Guild Wars 2

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

NikeEU.7690:

phys.7689:

NikeEU.7690:

Good PvE doesn’t require now, nor has it ever required in the past, good AI. The best raid bosses in the history of MMOs don’t even have what could be called AI. They just spit out their mechanics in a semi-scripted order and challenge you to deal with them or die. Better AI is what you ask for when you want PvE mobs to act like players, which really isn’t the strength of good PvE encounters in the first place.

Are you saying that the distinction, for you, is whether the enemy adapts to what the player is doing or not?

I would say good PVE design either has a really well designed script, that requires you to execute pretty well, and make you feel good when you do execute well, or having an enemy that better responds to player behaviors, or a combination of those things.

I will say GW2, in both styles is fairly lacking.

Please see this post as to why I find “make pve mobs behave like pvp players” to be a really dumb idea…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/General-Dungeon-Discussion-Thread-Part-2/page/52#post5077603

You bring up some valid points in that post, but unless I skim-read too much I did not see anything about mobs voluntarily crippling themselves by refusing to move and attack at the same time.

This AI failure is what creates the largest imbalances between pvp and pve, fixing this would go a long way to make this game mode more interesting.

he is saying that mobs moving away from your coordinated burst, is annoying and shouldnt happen because it makes players feel crappy.

i personally think the type of coordinated super burn that players do now, should require more set up, or be available at specific times.
This may be where the break bar can come into strength in instanced content.

Or you could just look at what well designed raid or dungeon bosses look like in other games. If you think I’m advocating static “everyone stack in one spot and don’t move for the duration of the fight” combat you clearly don’t understand.

Yes I understand, I played through many popular MMOs at high level.

The difference is that in most of these mmos, combat was indeed static, while gw2 combat is balanced around being dynamic.

Edit: in your arguments against FGS you used to say that such burst trivialises combat. Don’t you think that static mobs also trivialises combat?

phys.7689:

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

NikeEU.7690:

phys.7689:

NikeEU.7690:

Good PvE doesn’t require now, nor has it ever required in the past, good AI. The best raid bosses in the history of MMOs don’t even have what could be called AI. They just spit out their mechanics in a semi-scripted order and challenge you to deal with them or die. Better AI is what you ask for when you want PvE mobs to act like players, which really isn’t the strength of good PvE encounters in the first place.

Are you saying that the distinction, for you, is whether the enemy adapts to what the player is doing or not?

I would say good PVE design either has a really well designed script, that requires you to execute pretty well, and make you feel good when you do execute well, or having an enemy that better responds to player behaviors, or a combination of those things.

I will say GW2, in both styles is fairly lacking.

Please see this post as to why I find “make pve mobs behave like pvp players” to be a really dumb idea…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/General-Dungeon-Discussion-Thread-Part-2/page/52#post5077603

You bring up some valid points in that post, but unless I skim-read too much I did not see anything about mobs voluntarily crippling themselves by refusing to move and attack at the same time.

This AI failure is what creates the largest imbalances between pvp and pve, fixing this would go a long way to make this game mode more interesting.

he is saying that mobs moving away from your coordinated burst, is annoying and shouldnt happen because it makes players feel crappy.

i personally think the type of coordinated super burn that players do now, should require more set up, or be available at specific times.
This may be where the break bar can come into strength in instanced content.

It’s not about making players feel crappy it’s about eliminating many options from being good at all. Why would you use Lava Font, Acid Bomb, Symbol of Wrath, Smite, Wells, or any other field damage skill if you get 1 tick then the enemy steps out?

In PVP they can be used to pressure and force position changes, but in PVE things aren’t as fluid and it’d take quite a feat of AI development to get a similar effect. I mean in PVP dropping a lava font might prompt your enemy to stop his attack to move, will we now be causing Lupi to stop his frenzied blast to get out of a Lava Font, seems quite powerful. And that’s why higher levels of AI can actually lead to an easier and more manipulative encounter than a more basic AI.

I do agree with Zelyhn in that there are mechanics that hinder PVE content based on their design. Not only the movement + attack thing, but also many abilities can be skipped through because NPCs seem to trigger their own phases instead of having them scripted to trigger even if they’re in the middle of an attack. For example Lupi phase skipping or Grawl Shaman.

That said I don’t really want a more PVP feeling PVE, I don’t really enjoy attrition based encounters. I simply don’t like how PVP is in this game. I wouldn’t mind some encounters or some enemies to fight in this style but I don’t want it to become the focus of content, just an addition.

I mean having some skirmishers coming at you unleashing a low damage but high hit count attack could be very interesting to promote the use of a lot of skills that are currently underutilized. Potentially have an enemy that does a low to medium damage warrior Axe5 taht we know we can just grab retal and let it help kill itself while we use Regen and maybe a water field (Or even potentially lifesteal through a dark field?) to recover from.

I don’t want every encounter to become this where I have to factor in X amount of damage that I WILL be taking (unless I range /cringe), I find the active attempt at perfection in a up close setting to be one of the major fun points of this game. But, the game could certainly use more variety.

NikeEU.7690:

Or you could just look at what well designed raid or dungeon bosses look like in other games. If you think I’m advocating static “everyone stack in one spot and don’t move for the duration of the fight” combat you clearly don’t understand.

i am not opposed to the type of orechestrated design you are talking about when it is well executed, but reactive and dynamic combat where you get your best benefits for properly reacting to/predicting/setting up your opponent is also the other means of good PVE design.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

Yes I understand, I played through many popular MMOs at high level.

The difference is that in most of these mmos, combat was indeed static, while gw2 combat is balanced around being dynamic.

Edit: in your arguments against FGS you used to say that such burst trivialises combat. Don’t you think that static mobs also trivialises combat?

Take Mai Trin for example. Because of the limitation on her attack you can max melee kite her around while doing damage in melee.

If she could suddenly attack you while you do that how likely do you think it’d be that people keep the same tactic? Or would they simply kite from further away to strip stacks then do the heavy burst to phase her or even just continue kiting while pew pewing away.

I don’t think it’d make the fight more fun, it’s just make us switch tactics.

Not saying that moving + attacking isn’t something NPCs should be capable of, just saying in this example I think that limitation allows for a more entertaining encounter.

phys.7689:

NikeEU.7690:

Or you could just look at what well designed raid or dungeon bosses look like in other games. If you think I’m advocating static “everyone stack in one spot and don’t move for the duration of the fight” combat you clearly don’t understand.

i am not opposed to the type of orechestrated design you are talking about when it is well executed, but reactive and dynamic combat where you get your best benefits for properly reacting to/predicting/setting up your opponent is also the other means of good PVE design.

It’s pretty simple. Take the orchestrated combat type raid bosses and instead of tanks and healers you have to use active defenses to survive and you have the right formula for an active combat game to have high end PvE. GW already sorta has this in Lupicus and even some of the Silverwaste breach champions, the troll being the best of the bunch. The problem is ofcourse they are all designed to be beaten by newbs in random gear with random traits rather than designed to push experienced players to their maximums.

Edit: in your arguments against FGS you used to say that such burst trivialises combat. Don’t you think that static mobs also trivialises combat?

I’ve seen wildstar, wow and swtor raid bosses who were static and anything but trivial and who had anything but simple mechanics. and the players themselves were anything but static.

phys.7689:

NikeEU.7690:

Or you could just look at what well designed raid or dungeon bosses look like in other games. If you think I’m advocating static “everyone stack in one spot and don’t move for the duration of the fight” combat you clearly don’t understand.

i am not opposed to the type of orechestrated design you are talking about when it is well executed, but reactive and dynamic combat where you get your best benefits for properly reacting to/predicting/setting up your opponent is also the other means of good PVE design.

does this aoe pattern promote enough reactive gameplay for you?

note the aoes are moving in different directions -> clock wise and counter clock wise and you cant just run around the boss because the autoattacks will wreck you.
eat 1 tick of the aoe → you die.

Mossman is quite fun. As far as I know, this encounter provides many different tactics as well. (Not counting the underwater glitch, but again it proves that this encounter is challenging).

if you don’t nuke down molten duo and leave the berserker last, it is probably one of the best boss fights in the game.

Jerus.4350:

It’s not about making players feel crappy it’s about eliminating many options from being good at all. Why would you use Lava Font, Acid Bomb, Symbol of Wrath, Smite, Wells, or any other field damage skill if you get 1 tick then the enemy steps out?

In PVP they can be used to pressure and force position changes, but in PVE things aren’t as fluid and it’d take quite a feat of AI development to get a similar effect. I mean in PVP dropping a lava font might prompt your enemy to stop his attack to move, will we now be causing Lupi to stop his frenzied blast to get out of a Lava Font, seems quite powerful. And that’s why higher levels of AI can actually lead to an easier and more manipulative encounter than a more basic AI.

I do agree with Zelyhn in that there are mechanics that hinder PVE content based on their design. Not only the movement + attack thing, but also many abilities can be skipped through because NPCs seem to trigger their own phases instead of having them scripted to trigger even if they’re in the middle of an attack. For example Lupi phase skipping or Grawl Shaman.

That said I don’t really want a more PVP feeling PVE, I don’t really enjoy attrition based encounters. I simply don’t like how PVP is in this game. I wouldn’t mind some encounters or some enemies to fight in this style but I don’t want it to become the focus of content, just an addition.

I mean having some skirmishers coming at you unleashing a low damage but high hit count attack could be very interesting to promote the use of a lot of skills that are currently underutilized. Potentially have an enemy that does a low to medium damage warrior Axe5 taht we know we can just grab retal and let it help kill itself while we use Regen and maybe a water field (Or even potentially lifesteal through a dark field?) to recover from.

I don’t want every encounter to become this where I have to factor in X amount of damage that I WILL be taking (unless I range /cringe), I find the active attempt at perfection in a up close setting to be one of the major fun points of this game. But, the game could certainly use more variety.

you would use it, in combination with CC, or to set up a lose lose situation for enemies.
when you have to actually cripple/imobilize/knock/stun an enemy to take advantage them.
also, not all enemies would behave the same way. Some enemies should be the bruiser types, who are likely to take the dmg in order to pressure/kill you. Others are delicate and shouldnt seek to stand in the fire.

for example, a ranged npc has no logical reason to stand in the fire, whereas a warrior NPC would generally eat the dmg in order to kill you.

also keep in mind this isnt for every facet of the game. But if you are entering the game mode that is supposed to have the most challenging content, and an encounter designed to have a bunch of archers attacking you from varied positions, all run around the corner, and then stand in that one point blank spot so they can get cleaved at zero range, is kind of stupid.

im not saying every npc should behave in computationally advantageos ways all the time, but differing enemies should react differently, and more enemies should be grouped by complimentary playstyles rather than all being the same type.

EcoRI.9273:

if you don’t nuke down molten duo and leave the berserker last, it is probably one of the best boss fights in the game.

It can also be the most frustrating because of how those fire fields work. And then theres the berserkers auto attack which is basically an almost perma melee denial for squishy classes.

Its definitely a better fight. But its not great either.

EcoRI.9273:

if you don’t nuke down molten duo and leave the berserker last, it is probably one of the best boss fights in the game.

I personally hate this encounter atm because it’s one of the buggiest in the game.

Not only are some of the aoes from firestorm completely invisible but almost all of the aoe indicators appear either as you’re already getting hit or afterwards, which is stupid. They need to upgrade the indicators like they did with bloomhunger so it’s not completely RNG.

I agree it is more interesting though if you do what you say, but I have only killed firestorm before berserker once ever tbh and that was around when this boss was first released xD

spoj.9672:

EcoRI.9273:

if you don’t nuke down molten duo and leave the berserker last, it is probably one of the best boss fights in the game.

It can also be the most frustrating because of how those fire fields work. And then theres the berserkers auto attack which is basically an almost perma melee denial for squishy classes.

Its definitely a better fight. But its not great either.

You can stand behind him when hes using the melee autos. The one being targeted just need to know to dodge backwards.

Purple Miku.7032:

EcoRI.9273:

if you don’t nuke down molten duo and leave the berserker last, it is probably one of the best boss fights in the game.

I personally hate this encounter atm because it’s one of the buggiest in the game.

Not only are some of the aoes from firestorm completely invisible but almost all of the aoe indicators appear either as you’re already getting hit or afterwards, which is stupid. They need to upgrade the indicators like they did with bloomhunger so it’s not completely RNG.

I agree it is more interesting though if you do what you say, but I have only killed firestorm before berserker once ever tbh and that was around when this boss was first released xD

Oh man I used to troll my casual guild group all the time by DPS racing the firestorm vs the berserker. Usually I would win because they were all tank gear tank trait and constantly got agro. I probably fought the berserker last like 10 times before my guildies started raging at me to stop doing that. :-D

Nokaru.7831:

Unyielding Anguish is going to make open world or random pugs really miserable with them teleporting mobs around everywhere randomly.

Their teleport location can be “aimed”, but random Revenants aren’t going to do that. They’re going to just displace big piles of mobs away out of everyone’s AoE. It’s like the ranger longbow knockback but a million times worse.

This was the main thing I wanted to say. Was frustrating especially with the lag. Like mobs would be forced to teleport out, leash teleport back to their first spot which then forced a teleport out again.

NoTrigger.8396:

phys.7689:

NikeEU.7690:

Or you could just look at what well designed raid or dungeon bosses look like in other games. If you think I’m advocating static “everyone stack in one spot and don’t move for the duration of the fight” combat you clearly don’t understand.

i am not opposed to the type of orechestrated design you are talking about when it is well executed, but reactive and dynamic combat where you get your best benefits for properly reacting to/predicting/setting up your opponent is also the other means of good PVE design.

does this aoe pattern promote enough reactive gameplay for you?

note the aoes are moving in different directions -> clock wise and counter clock wise and you cant just run around the boss because the autoattacks will wreck you.
eat 1 tick of the aoe -> you die.

if i am reading what you are describing properly that would go under orchestrated, not that i have a problem with orchestrated, but you seem to be describing a situations where if everyone behaves as expected, you follow the pattern well.

reactive is more about benefiting from being able to identify, and react to what an opponent does.

NoTrigger.8396:

phys.7689:

NikeEU.7690:

Or you could just look at what well designed raid or dungeon bosses look like in other games. If you think I’m advocating static “everyone stack in one spot and don’t move for the duration of the fight” combat you clearly don’t understand.

i am not opposed to the type of orechestrated design you are talking about when it is well executed, but reactive and dynamic combat where you get your best benefits for properly reacting to/predicting/setting up your opponent is also the other means of good PVE design.

does this aoe pattern promote enough reactive gameplay for you?

note the aoes are moving in different directions -> clock wise and counter clock wise and you cant just run around the boss because the autoattacks will wreck you.
eat 1 tick of the aoe -> you die.

Introducing Super Hexagon into GW2

phys.7689:

NoTrigger.8396:

phys.7689:

NikeEU.7690:

Or you could just look at what well designed raid or dungeon bosses look like in other games. If you think I’m advocating static “everyone stack in one spot and don’t move for the duration of the fight” combat you clearly don’t understand.

i am not opposed to the type of orechestrated design you are talking about when it is well executed, but reactive and dynamic combat where you get your best benefits for properly reacting to/predicting/setting up your opponent is also the other means of good PVE design.

does this aoe pattern promote enough reactive gameplay for you?

note the aoes are moving in different directions -> clock wise and counter clock wise and you cant just run around the boss because the autoattacks will wreck you.
eat 1 tick of the aoe -> you die.

if i am reading what you are describing properly that would go under orchestrated, not that i have a problem with orchestrated, but you seem to be describing a situations where if everyone behaves as expected, you follow the pattern well.

reactive is more about benefiting from being able to identify, and react to what an opponent does.

if it was orchestrated it wouldnt have taken over 500 pulls + ptr experience to kill it

Cheezy.2039:

Introducing Super Hexagon into GW2

lol

Cheezy.2039:

NoTrigger.8396:

phys.7689:

NikeEU.7690:

Or you could just look at what well designed raid or dungeon bosses look like in other games. If you think I’m advocating static “everyone stack in one spot and don’t move for the duration of the fight” combat you clearly don’t understand.

i am not opposed to the type of orechestrated design you are talking about when it is well executed, but reactive and dynamic combat where you get your best benefits for properly reacting to/predicting/setting up your opponent is also the other means of good PVE design.

does this aoe pattern promote enough reactive gameplay for you?

note the aoes are moving in different directions -> clock wise and counter clock wise and you cant just run around the boss because the autoattacks will wreck you.
eat 1 tick of the aoe -> you die.

Introducing Super Hexagon into GW2

That game looks insanely hard.

Re: moving bosses. Mossman and archdiviner are terrible bosses for the most part. They can be perma-snared and killed with range weapons without getting a player in serious danger. the only reason we look at them as a challenge at all is because the dungeon community prides itself on not range-kiting bosses. That’s our personal pride getting in the way of actually trivializing content. Those bosses are hopefully NOT the direction legitimate challenging content goes in the future.

the problem with mossman and archdiviner is having hard hitting attacks which are poorly choreographed (or in the case of when mossman stealths, absolutely zero until you get dumped by a bouncing axe out of nowhere). the only reason people know how to dodge them in melee is pre-emptively by knowing the timing (a bit like alpha’s teeth attack, no way you can react fast enough to the cast to dodge it).

archdiviner’s aoe projectile attack is nice because it has a decent cast time but hits hard, so an unsuspecting player will get downed out of nowhere while if you’re experienced you can dodge through him or something.

well, that’s just my opinion anyway. mind you, I have no idea how people even do fractal bosses anymore.

NikeEU.7690:

Cheezy.2039:

NoTrigger.8396:

phys.7689:

NikeEU.7690:

Or you could just look at what well designed raid or dungeon bosses look like in other games. If you think I’m advocating static “everyone stack in one spot and don’t move for the duration of the fight” combat you clearly don’t understand.

i am not opposed to the type of orechestrated design you are talking about when it is well executed, but reactive and dynamic combat where you get your best benefits for properly reacting to/predicting/setting up your opponent is also the other means of good PVE design.

does this aoe pattern promote enough reactive gameplay for you?

note the aoes are moving in different directions -> clock wise and counter clock wise and you cant just run around the boss because the autoattacks will wreck you.
eat 1 tick of the aoe -> you die.

Introducing Super Hexagon into GW2

That game looks insanely hard.

It’s insanely fun as well but it’s boring once you actually beat it. Still the best sub-1€ game I ever played

maha.7902:

the problem with mossman and archdiviner is having hard hitting attacks which are poorly choreographed (or in the case of when mossman stealths, absolutely zero until you get dumped by a bouncing axe out of nowhere). the only reason people know how to dodge them in melee is pre-emptively by knowing the timing (a bit like alpha’s teeth attack, no way you can react fast enough to the cast to dodge it).

archdiviner’s aoe projectile attack is nice because it has a decent cast time but hits hard, so an unsuspecting player will get downed out of nowhere while if you’re experienced you can dodge through him or something.

well, that’s just my opinion anyway. mind you, I have no idea how people even do fractal bosses anymore.

There’s also an element of randomness to archdiviner when he does his whirl. Sometimes the projectiles will shoot before he’s mid-animation.

Sometimes you are far away and a projectile doesn’t visually hit you but you still take damage from some invisible projectile.

Zenith.7301:

There’s also an element of randomness to archdiviner when he does his whirl. Sometimes the projectiles will shoot before he’s mid-animation.

Sometimes you are far away and a projectile doesn’t visually hit you but you still take damage from some invisible projectile.

If you are talking about the first encounter, then it’s not “sometimes.” It is a bug where if you are further than a certain range you get hit by the projectiles as if you were standing directly in front of him.

Yeah, figures. I’ve also noticed that unlike other projectile mechanics, if you lay down a Feedback but still stay inside the bubble where he whirls, you take damage.

maha.7902:

the problem with mossman and archdiviner is having hard hitting attacks which are poorly choreographed (or in the case of when mossman stealths, absolutely zero until you get dumped by a bouncing axe out of nowhere). the only reason people know how to dodge them in melee is pre-emptively by knowing the timing (a bit like alpha’s teeth attack, no way you can react fast enough to the cast to dodge it).

This thread is so dam interesting to read.

Mossman and archdiviner are so fun! (well the first archdiviner not the second one) But they are w/e in organized groups, altho most content really is. The second archdiviner is definitely bad since it’s hard to reactively dodge his attacks since i’ve been hit many times when dodging after hte animation starts, pretty sure it hits at the start of the animation.

I would say I enjoy Bosses that move around more fun than stationary ones, and although i agree they shouldn’t be like pvp players since that would end up being more frustrating than satisfying there needs to be something more than orchestrated attacks. I like pvp more than pve because of the fact that not everything can be planned out. The fact that you have to reactively change up your strategy is what makes pvp difficult and it’s something that is missing from pve. No idea how that can be implemented but with a dynamic combat system it seemse necessary to make great content.

Nyx.7342:

maha.7902:

the problem with mossman and archdiviner is having hard hitting attacks which are poorly choreographed (or in the case of when mossman stealths, absolutely zero until you get dumped by a bouncing axe out of nowhere). the only reason people know how to dodge them in melee is pre-emptively by knowing the timing (a bit like alpha’s teeth attack, no way you can react fast enough to the cast to dodge it).

This thread is so dam interesting to read.

Mossman and archdiviner are so fun! (well the first archdiviner not the second one) But they are w/e in organized groups, altho most content really is. The second archdiviner is definitely bad since it’s hard to reactively dodge his attacks since i’ve been hit many times when dodging after hte animation starts, pretty sure it hits at the start of the animation.

I would say I enjoy Bosses that move around more fun than stationary ones, and although i agree they shouldn’t be like pvp players since that would end up being more frustrating than satisfying there needs to be something more than orchestrated attacks. I like pvp more than pve because of the fact that not everything can be planned out. The fact that you have to reactively change up your strategy is what makes pvp difficult and it’s something that is missing from pve. No idea how that can be implemented but with a dynamic combat system it seemse necessary to make great content.

I don’t think PvE needs exactly that.
However there are games with bosses/enemies which react if certain skills are used or specific things happen; for example, use an elite skill and the boss pulls up a shield which needs to get destroyed. This puts you in a situation where you have to decide if using elites is helpful or if it’s better to completely ignore them. Another example is a boss in the same game who reacts to burst damage; if you hit a certain amount of DPS on him, he starts spawning mobs at one of the edges of the map. Those then proceed to cover a part of the map with gunfire and vanish after some time; if you keep bursting, he summons more mobs and – eventually – launches a nuke which wipes the team if they don’t find cover. You end up having to decide if your team is capable of bursting him down fast enough or if you’re better off slowly killing him.

We already have that here to some degree, but I think that’s something that could be expanded on.

Nyx.7342:

maha.7902:

the problem with mossman and archdiviner is having hard hitting attacks which are poorly choreographed (or in the case of when mossman stealths, absolutely zero until you get dumped by a bouncing axe out of nowhere). the only reason people know how to dodge them in melee is pre-emptively by knowing the timing (a bit like alpha’s teeth attack, no way you can react fast enough to the cast to dodge it).

This thread is so dam interesting to read.

Mossman and archdiviner are so fun! (well the first archdiviner not the second one) But they are w/e in organized groups, altho most content really is. The second archdiviner is definitely bad since it’s hard to reactively dodge his attacks since i’ve been hit many times when dodging after hte animation starts, pretty sure it hits at the start of the animation.

I would say I enjoy Bosses that move around more fun than stationary ones, and although i agree they shouldn’t be like pvp players since that would end up being more frustrating than satisfying there needs to be something more than orchestrated attacks. I like pvp more than pve because of the fact that not everything can be planned out. The fact that you have to reactively change up your strategy is what makes pvp difficult and it’s something that is missing from pve. No idea how that can be implemented but with a dynamic combat system it seemse necessary to make great content.

With the 2nd archdiviner it’s also sort of a “oh, bugger off you cheating kitten” scenario, since his melee swing looks like a cone but it will actually hit you from behind him depending on the angle, and that’s a 1 shot for light/medium hp professions.

I really think people can agree that the archaic method of increasing difficulty by adding hp and raw damage needs to go. It’s unimaginative and not really good from a gameplay perspective.

There’s also the problem with their stated intent of telegraphed skills and their actual executions. It’s why mesmers as well see their interrupt builds with lesser value in PvE, because most cast times for boss attacks outside lupi are 1/4-1/2 cast times, with tiny humanoid animations amidst a sea of spell effects.

It’s why asuras are such a problem in pvp, people abuse them since it’s actually rather effective to obscure animations, and despite people asking for cast bars, which were in GW1 and didn’t detract from GW1’s potential difficulty on well designed endgame raids, anet has been pigheaded about just biting the bullet.

It’s a common theme with Anet, though. Rangers begged them to not make pets their mechanic, anet disregarded that, and proceeded to give them the crappiest class mechanic existent in the game with a terrible AI that has poor survivability, doesn’t scale from gear (ascended upgrades, pets don’t have the same crit dmg bonus as the owner, devaluing berserker’s impact for the ranger relative to other classes) or food or sigils or runes, has execution delays and trouble hitting moving targets due to autoattack animation locks, and doesn’t cleave outside drakes. Ranged pets pathe terribly, have a 900 range for some reason unlike the ranger’s 1200, and they can’t shoot from fort walls or at people up on them from below.

When Anet has a gimmick, it’s their baby and they don’t care what the playerbase has to say about its practical applications in the game. They will force it on you, it will be shoddy, and they won’t change much about it until the next xpac where you need to dish out another 40-60 bucks to see if they actually got around to fixing it.

I agree with what your saying about boss readability. If there’s anything I want from other games it’s non-human sized bosses and aoe indicators. As much as mai trin and mossman and archdiviner are interesting bosses, their animations get really lost in particle effects and their cleave range is still kind of a guessing game.

That picture no-trigger linked actually reminds me of the aetherblade lazer room boss as it was when it was first released – the walls would basically oneshot you, you could NOT face tank them. When touching a lazer wall = down, the fight becomes a lot different. Not saying it is equivalent in terms of complexity or challenge, but I think it was an attempt by the devs to challenge players to think about positioning and coordinate on the move. The essence was just sort of lost in the translation to fractals.

I see the start of good things, like the above, in the 3 post launch dungeons (molten, aether retreat, and aether path), and if they had kept developing 5 man content like that we could have had some really neat stuff by now. That’s why I still have some hope for the expansion. I actually believe the developers have a much better idea of how to make content that is challenging for the combat system of the game, and could produce some genuinely difficult instanced content, its just a question of whether they had any time allocated to do it.

Zenith.7301:

It’s a common theme with Anet, though. Rangers begged them to not make pets their mechanic, anet disregarded that, and proceeded to give them the crappiest class mechanic existent in the game with a terrible AI that has poor survivability, doesn’t scale from gear (ascended upgrades, pets don’t have the same crit dmg bonus as the owner, devaluing berserker’s impact for the ranger relative to other classes) or food or sigils or runes, has execution delays and trouble hitting moving targets due to autoattack animation locks, and doesn’t cleave outside drakes. Ranged pets pathe terribly, have a 900 range for some reason unlike the ranger’s 1200, and they can’t shoot from fort walls or at people up on them from below.

When Anet has a gimmick, it’s their baby and they don’t care what the playerbase has to say about its practical applications in the game. They will force it on you, it will be shoddy, and they won’t change much about it until the next xpac where you need to dish out another 40-60 bucks to see if they actually got around to fixing it.

Yes.

readability wise the game is very poor, and its not just big effects, which usually isnt that bad in 1-5 man teams, its the fact that they very rarely optimize enemy and player skills animations/hit times in conjunction with what they actually do.

the game is more about trial, error, just knowing the timing, rather than observing where an enemy attack lands/when the animation should hit.
Wildstar deals with this by creating indicators for everything, which does take you out immersion slightly, but it makes up for it by being extremely readable, so learning what happens and why it happened its about paying attention.

the other option would be way better animations/effects that clearly show what happens and accurate hit boxes, but i dont think its a skill set anet has staffed positions for, nor the desire to invest the time into dealing with.

Just gotta say one of the reasons (there were a bunch) I couldn’t get into wildstar was that overabundance of colorful shapes. Just ruins the feeling.

That said, I rage a little everytime I get hit by a Terragriff charge that’s clearly not anywhere near me but apparently is…

phys.7689:

readability wise the game is very poor, and its not just big effects, which usually isnt that bad in 1-5 man teams, its the fact that they very rarely optimize enemy and player skills animations/hit times in conjunction with what they actually do.

the game is more about trial, error, just knowing the timing, rather than observing where an enemy attack lands/when the animation should hit.
Wildstar deals with this by creating indicators for everything, which does take you out immersion slightly, but it makes up for it by being extremely readable, so learning what happens and why it happened its about paying attention.

the other option would be way better animations/effects that clearly show what happens and accurate hit boxes, but i dont think its a skill set anet has staffed positions for, nor the desire to invest the time into dealing with.

This annoys me so much, when archy hits me while I should be out of range from melee attacks and I’m facing his back… Makes no logical sense. I’d prefer the wildstar way, but then again these random annoyances are the only way to go down at this point since the content is just too kitten old.

Jerus.4350:

Just gotta say one of the reasons (there were a bunch) I couldn’t get into wildstar was that overabundance of colorful shapes. Just ruins the feeling.

That said, I rage a little everytime I get hit by a Terragriff charge that’s clearly not anywhere near me but apparently is…

well you can change the colors, opacity, outline opacity, enable/disable telegraphs.

NoTrigger.8396:

Jerus.4350:

Just gotta say one of the reasons (there were a bunch) I couldn’t get into wildstar was that overabundance of colorful shapes. Just ruins the feeling.

That said, I rage a little everytime I get hit by a Terragriff charge that’s clearly not anywhere near me but apparently is…

well you can change the colors, opacity, outline opacity, enable/disable telegraphs.

Do the enemies have well made animations such that doing that wouldn’t just be shooting myself in the foot and making people hate me for not easily stepping out of the way? But either way, yeah it’s just one of the many things that just kinda put me off the game. Not trying to say it’s bad or a bad idea, just not my cup of tea no matter how fun the content looks I couldn’t get into it (tried, did the beta thing, just ehh)

Jerus.4350:

Just gotta say one of the reasons (there were a bunch) I couldn’t get into wildstar was that overabundance of colorful shapes. Just ruins the feeling.

That said, I rage a little everytime I get hit by a Terragriff charge that’s clearly not anywhere near me but apparently is…

About the Terragriff thing, this sorta thing honestly angers me to no end, how some mobs/bosses attacks in this game have attacks with animations that clearly for what ever reason, be it bug, lag or what ever, don’t match up with what you’d expect. Like attacks clearly look like a frontal cone, but hit like a 360 degree PBaoe.

Nothing annoys me more than yelling “How was I ANYWHERE NEAR THAT”

It makes alot of things feel cheap to me.

My favorite of those (least favorite that is) is the Troll in SW with his 90 degree cone attack… that hits outside the orange marking…

Jerus.4350:

NoTrigger.8396:

Jerus.4350:

Just gotta say one of the reasons (there were a bunch) I couldn’t get into wildstar was that overabundance of colorful shapes. Just ruins the feeling.

That said, I rage a little everytime I get hit by a Terragriff charge that’s clearly not anywhere near me but apparently is…

well you can change the colors, opacity, outline opacity, enable/disable telegraphs.

Do the enemies have well made animations such that doing that wouldn’t just be shooting myself in the foot and making people hate me for not easily stepping out of the way? But either way, yeah it’s just one of the many things that just kinda put me off the game. Not trying to say it’s bad or a bad idea, just not my cup of tea no matter how fun the content looks I couldn’t get into it (tried, did the beta thing, just ehh)

yes they have animations. but there is so much stuff going on you wont even have the time to look at the animations. thats why the telegraphs are there., to reach a level of complexitiy that no other MMO has achieved.

Jerus.4350:

My favorite of those (least favorite that is) is the Troll in SW with his 90 degree cone attack… that hits outside the orange marking…

But then why does this happen?

Am I being stupid and not seeing a reason why? like lol.

Boss swings his weapon in front of him, so he magically hits people behind, I don’t get it x)

Like it’s ok once you know the animation sure, but the first couple of goes against a mob with this sort of attack makes me go eh? What the…<_<

NoTrigger.8396:

Jerus.4350:

NoTrigger.8396:

Jerus.4350:

Just gotta say one of the reasons (there were a bunch) I couldn’t get into wildstar was that overabundance of colorful shapes. Just ruins the feeling.

That said, I rage a little everytime I get hit by a Terragriff charge that’s clearly not anywhere near me but apparently is…

well you can change the colors, opacity, outline opacity, enable/disable telegraphs.

Do the enemies have well made animations such that doing that wouldn’t just be shooting myself in the foot and making people hate me for not easily stepping out of the way? But either way, yeah it’s just one of the many things that just kinda put me off the game. Not trying to say it’s bad or a bad idea, just not my cup of tea no matter how fun the content looks I couldn’t get into it (tried, did the beta thing, just ehh)

yes they have animations. but there is so much stuff going on you wont even have the time to look at the animations. thats why the telegraphs are there., to reach a level of complexitiy that no other MMO has achieved.

Aye I commend Wildstar for being the pinnacle of that type of play. I admit I’m still a guy that wants more than just the challenging gameplay. I miss the immersion MMO’s used to have, I actually miss spending 2-3 hours traveling to a different city, I miss losing my corpse and having to run naked or with old gear to go find it. So I have very conflicting desires that will probably never be satiated completely

If you can’t discuss the topic and change it after half of first page, edit it.

I have my reservations about adopting the Safety Dance as defacto boss behavior.
GW2 is pretty heavily invested in Movement as a part of Character Building.

So, while forcing the player to move to avoid a rooted-mob’s AOE is certainly engaging more of the players’ toolbox, shrugging our collective shoulders at the Snares part of equation sends a heckuva’ lot more metal clanging to the floor here than it does other games.

I’m more of the mind they need to start making bosses for GW2 and select conglomerates of it’s tools specifically, as opposed to bosses so accepting of any tool they could be thrown into virtually any other game on the market.

Rym.1469:

If you can’t discuss the topic and change it after half of first page, edit it.

I hope the mods dont remove it since it has taken quite an interesting turn about encounter design. Which is also in best interest of the dungeon community for the beta. Its what we’re expecting to see developed in beta / HoT

Rym.1469:

If you can’t discuss the topic and change it after half of first page, edit it.

Welcome to dungeons subforum.

So ive been playing witcher3 religiously and lemme tell you getting hit by enemies offscreen sucks worse because of their immersive camera system

It boils down to this… Current bosses can be killed, for the most part, one of two ways.

1. Melee (fast and dangerous)
2. Range-kite (slow and easy)

So long as option two exists we can never have a challenging encounter. If there is some EZ mode option you can default to, it completely ruins any challenge.

That’s one thing I like about the mordrem troll breach boss. He is pretty punishing to melee players due to a fast moving semi-complex aoe pattern and also punishing adds, but he has a massive aoe attack that kills everyone at range that even a double dodge won’t save you from. Unfortunately there are still ranged safespots. A boss like this could easily be tuned to eliminate the safespots and could be tuned to do his AOE ranged death attack more frequently. Could also be given a 20% increased attack speed. Could be given about 25x more HP. Could be put in a 10 man instance. Could be given two more phases with different mechanics in each phase. Could be given amazing rewards for being beaten.

One can dream.

NikeEU.7690:

It boils down to this… Current bosses can be killed, for the most part, one of two ways.

1. Melee (fast and dangerous)
2. Range-kite (slow and easy)

So long as option two exists we can never have a challenging encounter. If there is some EZ mode option you can default to, it completely ruins any challenge.

That’s one thing I like about the mordrem troll breach boss. He is pretty punishing to melee players due to a fast moving semi-complex aoe pattern and also punishing adds, but he has a massive aoe attack that kills everyone at range that even a double dodge won’t save you from. Unfortunately there are still ranged safespots. A boss like this could easily be tuned to eliminate the safespots and could be tuned to do his AOE ranged death attack more frequently. Could also be given a 20% increased attack speed. Could be given about 25x more HP. Could be put in a 10 man instance. Could be given two more phases with different mechanics in each phase. Could be given amazing rewards for being beaten.

One can dream.

You forgot few long unskippable cutscenes and a useless friendly NPC.

NikeEU.7690:

One can dream.

And dream we shall.

So super well said from the other thread I had to quote it.

Personally I consider Lupi a great fight and he doesn’t act like a player. I want more fight’s like lupi. If one boss mob; multi stages and patterns of attack. if multiple mobs; synergystic abilities between them that makes a pattern but not player like kiting or snaring or dodging

*ahh had quoted NikeEU but it was too long.

Mightybird.6034:

So super well said from the other thread I had to quote it.

Personally I consider Lupi a great fight and he doesn’t act like a player. I want more fight’s like lupi. If one boss mob; multi stages and patterns of attack. if multiple mobs; synergystic abilities between them that makes a pattern but not player like kiting or snaring or dodging

*ahh had quoted NikeEU but it was too long.

Some people prefer that style, but its not inherrently better.

basically you dislike moving, because dodge isnt different than a skill that gives evasion/blocks or invuln, other than the fact that they change the positioning.

I think players should have to work to have an enemy let them stay in an advantageous position sometimes.