Guild Wars 2

Dub.1273:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I have never had to change my build for any boss in GW2.

I was able to run everything kitten with Sabway/Discord Heroes and never really had the need to change my build, or those of my heroes for that matter. Does that mean it’s always the most effective setup for a situation? No. You can always make minor tweaks to get through faster, like using EoE in GW1 if you knew there were many mobs of the same type.

I’d like to see that happen. So much, that I’d pay 200g to see discordway pits, plains and wastes quest (underworld).

I’d actually like to do a hero uw clear just right now. Anyone up for it?

Dub.1273:

Dub.1273:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I have never had to change my build for any boss in GW2.

I was able to run everything kitten with Sabway/Discord Heroes and never really had the need to change my build, or those of my heroes for that matter. Does that mean it’s always the most effective setup for a situation? No. You can always make minor tweaks to get through faster, like using EoE in GW1 if you knew there were many mobs of the same type.

I’d like to see that happen. So much, that I’d pay 200g to see discordway pits, plains and wastes quest (underworld).

I’d actually like to do a hero uw clear just right now. Anyone up for it?

Don’t…do this to me… ;_;

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Just look at this stuff! THIS is what GW2 needs. This is what I call build options:
_(Keep in mind, you can choose from all 4 of these trees at the same time, and you can also multi-class!)

I never played at this game specifically, but I always hated this kind of tree. If they could keep the current system of trait, merge revamp them like they do, add more good option and removed stats from trait, I would be so happy. But I guess that every single player in the game have their own version of what is better.

Thaddeus.4891:

Derenek.8931:

Asking for better AI coding isn’t asking to be similar to other games, it’s asking to raise the standard in order to match those games.
…
You don’t want something new and challenging?

Do you think you are special and the first to think about that? You are in the dungeon subforum. Most people here solo dungeon for the last year, some even 2 years. We ask for more challenging content for a long long time, with more developed idea than : oh Anet just have to give better AI coding.

I’ve typed very specific and comprehensive suggestions over the last few days bro. It is probably 50 pages worth through the forums. And inline many others, I am offering to actually do some behavioral AI coding for Anet if they will let me see the code.

Derenek.8931:

I’ve typed very specific and comprehensive suggestions over the last few days bro. It is probably 50 pages worth through the forums. And inline many others, I am offering to actually do some behavioral AI coding for Anet if they will let me see the code.

Please, Anet, keep this guy away from your code. No good can come from it.

Mossy Gargoyle.3274:

Derenek.8931:

I’ve typed very specific and comprehensive suggestions over the last few days bro. It is probably 50 pages worth through the forums. And inline many others, I am offering to actually do some behavioral AI coding for Anet if they will let me see the code.

Please, Anet, keep this guy away from your code. No good can come from it.

Yup, I’d make many of the forum members very angry. Monsters would actively avoid getting trapped in tiny corners. They’d use their skills, try and break groups up into smaller easier to manage and attack sections….All the sorts of things I was told were “annoying” to gamers lol

Derenek.8931:

Thaddeus.4891:

Derenek.8931:

Asking for better AI coding isn’t asking to be similar to other games, it’s asking to raise the standard in order to match those games.
…
You don’t want something new and challenging?

Do you think you are special and the first to think about that? You are in the dungeon subforum. Most people here solo dungeon for the last year, some even 2 years. We ask for more challenging content for a long long time, with more developed idea than : oh Anet just have to give better AI coding.

I’ve typed very specific and comprehensive suggestions over the last few days bro. It is probably 50 pages worth through the forums. And inline many others, I am offering to actually do some behavioral AI coding for Anet if they will let me see the code.

Yeah, not going to happen.

However, you can always apply for a job at Anet, and fix all the things wrong with min/maxing, stacking, AI behavior, etc.

pdavis.8031:

Derenek.8931:

Thaddeus.4891:

Derenek.8931:

Asking for better AI coding isn’t asking to be similar to other games, it’s asking to raise the standard in order to match those games.
…
You don’t want something new and challenging?

Do you think you are special and the first to think about that? You are in the dungeon subforum. Most people here solo dungeon for the last year, some even 2 years. We ask for more challenging content for a long long time, with more developed idea than : oh Anet just have to give better AI coding.

I’ve typed very specific and comprehensive suggestions over the last few days bro. It is probably 50 pages worth through the forums. And inline many others, I am offering to actually do some behavioral AI coding for Anet if they will let me see the code.

Yeah, not going to happen.

However, you can always apply for a job at Anet, and fix all the things wrong with min/maxing, stacking, AI behavior, etc.

I got my own company. I heard rumors Anet doesn’t pay as well as other companies anyway.

When words just don’t cut it…

Derenek.8931:

I got my own company. I heard rumors Anet doesn’t pay as well as other companies anyway.

Yes, there is a stubborn rumor that Anet pays below the industry standard, while pushing unpleasant deadlines. At least according to ex employees. Better to remain independent.

But to keep things in perspective, these are of course reviews written by people who were let go by Anet. And when people are let go, they rarely leave positive reviews. The reviews do all seem to agree on the same points though, and it also seems in line with what Josh Foreman described about the work climate during the SAB2 crisis.

Frankly, I don’t think the problem is just with the AI. If I were doing game design work for them, I would probably start by giving the monsters builds first. But encounters and environment go hand in hand, so big changes to the dungeons would also be unavoidable.

It’s such a mess right now, it would be much easier to just erase the existing dungeons, and start over from scratch.

But then you also have the problem that what ever challenging content you create, must be doable with all classes. Since the classes are currently severely unbalanced, you’d need to fix that too. So many problems are connected to each other. I would not want to be in the shoes of the game designer that has to fix all that.

Derenek.8931:

I’ve typed very specific and comprehensive suggestions over the last few days bro. It is probably 50 pages worth through the forums. And inline many others, I am offering to actually do some behavioral AI coding for Anet if they will let me see the code.

Being able to code AI is one thing. But being able to code it within GW2’s environment is a whole other beast. I think the problem is a lot more complicated than you assume. Custom game engines often are strung together with bits and pieces of code, held together with duck tape. And you have to work within that unstable framework.

Mossy Gargoyle.3274:

Please, Anet, keep this guy away from your code. No good can come from it.

-Says someone who is not willing to make any contribution to improvement what so ever.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Mossy Gargoyle.3274:

Please, Anet, keep this guy away from your code. No good can come from it.

-Says someone who is not willing to make any contribution to improvement what so ever.

Yeah because you want a guy who goes out of his way to harass/annoy a section of the playerbase in the game, or who s%^*s up a new player help thread by banging on about “elitists” to have any input at all with said games design…

Fenrir.3609:

Yeah because you want a guy who goes out of his way to harass/annoy a section of the playerbase in the game, or who s%^*s up a new player help thread by banging on about “elitists” to have any input at all with said games design…

If I were in charge, I’d rather have a coder who says “This is a giant mess, how can we fix this?” rather than “Everything is fine, move along!”.

That is not to say that I agree with his proposed solutions, or would give him free reign. But at least he recognizes that there is a problem.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

That is not to say that I agree with his proposed solutions, or would give him free reign. But at least he recognizes that there is a problem.

I think we all recognize that there is a problem….

If I were to fund this project, I would say “Move along. See what was wrong and make sure it will not happen in the upcoming content.”

By the ways, you cannot possibly fix someone else’s work after two years and more. No one has time for it. New developers will just take what they can salvage to build up a new content.

dlonie.6547:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

That is not to say that I agree with his proposed solutions, or would give him free reign. But at least he recognizes that there is a problem.

I think we all recognize that there is a problem….

You’re a crazy elitist, you can’t. There’s no way in hell you’d want harder and original content, because all you want is a button which needs to be pressed so you can collect the reward.
Now go back to stacking, exploiting terrain and glitching mobs with stealth kthx.
Also, you’re a little stinky.

Need an example? Look at the new pvp leaderboard. They are trying to “fix” it and it is currently worse than it was originally. And it takes such a loooooooong time, too. Half a year and still beta testing.

Iris Ng.9845:

If I were to fund this project, I would say “Move along. See what was wrong and make sure it will not happen in the upcoming content.”

By the ways, you cannot possibly fix someone else’s work after two years and more. No one has time for it. New developers will just take what they can salvage to build up a new content.

I could, and for free.

Chance of happening? Probably below zero.

Please apply for thst position!

deSade.9437:

dlonie.6547:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

That is not to say that I agree with his proposed solutions, or would give him free reign. But at least he recognizes that there is a problem.

I think we all recognize that there is a problem….

You’re a crazy elitist, you can’t. There’s no way in hell you’d want harder and original content, because all you want is a button which needs to be pressed so you can collect the reward.
Now go back to stacking, exploiting terrain and glitching mobs with stealth kthx.
Also, you’re a little stinky.

smacks forehead D’oh, I forgot! Thanks <3

dlonie.6547:

deSade.9437:

dlonie.6547:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

That is not to say that I agree with his proposed solutions, or would give him free reign. But at least he recognizes that there is a problem.

I think we all recognize that there is a problem….

You’re a crazy elitist, you can’t. There’s no way in hell you’d want harder and original content, because all you want is a button which needs to be pressed so you can collect the reward.
Now go back to stacking, exploiting terrain and glitching mobs with stealth kthx.
Also, you’re a little stinky.

smacks forehead D’oh, I forgot! Thanks <3

/purrs happily
Luv luv u. <3

I wish there were more threads discussing what we (no, not crazy phiws haters, they’re not invited) dungeoneers want from HoT’s “challenging”, open world content… since I don’t think there will be instances. Bosses were the zergs are forced to split (marionette)? bosses with enrage timers? bosses that limit enter to, say, 10 people at a time? an instanced BUT semi-open zone with missions like FoW (uuuuuh! /melts)? gear-check on enter? stupidity-check on join?
Wouldn’t do anything but be nicer to read…

I mean, I’d wish, if it weren’t for the fact that it’s completely pointless and everything would be a bunch of wasted lines – not better than what I do to pass the time, waiting for ideas on this new site I should edit. Who the hell thought I was good at sprouting creativity… about ladies’ underwear?
Srsly. Give me a site about cats or t-shirts. I don’t wear panties.

Ok, now onto the whining and complaining using the spider queen and ac as an example of the game’s design and how it’s obviously broken in its entirety. It’s obvious we’re playing the wrong way.

Iris Ng.9845:

Please apply for thst position!

If only the position existed.

Problem fixer? Someone-else’s-mess fixer? Superglue? Grey Eminence? what?

deSade.9437:

I wish there were more threads discussing what we (no, not crazy phiws haters, they’re not invited) dungeoneers want from HoT’s “challenging”, open world content… since I don’t think there will be instances.

I liked the concept of the Marionette. Marionnette and Vinewrath are actually similar concept, but to the extreme. Marionnette had 5 lines, Vinewrath have 3. Each Marionette line was divided in 5, each vinewrath is divided by one.

I would take the best out of both to make a better challenging content. The fact that nothing is going on during the vinewrath is a plus. The number of people doing something else in the map is limited, so you can full the map with ppl that want to do the event and not map completion or some other events, etc.

The 3 lines of vinewrath are too easy. We failed at first when nobody knew what to do, but seriously with the amount of ppl versus the number of mobs, this isn’t really a challenge. The 5 line of the marionette on the other hand was challenging. We had to prepare a lot more and to equilibrate the line way more.

For marionette the content of the lines had a urgency to it, that lack in the vinewrath. You had to kill those mobs before they reach the portal. You had to focus specific target and have different group in the same line. Vinewrath have no urgency. Unless people leave the carrier alone, mobs will be dead before the carrier.

Marionette had players in small groups for the boss fight and those group were too small. How many fight ended because one group of 4-5 wasn’t able to complete their fight, kittening off the whole map. But Vinewrath go too far by only dividing the map in 3. Half the group can die and the rest can still succeed. Maybe make group of about 10 ppl to fight. That’s not too few that bad player will screw up the entire map, but not too much that you can almost afk the fight and be carried by the large group of player.

deSade.9437:

I wish there were more threads discussing what we (no, not crazy phiws haters, they’re not invited) dungeoneers want from HoT’s “challenging”, open world content… since I don’t think there will be instances.

I can’t figure how they could make truly challenging content without using instances or another form of player isolation.

Vargamonth.2047:

I can’t figure how they could make truly challenging content without using instances or another form of player isolation.

That is probably what the designers thought as well.

This is an interesting problem. In GW1 we had 8-man parties, and then when you entered a dungeon, you also had 8-man parties (except for The Deep and Urgoz, which were 12 man). It was pretty consistent.

In GW2 everything is open world, yet when it comes to dungeons, all of a sudden it is back to the old formula. That is inconsistent.

I can’t help but wonder what a dungeon could look like if it wasn’t inconsistent with the general PVE design philosophy….?

Vargamonth.2047:

deSade.9437:

I wish there were more threads discussing what we (no, not crazy phiws haters, they’re not invited) dungeoneers want from HoT’s “challenging”, open world content… since I don’t think there will be instances.

I can’t figure how they could make truly challenging content without using instances or another form of player isolation.

Truf. Zergs gonn’ zerg.

YOu mean a dungeon with permarooted mobs with safespots on the sides to safely pew pew from?

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Vargamonth.2047:

I can’t figure how they could make truly challenging content without using instances or another form of player isolation.

That is probably what the designers thought as well.

This is an interesting problem. In GW1 we had 8-man parties, and then when you entered a dungeon, you also had 8-man parties (except for The Deep and Urgoz, which were 12 man). It was pretty consistent.

In GW2 everything is open world, yet when it comes to dungeons, all of a sudden it is back to the old formula. That is inconsistent.

I can’t help but wonder what a dungeon could look like if it wasn’t inconsistent with the general PVE design philosophy….?

As you already pointed, not everything in GW2 was about 8-man groups.
The Deep and Urgoz were 12-man. Early zones were usually 4-man and 6-man. There were also a couple of missions in Factions where iirc 2 full 8-man groups shared the same instance.

Player cap also varies between different zones in GW2 if I’m not mistaken. I don’t think Halloween Labyrinth allowed as many people as Sparkfly Fen, for example.

In this sense, it should possible to design a map with an arguably small player cap (not necessarily as low as five, even if I think it’s the best number for challenging content) without it being inconsistent at all.

In any case, the big point of instanced content is not as much about the amount of people as it’s about having control on who goes into the map.
Having a private playground might look somewhat out of place in GW2, but it’s a MUST for challenging content to exist.

dlonie.6547:

Vargamonth.2047:

deSade.9437:

I wish there were more threads discussing what we (no, not crazy phiws haters, they’re not invited) dungeoneers want from HoT’s “challenging”, open world content… since I don’t think there will be instances.

I can’t figure how they could make truly challenging content without using instances or another form of player isolation.

Truf. Zergs gonn’ zerg.

Soooooo we’re stuck with kittenty zergy content. No hope for redemption? /sigh

I can’t figure out one single good way to make challenging open world work. Not one. The marionette was so heavily hated on by all the kittenlords whining because unable to 5man a single champion; single-player simil-instances à la Liadri caused an uproar of PHIWs because they couldn’t get the mini by defeating one single boss with a low hp pool; Tequatl is a zergfest and wurm a huge fail; an instanced UW map would still be an instance, which is clearly an omg-no-no by anet.
/double sigh
Conclusion? Get swallowed by the amorphous mass of randoms which will never learn anything or act as a well-oiled machine, executing those beautiful dance steps I like so much, making it look effortless.
I can’t imagine a worse destiny for min-maxers, elitists, dungeoneers, team players, impatient jerks or however you wanna call yourselves.

Hate shall reign forevermore.

Vargamonth.2047:

Having a private playground might look somewhat out of place in GW2, but it’s a MUST for challenging content to exist.

That seems like a bizarre statement to me, regarding a game that advertizes itself with dynamically scaling events, and which already features large scale challenging content.

deSade.9437:

I can’t figure out one single good way to make challenging open world work. Not one. The marionette was so heavily hated on by all the kittenlords whining because unable to 5man a single champion;

And also loved by many. I was in there every day, leading one of the lanes on Aurora Glade.

deSade.9437:

single-player simil-instances à la Liadri caused an uproar of PHIWs because they couldn’t get the mini by defeating one single boss with a low hp pool;

The problem with Liadri was a lot more complicated than that. People complained about how some classes were clearly at a severe disadvantage, and how having a solo battle right above massive zergs, was not good for performance. There were also severe camera issues, due to the way players were boxed in inside a dome.

Jerus.4350:

You mean a dungeon with permarooted mobs with safespots on the sides to safely pew pew from?

*cough*BelkaOozeHowlingKingRumblyVahidProbablySomeOthers*cough*

:-)

(Yes, I know all of these don’t strictly meet all of those criteria, but they’re all close :P)

NikeEU.7690:

Iris Ng.9845:

Please apply for thst position!

If only the position existed.

He will work for free so it’s only up to Anet to hire him.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Vargamonth.2047:

Having a private playground might look somewhat out of place in GW2, but it’s a MUST for challenging content to exist.

That seems like a bizarre statement to me, regarding a game that advertizes itself with dynamically scaling events, and which already features large scale challenging content.

But the challenges are very, very different in flavor.

Marionette, Wurm, VW, etc are significant improvements over the original cast of world bosses, but they’re lacking some advantages of instanced dungeons:

Personal contribution.

At the massive events, I could still just sit off to the side and AFK if I wanted to, and no one would really notice. In a dungeon, if you aren’t pulling your weight, you’ll be found out and kicked.

I never really “feel” like I’m making a difference in these zerg fests, while in a dungeon, individual contributions from skillful play can really shine.

Party control.

In a dungeon, I’m in a group with 5 people. I have the option of running with a premade group. We can organize the run, select who joins or not, don’t have to deal with obnoxious idiots constantly trolling map chat, etc. Griefers can’t just join and not be dealt with.

Those are just off the top of my head. Some level of instancing and party control are required (for me, anyway) to really find these encounters enjoyable. Otherwise you have to deal with all sorts of nonsense that really just takes away from the experience.

I don’t think having instanced challenges included in a primarily open-world/massively-multiplayer game is a problem. I think blindly sticking to a mindset of “everything must be built for 30+ players” would be much worse.

Zergs suck. That’s the reason GW2 isn’t the game for me (similar to you and skill-trees/DDO).

There can’t be a perfect encounter and devs always must strive to improve them. System and connection requirements are there for a reason – a decent platform is necessary, but devs can and should try to improve performance.
This doesn’t mean everything can be justified by putting the blame on them. Sometimes you have to accept it’s on you (or your gaming tools which many need an upgrade…) and stop making up excuses.
Sometimes you have to up your game. Sometimes you have to walk in the arena and play to succeed.
And that is why I hate a certain mentality prevalent with part of the community.
There has to be a limit to the hunger for the easy and the mindless. There has to be.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

That seems like a bizarre statement to me, regarding a game that advertizes itself with dynamically scaling events, and which already features large scale challenging content.

8 man raids are harder than 20 man which are harder than 40 man, assuming the scaling/tuning is done properly. Why? Individual responsibility. More single points of failure, less ability for fail players to be carried. World bosses like Triple Wurm are an organizational challenge not a play skill challenge. Convincing 140 players to use good builds and follow the right commander is organizationally challenging, but I don’t think any one would say the fight itself is a test of personal play skill by any measurement. Organizational challenges aren’t particularly engaging and promote frustration during progression.

deSade.9437:

Soooooo we’re stuck with kittenty zergy content. No hope for redemption? /sigh

I can’t figure out one single good way to make challenging open world work. Not one. The marionette was so heavily hated on by all the kittenlords whining because unable to 5man a single champion; single-player simil-instances à la Liadri caused an uproar of PHIWs because they couldn’t get the mini by defeating one single boss with a low hp pool; Tequatl is a zergfest and wurm a huge fail; an instanced UW map would still be an instance, which is clearly an omg-no-no by anet.

I disagree. Marionette with 10 men team would be a wonderful content. Hell Marionnette like it was is still a powerful fight. Haters gonna hate. I can’t care about cry baby that can play zerker now, I won’t care about people crying about the marionette fight.

Same with Liadri. The fact that people cry because it’s hard, is the perfect sign that the content is challenging.

Tequalt is half decent. It’s better than most other world boss, but the design isn’t really challenging once you know the encounter.

Wurm is challenging, but it’s the organization that is challenging, not really the encounter itself. It’s not a fail, it’s just that the reward is lacking for such a difficult event to complete. People usually don’t think it’s worth the effort.

Challenging content will make people cry about it. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do it.

Eh, ok, but world event means that everyone could stumble upon it…. which means impossible to control who’s playing… which means extremely low quality of players… which means a huge problem of organisation and impossible to make something that has strong replayability for those who like challenge.
And that’s going to frustrate bad players. Not that I’d mind them leaving, I just can’t stand the wails of sorrow and the cries “we’re the targeted audience, we demand everything to be done for us since we buy gems” instead of actually trying to BEAT the kitten content.
It’s also going to frustrate the poor kittens trying to organise the fight, getting carpal tunnel from explaining it in map chat over and over, and then having a nervous breakdown when the event fails for the 100th time despite them giving it everything they got.
I can only see losers.
Unless we’re talking about a map with a very low cap?
Unless you manage to teach the mass of outright bad and oblivious players… /snort

E: too many everythings, I can’t engrish anymore.

I have thought a bit about a challenging open world content. It was pretty long time ago so I have probably forgot most stuff but here are some concepts which I think are necessary.

• An entry free
• A mechanic to kick dead players out
• Anti-zerg mechanics
• Player-based difficulty
• Difficulty based rewards

For example Underworld:

• 4 factions: Reapers, Spiders, Skeletons and Gravelings (or something more interesting). Factions hostile to each other.
• 4 areas: Spider base, Skeleton base, Graveling base and no-mans land in the middle. Area of sizes would dynamically change depending on events.
• Reapers are extremely lethal and attempt keep balance. They detect presence of players and ambush them. Stronger the presence, more likely ambushes happen (anti-zerg). Visible danger meter.
• Doing stuff would give soul power to players. Upon death, soul power is lost. Soul power increases your character’s strength and presence (player based difficulty).
• More soul power you get, more likely you get attacked (until you can’t keep up). But you would also get some special abilities to get some big rewards, like spawn a broodmother or just have strong abilities to help with tough enemies (difficulty based rewards).
• Necrid horsewagonmen would patrol the area and kick out any defeated players. They are neutral but very dangerous if attacked. So saving players would be possible.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Vargamonth.2047:

Having a private playground might look somewhat out of place in GW2, but it’s a MUST for challenging content to exist.

That seems like a bizarre statement to me, regarding a game that advertizes itself with dynamically scaling events, and which already features large scale challenging content.

Dynamic Scaling keeps the content meaningful and not easily trivialized by large amount of players. It’s an overall great feature (although it produces some issues around loot in some old maps), but is far from a foundation for challenging content.

The more populated an event is, the less impactful your own performance is going to be. It’s the average performance level of the whole group of players what is going to decide the outcome of the fight, and since you have no way to chose the people you’re going to play with, it all boils down to LUCK.
There’s only one thing you can do to circunvent this: Get a large enough group of trustworthy players and manipulate the system to fill a new megaserver, which in the end is no different from instanced content (and has no use for small sized guilds/groups, so the whole Dynamic Scaling idea becomes quite irrelevant).

About GW2 already featuring large scale challenging content … well, being able to convince a ridiculous amount of random players to stick to some tactic, follow instructions and even change something in their builds is definitely quite a challenge.
Not exactly the kind of challenge many of us are looking for though.
Gameplay wise, blocking the eggs on the three headed wurm event is the closest thing to a challenge we can find on large scale open world events. Everything else is far far away, falling into the easy / faceroll category.

The Man of the dungeon forum never ceases to deliver.
It has an extremely strong and pervasive GW1-élite-zone style. Coincidence? I don’t believe in coincidences.

The biggest problem is: anet would never do challenging content that excludes the majority of their playerbase… even though it could be partially mitigated by the scaling difficulty. You fail, you’re done; if you’re good, you can resist longer. It’s good. Would cause massive whining, but… /shrug
It may be prone to leeching, but since the rewards seem to be player-based…
Seems to me that anet wants its players to be spread out across the maps, so exclusive rewards may be a problem unless you make it so that their acquisition can be gradual, despite extreeeeemeeeeely slooooooow at lower levels of “power”.That would hit exclusivity, but honestly I don’t care much… I know some who do, though. Two separate sets of.. skins? may do the trick.
Or mats. Mats are good.
Would reapers detect stealth? Would walking in pack still be beneficial? Can you split a 5 man party to represent different factions and ramp up the rewards?
Lots of possibilities…

Iris Ng.9845:

Need an example? Look at the new pvp leaderboard. They are trying to “fix” it and it is currently worse than it was originally. And it takes such a loooooooong time, too. Half a year and still beta testing.

bringing pvp in to the dungeon forum again?

pvp forum is that way buddy.

deSade.9437:

—
It may be prone to leeching, but since the rewards seem to be player-based…
Seems to me that anet wants its players to be spread out across the maps, so exclusive rewards may be a problem unless you make it so that their acquisition can be gradual, despite extreeeeemeeeeely slooooooow at lower levels of “power”.That would hit exclusivity, but honestly I don’t care much… I know some who do, though. Two separate sets of.. skins? may do the trick.
Or mats. Mats are good.
Would reapers detect stealth? Would walking in pack still be beneficial? Can you split a 5 man party to represent different factions and ramp up the rewards?
Lots of possibilities…

Leeching would kind of be a thing. Ideally when you take down an epic boss you have one or two players with lots of soul power carrying the group. They would be kind of like commanders but with super powers. If the event succeeds, everyone would get a good chunk of rewards but the “commanders” would be the ones who get something exclusive.

It should be hard to reach the epic boss area for most players.. Just facerolling would quickly get you killed and people can choose to not help you up. There would probably be a bit hostility but one point of soul power is to give bigger impact to more experienced players.

I agree that the current scaling mechanics are probably not enough to provide challenging content (at least not of the level that some of us want to see)… so maybe that is what needs to be improved? Improve the scaling itself.

Maybe, instead of thinking how dungeons could possibly work with multiple players right now, the designers should ask themselves what is needed to make that work, and add that? Because I don’t think it is impossible at all.

Also, take the Underworld in GW1 for example. You have multiple quests, which all need to be completed to gain access to the final boss. In GW2 the mobs that spawn during those quests, could scale based on the number of players, and they could be made repeatable, just as normal dynamic events are. Much like with Drytop, all players work together towards overall map progress, until the final boss unlocks.. If they fail, they lose all progress and are booted from the zone. If they succeed, their quest progress still resets, but they get to loot the end chest.

To make this challenging, you could spawn different instances for the final boss battle, and only allow players inside if all quests in the zone have been completed.

Or like with the marionette battle, divide the players into smaller groups, all fighting the same boss at the same time.

This would create an open world dungeon, rather than a linear one. Quests can be completed in any order, and retried with intervals. And it can still be challenging.

Wethospu.6437:

deSade.9437:

—
It may be prone to leeching, but since the rewards seem to be player-based…
Seems to me that anet wants its players to be spread out across the maps, so exclusive rewards may be a problem unless you make it so that their acquisition can be gradual, despite extreeeeemeeeeely slooooooow at lower levels of “power”.That would hit exclusivity, but honestly I don’t care much… I know some who do, though. Two separate sets of.. skins? may do the trick.
Or mats. Mats are good.
Would reapers detect stealth? Would walking in pack still be beneficial? Can you split a 5 man party to represent different factions and ramp up the rewards?
Lots of possibilities…

Leeching would kind of be a thing. Ideally when you take down an epic boss you have one or two players with lots of soul power carrying the group. They would be kind of like commanders but with super powers. If the event succeeds, everyone would get a good chunk of rewards but the “commanders” would be the ones who get something exclusive.

It should be hard to reach the epic boss area for most players.. Just facerolling would quickly get you killed and people can choose to not help you up. There would probably be a bit hostility but one point of soul power is to give bigger impact to more experienced players.

Oh, yeah, it would definitely make sense for the area to be a little like a ladder – as in fractals, just not with artificial gating (agony) or a rigid leveling system like we have now (grind level 1, then 2…); I really like the idea of gathering power. It would be nice if the people with the highest soul power could cast group-wide buffs to encourage helping, even if there’s always the risk of increased aggro due to the number of players.
There’s also the problem of trolling – a player with a very high soul power roaming in an area with newbies, thus aggroing the wrath of hell on them. Well, after all, it’s very hard to circumvent people’s meanness in any game…

I really like players with the most soul power ideally being the best and not just the ones sporting a blue dorito, but indeed it might open to lots of antagonism.
Which isn’t necessarily a horrible thing.
It also reminds me of a more rigid party ownership system, where the “leader” ideally carries the group and has more control over the situation. If the event fails, the blame will mostly fall on the leaders: puts pressure oh them but also encourages them not to troll.
Also, more rewards for everyone.
Random reapers swooping down the zerg while fighting a boss is a moment of turbo hilarity ensued.
Or maybe rage.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Also, take the Underworld in GW1 for example. You have multiple quests, which all need to be completed to gain access to the final boss. In GW2 the mobs that spawn during those quests, could scale based on the number of players, and they could be made repeatable, just as normal dynamic events are. Much like with Drytop, all players work together towards overall map progress, until the final boss unlocks.. If they fail, they lose all progress and are booted from the zone. If they succeed, their quest progress still resets, but they get to loot the end chest.

I still see much more potential on this kind of map as instanced content:

You do not make events scale (or use a much softer scaling than usual) and leave on players hands to decide how are going to split their forces.
The more squads they create, the more quests they’ll be able to handle at the same time. In exchange, they’ll get less players on each one so they will be harder.
Every group can choose a strategy based on its own capabilities, which makes possible for a single piece of content to be challenging for a much wider spectrum of players.

As an open world content with scaling events, it would be nothing but, as you pointed, another Dry Top, which is now again all about organization and doesn’t provide any challenge gameplay wise.
An instanced Dry Top for, lets say, 8 players; that’s something I would love to see :P

Lendruil.9061:

Derenek.8931:

Windsagio.1340:

The main reason, I’ve usually felt, is that people are aggressive and nasty about pushing min/max attitudes and are severely exclusionary.

It’s not necessarily rational, but nobody likes being excluded, and double nobody likes being insulted (being called bad, foolish, etc) for not playing to some Type-A personality’s version of the game.

Amen brother! Too much l33t attitude being shown by people. It scares away newer and more casual players and keeps the whole community from being friendly. If a player doesn’t play enough to have all ascended berserker gear, it doesn’t mean they should be shunned or insulted. They may actually have a life. Be welcoming to all players and support each other

I guess no1 cares if your gear is exotic or ascended, as long as it is berserker.

Actually, it seems no one cares if you can even play, as long as you have berserker gear.

Obtena.7952:

I guess no1 cares if your gear is exotic or ascended, as long as it is berserker.

Actually, it seems no one cares if you can even play, as long as you have berserker gear.[/quote]

I’ll take someone who is good, but don’t wear beserker gear over a bad player with berserker gear anytime.

Thaddeus.4891:

Obtena.7952:

I guess no1 cares if your gear is exotic or ascended, as long as it is berserker.

Actually, it seems no one cares if you can even play, as long as you have berserker gear.

I’ll take someone who is good, but don’t wear beserker gear over a bad player with berserker gear anytime.[/quote]

Actually it seems u r arguing for the sake of arguing.

Vargamonth.2047:

As an open world content with scaling events, it would be nothing but, as you pointed, another Dry Top, which is now again all about organization and doesn’t provide any challenge gameplay wise.
An instanced Dry Top for, lets say, 8 players; that’s something I would love to see :P

I don’t disagree with anything you just said. I think that frankly both could work. 8 players is a bit small for a party though. For an elite area I’d love to see groups of 12 people. This is also manageable for most guild groups.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Vargamonth.2047:

As an open world content with scaling events, it would be nothing but, as you pointed, another Dry Top, which is now again all about organization and doesn’t provide any challenge gameplay wise.
An instanced Dry Top for, lets say, 8 players; that’s something I would love to see :P

I don’t disagree with anything you just said. I think that frankly both could work. 8 players is a bit small for a party though. For an elite area I’d love to see groups of 12 people. This is also manageable for most guild groups.

ESO did that with their Craglorn area:

http://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/game-guide/adventure-zones/craglorn

A giant map of instanced endgame content, with 4-man dungeons and 12-man trials. Timed content, limited resurrections, in-game speedclear leaderboards, etc. I’m leveling pretty slow in that game (the open world is so much fun to explore…), so I haven’t gotten to try it yet, but kitten it looks fun.

Plus Zenimax talks on their forums, keeps public lists of known issues and their current status, puts out big chunks of replayable content regularly, has immersive storylines that keep you in the game…

Not sure how many folks here would like it, but man I’m having a blast.