Guild Wars 2

Relative difficulty: SE, CM, TA, CoF are all easier than AC. Perhaps they should have made one of them first. It’s a done deal now. As with anything, practice makes perfect.

On Kholer: Folks should learn to dodge Kohler’s attacks and be better players. He is optional though for those who simply cannot or will not.

Build/Class Viability: All animals are equal but some are more equal than others. Doable with any group composition. Easiest/fastest with optimal group composition.

Saint.5647:

On Kholer: Folks should learn to dodge Kohler’s attacks and be better players. He is optional though for those who simply cannot or will not.

OR, maybe AC should simply teach players Kholer’s mechanics gradually before they encounter him. This would make it less trial and error, and a much more solid design.

Perhaps there should also be some way to tell that Kholer is a more dangerous foe, before he smashes you to bits. Because he looks relatively small and like a common ghost. There’s nothing really intimidating about him. He’s not a big boss, and he doesn’t look threatening. I think the dungeon could communicate this much clearer without first smashing the players to bits.

For example, when this boss turns out to hit hard, it is no surprise:

It’s all about being clear to the player in your design.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

dlonie.6547:

I’ll give you that one. That’s why the first question I ask in an Arah PUG is “does everyone know Lupi?” I’m so tired of explaining that fight :-P

It’d be great if they’d have thought to explain things a little better, but they didn’t and from every indication, won’t. That’s just the way dungeons are in this game — gotta do some research or have a mentor if you want to learn to run them well.

I think a lot of people have trouble understanding that I’m looking at the game from the point of view of a game designer. I see flaws in the design that might not bother other people quite so much, or not at all.

One of the things I really liked about the Molten Facility, is how the mechanics of the boss are woven into the entire dungeon. Everything leading up to it teaches you what you need to know to tackle the bosses. The Scarlet battle follows this same design philosophy, by teaching players that they need to attune to different colors, in order to harm the knights. And by making the triple attunement a requirement for entering the final battle, everyone knows what they need to before fighting Scarlet.

More dungeons should be like that. They should not require a mentor or a youtube video to understand. They should be designed in a way that they teach the player the mechanics naturally and gradually.

Another example is the Cliffside fractal. The entire fractal revolves around using the hammer to break seals. So when the boss involves this exact same mechanic, it no longer needs explaining. That is solid design in my opinion.

Yay! Common ground! :-) high fives

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Perhaps there should also be some way to tell that Kholer is a more dangerous foe, before he smashes you to bits.

There is, but it’s subtle. When you target them, there is a colored ring around the icon next to his health bar at the top of the screen. The color of the ring indicates the difficulty.

Trouble is, nothing in-game tells you this, and the color scale is not obvious (I’m trying to remember the order…totally blanking). I think Kholer is a purple or gold, which means watch out.

Well Queen, I don’t know at what stage players were intended to learn the game.

We do know that Anet isn’t happy with the current level of player skill and understanding though.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/madness/Well-I-defended-these-new-events-at-first/page/5#post3559127

Do keep in mind that the dungeons are not intended as teaching content for the game, but rather, challenging content. When I say learning how to ‘dodge’ in the context of Kholer, I don’t mean actually learn how to dodge. It is assumed the player should already be familiar with this.

What I mean is that a player new to Kholer (having watched no guides and playing without guild assistance) will need to learn the specific fight in order to know when to dodge, reflect, etc… There is a process to learning mechanics

It isn’t right to ignore this process. The right answer is to help players learn the mechanics of the fight if they are having difficulty. With the right players and composition the Kholer fight can be done in around 1-2 seconds. This isn’t the ‘gold standard’ for all groups. I simply mean that rather than complain, do try to think about why he is difficult and work on it systematically.

No one knew when the game first came out how useful reflects were. I remember scrambling to dodge all of Lupi’s AoEs. Isolating a particular problem and working on a solution for your team is part of the learning process.

dlonie.6547:

There is, but it’s subtle. When you target them, there is a colored ring around the icon next to his health bar at the top of the screen. The color of the ring indicates the difficulty.

Trouble is, nothing in-game tells you this, and the color scale is not obvious (I’m trying to remember the order…totally blanking). I think Kholer is a purple or gold, which means watch out.

That is very subtle indeed. What I think they should do, is change that red boss icon, like they did with Scarlet’s knights. Give him a unique icon on the map, that makes it clear that he is a foe to watch out for.

Or maybe have an npc simply state that he’s optional, and very dangerous. Sounds silly perhaps, but it instantly solves the problem of players being unclear if they are supposed to fight this guy, and what kind of fight to expect.

Saint.5647:

It isn’t right to ignore this process. The right answer is to help players learn the mechanics of the fight if they are having difficulty.

That’s what I liked about Molten Facility. You encounter the shockwaves early on, and learn the timing of jumping over them. This makes the Molten Duo at the end of the dungeon less frustrating, because you’re being confronted with familiar mechanics at a higher difficulty.

Saint.5647:

No one knew when the game first came out how useful reflects were. I remember scrambling to dodge all of Lupi’s AoEs. Isolating a particular problem and working on a solution for your team is part of the learning process.

I agree. But I do think it’s the responsibility of the designers to drop enough clues to help players figure out this problem. And in some cases, they kind of dropped the ball in that regard.

I think the difficulty of most dungeons is directly related to the number of unfair mechanics in them, rather than challenging content. Like for example how all archers in CM suddenly are rooted to the ground and can’t be CC’d, with no reason given, yet they deal pretty devastating damage. Or that annoying dog-boss (who is optional btw) who takes forever to kill because he has more HP than anything else in the dungeon, and spams fear constantly. That sort of stuff really tends to rub a lot of players the wrong way I think. Dungeons should be consistent in their mechanics, and should communicate them clearly to the players.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

dlonie.6547:

There is, but it’s subtle. When you target them, there is a colored ring around the icon next to his health bar at the top of the screen. The color of the ring indicates the difficulty.

Trouble is, nothing in-game tells you this, and the color scale is not obvious (I’m trying to remember the order…totally blanking). I think Kholer is a purple or gold, which means watch out.

That is very subtle indeed. What I think they should do, is change that red boss icon, like they did with Scarlet’s knights. Give him a unique icon on the map, that makes it clear that he is a foe to watch out for.

Or maybe have an npc simply state that he’s optional, and very dangerous. Sounds silly perhaps, but it instantly solves the problem of players being unclear if they are supposed to fight this guy, and what kind of fight to expect.

Come to think of it, I believe he does have an icon on the map, and I know for sure that “Defeat Lieutenant Kholer” appears on the objective list, also indicating that he’s more than some random add.

dlonie.6547:

Come to think of it, I believe he does have an icon on the map, and I know for sure that “Defeat Lieutenant Kholer” appears on the objective list, also indicating that he’s more than some random add.

That’s right. It’s listed as a required objective, even though it’s an optional objective. If they changed it so it said: “OPTIONAL: Defeat Lieutenant Kholer (Hard)” we would not have this issue.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Saint.5647:

It isn’t right to ignore this process. The right answer is to help players learn the mechanics of the fight if they are having difficulty.

That’s what I liked about Molten Facility. You encounter the shockwaves early on, and learn the timing of jumping over them. This makes the Molten Duo at the end of the dungeon less frustrating, because you’re being confronted with familiar mechanics at a higher difficulty.

Well done. I enjoyed that one a lot. I think a lot of folks did. However, as far as I’m aware of, that encounter added a new mechanic (shockwaves) so they really had to teach it. If you recall, they didn’t teach the enraged mechanics. That was something players had to figure out.

I think when it comes to dungeons there is a certain level of trial and error that is acceptable.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Saint.5647:

No one knew when the game first came out how useful reflects were. I remember scrambling to dodge all of Lupi’s AoEs. Isolating a particular problem and working on a solution for your team is part of the learning process.

I agree. But I do think it’s the responsibility of the designers to drop enough clues to help players figure out this problem. And in some cases, they kind of dropped the ball in that regard.

I think the difficulty of most dungeons is directly related to the number of unfair mechanics in them, rather than challenging content. Like for example how all archers in CM suddenly are rooted to the ground and can’t be CC’d, with no reason given, yet they deal pretty devastating damage. Or that annoying dog-boss (who is optional btw) who takes forever to kill because he has more HP than anything else in the dungeon, and spams fear constantly. That sort of stuff really tends to rub a lot of players the wrong way I think. Dungeons should be consistent in their mechanics, and should communicate them clearly to the players.

Right. I agree they really did drop the ball hard. The trouble is that those players did not learn these mechanics before entering dungeons. The game’s ‘core’ dungeons introduce no new mechanics as far as I am aware. Conditions, AoEs, etc…these are all already in the game.

The main point of contention is who’s responsibility it was to make sure players understood the content. I don’t think Anet did a good job at teaching players the basics of the game. That said, many folks picked it up as they went. I don’t agree with lowering the difficulty of (what I consider to be) very easy content.

I do however strongly believe that the ’Hero of Shaemoor* (or equivalent) section should include a skip-able tutorial like in Nightfall where players could chose the tutorial route for the first quest/mission or the regular one. Here players would be prompted to dodge attacks, cleanse conditions, interact with combo fields, etc…

Saint.5647:

I do however strongly believe that the ’Hero of Shaemoor* (or equivalent) section should include a skip-able tutorial like in Nightfall where players could chose the tutorial route for the first quest/mission or the regular one. Here players would be prompted to dodge attacks, cleanse conditions, interact with combo fields, etc…

That is a very good suggestion.

Yeah, thank you. There is also a ‘learn to play’ in the login but I haven’t checked that out. It doesn’t seem that accessible though. The tutorial might be the best way to get players on their way in.

Not to throw things too far off topic, but just curious Mad Queen, would you say that ANet needs to redo the animations for Grasping Dead and Summon Flesh Wurm? And how about that Signet of Spite?

Mad Queen would be happy if they all had “dodge this” in giant neon lights for those animations.

Trial and error bad, need to know what to do first time.

In my opinion, optional bosses should be extremely hard. Like Final Fantasy, the hardest bosses in the game are optional, they’re there for the people that want the challenge. If you don’t want the challenge, walk on by.

hendo.1940:

Mad Queen would be happy if they all had “dodge this” in giant neon lights for those animations.

Trial and error bad, need to know what to do first time.

I think that is a very unfair argument. I think Anet’s way of giving bosses “tells” is just vastly inferior to a lot of other games I’ve played. And like I said, I play hard games. So don’t come in here waving your finger at me, and claiming I want everything easy. I play Demons Souls, I’m no stranger to difficulty. But animations should be clear as day, especially when there is so much effect spam going around.

And just to be fair in the comparison, Demons Souls is a single player game, yet it has better tells than GW2. Demons Souls does not have the burden of countless players spamming their aoe spells at the same boss. So how can you justify an MMO having less clear tells for its bosses?

Is there any reason to not make boss-attacks incredibly easy to see? I think that could be a vast improvement.

Show of hands please. How many of us have been struck by one of Scarlet’s massive aoe attacks that took off half their life, and that they did not see coming? Most of the attacks by Scarlet’s hologram have very clear aoe-stripes that appear on the ground… and then there are the attacks that don’t have any aoe marker at all, yet hit almost everyone in the room. Not to mention the number of times I got hit by an attack BEFORE the aoe-marker appeared. This is just dreadful. These bosses need more work.

DigitalKirin.9714:

Not to throw things too far off topic, but just curious Mad Queen, would you say that ANet needs to redo the animations for Grasping Dead and Summon Flesh Wurm? And how about that Signet of Spite?

I do not play pvp darling, so I never face a fellow necro in combat. I would not be able to tell you if those animations are clear enough.

laharl.8435:

In my opinion, optional bosses should be extremely hard. Like Final Fantasy, the hardest bosses in the game are optional, they’re there for the people that want the challenge. If you don’t want the challenge, walk on by.

The difference however is that in Final Fantasy it is quite clear which bosses are optional, and quite often you have to go through a ton of work (and read a walkthrough) to find the optional bosses to begin with. I don’t think you can compare that with a boss that is not clearly identified as an optional boss, and is located halfway into a level 35 dungeon.

Let me ask a fair question, to those that do not understand the argument I’m making about boss tells. Why don’t any of the bosses have an attack as clear as this one?

http://tinyurl.com/pma39bc

There are plenty of bosses in GW2 that have these massive aoe attacks that hit in a huge radius. But instead of actually seeing a large sphere-shaped explosion that grows in size, along with a clear sound effect, we get a big red circle on the ground and no sound effect.

I have to ask, why? Why would that be bad? Surely clear visualization is vastly superior to just a red ring? It would help the timing immensely. We would no longer have to watch for red circles, and could instead simply look and listen to what was happening on the screen.

I play hard games. So don’t come in here waving your finger at me, and claiming I want everything easy

you:

This is why I get so ticked off by bosses that revolve around reflection. I don’t have reflection! I’m a necro! Where is the sign at the start of the dungeon that says, bring someone with reflection? That’s dumb design.

I’m pretty sure you do want everything to be easy. You don’t want trial and error, you literally want to faceroll encounters first time.

Let me ask a fair question, to those that do not understand the argument I’m making about boss tells. Why don’t any of the bosses have an attack as clear as this one?

Because ANet aren’t interested in making stupidly faceroll bosses with slow wind up attacks who call out their own skills and want to actually improve the skill level of the average player with their living story encounters and then hopefully apply that to dungeons.

Clearly ANet have never followed your ideas on encounter mechanics so maybe you should just get the hint and stop playing since the game clearly isn’t designed for you.

hendo.1940:

I’m pretty sure you do want everything to be easy. You don’t want trial and error, you literally want to faceroll encounters first time.

No, I want to understand encounters the first time. I want clear mechanics, clear tells, fair challenge. Case in point, basically every boss in Demons Souls or Dark Souls. Challenging, but completely clear in both mechanics and moves.

hendo.1940:

Because ANet aren’t interested in making stupidly faceroll bosses with slow wind up attacks who call out their own skills and want to actually improve the skill level of the average player with their living story encounters and then hopefully apply that to dungeons.

A game such as Demons Souls also has bosses that call out their moves. Would you argue that Demons Souls is there for easy?

Clear tells do not equal an easy fight.

hendo.1940:

Clearly ANet have never followed your ideas on encounter mechanics so maybe you should just get the hint and stop playing since the game clearly isn’t designed for you.

Clearly Anet can learn a lot from other games and other designers. I can and have designed better bosses than this myself. And there’s a multitude of other games out there with bosses with really clear tells, such as God of War for example. There’s nothing wrong with looking to other games for inspiration. GW2’s bosses really could use a lot of improvements.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Let me ask a fair question, to those that do not understand the argument I’m making about boss tells. Why don’t any of the bosses have an attack as clear as this one?

http://tinyurl.com/pma39bc

There are plenty of bosses in GW2 that have these massive aoe attacks that hit in a huge radius. But instead of actually seeing a large sphere-shaped explosion that grows in size, along with a clear sound effect, we get a big red circle on the ground and no sound effect.

I have to ask, why? Why would that be bad? Surely clear visualization is vastly superior to just a red ring? It would help the timing immensely. We would no longer have to watch for red circles, and could instead simply look and listen to what was happening on the screen.

Let me ask you a question, why should Anet further dumb the game down to levels of gaming like a cookie cutter Korean farmer?

Every attack animation in this game is rather basic, if you played through your world completion and actually stopped and fought champions, you would noticed that champions and above share animations of the same type.

Trolls have the same animations in queens dale as the one in HOTW 1, they may not all do the same attacks but they do share animations. If you have failed to pick up on common attack animations through out your time playing maybe you need to restart and pay attention this time.

Dempsey.8760:

Let me ask you a question, why should Anet further dumb the game down to levels of gaming like a cookie cutter Korean farmer?

Every attack animation in this game is rather basic, if you played through your world completion and actually stopped and fought champions, you would noticed that champions and above share animations of the same type.

Trolls have the same animations in queens dale as the one in HOTW 1, they may not all do the same attacks but they do share animations. If you have failed to pick up on common attack animations through out your time playing maybe you need to restart and pay attention this time.

Funny you should mention that. There’s this one champion abomination in CoE that shares it’s animations with the average ettin. Yet his attacks hit way outside the visible range. They didn’t include any effect to his attacks to indicate that he has extended range, he just does. And he drops most players in one hit.

Do you really believe Anet would be dumbing down the game if they gave him a proper attack effect that visualizes his actual range?

That’s not dumbing down the game, that’s adding crucial feedback for the player.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

That’s not dumbing down the game, that’s adding crucial feedback for the player.

All the crucial feedback you need is the dirt-nap that your character takes after not being protected or not dodging. I’m pretty spoiled though, being mostly on guard and mes. I can just invul/aegis my way through problems. Oh, aegis broke, better renew it.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I whole-heartedly disagree. Difficulty does not equal fun or replay value.

First, lemme start off with this; right outta the gate…casuals are that catalyst that has lead to what is wrong with gaming today. The idea that gaming companies are actually putting tons of money into Triple A titles with the sole reason of ‘attracting casuals’ is disgusting. Other MMOs have done this and its ruined the game. For gaming to get back to where it needs corporations need to quit chasing the casuals.

Second there are plenty of other single player games that casuals can play casually that don’t bring down multiplayer games to what Guild Wars 2 has become. For us hardcore players that enjoy min-maxing and a challenge to the game they are playing, we are running out of options for MMOs, FPS, RTS…nearly every genre.

Btw when I refer to ‘casuals’ I mean someone who hops on and just lollygags around through the game looking at it like a theme park. Casual has nothing to do with how much time you spend in a game, just like hardcore has nothing to do with time. It has everything to do with playing as effectively as possible (min/maxing), and playing 110% each time you go into pve/pvp. However ‘hardcore’ has become polluted with ‘try-hards’ in the last few years. Try-hards are people who only play the strongest specs for the strongest classes and use that to carry themselves. Sometimes casuals can be try-hards.

Anyway enough with the terminology thesis…please watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7VAhzPcZ-s

inb4 casuals have rights too!

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I do not play pvp darling, so I never face a fellow necro in combat. I would not be able to tell you if those animations are clear enough.

(Aside: I don’t know where you live or the language culture where you live, but where I live, calling someone “darling” is usually done in a condescending manner. I respectfully ask that you omit such words during our discussion. Thanks.)

You don’t need to pvp to see the animation of your character. Talking about pvp merely obfuscates and attempts to redirect away from the question I posed earlier.

You play necromancer, so you know as well as I that the animations for scepter autoattack and grasping dead do not show any direct “ray” or “wave” or anything of the sort between you and what you attack.

So do you feel that scepter should have some form of change in animation to give the autoattack and grasping dead a direct connection between the character and the point at which the attack strikes?

i believe that AC is not so difficult on level 80.
two people who know what to do can carry the rest three scrubs. five people who know what to do and when can easily finish each path in 10-15 minutes.

but for level 35 the dungeon is INSANELY kitten
level 35 you just opened a single elite, and the cheap one not the good one,
you don’t have all the utilities yet, so nobody have decent access to stability and everybody is graveling food.
and ofc not the cool traits that come in grandmasters tier, not even in master! (master tier is opened on level 40) .
you have two stats on armor of blue or green quality and not three exotic stats distribution.
so all the mechanics are one hit mechanics and the DPS is around 1/2 of a down-leveled 80 .

which is the real problem.

I’d like to chime in one point. I think most of us can agree that a heavy hitting attack requires some sort of telegraph. In most cases it doesn’t have to be a giant blinking neon sign above the enemy and it doesn’t have to be 3+ seconds long. In the latter case dodging actually can be tricky because you might dodge to early because anticipation gets the better (or worse) of you, but still.

Anyway, to give 2 similar examples: the pull on Kohler and Alphard.
Kohler has a clear tell that is the equivalent of someone screaming in your face. And I actually think this is good because Kohler is in the very first explorable mode we visit when we are new to the game. So the tell has to be a little more obvious. I mean he’s standing there blinking like a christmas tree no longer attacking. If that isn’t a sign that whatever follows up will hurt if it connects I don’t know what is.

Alphard’s tell is nowhere near as obvious as Kohler’s but it is still clearly there. And again, I think this is a good thing. Alphard resides in the very last exploration mode we get to visit (not counting that it’s path 2 instead of 4, but it’s Arah either way).
By that point you can expect people to have gaine the experience ingame to deal with a shorter less prominent tell.

The main problem I have with these animated tells is, that they can be drowned in an effect storm. Even Kohler can be moderately tricky to see if a guardian set him on fire. If I could reduce the particle density of all the shiny lights, that would help immensely. The other option is to create a telegraph that isn’t affected by the effect storm.
Other than the giant neon sign however, the only other idea I can come up with is an auditive signal, maybe even a line of text that is displayed in the chat.
They did something like that for the soft enrage on the molten duo, so I guess the idea is not too farfetched.

The burrows in AC are by no means something that could be considered as a “dps requirement”. As people already pointed out, it is not possible to crit on these.
Of course some pugs still fail at the burrows, but the reason for that is 3-5 players acting like lobotomized stoners on valium and the same can be applied when it comes to kohlers “level of difficulty”.
After all, the only “real dps requirement” was nerfed long ago (Simin) and even back then simin wasn’t all about dealing damage, but handling sparks.
Bosses drowning in floods of particle effects is an issue, however it isn’t just AC related – considering the bosses in AC are relatively large and your group is limted to 5 players.
But hey, just like it is with alphard, don’t expect this issue to change. After all, the issues of the “dungeon community” are at the absolute bottom of a certain entities list, if even present.

As I said, the burrows are only a problem for an entire team of newbies. In that case you can have the problem of 5 people without a single power build (including gear choice in build here). Or what resembles a power build at the lower levels.
In such a case however, they an be a nightmare.
How likely that is to happen is another thing, I agree. I don’t know how many beginners only group venture there these days.

DigitalKirin.9714:

(Aside: I don’t know where you live or the language culture where you live, but where I live, calling someone “darling” is usually done in a condescending manner. I respectfully ask that you omit such words during our discussion. Thanks.)

Using “darling” and “dear” is polite. It’s not being condescending in the slightest. Please don’t read a condescending tone where there is none. I’m just being polite.

DigitalKirin.9714:

You don’t need to pvp to see the animation of your character. Talking about pvp merely obfuscates and attempts to redirect away from the question I posed earlier.

No, what makes you think that?

DigitalKirin.9714:

You play necromancer, so you know as well as I that the animations for scepter autoattack and grasping dead do not show any direct “ray” or “wave” or anything of the sort between you and what you attack.

I honestly don’t pay any attention to the effects of my own attacks. It has never really interested me, since it’s fire and forget. Unless I was actually facing another necromancer in pvp, I would never ever pay attention to what tells my own attacks have.

DigitalKirin.9714:

So do you feel that scepter should have some form of change in animation to give the autoattack and grasping dead a direct connection between the character and the point at which the attack strikes?

I haven’t got an opinion on that, I already told you. I never pay attention to it.

Agony.3542:

The burrows in AC are by no means something that could be considered as a “dps requirement”. As people already pointed out, it is not possible to crit on these.

What do crits have to do with it? It’s a matter of dealing enough damage in a limited amount of time. Whether that is with or without crits is besides the point. It IS a DPS check. Because if you don’t kill them fast enough, you get overwhelmed.

Agony.3542:

Of course some pugs still fail at the burrows, but the reason for that is 3-5 players acting like lobotomized stoners on valium and the same can be applied when it comes to kohlers “level of difficulty”.

Yes, from the point of a veteran with no capability of empathy for new players, I suppose that would be a perfect explanation. But that is of course not what’s happening.

Agony.3542:

After all, the issues of the “dungeon community” are at the absolute bottom of a certain entities list, if even present.

Sadly true.

Silberfisch.3046:

Other than the giant neon sign however, the only other idea I can come up with is an auditive signal, maybe even a line of text that is displayed in the chat.
They did something like that for the soft enrage on the molten duo, so I guess the idea is not too farfetched.

Why not both? Difficulty should not come from your ability to see the tell. Difficulty should come from battle mechanics, reflexes, speed, strategy. Not sensory deprivation. Just make the tell a giant lightning bolt that can be seen clearly in the mess of particles, with a clear sound cue, and then a large red aoe effect on the ground like with the knights. You should always see it coming, but what should make it difficult, is how fast the move is, and not if you can see it.

This is part of the problem, the design is incoherent. Some attacks do pathetic damage, yet they have an aoe marker. And other attacks can instantly down you (Kholer’s is one of them) yet it has no aoe markers at all. Make up your mind designers! Be coherent! If you make up a rule, use it consistently throughout the game.

It would be impossible to put an aoe marker on kholers attack seeing as its a melee grapple spin. And the tell is fine. Its a huge windup attack. Its even more obvious than the tells in that video link you posted. The issue isnt the tell, its the fact that they still havent addressed particle effect clutter in pve. Almost every boss has very clear tells, especially on the bigger attacks. The issue is that on some smaller bosses they can be completely covered in the particle effect mess. The more subtle tells add difficulty and make you really pay attention which i think is a good thing.

TL;DR – Subtle tells are good, they make things interesting. Particle effects need to be reduced.

Spoj The Second.7680:

It would be impossible to put an aoe marker on kholers attack seeing as its a melee grapple spin. And the tell is fine. Its a huge windup attack. Its even more obvious than the tells in that video link you posted. The issue isnt the tell, its the fact that they still havent addressed particle effect clutter in pve. Almost every boss has very clear tells, especially on the bigger attacks. The issue is that on some smaller bosses they can be completely covered in the particle effect mess. The more subtle tells add difficulty and make you really pay attention which i think is a good thing.

TL;DR – Subtle tells are good, they make things interesting. Particle effects need to be reduced.

I agree with that. But I disagree that it would be impossible to put an aoe marker on the spin attack. If they made one of those massive aoe circles appear whenever he does the attack (like the kind that appears around Scarlet’s Knights), that would always give players something visibly to respond to, even if particle effects are obscuring what the boss is doing. It would also be more consistent in design with other bosses. A hard hitting aoe attack should always have an aoe circle, or never, but not both. Consistency is important.

Id prefer there to be no circles on any boss then.

Spoj The Second.7680:

Id prefer there to be no circles on any boss then.

I’d actually be fine with that. Frankly, I think the red circles are a poor substitute for what the game is really lacking, which is clear tells. There are a lot of attacks in the game, where you are mostly dodging the red circle, and not a visual effect or a sound cue.

A good example of this, are traps in dungeons. A lot of traps have a red circle. Why do they have a red circle? Because you can’t see the trap, or because it seems to hit way outside what makes sense. So they added a big red circle to indicate the range of the trap. That’s a rather cheap solution to a simple problem. The obvious solution is to improve the visibility of the trap and it’s effect.

GW2 is the only game I’ve ever played, where attacks had to be indicated by red circles. Not even in GW1 did I need to see a red circle when someone was casting a firestorm or meteorshower, it was pretty clear what was happening and what the area of effect was (with chaos storm less so). The red circles are a substitute for visibility.

The Secret World had some interesting AoE circles that slowly fill out/change color from the center to the edge to also indicate the timing of when the attack would hit. I thought it was a cool idea, but I’m not sure I like how it makes dodging all major attacks much, much easier.

Kholer…I honestly think he is fine the way he is. He has one of the most obvious tells in the game, you are introduced to the windup animation throughout the dungeon from the gravelings. They have the same glowing/air-sucking effect before they do their leap/knockdown. So there is a degree of learning built into the dungeon.

What I do completely agree with you about are things like Lupi’s grub spawn. I remember the first time I heard what the tell was, I was dumbfounded at how players could be expected to figure it out. Lupi’s attacks are easy to see coming, once you’ve memorized him (Ok, ok….I do still get kicked a lot, though).

The other issue concerns things like the mobs in Arah (mages/illusionists especially). I’m sure they have tells. I’ve never noticed them, as they too are always covered by particle effects and super subtle. Belka’s knockback shot always kittenes me off too. She’s so tiny I never see anything coming. It’s mostly a matter of hoping I have a reflect up when it hits :-/

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Let me ask a fair question, to those that do not understand the argument I’m making about boss tells. Why don’t any of the bosses have an attack as clear as this one?

http://tinyurl.com/pma39bc

There are plenty of bosses in GW2 that have these massive aoe attacks that hit in a huge radius. But instead of actually seeing a large sphere-shaped explosion that grows in size, along with a clear sound effect, we get a big red circle on the ground and no sound effect.

I have to ask, why? Why would that be bad? Surely clear visualization is vastly superior to just a red ring? It would help the timing immensely. We would no longer have to watch for red circles, and could instead simply look and listen to what was happening on the screen.

If you haven’t noticed enemy animations, you’re really missing a whole depth to the game. It seems to me, the communication disconnect here is that you are playing the game on a very casual level, thus you really haven’t delved into the mechanics like many in this forum. It is clear through reading your posts you don’t have a very deep grasp on the game yet.

laharl.8435:

If you haven’t noticed enemy animations, you’re really missing a whole depth to the game. It seems to me, the communication disconnect here is that you are playing the game on a very casual level, thus you really haven’t delved into the mechanics like many in this forum. It is clear through reading your posts you don’t have a very deep grasp on the game yet.

Quite the opposite, you are missing the point I’m trying to make. I’m willing to look at this problem from the point of view of a new player.

But I am not a new player. <<<<———————————— Important difference

So I personally don’t have trouble noticing enemy animations, because I have memorized them through trial and error. But I know that this is a major stumbling block for new players, and I recognize that it’s not very well designed. It’s not user friendly, and counter intuitive.

And if you ponder the validity of that statement, maybe consider what the Dlonie just said. He/she also did not understand how Lupi’s grub summon worked until told by someone else (I had to watch a youtube video to understand it). So I’m not alone in this matter. I suspect a great number of players struggle with issues of visibility, and logical cause and effect between boss-tell and resulting effect. And this isn’t so much a problem with Lupi (I think he’s pretty good as a boss) but an overall problem with readability of skills in the entire game.

Lupi grub is the only one i can think of which isnt obvious you should dodge it. And its an attack which isnt even essential to dodge anyway so its not an issue. Lupi is the only boss I have learnt tells through videos. Everything else I learnt by watching for unique animations while playing. Some brief trial and error to perfect timing and know exactly what to dodge, but not enough to say it was bad design.

→Mad Queen Malafide. Since you didn’t manage to understand what some people tried to tell you about “dps checks” yet, I will try to give you a bit more clarification on that.
Where do you think your damage comes from? Well for direct damage there is Power and the skill coefficient of the attack you use. But those make only about 25% of “achieving maximum damage”. Stacking up critchance and critical damage will boost your damage by 200-250% (compared to just wearing “power armor” – soldiers for example – and armor like that is what most PUGs wear). But that’s not it. You can boost your damage further by using Slaying tonics, Slaying Sigils, Runes like Scholar or Ranger aswell as having traits that amplify your damage further. However since burrows are “mechanical” there are no slaying potions/sigils that would work on them, since they are imune to conditions, expecially vulnerability, you lose out on 25% “potential extra damage” and on all traits that would “increase your damage on bleeding/burning/conditioned/etc foes by 5-10%”.
Now lets come back to the “dps check”. You would assume a “dps check” would force you to adapt your build on the encounter you are facing, but in the case of the burrows, and any other “mechanical” enemy, you can’t really do that. The majority of ways to increase your damage doesn’t work on these, calling something like that a “dps encounter” fails to describe what killing the burrows really is about, similar to what running sparks at the current high priestress of dwayna, simin is. Doing these is about coordination, reacting to what is going on and having some clue of what to do.
While some groups fail due to having 4-5 players running a build without power, most of the runs fail due to the group members not knowing what to do and even swaping out one person (doesn’t even have to be an ele) can help fixing that, granted the group is willing to listen.
And belive me this “veteran player with no emapthy for new players” has run enough dungeons with PuGs to spot these kind of weaknesses and this “elitist scumbag” has explained what to do in the respective case often enough to know that these things magically start working out once the group knows what to do.

Agony.3542:

->Mad Queen Malafide. Since you didn’t manage to understand what some people tried to tell you about “dps checks” yet, I will try to give you a bit more clarification on that.
Where do you think your damage comes from? Well for direct damage there is Power and the skill coefficient of the attack you use. But those make only about 25% of “achieving maximum damage”. Stacking up critchance and critical damage will boost your damage by 200-250% (compared to just wearing “power armor” – soldiers for example – and armor like that is what most PUGs wear). But that’s not it. You can boost your damage further by using Slaying tonics, Slaying Sigils, Runes like Scholar or Ranger aswell as having traits that amplify your damage further. However since burrows are “mechanical” there are no slaying potions/sigils that would work on them, since they are imune to conditions, expecially vulnerability, you lose out on 25% “potential extra damage” and on all traits that would “increase your damage on bleeding/burning/conditioned/etc foes by 5-10%”.

Uuuugh…. You do not need to explain the mechanics of crits and slaying potions to me. Besides, it’s irrelevant. Burrows are objects. So it boils down to straight damage, and nothing else.

Agony.3542:

Now lets come back to the “dps check”. You would assume a “dps check” would force you to adapt your build on the encounter you are facing, but in the case of the burrows, and any other “mechanical” enemy, you can’t really do that. The majority of ways to increase your damage doesn’t work on these, calling something like that a “dps encounter” fails to describe what killing the burrows really is about,

Wait, you’re telling me that killing the burrows does not revolve around destroying them quickly? Because that what it sounds like. And in my book, if the burrows aren’t being destroyed quickly enough, that means damage is lacking. Why would damage be lacking?

Agony.3542:

While some groups fail due to having 4-5 players running a build without power, most of the runs fail due to the group members not knowing what to do and even swaping out one person (doesn’t even have to be an ele) can help fixing that, granted the group is willing to listen.

It still boils down to damage. Don’t you see? It’s all about destroying them quickly. If your party can’t destroy them fast enough, you lose. So it IS a DPS check. Not enough damage == wipe.

So why do so many groups struggle with destroying the burrows fast enough? They aren’t picking their nose, they’re all attacking. But often for a lot of pugs, that’s still not fast enough. What is wrong here?

God can you guys give it a rest x.×. You guys have been fighting over this for 24 hours now, in this poor helpless necro thread. Is it really necessary? The thread isn’t about what you are even talking about anymore. Ugh.

(Ps. I keep getting excited when dungeons is not greyed out and I come and see you guys are just continuing your argument…. Bah!)

Well if that is the case, lets return to the original topic. Here is what I would do to improve Ascalon Catacombs:

Lay out
First of all, open up the alternate paths. Allow players to choose a longer but easier path, or a harder but quicker path. This provides interesting options for experienced and new players alike, and makes the dungeon less like a one-way street.

Make it clear that Kholer is optional
Either put “optional” in the quest description, and/or make Kholer guard something that is not specifically required for dungeon completion, but may make the dungeon easier. For example, maybe he guards a switch that turns off some deadly traps, and opens up a quicker road to the final boss. This would give experienced players a reason to fight him (they can then bypass the traps), and encourage inexperienced players to avoid him (they take a longer detour, which involves fighting more trash mobs).

Traps
Provide a way to shut off traps (before going through them, rather than after). Put a switch in a side room, and make it an alternate solution to bypass certain obstacles. Experienced players can still dash through the traps with ease like before, but inexperienced players can take a detour to shut them down.

Burrows
Don’t make us babysit npc’s ever! Killing the burrows is fine, but having to defend an npc is not. It’s never been fun in GW1, and I would hope the devs would have learned that after 7 years.

Gating
I would add at least one more gating mechanic before some of the bosses, that forces players to take care of trash mobs. But that’s just my personal preference.

[img]http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png[/img]

Ugh… can’t get the image to work.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

No, I want to understand encounters the first time. I want clear mechanics, clear tells, fair challenge. Case in point, basically every boss in Demons Souls or Dark Souls. Challenging, but completely clear in both mechanics and moves.

We haven’t played the same game have we. I love Dark Souls but it’s a stretch to pretend that it is any better than gw2 when it comes to being clear about mechanics.
A new player doing the Capra Demon for the first time will irremediably die unless he’s wearing high poise gear simply because there is literally a 2 seconds time to react to the encounter right after you entered the room and there was nothing to prepare you for what was about to unfold. The game is filled with surprise buttsecks like this.

Dark Souls has much more fun fights than GW2, even trash mobs are better but the game isn’t superior when it comes to teaching the player how to play it. Where it shines though is that even regular mobs behave like a player : they can block, they can evade, and they can even parry so if you’re one of these constant skill spammer you see in GW2 who keep spamming all the skills in their bar you’re in for a bad time because this isn’t a game where any of the content can be completed by mashing the one button and the first skeleton mobs you encounter are going to shred you. Dark Souls is what GW2 would be if all trash mobs were a bit more like the Heart of the Mists training class NPCs but with an actually decent AI.

Good PvE forces players to do what their class does best to the point of extreme difficulty and what their class doesn’t do well to a level of moderate difficulty. To do this boss fights need to have multi-stage fights. Unfortunately for this game there is no clear class roles and boss fights are just ‘dodge this aoe’ in dungeons and in fractals its just ‘dodge this aoe that 1 shots you’.

Difficulty doesn’t come from unforgiving mechanics like getting one shot, it comes to responding to various stresses put on your class and your skills.

Nikaido.3457:

A new player doing the Capra Demon for the first time will irremediably die unless he’s wearing high poise gear simply because there is literally a 2 seconds time to react to the encounter right after you entered the room and there was nothing to prepare you for what was about to unfold. The game is filled with surprise buttsecks like this.

Doesn’t the tutorial of Dark Souls prepare you for this sort of punishment? Don’t get me wrong, most players will be caught off guard, and instantly die at Capra Demon, but it’s not like there haven’t been any such surprises leading up to that boss fight. The game is littered with it, and teaches you to stay on guard right from the start.

Apart from this ambush, because that’s what it is, Dark Souls really does have good tells for every boss attack. It’s not an ambush if you tell players its coming.

Tree

[img]http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png[/img]
Ugh… can’t get the image to work.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Using “darling” and “dear” is polite. It’s not being condescending in the slightest. Please don’t read a condescending tone where there is none. I’m just being polite.

I understand where you’re coming from. Please understand where I’m coming from. I’m respectfully asking you to give it a pass next time you feel the need to call me darling. No harm, no foul.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I haven’t got an opinion on that, I already told you. I never pay attention to it.

I’m drawing your attention to it so you can form an opinion.

DigitalKirin.9714:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Using “darling” and “dear” is polite. It’s not being condescending in the slightest. Please don’t read a condescending tone where there is none. I’m just being polite.

I understand where you’re coming from. Please understand where I’m coming from. I’m respectfully asking you to give it a pass next time you feel the need to call me darling. No harm, no foul.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I haven’t got an opinion on that, I already told you. I never pay attention to it.

I’m drawing your attention to it so you can form an opinion.

Any time anyone calls me darling or dear or sweet heart it makes me murderous. If it’s another female doing it, it’s even worse. I feel condescended to. Especially in the middle of an argument.

I get where Kirin is coming from.

How about dearheart? /em cackles like Faolain

(fyi, I also interpreted it as very condescending. I’m a dude, fwiw.)

But it does sound condescending if you say it to someone you arent friends with.