Guild Wars 2

With the discourse going forward about Raids and the latest Fractal Revamp, there has been a repetitive theme going on about a prospect that I want to discuss in detail here. It has implications in more than just the two discussions above so I felt it needed its own separate thread so we can flesh out its nature.

As per the title, I am here to talk about Interesting Mechanics, their purpose, requirements, and what they are and are not. Feel free to disagree with me on any point, I am more than happy to oblige. Going right into it then:

Interesting Mechanics can be new.
Interesting Mechanics must be different initially from the normal.
Interesting Mechanics have to be threatening.
Interesting Mechanics could be learned and potentially mastered.

The above is what we have been seeing from Raiding. It is what we have been seeing being introduced from the latest Current Event Champion Bandits who have variant attacks from one another, and more impressively the Bandit Executioner. And definitely from what we see in the Fractal update and Bloodstone Fen which introduces open-world Special Action Buttons.

However notice the phrasing I have above, only half of those statements are actual requirements. Interesting Mechanics don’t always stay new, and some of those interesting mechanics have the potential to be mastered flawlessly. I wouldn’t place VG mechanics too heavily on the latter as the raid has zero exact control over where blue circles and green circles spawn only that they can somewhat manipulate and react accordingly. Yet, it is because if the raid does not do the mechanic properly can something very threatening happen. And most certainly do Vale Guardian’s Mechanics have stronger punishments than the Unbound Guardian who provides benefits instead.

This all being said, I believe you will understand why I described Interesting Mechanics in such a way above. The mere concept of an ‘Interesting but Easy’ Mechanic is an oxymoron. It’s contradictory, it cannot exist.

It has been pointed out that the Unbound Guardian is similar in its nature and design to the Vale Guardian, reinforcing those who stand in Green Circles a damage buff while blue circles still can hit you fairly hard. But it is less threatening because of the reduced punishments and even less mechanics (no glowing damage floors or split phases). It is the perfect example of why Interesting Mechanics have to be a threat.

When you take away the threat regardless of what it is, the mechanic in question however unique, is ignored. Imagine the difference if those Legendary Wyverns in the Magumma Jungle had their breath attacks only apply a steadily climbing burning rather than a strong damage zone hit every second plus that burning. People would stand in those fires and dance their way to a dead Wyvern, rather than learn to stay out of them because fire is bad.

Does this ring true to some of you? Does anyone disagree with this?

I think the danger in any ‘masterable’ mechanic is that it is, easy. Once you know how to beat it, you can just faceroll your way to victory. And, as you said, easy isn’t interesting.

To me, an interesting mechanic is one that always has to be mentally engaged for and always ‘coped’ with. The moment any pve content is a predictable script, is the moment it becomes a bore. You need some randomness. It would be neat to see a ‘randomness’ dial available for top-tier fractals (lets say wound higher = greater rewards just to make it fair). The group could dial up as many randomly applied mechanics in addition to existing ones as they want…..but go too high, and bite the dust. They could even scale damage output along with npc hp, etc etc into it.

I agree with the core points you put forward, barring two exceptions. Interesting mechanics don’t necessarily need to be threatening, but they must have consequences. For example, Cliffside’s seal-breaking mechanic and the Archdiviner’s teleporting AoE aren’t immediate threats to the player, but failing to perform the correct actions will extend the length of the fight. The boss in the Underground Facility is a good example of this as well. One player’s got to kite him into the ‘splash zone’ while another has to time the use of the console to pour the molten metal on.

Also, I suppose this is a matter of play style but I don’t feel like a mechanic has to be difficult to be fun. I would argue that these mechanics are for the most part, actually fairly easy to master, and still remain interesting. To me, interesting mechanics require the player to perform specific actions under a set of conditions, occasionally adapting as needed (e.g. using class specific skills and accommodating other party members’ needs) while allowing them to feel a sense of power and mastery – that your character’s contribution is critical to the group’s success.

In general, i agree, with few comments on it though.

Interesting Mechanics can be new.
Definitely. They don’t have to be, but it helps. For a time anyway (until they are no longer new).

Interesting Mechanics must be different initially from the normal.
Depends. It should likely be a deviation from a standard pattern, but it shouldn’t completely disregard the normal mechanics. A fight is a fight, not a puzzle and shouldn’t circumvent/ignore too much of combat mechanics. Occasional gimmick encounter can be fun, but overusing them gets tiring very fast (see also the comment at the end).

Interesting Mechanics have to be threatening.
Not really, or at least not in the way you probably think. Here i agree with Jahroots fully. They have to be engaging at least to the point players cannot trivially ignore them (trivially – without special preparation and additional effort). Underground Fractal last boss is a good example. At some time so were the underwater electric cages (not now though, as ignoring them nowadays is actually easier).

Interesting Mechanics could be learned and potentially mastered.
No argument there, but fully masterable mechanics run a danger of becoming less interesting.

I’d like to add a caveat here, though.

While fun mechanics are often interesting, interesting mechanics are often not fun.
Do not lose sight of fun when aiming for interesting mechanics. That won’t end well.

Sykper.6583:

The mere concept of an ‘Interesting but Easy’ Mechanic is an oxymoron. It’s contradictory, it cannot exist.

And yet you speak of some open-world bosses as interesting. THAT is an oxymoron.

I agree with some of the stuff you said, but definitely not this. I think an easy mechanic can be very interesting (also keep in mind “easy” can be very subjective and so does “interesting”), which is what makes it possible for some open-world bosses to actually be interesting. Otherwise they all would be brain-dead and boring, since you can easily ignore their mechanics and still succeed without much effort, knowledge of the game or a proper build.

I think I understand where the other point is being made, but I believe that there’s an underlying issue with it.

So let’s presume we have a mechanic that’s not a threat but has to be dealt with in order to progress with the boss. The underground facility fractal encounter is an example of this as you mentioned. The boss needs to be positioned in the splash zone and there’s an interact-able console that applies a necessarily debuff which allows you to damage the boss effectively and prevent it’s own self-healing ability.

True, it has an engaging property to it, you need to designate someone for console duty (though sometimes the boss will aggro to console guy, making the encounter a little more annoying), while the rest have to actively be ready to do a kiting dance with the boss under the splash zone.

What happens though with this particular encounter, is that as a fight built around kiting the boss and staying in its potential threat zones only temporarily, turns it into a drawn out encounter with very little instances of active threats, sole exception being mainly the boss’s global attack which is not used very often.

It turns stale quickly. Neither Ice Elemental nor Dredge Suit escalate their attacks when you kite it constantly and properly, and provided that you can dodge the global shockwaves (something that you can train and learn on) the fight turns into a HP sponge. Is that really an interesting encounter overall? I can’t say that the Underground Facility boss is that interesting because although a mechanic is a requirement to pull off to beat the encounter, nothing else in that fight is putting you in danger because you are constantly at range of the bosses.

If that’s not enough, let’s try a thought experiment.

We have a large golem boss that possesses a single main mechanic: He wield a very large morning star with an extended chain. At the start of the encounter it swings around him until the actual spiked ball at the end of the chain is roughly 600 range from its main body, leaving safe spaces in its melee range or long range. The ball rotates around the boss in this smooth circular fashion every 3 seconds, so you can actually run in after the ball passes by.

Now, this ball and chain mechanic, would you say it would be more interesting to have it when it hits you:

- Send you flying quite a distance with a heavy stun, a good chunk of your life gone, and you are bleeding and vulnerable.
- Knock you back a bit with a daze, low damage, mild annoyance.

Which of these two effects from a mechanic will people more likely ignore outright?

Would the encounter become more engaging regardless of either of these effects should the boss start spinning the Morning Star faster as it gets lower in health?

Maybe introduce a breakbar that if not broken after 5 seconds the boss will throw the Morning Star into the ground causing a massive tremor that deals decent damage. But this too is a new mechanic, would it be interesting if this CC breakbar needed to be done lest it do massive damage or should the tremors be tolerable with just a single popped heal?

Objectively, should the mentality of players be that an Interesting mechanic is one that should not be ignored lest there be pretty bad consequences, or one that is annoying because it cannot be ignored even though it can never kill you?

Sykper.6583:

Is that really an interesting encounter overall?

Yes. It’s one of the more interesting (and fun) bossfight mechanics in fractals at the moment, actually.

Sykper.6583:

Now, this ball and chain mechanic, would you say it would be more interesting to have it when it hits you:

- Send you flying quite a distance with a heavy stun, a good chunk of your life gone, and you are bleeding and vulnerable.
- Knock you back a bit with a daze, low damage, mild annoyance.

Which of these two effects from a mechanic will people more likely ignore outright?

Both. They will either melee, or range. Death zone will be dodged through once. Threat from the mechanic will not matter, because it won’t be actually engaging enough. You might try to force it by changing the safe ranges during fight, but (based on similar mechanics from SW) players will generally not like it. Melee players don’t usually like to be forced into range. Range players don’t like to melee. Most players don’t like to switch between one and the other too much during an encounter. Most builds don’t support that switching either.
(that’s one main reason why too widespread melee hate and missile hate mechanics aren’t generally liked too much)

Sykper.6583:

Would the encounter become more engaging regardless of either of these effects should the boss start spinning the Morning Star faster as it gets lower in health?

Not really (for the same reason as mentioned above). Might make it more annoying, though.

Sykper.6583:

Objectively, should the mentality of players be that an Interesting mechanic is one that should not be ignored lest there be pretty bad consequences, or one that is annoying because it cannot be ignored even though it can never kill you?

“Objectively”, “should” and “interesting” do not fit in one sentence. But to answer the question you wanted to ask – both and neither. Both of those can be interesting, and both can be boring. Both of those can be fun, and both can turn to be unfun and irritating. Sometimes it will depend on the mechanic in question, often it will depend on the player.

There’s no “should” in this however. It’s not only not a game’s (or yours) job to change mentality of players, it would also be completely futile. If a player doesn’t like certain mechanic, no amount off telling him he’s “objectively” wrong will make them like it.

By the way, just thought of something. Attack gliding in new area is an interesting mechanic. Even if it’s not really dangerous. And can be ignored with no effort whatsoever.
It is also a lot of fun.

Astralporing.1957:

Sykper.6583:

Is that really an interesting encounter overall?

Yes. It’s one of the more interesting (and fun) bossfight mechanics in fractals at the moment, actually.

Would you mind elaborating on this? I believe I made several different points that contested this narrative, as every attack but the dodge-able shockwave is ignored for the majority of the fight.

Astralporing.1957:

Sykper.6583:

Now, this ball and chain mechanic, would you say it would be more interesting to have it when it hits you:

- Send you flying quite a distance with a heavy stun, a good chunk of your life gone, and you are bleeding and vulnerable.
- Knock you back a bit with a daze, low damage, mild annoyance.

Which of these two effects from a mechanic will people more likely ignore outright?

Both. They will either melee, or range. Death zone will be dodged through once. Threat from the mechanic will not matter, because it won’t be actually engaging enough. You might try to force it by changing the safe ranges during fight, but (based on similar mechanics from SW) players will generally not like it. Melee players don’t usually like to be forced into range. Range players don’t like to melee. Most players don’t like to switch between one and the other too much during an encounter. Most builds don’t support that switching either.
(that’s one main reason why too widespread melee hate and missile hate mechanics aren’t generally liked too much)

That’s not the impression I garnered from the Silverwastes bosses (which mind you I might have forgotten during this random thought of mine, hehe) such as the honey boss under the wastes who has fast but short duration safe zones. The damage isn’t that bad, people typically sustain themselves. But of course players never want to have their rotations for damage interrupted because something is about to hit them, that’s the very point of an attack from an enemy, to have you do something about it.

When people talk about pressing 1 all the way through fights, its a hyperbolic point about how people can just do their most optimal rotations for damage or play however they see fit, without any regard to what the enemy is doing. The world is not filled with training dummies.

Astralporing.1957:

Sykper.6583:

Would the encounter become more engaging regardless of either of these effects should the boss start spinning the Morning Star faster as it gets lower in health?

Not really (for the same reason as mentioned above). Might make it more annoying, though.

I kind of agree on the whole faster thing, the prospect of a boss swinging his ball and chain around to such a degree where it becomes impossible to keep at least a single rotation of damage on it would be very frustrating. I probably would have instead suggested that isn’t going to give the melee a nightmare to chase.

I should rephrase, would the augmentation of capabilities make the encounter interesting? Think Mordrem Cavaliers being dismounted at half life, that sort of change.

Astralporing.1957:

Sykper.6583:

Objectively, should the mentality of players be that an Interesting mechanic is one that should not be ignored lest there be pretty bad consequences, or one that is annoying because it cannot be ignored even though it can never kill you?

“Objectively”, “should” and “interesting” do not fit in one sentence. But to answer the question you wanted to ask – both and neither. Both of those can be interesting, and both can be boring. Both of those can be fun, and both can turn to be unfun and irritating. Sometimes it will depend on the mechanic in question, often it will depend on the player.

There’s no “should” in this however. It’s not only not a game’s (or yours) job to change mentality of players, it would also be completely futile. If a player doesn’t like certain mechanic, no amount off telling him he’s “objectively” wrong will make them like it.

By the way, just thought of something. Attack gliding in new area is an interesting mechanic. Even if it’s not really dangerous. And can be ignored with no effort whatsoever.
It is also a lot of fun.

I worded the inquiry a bit poorly there, allow me to try again. I don’t think anyone could ever sway opinions on a particular mechanic in this game, some people like pocket raptors for what they do, yet others despise their existence for the same reason.

But either opinion shouldn’t have a sway on whether a mechanic is healthy for the engagement and interest in the encounter. You referenced it before, depending on the implementation, some mechanics become fun and engaging while others become dull and annoying (mostly unfun) just through their design.

A literal ‘Metapod’ enemy casting ‘Harden’ all the time without offensive capabilities, rendering all physical attacks against it void while making conditions very effective is an encounter I believe you and I would agree is not particularly well done.

An enemy built for high damage but low health, that will stunbreak and roll-back when engaged on might build a bigger interest though. Oddly enough, that’s a Mordrem Archer, one of the most talked about controversial creatures in the Jungle. Players still die to them despite certain indicators that let the player know when they are being targetted, nor do they adapt to the fight either. Yet they call it bad design, not interesting and not fun…

…Side-note, yep there’s a lot of potential with the new gliding attacks, it doesn’t have substantial damage but it carries a very strong CC and a slight group healing AoE. Plus, the additional requirement of needing you to be gliding could lead to Arenanet designing future content and encounters with updrafts and terrain in mind.

I believe there’s room for both.

The dredge fractal mechanic doesn’t get stale because its not threatening. it gets stale because that dude is a huge HP sponge as a result of needing to kite him, and usually being limited to 4 of 5 party members dealing damage. You could keep that mechanic and lower his base HP a bit so his kill time was similar to other bosses at his level.

However, this doesn’t preclude the need for strong, threatening mechanics.

The difference is the mastry element. You need to have a training phase for each invidiual new mechanic that a boss will use before you pile them all on the player.

VG does this pretty well in some ways and badly in others. It does a good job of training you on the green circle, blue circle, and boon strip mechanics with the initial mob. It doesn’t however train you on the split phase. Players get to VG and they have a basic idea of a core strategy. Get people on the green circle, avoid the blue ones, avoid the orbs, DPS the boss.

The split is a curveball that doesn’t really explain to you how it works, and its a curveball you get thrown at you in the middle of the fight. You don’t have any prior knowledge that having the wrong icon on you would cause damage, or that you’re going to need to develop a strat for the split.

This is where its not okay. It’s fine that the mechanic presents a unique challenge, but its not okay that the game doesn’t message this mechanic in any way before confronting you with it. Learning by failing should never be the only option.

Additionally, if learning by failure is the only option AND your encounter has three or more new mechanics it becomes very difficult for players to even internalize the lessons failing should be giving them. Players will know they died, but if there are three different reasons they could have died and they’ve never encountered any of them before, its likely that even if your entire zegr wipes, potentially no one will know exactly why, and that leads to people being simply frustrated rather than educated.

That doesn’t mean you need to make your encounter easier. It just means you need to make sure your players have a chance to learn each new mechanic individually so that when your encounter combines them they have chance, no matter how slim, or realisitcally defeating the encounter on the first try armed with that knowledge.

player’s shouldn’t have to consult a wiki just to understand how a fight mechanic works. The game should train them in how it works first, so that people are cognizant that they failed for reasons they understand, rather than feel they were unfairly killed without any knowledge why.

Even if the Dredge/Ice Elemental had its health reduced, that would ultimately reduce an encounter’s length and not the underlying issue. I mean, I suppose we could make it the easiest fractal boss given the fairly difficult first event…

I digress, right now especially since breakbars were introduced it has become immensely easier to outright negate anything remotely dangerous from the boss in there. You only need to manipulate the boss into the splash zone, CC it for a stun, do a full rotation, and run out. Bombs, Icicles, cleaves, red AoEs that either bosses do when there’s a player in range of it are outright ignored for the sake of having to kite it to the next cauldron to keep the debuff up that actually allows you to kill it.

Ironically, the only interesting mechanic that the boss has that has you designate a barrel friend is holding back the threatening mechanics.

In fact, if I had to think about it some more, due to the fact that the kiting strategy is the only method which the debuff allows time for, Arenanet has neglected to adjust any of the damage output for the other abilities on these Fractal Bosses. They hit like a truck still, easily harder than Volcano Boss. I cannot say what might prompt this as a design choice, but ultimately what we have is a near 100% full kiting boss that has no lingering threat potential, it is the easiest part of the fractal itself because of it.

I could go on a tirade for Underground, but Pope you brought up VG so let’s ponder that encounter and its lead-up.

So I have to disagree with you on Vale Guardian and training the raid. Mainly because of those same initial mobs training the raid on what the defenses are for the split mobs that have a smaller health pool than the trash counterparts. The initial trash does teach the raid nearly all of Vale Guardian’s mechanics, the split phase is likely to cause a single wipe unless some luckily observant and maybe intuitive raid lead deciphers why there are three different colored pylons. …That’s pretty unlikely, but once the first split phase happens and you see those same trash mobs again, the raid could presume that they need to divide and conquer.

The only mechanics that were not influenced were Vale Guardian’s ‘HAND TO THE SKY FOR FUN LIGHTNING TIMES!’ and the damage floors. These would be introduced after the 1st split phase, they could suggest another wipe but once the raid as a whole understands those mechanics this hypothetical new group has all but gotten a grasp of the full fight.

VG is likely the wrong choice for your example Pope, I would have suggested Gorseval and even Slothasor where you only see the mechanics from their adds and not the encounter itself. This might explain why Slothasor was such a pain in the kitten in the first place, but I want to believe that both progression raiders and those racing for world firsts desire the puzzle of figuring out these mechanics and strategies.

But…I will say this. If GW2 raid devs could create an encounter that is difficult and engaging despite having all the trash or events before it teach every single one of the mechanics, that would be on a whole other level of raid design. Not even Blizzard as far as I know has pulled that off, people simply attempt to decipher debuffs, visual clues, and other such mechanics live during that same encounter. I would be immensely impressed that if hypothetically they had the Matthias encounter mechanics for instance, all of them, influencing the entire raid up to that point and then put together in a way that made the final encounter difficult still.

Could you imagine the level of raid design that would be?