Guild Wars 2

Greetings all!

Just thought I’d start a thread on MY OPINION ( keep the flamers away ) on the state of dungeons at the moment, and really just a future solution to the problem, and to get everyone else’s thoughts.

I’ve always enjoyed dungeon runs in MMO’s, especially when they are well done, and looking at Guild Wars 2 dungeon’s as they are at the moment, feel more like a zerg group plowing through mobs, then any kind of mechanic based dungeon adventure. I get disappointed and upset when coming to a boss fight, and everyone screams to stack against a wall and spam burst skills. While I love Guild Wars 2, and have always been a huge fan of ArenaNet and the artistic style they have going, aswell as the polished finish alot of their games have, I miss the days of raid boss’s like in WoW. Say what you will about WoW, they got their raid boss fights perfect. When you kill a raid boss, you feel a sense of achievement and relief.

The only boss fight I can think of in Guild Wars 2 that reminds me of that same feeling and requires some knowledge and observation of the encounter, is Lupi.

If and I’m sure they will, implement more and new dungeons in the future. Id like to see more/all boss fights to be more like Lupi, where perhaps 2 party members need to tackle 1 objective, while the other 3 focus on the boss, or the boss would perform a skill on a player, which requires all other players to help out to prevent this players death, failure to do so, would result in wiping. Also making the boss encounters more skill based, and with a learning curve, would make the dungeons more challenging, as I know alot of people are complaining about this at the moment. The boss drops would need to be adjusted to accommodate this obviously, 2-3 blue items from a lvl 80 fight like Lupi is just malicious from the developers. Enough of this standing in a corner, and smashing 2-3 buttons.

Anyway, thats my input, my thoughts…
Let me hear yours.

Galbedir.9178:

If and I’m sure they will, implement more and new dungeons in the future. Id like to see more/all boss fights to be more like Lupi, where perhaps 2 party members need to tackle 1 objective, while the other 3 focus on the boss,

What is this objective to tackle at lupi then..?

Perhaps I worded that line incorrectly, I was using the Lupi fight as an example of mechanics in a boss fight, where you cant just stand in 1 corner and spam skills. The 2 players on 1 objective and 3 on the boss was just an example of the way a completely different or future boss encounter could be done to create the same mechanics/tactics feel of what Lupi brings to the dungeon. Instead of like most boss’s, stacking in a corner.

I think what is currently missing is positional awareness. Bosses don’t encourage players to spread out, or to attack from specific directions. Lately Anet’s designers seem to have been trying to fix that. The Flame Shaman in Fractals is perhaps one of their biggest successes in that regard, because it encourages people to not only spread out, but to also ball up behind reflective walls.

The Marionette battle also had a few cases of bosses that encouraged better strategies, like the Warden that could only be attacked from behind, or the Warden that required stacking, or required ranged attacks.

Then there’s also a few bosses where the positioning feels like a tacked on gimmick. Like with the recent Wurm bosses, where players must all stand in the same spot. I hate that sort of design, it’s artificial. I prefer bosses that encourage clever positioning naturally.

Good points Mad Queen Malafide, I have not actually done the flame shaman fractal in months, ill give it a run and see. Hopefully future dungeon boss’s will use the same kind of thinking when being designed.

Play fractals.

Pretty much fractals.

Mossman, Arch Diviner, Molten Duo, Mai Trin, Grawl Shaman, Jellyfish Beast to name a few…

Improve Boss AI
Change how Bosses think and act, make them more dynamic to fight:

• Give them all Dodges, and make specific Skills into “triggers” for these Dodges (Such as Warrior’s 100 blades, Guardian’s Whirling Wrath, Thief’s Cloak and Dagger etc) or if the Skills never show, they use it at regular intervall or when they’ve taken a certain amount of damage. This will add another layer of tactics onto fighting, as teams will have to “Bait out” the dodges before nuking the boss, or risk wasting their entire game. Skilled/Organized teams will easily pick up on BossDodge CD and how to bait it out, unorganized teams will find themselves wasting their skills and prolonging the fight.
• The frequency of these Dodges increases depends on how many players are within say, 300-600 units or so of the boss. It won’t be undefeatable with 5 people in Melee, but the frequent Dodges would lower incoming DPS to the point where it might be Optimal to run with 3-4 in Melee, 1-2 at Range, for instance.
• Intelligence, make them learn from their mistakes. For example, primarily ranged bosses will keep their distance even if LoS’d (if possible) BUT will switch to Melee once they find their attacks Reflected. This means they won’t stand at range and fire arrows continously at your Wall of Light, instead you’ll have to time that application, same with Smoke Screen or Feedback.

Encourage Build Diversity
I’m probably gonna get chewed down for this, but I don’t think the current Zerker Meta is at all optimal. I follow it, of course, but I’d rather see a game where every stat combination at least amount for something (Hey, let a guy dream, will ya?)
Phases and “Miniphases” is one way this could work. For example, a Boss could have different “Modes” that he shifts between regularily (Or different bosses have different permanent modes.)

• Stalwart – The Boss gains a HUGE buff to Toughness but their attacks deal less damage. This mode would be perfectly dealt with through Condition Damage, as seen in the Wurm events.
• Brutal – The Boss gains Health regeneration and increased Damage, but attacks slower. Basically, DPS race with higher stakes. Go Zerk or go Home.
• Ferocious – The Boss’ Damage and Defenses drop slightly, but they attack much more frequently and have much shorter Cooldown on their skills. Might require the team to run with Soldier/Knight gear.

More Unique Mechanics
Nothing is as refreshing as coming face to face with a Boss, and realizing you won’t beat them by just smashing the most conveniently placed blunt object against their forehead and hope for the best. Unique mechanics is what keeps things fun and interesting.

Great post TheSwede, Really like the idea of boss phases/modes, and the Stalwart one would actually be a great way to bring condition builds into parties.

TheSwede.9512:

Encourage Build Diversity

Considering the enormous grind for getting Ascended gear, this may actually hurt the game because people are not going to want to regrind for a different set of gear. (You can downgrade to exotics but psychologically people don’t like that.)

Anet screwed up big time with Ascended gear because now they’ve closed off an important avenue for making the game more interesting.

Improve Boss AI
Change how Bosses think and act, make them more dynamic to fight:

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So more content for speed clearers to blitz through and more content for more casual players to complain about. Most people couldn’t even do the Marionette and that was practically faceroll in difficulty. What makes you think they’re going to be able to do any of this?

The anti-melee aspect of your post is just pointless as well, it would make boss fights about as interesting as the Lyssa temple if they kept running away from melee, i.e. it would be about as fun as getting your own teeth pulled out.

Encourage Build Diversity

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“Forcing” people to use zerker is bad (spoiler alert – the game currently doesn’t, whereas having a boss stacking toughness actually forces condi) therefore lets force them to use condi. Let’s force them to use defensive stats. Stop imposing the way you want to play on others just because you dislike direct damage builds.

If ANet want to do phases they should take a tip out of their own Lupicus fight where it’s raw skill that lets you overcome the challenges of each phase’s mechanics and this can be achieved in full offensive gear, not irritating “oh the boss is now suddenly resilient to direct damage” gimmicks.

More Unique Mechanics
Nothing is as refreshing as coming face to face with a Boss, and realizing you won’t beat them by just smashing the most conveniently placed blunt object against their forehead and hope for the best. Unique mechanics is what keeps things fun and interesting.

I agree. Lupicus, Alphard and Imbued Shaman are amazing pug destroyers. However annoying mechanics like the ones you’ve suggested aren’t the way to make boss fights interesting.

As long as there is virtually no punishment for people going ranged, it should never be encouraged.

hendo.1940:

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The first thing I’d like to note isn’t that giving bosses certain bonuses should make them impossible to beat with the wrong setup, because that’d be as you claim forcing people into specific Gearsets. Instead, these changes would only change what’s Optimal, meaning that if you’re facing an enemy with High Tough you’ll be able to beat him in say 30 seconds by Nuking him with conditions, but it’d take 50 seconds with zerker builds. It wouldn’t at all force people into a specific gearsets, only those that really want their dungeon runs to go as fast as possible.

PS: I do not have something against Zerker gear, I use it all the time in dungeons. I just think it’d be better if all manners of builds had carried some value across the board.

Sure but make condition builds a bit more skillful to play.

You reference the wurm event as an example of increasing toughness, and berserker builds against husks dealt like 30 damage per hit. You would be forcing people who use berserker gear to use different gear sets because you disagree with the meta, i.e. once again, someone trying to impose your views on everyone.

Gear with maximum offence will always be optimal in video games no matter what you play, so I don’t understand why people are trying to buck this trend. It’s a skill/survivability issue, you keep trading away survivability as long as you have the skill to keep yourself up and then hopefully you use max offensive stats after a while. A bit like in Dragon Age where you could just have a group of squishy mages spam fireballs and storm of the century, stack magic and willpower and just obliterate everything. Now don’t get me wrong, it was imbalanced as hell, but GW2 isn’t even like that, bad zerkers are probably half as efficient as good zerkers so GW2 still has that skill requirement to use offensive gear.