Guild Wars 2

Please try to keep this topic civil.

What I have noticed is that there is quite the divide between the elite (hardcore) and the casual (not as useless as some would think) gamer.

I believe this divide stems from the dodge mechanism in that the devs create a dungeon IMO knowing full well the players have at their disposal the ability to avoid damage on a fairly regular basis. However, most of the casuals see it from the other side of the coin and that is “see a red circle get out of the way”.

Although these may seem to be similar in their use by design, they are quite different in their execution. In an example take any character that is entering dungeon X for the first time, he is taught from the open world to get out of the red circles at any cost so as to save a beating at the hands of X critter. This works well in dungeons against some of the starting creatures but only until he runs out of endurance while surrounded with creatures and he becomes dead from inability to dodge. After running said dungeon a few times he becomes more knowledgeable in what he can safely absorb and thus knows what to avoid. But because it takes not only time but a fair bit of silver to learn this most likely will just leave out of frustration, never to return.

On the other end of the scale the Devs knowing that players can avoid X damage in an encounter, I believe, want the players to go a trial and error route to get the dungeon down to a science, but as I have said, many don’t even bother and just quit. I honestly don’t know a quick fix to this issue, save maybe to add a starter option for each path to give players the ability to see what that path entails and practice the tells. This starter option could make the bosses and trash hit just as hard, but have much less health and possible a reduced repair cost. Knowing what to a avoid at all costs maybe even a freebee option that gives less but still similar rewards as the story mode is better than what we have.

I guess the TL;DR to this topic goes to the devs:
If a players feels challenged they will have fun and continue to play, if a player is frustrated they won’t and usually just quit doing dungeons. Also; Tutorials are good!

I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about. My first time going into any dungeon was never like that. I didn’t go in and die to being “surrounded with creatures”. There’s almost never a point where you don’t have your whole party with you. People don’t know the power of being able to save downed teammates is the real issue. I still get into PuGs that don’t pick up others when they’re downed.

I’ll admit that during the beta when Spider Queen was actually difficult (mainly because CCing her caused crazy powerful adds to spawn) my group got frustrated. But no other boss in any other dungeon has gotten us to a point like that.

Would you please define casual and hard core in term of competency so we can be on the same channel?

SkyChef.5432:

Would you please define casual and hard core in term of competency so we can be on the same channel?

Dictionary:

Casual 1. Being without ceremony or formality; relaxed: a casual evening with friends.

Hardcore: 1. The most dedicated, unfailingly loyal faction of a group or organization: the hard core of the separatist movement.

In other words a team comprised of players that have done the dungeon over and over and know what to expect using tactics and environment to their advantage would not be considered casual.

Your definition according to dictionary are about mind set, not about competency.
Your own definition of a team of hard core players implied that they are competent while the casual isn’t.
Am I correct?

SkyChef.5432:

Your definition according to dictionary are about mind set, not about competency.
Your own definition of a team of hard core players implied that they are competent while the casual isn’t.
Am I correct?

Not so, using your competency argument, this case is determined by experience. I can still be a competent chef once shown a kitchen and told how to prepare a meal. If however I am let loose in a kitchen without any clue as how to proceed, the meal may be a good attempt at food having eaten before (in this case compared to open world), but you wouldn’t want to eat it, if served as fine dining.

If that isn’t plain enough I am sorry, but this has nothing to do with being incompetent, and on the contrary, it is about wanting to learn the ropes without having to be hung by them.

Tommyknocker.6089:

In other words a team comprised of players that have done the dungeon over and over and know what to expect using tactics and environment to their advantage would not be considered casual.

Beg to differ on this… I consider myself to be pretty casual, as are many of the people that I run instances with.

Being casual does not preclude someone from being competent – i.e. understanding good tactics and being able to adapt to all kinds of randomness that can happen.

The current design cannot cater to both the “too hard” and “too easy” views. ANet currently has no plans to either: make easier and harder explorables to cater to both; or buff the rewards for story dungeons, the supposed “normal mode,” to make them repeatable end-game content. Given their current dungeon work is centered on reworking the dungeons, we aren’t likely to see anything but those reworks for months.

Then there’s the difference in perspective. Some of the people who are saying it’s too hard are giving it their all in dungeons. One issue I see is picking out the stuff to use dodge — a limited resource — on, and what not to. It’s natural to try to dodge out of circles, big nasty-looking attacks, etc. The result is all too often being out of endurance when the attack you should dodge comes. The learning curve for these people is steeper than for others, who in turn cannot believe that people are having trouble. It’s likely that “never the twain shall meet” as far as these points of view go.

As to a “tutorial…” Story mode could have been a tutorial, but wasn’t back when I did them. It could be argued that at-launch AC story was harder than P 1 or 2 of AC Ex, for instance. The open world could have been a tutorial, but isn’t. Unless you choose to tackle mobs of a much higher level and/or in great numbers, you will not see anything that forces you to go anywhere close to all out. There is also nothing in the open world that teaches you how to work with others.

As to reviving the downed in dungeons, this is part of the learning curve. Many dungeon fights feature a lot of mob AoE, which often targets the downed. This can make it very punitive to try to revive them. Classes that have move-when-downed skills should be using these to move to safety. Players whose class has a quick revive skill don’t normally slot these skills in the open world because, well, they aren’t needed.

I’ve been on teams that did well, and teams that did poorly. I think both “sides” need to be more open to the others’ points of view. The players who do dungeons regularly might be better served to leave off with the negative comments and look at why people are having trouble. The players having difficulty might be better served to ask why others are not. Then maybe the “twain” could meet.

Mourningcry.9428:

Tommyknocker.6089:

In other words a team comprised of players that have done the dungeon over and over and know what to expect using tactics and environment to their advantage would not be considered casual.

Beg to differ on this… I consider myself to be pretty casual, as are many of the people that I run instances with.

Being casual does not preclude someone from being competent – i.e. understanding good tactics and being able to adapt to all kinds of randomness that can happen.

Nowhere did I say casuals were incompetent. What I am saying is that it would be nice to have an option at a toned down version of every path so as to ease new players into said path. But if the majority think that dungeons are fine just the way they are, I will just stick to open world and save on the repair bills.

Thanks for reading.

Tommyknocker.6089:

Nowhere did I say casuals were incompetent. What I am saying is that it would be nice to have an option at a toned down version of every path so as to ease new players into said path. But if the majority think that dungeons are fine just the way they are, I will just stick to open world and save on the repair bills.

Thanks for reading.

Ok. My misinterpretation.

The thing with the current implementation of dungeons is that each instance (I’m considering each indiviual Path of each dungeon as an instance) often has unique mechanics specific to that instance. True, some mechanics are repeated, as part of the instance “theme”, but I think the choke points tend to be the unique mechanics.

Not really sure if there’s a way to tone down those choke points (slower boulders on COF P1). The thing is, the mechanics tend to become pretty obvious after some exposure. Perhaps the issue is with the penalty of failure for bad execution (i.e. insta-death from the COF boulders, or the COE lasers).

I don’t know if a toned down version of some of these events really would make a difference – eventually, the player has to raise themselves to the level of performance required for that specific instance mechanic.

Edit: Those are just some really obvious examples of mechanics and are not necessarilly representative of what the real choke points may be for some players.

Mourningcry.9428:

Tommyknocker.6089:

Nowhere did I say casuals were incompetent. What I am saying is that it would be nice to have an option at a toned down version of every path so as to ease new players into said path. But if the majority think that dungeons are fine just the way they are, I will just stick to open world and save on the repair bills.

Thanks for reading.

Ok. My misinterpretation.

The thing with the current implementation of dungeons is that each instance (I’m considering each indiviual Path of each dungeon as an instance) often has unique mechanics specific to that instance. True, some mechanics are repeated, as part of the instance “theme”, but I think the choke points tend to be the unique mechanics.

Not really sure if there’s a way to tone down those choke points (slower boulders on COF P1). The thing is, the mechanics tend to become pretty obvious after some exposure. Perhaps the issue is with the penalty of failure for bad execution (i.e. insta-death from the COF boulders, or the COE lasers).

I don’t know if a toned down version of some of these events really would make a difference – eventually, the player has to raise themselves to the level of performance required for that specific instance mechanic.

I commend you on trying to see it from a different point of view, thanks.

That said, in order to be prepared for the different paths, the players need to be trained, or raised up, to watch out for all these obstacles even if this includes raising the bar in open world. As I cannot see that happening for many reasons, I suggested what i felt to be a nice compromise.

Using the rolling rocks in CoF as an example, having an ability to take half damage while within a second of dodging either way would help lots to avoid an instant death situation. But as I’m not a designer I cannot say how feasible that would be.

Edit: correction

I haven’t argue anything because I just want to understand what’s your definition of casual & hardcore. Your definition thrown in doesn’t help because one is based on mind set and the others about competency. Education is one form of competency and experience is another. Combination of both: Priceless.

Now how do we got that competency without being hung by the ropes while learning it? Perseverance is the only way. Other than that, the only help that could make the road less travel bearable to some are from the pioneering players of this game who put a lot of tutorials about build, skills, traits, videos of everything. Considering this, these pioneering players have no experience of whatsoever encounters they have faced so they have to pay for their mistakes with numerous deaths & armor repairs, until they master the arts through perseverance. With a lot of efforts of these players, what else one can’t find about anything and google is so easy to spell and remember.

And also what’s easy for one is harder for others. What you consider hard while the “elites” consider easy, and what is considered easy or acceptable by you is considered hard by others, who has lower level of perseverance than yours. The only thing that can be done to compromise all of this is lower the difficulty to zero like hit #1 key and get 1 gold. Of course, I exaggerated but you would get the point.
Maybe, we should have tutorials about perseverance then. But then how a person w/ no any perseverance trait passing the course? Should we tie them to a chair doing neural pattern programming but I guess, you probably don’t like that idea either.

SkyChef.5432:

I haven’t argue anything because I just want to understand what’s your definition of casual & hardcore. Your definition thrown in doesn’t help because one is based on mind set and the others about competency. Education is one form of competency and experience is another. Combination of both: Priceless.

Now how do we got that competency without being hung by the ropes while learning it? Perseverance is the only way. Other than that, the only help that could make the road less travel bearable to some are from the pioneering players of this game who put a lot of tutorials about build, skills, traits, videos of everything. Considering this, these pioneering players have no experience of whatsoever encounters they have faced so they have to pay for their mistakes with numerous deaths & armor repairs, until they master the arts through perseverance. With a lot of efforts of these players, what else one can’t find about anything and google is so easy to spell and remember.

Maybe, we should have tutorials about perseverance then. But then how a person w/ no any perseverance trait passing the course? Should we tie them to a chair doing neural pattern programming but I guess, you probably don’t like that idea either.

I have no argument for you. And your right practice makes perfect, but when your game is targeted at the casual gamer It behooves you to make it casual. Doing something over and over again to eventually get it down isn’t fun, it’s tedious and repetition, like grinding, is something many of us came her to avoid.

So I agree with you, in order to get good at the dungeons you can watch a vid, die multiple times, and learn the dungeon. But while the player is doing his/her impersonation of trained behavior, where exactly is the fun?

Edit removed Pavlov’s dog in favor of the term trained behavior.

^where exactly was the insult?

If you are referring to a Pavlov’s dog is just a saying representing doing repetitive i.e. gringing until it is second nature. I could have just as easily said playing fetch, or any of many versions of the same. Also the your was referring to the player not you personally.

However it it offends you then I will edit it to say otherwise.

This whole debate has nothing to do with casual vs hardcore. Even though it comes up in every game.

The difference is simply the ability to learn, think creatively, react to the situation, and most importantly the willingness to learn. If someone ragequits over a few deaths, that’s a personal problem. You wont ever fix it until it becomes impossible to die.

Well, thank you. I deleted that post since it’s not on by purpose.

Anyway, the situation isn’t that simple because whoever could figure out to solve this problem would be a multi-millionaire over night. The problem is dynamic because player’s definition of fun changed once they approach a higher level of competency. What’s used to be fun before now becomes boring. What were challenged before now become easy. And there is no end to that. And it could be why Anet has made a change to cater to those “casual” players have moved up to a different level. In absence of evidence, it’s as good a speculation as any of yours about “casual” players want to have the kind of fun you think they should. And I think they have more data logged on players’ behavior on contents than you & I have.

“Anyway, the situation isn’t that simple because whoever could figure out to solve this problem would be a multi-millionaire over night. The problem is dynamic because player’s definition of fun changed once they approach a higher level of competency. What’s used to be fun before now becomes boring. What were challenged before now become easy. And there is no end to that. And it could be why Anet has made a change to cater to those “casual” players have moved up to a different level.”

Well casual players haven’t moved up. Whenever I’ve done a pick up group for AC since the patch there has been a lot of pain. Plenty of those players have said ‘not going back there again’. It might be a better dungeon in terms of storylines and design but it is just too hard. The old AC was fine for difficulty since it did kill inexperienced players regularly, to the point that they could not complete paths without better tactics. It wasn’t the pushover that some people like to remember it as. The new design with the old difficulty would be an actual improvement.

Someone mentioned reviving team mates. Well my experience in the AC is that if I go near someone to drop a shadow refuge it will probably be interrupted in the quarter second it takes to cast by a graveling leaping on the downed person with a wide arc of aoe, leaving me knocked down, knocked down, down, and dead. The mechanics of the dungeon severely punish mistakes or even just not sighting all the incoming attacks. If it was the level 75 dungeon it would be ok, but not the level 35 dungeon.

Striker.9413:

This whole debate has nothing to do with casual vs hardcore. Even though it comes up in every game.

The difference is simply the ability to learn, think creatively, react to the situation, and most importantly the willingness to learn. If someone ragequits over a few deaths, that’s a personal problem. You wont ever fix it until it becomes impossible to die.

I’m going to disagree. It’s not that simple. The difference is thresholds.

Think of the difference between someone who does something as a hobby and someone who does the same thing as a pastime. In a video game, the hobbyist spends the time needed to learn everything, whether he picks it up quickly or not. The hobbyist will buy a gaming keyboard and/or mouse because it maximizes his performance. In the case of dungeons that means he cuts down reaction time, leading to fewer “oops” deaths. The hobbyist is willing to crunch the numbers to see what works best in different situations. He is willing to do his homework on the dungeons so he knows what to expect. He enjoys burying himself in his hobby.

The person playing as a pastime is, well, just passing time for fun. He may be as willing to learn as anyone else, but his tolerance level for frustration is lower than the hobbyist. After a while, knocking his head against a wall and making no progress means he’s not having fun. Since fun was his goal, he’s out. Maybe he tries again later, maybe not. The hobbyist will never understand this unless he walks a mile in the pastime players shoes.

The pastime player has been conditioned by almost every other MMO to believe that dungeons are well within his capability. GW2 dungeons are not those dungeons. GW2 dungeons were designed for hobbyists. The problem is that that leaves the pastime player out in the cold. There are easier dungeons, but nothing that resembles the dungeon experience from other MMO’s. ANet’s intent was that these players would just stay in the open world, or do story mode (Lyssa knows why they would). However, they’re as used to having an enjoyable dungeon experience as anyone else.