situation everywhere. (Which currently is line of sight stacking)

• The lack of punishment for a wipe. At the moment, if a stack wipes, we just walk from the waypoint and do it again. Running away if you are a lone survivor to ressurect your teammates later is never more advantageous as just dying for a quick respawn. However, if we were to punish a wipe with say… dungeon failure (like in UW in GW1, or missions in general) then we would seriously have to reconsider the incredibly punishing massive attacks. (It is really hard to learn the tells if you fail a dungeon every time you try)

• The benefits of stacking vs. not-stacking are immense. From combo-fields to symbols, to shouts, to consecrations to close range traits that work for allies to reflection shields to all sorts of abilities that give boons to nearby allies… so many reasons to stack up. Perhaps increasing the range on some of these could help out, or maybe the most incredible stacking tools should be reduced in efficiency. (I’m looking at you wall of reflection)

While I agree that a lot could be solved by having better A.I., there are other sources that contribute to stacking aswell.

I think it could made so “zerker all the things” is not the only way to go.

One thing, boons are a core part of the game. In Guild Wars 1 AI had enchantments (boons if you will), conditions, and hexes and you needed to prepare for it. In this one they barely use boons or conditions. Giving them boons would make boon stripping builds or skills more desired. Making it so foes have more abilities to apply conditions with would give more need to bring condition removal as well

A need for control is another issue. An AoE stun/daze is nice but it’s not required. Immobilize, Cripple, and Chill aren’t really useful at all. Adding mobs that you’d want to stay away from would make these kinds of conditions more desired. Bosses defiant also makes controlling a boss rather useless. I don’t want the right answer to fix that is but I’m sure there’s something

I think giving foes powerful heal skills would also warrant bringing Poison and interrupts, helping diversity as well.

Making condition damage builds viable is a whole other problem linked with the condition system. Namely stacking bleeds

I don’t know if all that would change anything. Zerker would probably still be best to keep burning through mobs but it might change things up a bit

Edit: I realized I didn’t talk about boss encounters really and mostly just mobs in dungeons but I think this could apply to bosses as well