Guild Wars 2

Casual, friendly, stale and soon…i fear what comes next for Guild Wars 2 and all the players who still put hope within this game.

Principals are meant to be followed in order to focus on the success and well being of whatever it is based on, but what happens when does same principals which created such a strong bases for this product are abused to a point where the game is now expected to be excused because of them?

Why aren’t there any challenging dungeon?
Why aren’t there any challenging jumping puzzles?
Why aren’t there any challenging events?

The answer: Guild Wars 2 is a casually game and the player base need to be catered too even if that means catering to the same hypocrites who said the game was too hard and then when things got too easy they abandoned the game because and I quote:“We are bored of doing the same easy sh** over and over again. It’s way too easy and not rewarding.”

So I wounder if I’m the only one or in the minority to see that what is needed is quit simply a little increase in the difficulty to allow player to have goals which aren’t achieved the same day they set them, and for the love of god Legendaries are in no way shape or form a goal to be set a month after you start the game which mind you, is currently happening.

So my questions are:
Why aren’t dungeon’s harder and repair costs more expansive to give a reason for more rewarding loot?
This also adds the need for potions which are never actually required and more properly set up builds with gear and sigils because you will be gambling your money in-terms of the repair costs if you are not prepared for such a challenge.

Why aren’t open world things like jumping puzzles and world bosses more challenging and yield more promising rewards?
This also allows the open world bosses to actually trigger the event when people fail to kill them(which never happens).

Well these 2 question cover just a part of what Guild Wars 2 need to improve of in my opinion but it is a big part never the less. I hope Arena Net will surprise us as they have many times in a good way and show us that this game has a lot more to come (and I don’t mean content that can be completed in 4 hrs after launch such as The Secret of Southsun).

Why aren’t there any challenging dungeon?
Why aren’t there any challenging jumping puzzles?
Why aren’t there any challenging events?

Guild Wars 2 players hate challenge and everything that’s not easily obtainable and time consuming.

Hmm…I feel a sense of deja vu!

Nick.6972:

Why aren’t there any challenging dungeon?
Why aren’t there any challenging jumping puzzles?
Why aren’t there any challenging events?

Guild Wars 2 players hate challenge and everything that’s not easily obtainable and time consuming.

True. No one wants to put effort. And when you say effort – they will go with their reward crap – do something, receive something – immediately.

I even saw a thread “complaining” about the default keyboard setup. I mean, come on.

Challenging dungeons: The only one that is reasonably challenging, that people run, is Arah path 1, or whatever path it is. People naturally find the easiest and quickest to run. They do not bother with the other paths, so if the devs want to save some time and money, stop making multiple paths for explorables? Id say 90% of players skip the harder paths in explorables…a shame, but thats the way of the human beast.

Challenging jumping puzzles: Im a pretty avid gamer, I play a variety, etc. I think a lot of the JPs provide enough of a challenge. Some are way harder than most, some are pretty face roll, and then the majority are right in the middle where it actually takes a little effort. Even though I will be so kitten ed if I fall off that ledge and die/have to start over, I love the Jps in the game. I just wish the chests rewarded something other than blues/greens.

There are SOME challenging events. The temple events in Orr are failed by groups often enough IMO. They have made shelt/pent harder by replacing everything with vets and champs which sucks for farmers like myself…I kind of preferred it the old way. But yeah, by and large there aren’t many difficult events that do not throw 50 vets and champs at you. I’ll agree here. This also goes along with challenging and unique boss fights that do not have multiple ways to one shot you, and are not tank and spank.

But catering to casuals pays, and anet is running a business here.

Which group do you think bring more profit to a company, the ones that akitten and socialize in LA, can’t be bothered to do anything more than park alts at world bosses, guild missions and run a few laps of orr, and dump their money into gemstore cosmetic items. This group may quit quickly, but there’s easily a new wave of players to fill in their places because of few barriers to entry. Or the group that want challenging dungeons and bosses that only a few guilds in an entire server could defeat.

Astralporing.1957:

Because basing difficulty of the game on a very tiny (even if equally loud) minority that will finish any content in hours anyway, and then cry there’s no endgame is not really a good strategy in a game that was advertised as catering to casuals.

So much this. The harder you make content, the less people will actually end up doing it. Anet made AC harder than it was. People stopped running it.

Why would Anet make content people don’t play?

Vayne.8563:

Astralporing.1957:

Because basing difficulty of the game on a very tiny (even if equally loud) minority that will finish any content in hours anyway, and then cry there’s no endgame is not really a good strategy in a game that was advertised as catering to casuals.

So much this. The harder you make content, the less people will actually end up doing it. Anet made AC harder than it was. People stopped running it.

Why would Anet make content people don’t play?

This is a truely sad truth, however. They made the fights in AC more interesting and less face roll, but the masses dont run it anymore. COF and fractals into the ground. Sad

In order to counter that, they need to revisit loot in dungeons.

Vayne.8563:

Astralporing.1957:

Because basing difficulty of the game on a very tiny (even if equally loud) minority that will finish any content in hours anyway, and then cry there’s no endgame is not really a good strategy in a game that was advertised as catering to casuals.

So much this. The harder you make content, the less people will actually end up doing it. Anet made AC harder than it was. People stopped running it.

Why would Anet make content people don’t play?

People stopped doing it because there is another dungeon – CoF – who they can finish 6-10mins and net almost the same rewards.

There really is no incentive to run AC nowadays – aside from the exp gained which could net 2-3 levels per path on lower levels.

Plus – GW2 players aren’t accustomed to hardships. lol

They should put in a specific loot per dungeon – like you can only get this <insert rare/exotic item here> on <insert dungeon here>

But then again, nooooo. People will rage “I don’t do dungeons it’s impossible….”, “This is no longer for casualsssssssssss”, “ANet wants us to farmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!”, “I want my legendary easy to get, like looting a random stone”

sry had to say the legendary stuff..

:|

knives.6345:

Vayne.8563:

Astralporing.1957:

Because basing difficulty of the game on a very tiny (even if equally loud) minority that will finish any content in hours anyway, and then cry there’s no endgame is not really a good strategy in a game that was advertised as catering to casuals.

So much this. The harder you make content, the less people will actually end up doing it. Anet made AC harder than it was. People stopped running it.

Why would Anet make content people don’t play?

People stopped doing it because there is another dungeon – CoF – who they can finish 6-10mins and net almost the same rewards.

There really is no incentive to run AC nowadays – aside from the exp gained which could net 2-3 levels per path on lower levels.

Plus – GW2 players aren’t accustomed to hardships. lol

This is a bit untrue. Before the change. there were a lot of people who ran AC for a change. Some people ran it because they liked the ghastly weapons too, which you could only get by running it. There were people in my guild who ran AC a couple of times a week, each and every week.

Since the update that changed the dungeon, no one in my guild runs it, and on the few occasions people had, they said they wouldn’t want to run it again.

Vayne.8563:

knives.6345:

Vayne.8563:

Astralporing.1957:

Because basing difficulty of the game on a very tiny (even if equally loud) minority that will finish any content in hours anyway, and then cry there’s no endgame is not really a good strategy in a game that was advertised as catering to casuals.

So much this. The harder you make content, the less people will actually end up doing it. Anet made AC harder than it was. People stopped running it.

Why would Anet make content people don’t play?

People stopped doing it because there is another dungeon – CoF – who they can finish 6-10mins and net almost the same rewards.

There really is no incentive to run AC nowadays – aside from the exp gained which could net 2-3 levels per path on lower levels.

Plus – GW2 players aren’t accustomed to hardships. lol

This is a bit untrue. Before the change. there were a lot of people who ran AC for a change. Some people ran it because they liked the ghastly weapons too, which you could only get by running it. There were people in my guild who ran AC a couple of times a week, each and every week.

Since the update that changed the dungeon, no one in my guild runs it, and on the few occasions people had, they said they wouldn’t want to run it again.

I edited… but regardless…

As I was saying – you almost net the same rewards. Aside from the dungeon tokens (which AC became common, second to CoF before) there really is no incentive – it now takes longer and requires more skill/patience – which most GW2 (based on forums) doesn’t have.

The mistake ANet did is they made AC harder while not changing the others. Result? People will always go to the easiest – considering gaining almost same monetary reward per run.

Why on earth would anyone do a hard part if there is an easy one available that reaps the same reward.

Well, unless you want a skin, theres no reason to run any dungeon or any other path other than CoF 1, unless you are someone that just wants a change of scenery.

Whatever fix they have planned for COF, it needs to come quick. All other dungeons are kind of abandoned now.

Maybe bump up the chest rewards in dungeons, but the last chest in a dungeon is determined by the average completion time, or “difficulty” of the dungeon, etc? Maybe group up the dungeons into tiers, so that tier 1 gets X loot table for the final chest, tier 2, gets X + 1, tier 3 gets X + 2..etc.

If you think that farming X dungeons is more efficient than X+1 (since these might take a bit longer and be a bit more challenging), then you do X. Otherwise, run the X +1 (t2) dungeons.

cesmode.4257:

Well, unless you want a skin, theres no reason to run any dungeon or any other path other than CoF 1, unless you are someone that just wants a change of scenery.

Whatever fix they have planned for COF, it needs to come quick. All other dungeons are kind of abandoned now.

Maybe bump up the chest rewards in dungeons, but the last chest in a dungeon is determined by the average completion time, or “difficulty” of the dungeon, etc? Maybe group up the dungeons into tiers, so that tier 1 gets X loot table for the final chest, tier 2, gets X + 1, tier 3 gets X + 2..etc.

If you think that farming X dungeons is more efficient than X+1 (since these might take a bit longer and be a bit more challenging), then you do X. Otherwise, run the X +1 (t2) dungeons.

This.

They should make all dungeons hard. I don’t want to sound elitist – but why are we able to finish CoF in 6-10mins? It’s a dungeon for crying out loud. It should be a test of teamwork, cooperation, strategy and communication – not a test of the Hundred Blades and Portals.

It’s like Ironman saying “I have a plan – attack”.

knives.6345:

cesmode.4257:

Well, unless you want a skin, theres no reason to run any dungeon or any other path other than CoF 1, unless you are someone that just wants a change of scenery.

Whatever fix they have planned for COF, it needs to come quick. All other dungeons are kind of abandoned now.

Maybe bump up the chest rewards in dungeons, but the last chest in a dungeon is determined by the average completion time, or “difficulty” of the dungeon, etc? Maybe group up the dungeons into tiers, so that tier 1 gets X loot table for the final chest, tier 2, gets X + 1, tier 3 gets X + 2..etc.

If you think that farming X dungeons is more efficient than X+1 (since these might take a bit longer and be a bit more challenging), then you do X. Otherwise, run the X +1 (t2) dungeons.

This.

They should make all dungeons hard. I don’t want to sound elitist – but why are we able to finish CoF in 6-10mins? It’s a dungeon for crying out loud. It should be a test of teamwork, cooperation, strategy and communication – not a test of the Hundred Blades and Portals.

It’s like Ironman saying “I have a plan – attack”.

I agree, I think dungeons should be harder. I think story mode dungeons should be quite easy and explorable mode dungeons should be challenging. Or leave them as they are and have a hard mode, like they did in Guild Wars 1.

Vayne.8563:

knives.6345:

cesmode.4257:

Well, unless you want a skin, theres no reason to run any dungeon or any other path other than CoF 1, unless you are someone that just wants a change of scenery.

Whatever fix they have planned for COF, it needs to come quick. All other dungeons are kind of abandoned now.

Maybe bump up the chest rewards in dungeons, but the last chest in a dungeon is determined by the average completion time, or “difficulty” of the dungeon, etc? Maybe group up the dungeons into tiers, so that tier 1 gets X loot table for the final chest, tier 2, gets X + 1, tier 3 gets X + 2..etc.

If you think that farming X dungeons is more efficient than X+1 (since these might take a bit longer and be a bit more challenging), then you do X. Otherwise, run the X +1 (t2) dungeons.

This.

They should make all dungeons hard. I don’t want to sound elitist – but why are we able to finish CoF in 6-10mins? It’s a dungeon for crying out loud. It should be a test of teamwork, cooperation, strategy and communication – not a test of the Hundred Blades and Portals.

It’s like Ironman saying “I have a plan – attack”.

I agree, I think dungeons should be harder. I think story mode dungeons should be quite easy and explorable mode dungeons should be challenging. Or leave them as they are and have a hard mode, like they did in Guild Wars 1.

True – and there should be incentive on running on hard mode – like there is a specific loot obtainable only by running hard mode – and we need tons of that loot, not just one.

Plus the loot is still RNG – meaning you don’t usually get it.

i bet if i look at some poster history complaininng about the game being easy i will notice them playing warriors or guardians..

The game is not easy…simply PvE balance is horribad….

If you choose to use OP professions/builds its not the game being easy….but only that you don t want to put effort and just want easy rewards.

This game is TOO hard actually…..everything tends to oneshots you and most time you have to rely on fooling the AI…..or just die.

Have fun to play a lvl 48 fotm without guardian/warriors……

From a player that finds demon/darksouls extremely easy….i find gw2 frustrating and pushing players to abuse builds/professions rather than promoting tactic and reaction….

For example, skill is something worthless too often.
You have 2 evades against 20 mobs that can oneshot you and no way manage aggo or use environment to protect your self……

So now the community is split in 3 parts:

1) those players that learnt every single cheap tricks so they can outright negate most damage.

2) those player that still expect to not play using flowcharts that find the game frustrating

3) a small minority that is noticing that class balance and combat system has some serious flaws that should be addressed asap.

P.S. and yet in game most players fails miserably if they don t have guardians with 100% antiprojectiles or warrior cleaning rooms in 5 seconds….where are all those skilled players you meet in forums?

It is really just a shame that, again, Arenanet has fallen on a promise. In beta, people had the hardest time completing dungeons. Even early on. I remember the first two or three weeks of the game, we had such a difficult time with AC. I was like “Wow, I cannot imagine the other dungeons”.

If I recall, the explorables were supposed to be ridiculously hard content. Not instanced farm zones. If the content is supposed to be very hard, why can we blow through it in 10 minutes? Now, I don’t want a dungeon to be Arah difficult(to some arah is easy, to most it is a challenge which is why many do not run). But they need to bump up most of the dungeons.

Or, and I’ll give Arenanet this next idea for free:

Take COF path 1, and all of the other paths in the dungeons that take like 10-25 minutes to complete, scale them down for solo or two people, and make a new dungeon system for one or two persons. New content, for free, little dev required.

So we now have story/explorable/and what rift would call Chronicles. Sometimes I dont want to group with 5 people. Maybe I think my gear is sufficient enough to do this new content solo, a dungeon persay, without the help of a teammate. Maybe I’d challenge myself. Figure out the loot system, just please..no more currency.

On top of this, make all of the remaining paths more viable and desirable to run.

cesmode.4257:

It is really just a shame that, again, Arenanet has fallen on a promise. In beta, people had the hardest time completing dungeons. Even early on. I remember the first two or three weeks of the game, we had such a difficult time with AC. I was like “Wow, I cannot imagine the other dungeons”.

If I recall, the explorables were supposed to be ridiculously hard content. Not instanced farm zones. If the content is supposed to be very hard, why can we blow through it in 10 minutes? Now, I don’t want a dungeon to be Arah difficult(to some arah is easy, to most it is a challenge which is why many do not run). But they need to bump up most of the dungeons.

I remember when my guildmates used to teach me AC. I died like – 10x to Kholer and another set to P3 boss.. :|

I was like “is this for level 30?? Cannot imagine Arah and CoF!”

Poof. Hope gone. The only one I am correct is Arah – it’s kind of hard but run it a few times – you’ll learn it eventually.

LordByron.8369:

snipped for brevity

I have 5 80s: Thief, Necro, Warrior, Guardian, Mesmer.

I mainly play the Thief, Necro, Warrior. I do metas on the mesmer and guardian.

Thief is squishy and I go down a fair amount but I wouldnt say it is difficult to play a thief. I play a necro, full magic find, in dungeons and I do just fine. Infact, I stay upright more often than my fellow Warriors. The Necro community would turn over in their graves if they heard someone call THEM OP. And then theres the warrior, where I hundred blade everything, sure.

But my point is, the game is, by majority, easy on any class that I play. And I am not an elitist. The meta events are a joke, aside from a few that are just more interesting. Most paths in dungeons are pretty easy.

No, I disagree…big time. Sorry.

The game is not too difficult.

The flame and frost dungeon was a breath of fresh air and I hope to god that they give us more dungeons like that…(perma dungeons). It was not face roll, but it was not Arah difficult…it was not a 15 minute CoF run, but it was not a 1.5-2hr arah run.

The reason a lot of dungeons are is so facerolls easy is that 95% of the content is just skipped and peeps run straight for the boss. If the made quick run dungeons so that you have to complete an wipe out an area before moving on to the next they wouldn’t be done in 6 mins.

I agree somethings are very easy heck most dungeons are easy, the main problem I see with people and dungeons is the rewards. The harder dungeons give less then those that are easy CoF vs Arah.. is a perfect example. I like arah but after 5 or so runs and seeing 0 rares or exo’s why bother tbh…. Id love to see a very challenging dungeon put in..

Well, perhaps most people simply don’t enjoy near-impossible content. I’ve always thought that extreme hardcore belong in PvP full loot games or FPS on hell mode.

Personnally, I can totally enjoy a game where I win most of the time…I don’t want it so easy that I can go raid the fridge during a fight, but I really don’t need a game anymore where you have to study the game for hours every week to be able to survive in it and usually die over and over and over.

I like levels…I started the game late so just hit 80 and I’m sad..because now I HAVE TO study and read and ask questions for most of my playtime (all that stuff on gear at 80 is overwhelming to absorb all at once, you guys got it spread out and I don’t really see that mystic forge as more than a place to throw things away so far) and then I HAVE TO get in groups just to be able to continue to progress and I HAVE TO worry about being outfitted enough that I don’t harm the group and it’s almost impossible to get groups for the lower level dungeons to have a chance to learn and maybe even enjoy them.

Maybe to you it’s too easy, to me it’s hard, not quite too hard yet, but getting there.

Some already complain about jumping puzzles being too hard. Some will not rest until jumping puzzles are tougher to complete than Super Meatboy played with a blindfold and one life.

Jumping Puzzles easy??! ARE YOU GOAJ829Uii(!*##309 KIDDING ME!.

On all else, I pretty much agree.

Cristobal.8640:

Jumping Puzzles easy??! ARE YOU GOAJ829Uii(!*##309 KIDDING ME!.

On all else, I pretty much agree.

Yes those people are kidding us…

If you want a challenge play a challenging profession like ranger. You roll warrior (game setting: novice) and then QQ for a challenge, then you’re as bad as the people QQing about dungeons being too hard. I would have played guardian or warrior but that’s just not hardcore enough for me.

Chopps.5047:

If you want a challenge play a challenging profession like ranger. You roll warrior (game setting: novice) and then QQ for a challenge, then you’re as bad as the people QQing about dungeons being too hard. I would have played guardian or warrior but that’s just not hardcore enough for me.

most class have there challenges, some different then others I myself prefer playing an ele

Yeah, the game lacks more hardcore PvE content. But, like others have stated, this is a double edged sword. If ANet makes anything harder, there will be the usual outcry on the forums. Remember Clock Tower? AC? Fire Ele?

Regarding dungeons, I can see a Hard Mode being added. So people will still be able to faceroll full dps CoF p1 under 6 min, while others can find more a more challenging content.

Vayne.8563:

Astralporing.1957:

Because basing difficulty of the game on a very tiny (even if equally loud) minority that will finish any content in hours anyway, and then cry there’s no endgame is not really a good strategy in a game that was advertised as catering to casuals.

So much this. The harder you make content, the less people will actually end up doing it. Anet made AC harder than it was. People stopped running it.

Why would Anet make content people don’t play?

The thing is, anet doesn’t keep balance between effort & reward, that’s why people keep doing the easiest crap in the game, because it gives as much rewards as hard content. total opposite of gw1

Because if there was challenging content most people would complain and it would be nerfed anyway

everyone will come to hardcore when theres too much casual or else they will just leave the game. it will end up the same. Fotm is a good hardcore dungeon they put. people do it daily, because it has better reward the higher level you are. unlike paths, people just pick the eaisest one because you don’t get anything better in the hardest path.

Astralporing.1957:

Because basing difficulty of the game on a very tiny (even if equally loud) minority that will finish any content in hours anyway, and then cry there’s no endgame is not really a good strategy in a game that was advertised as catering to casuals.

That very tiny minority was like 50% and more of playerbase that left this game for good and they would give more money in long terms. Casual will just go to another casual game.
And what about pvp? It was advertised as pvp also.

Endgame just needs either one of two things:

1.) Actually difficult content. I don’t mean by scaling up the numbers on damage but in actually making the mobs/bosses fight SMARTER. Getting 1-shotted by an unblockable AOE is NOT a good example of “hard” content because “your health pool was too low sorry.”

This content doesn’t even need to promise more gold or better/higher-stat rewards but needs to actually be enjoyable and worth doing. Not just a grindfest to get some same-stat armor which looks like crap but is necessary for some compulsive players for the sake of “reaching 100%”. Cool cosmetic stuff would be enough to convince most people to go through the process, and if difficult enough, would keep people playing longer but also be engaged, or, rather, keep trying to beat it. Getting TPK’ed shouldn’t be a no-no if the boss only needs to be beaten once in order to get the reward.

2.) Actually making the process of re-rolling a new character enjoyable, and not the same old 25-hour-long grindfest that the first 30 levels are (aside from going the crafting route which for most people is not even fun and is why a lot of people quit).

Ideally, this would be done by reworking EXP values as well as all class skills and changing the dynamics of every working attack in the game while introducing and implementing better skill/build diversity, but that’s unrealistic and would never happen because the lack of a dynamic/self-selected skill system seems to be something ANet prides themselves in doing.

More realistically, they should either:

Facilitate the early leveling process by increasing EXP rewards from mobs and dynamic events/quests and for once take a look at PvE-related content.

-OR-

Introduce low-level instance dungeons so that veteran players are not forced into wandering/“exploring” the same content doing the same jumping puzzles and repeating a certain “dynamic” event chain (the low level ones are very predictable and monotonous).

knives.6345:

Nick.6972:

Why aren’t there any challenging dungeon?
Why aren’t there any challenging jumping puzzles?
Why aren’t there any challenging events?

Guild Wars 2 players hate challenge and everything that’s not easily obtainable and time consuming.

True. No one wants to put effort. And when you say effort – they will go with their reward crap – do something, receive something – immediately.

I even saw a thread “complaining” about the default keyboard setup. I mean, come on.

Farming feathers in GW1 on my W/Mo and later my Rit/Me was hard and time consuming, but it was much more fun than anything I’ve experienced in GW2.

(The fun probably had something to do with BUILDING my character)

GW2 is for casuals and 20-minute-men, it will probably die because of this

i’m not getting my hopes up for future content

CoF is not only preferred because it is easy, I think it is mainly preferred because it is short. Not all people want to be stuck in 1 dungeon for 3 hours. Many, 1h max dungeons with bosses with interesting mechanisms and dungeon specific rewards that is, imho, what people really want. And yes, gear with stats you can only obtain from these dungeons, something to save for.

beren.6048:

CoF is not only preferred because it is easy, I think it is mainly preferred because it is short. Not all people want to be stuck in 1 dungeon for 3 hours. Many, 1h max dungeons with bosses with interesting mechanisms and dungeon specific rewards that is, imho, what people really want. And yes, gear with stats you can only obtain from these dungeons, something to save for.

It doesn’t have to be stats (really doesn’t) but 1h max dungeon with bosses with interesting mechanisims would be great + hard mode would be even greater, everyone happy.

No dungeon should take you 3 hours if you have an idea of what to do, and a half decent build..

The longest one I’ve been in was 2 hours, that was Arah path four (notoriously long) with everyone in the group trying it for the first time

Also agree with Sovta, hard mode would be a game saver for me.. as well as interesting mechanisms, the devs are capable.. as they’ve demonstrated with molten facility

Throw in a couple of pugs and you ll be sitting there trying for hours. Yes, sure hard mode and normal mode would be nice. Hard mode can give twice the badges or specific items. Everyone happy. My point is, that couple of times I seen that people run CoF because it takes little time and they are off for the day.

A dungeon can be short and hard. The developers in this game seem to think lots of HP and long runs means the dungeon is hard, which, again imho, is not true.

I think Lupicus is hard for a lot of pugs, but look here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5LXYKNCP0s
Well done to this group, but you can say that what they’re doing is really that hard…?
In a dungeon, difficoult contentent require mainly coordination and right gears/build.
You can’t require high level of coordination or BiS to casual players which doesn’t think that a mmorpg is a second job and don’t even know what TS is.
In truth you can, but that target will ignore the new content or will start complaining.
Elitism is rising up to the stars even in a stupid 5 min run of CoF p1:
http://postimg.org/image/6fhroh2t9/
Having said that, an “hard mode” could be a good implementation.
Allowing people to chose how to play their game (hardcore or in chilling mode) is always a good solution.

In GW2, players have the resources to avoid damage. These resources are readily available, albeit in limited quantity. The content has to be mathematically doable assuming players use these resources. If a team uses all of their resources to the fullest and time everything perfectly, but the math says they still failed, well that’s bad design.

The percentage of players who can time things perfectly with consistency is small, so the devs build in more forgiving math. This way, a slip-up is not always a fatal flaw. Too many slip-ups (usually in the form of limited resources used too late, or used at the wrong time and thus not available when needed) will almost always result in failure. This last is, I believe, the major reason that so many find dungeons too hard.

The problem comes in because of the need for repetitive content. Once a skilled player knows what to do, and when, the only issue is timing. If a player has good timing to begin with, s/he will master content easily. Even with adequate timing, s/he will get it down with practice.

So what could harder content test? It can’t be undoable mathematically. Once you have the right gear and know the right skills for the encounter, build is not a factor.

The only thing left is timing. Ergo, harder content — hard mode dungeons, if you will — would have to remove the practice effect which makes mob attacks predictable. Ways to do this would be to completely randomize mob attacks, add more variety to mob attacks and eliminate the big glowy effect on mobs who are doing a devastating attack. Doubtless, others could add to this list.

Another way is to use unavoidable damage, causing an effect similar to team pressure builds in GW1 PvP. Such attacks would overwhelm player ability to survive them over time. The problem with such content is that it becomes a DPS test. Given the limited player skill involved in attack rotations, DPS tests in GW2 owe more to build than skill. Still, this type of encounter might make for a decent skill test (and thus harder content) if its completion requires precise timing in the use of healing/condition removal, etc. in addition to having the DPS.

What’s also uncertain is whether there are sufficient players who would welcome cutting edge difficulty to make the resources needed to produce it worthwhile — but that’s out of my reach.

Sovta.4719:

Astralporing.1957:

Because basing difficulty of the game on a very tiny (even if equally loud) minority that will finish any content in hours anyway, and then cry there’s no endgame is not really a good strategy in a game that was advertised as catering to casuals.

That very tiny minority was like 50% and more of playerbase that left this game for good and they would give more money in long terms. Casual will just go to another casual game.

Yet the MMO industry keeps on focusing on casual gaming, because that is where the money is. And if you are going to give percentages, at least have something to back up that percentage.

Guildwars 1 was a lot more challenging than Guildwars 2, don’t lump Guildwars 1 players all as casuals..

Its the WoW player mindset tacked onto GW2 gimme loot, gimme gear, gimme weapons etc, ascended and treadmills breed this game play, not Guildwars 1, it had none of this…

Yes i personally am casual i don’t find GW2 dungeons hard at all, i find them frustratingly tedious, annoying and tiring to do, not fun at all…that’s why i don’t do them, there is a big difference to that and hard challenging game play…

Its even tedious to get a party to do tedious dungeons here…

eisberg.2379:

Sovta.4719:

Astralporing.1957:

Because basing difficulty of the game on a very tiny (even if equally loud) minority that will finish any content in hours anyway, and then cry there’s no endgame is not really a good strategy in a game that was advertised as catering to casuals.

That very tiny minority was like 50% and more of playerbase that left this game for good and they would give more money in long terms. Casual will just go to another casual game.

Yet the MMO industry keeps on focusing on casual gaming, because that is where the money is. And if you are going to give percentages, at least have something to back up that percentage.

Something to back up? Like so many guilds dying, most players in friend list offline for months, insta join in wvw while there was min 1h queue on every border 4-5 months ago? Spvp and biggest tournament so far with 4k views?

The casual people used to run AC. The difficulty has changed. Now they don’t run it. Can the “pros” stop whining now?

Astralporing.1957:

Because basing difficulty of the game on a very tiny (even if equally loud) minority that will finish any content in hours anyway, and then cry there’s no endgame is not really a good strategy in a game that was advertised as catering to casuals.

Don’t lump us all together.
I played Gw1 for 7 years because it was challenging. If it was only Prophecies with no expansions, I would have still played it for years. Prophecies had no end game (unless you count PvP)
Though it had more expansions, I still went back and re-played Prophecies many times, played it more than other expansions.

Challenging content can be friendly to casuals. I was a casual for 2-3 years in Gw1.
Casual as in “limited time to play”, not “bad player”.
Definitely wasn’t that bad a player, I started with a domination mesmer in PvE, right from the start I made a mesmer build like you’d see in a top rated GvG (PvP) match. And it was my first online RPG!

See my signature, “Hard mode for everyone”.

Because if there was challenging content most people would complain and it would be nerfed anyway

Yeah, if by “challenging” you mean it takes 3 hours to do because monsters have 1000,000,000 HP and hit for 19,000 damage.
But real challenging content? I think people would like it, so long as they are introduced to the challenging concepts slowly through the game, so they’re well prepared for harder content.

Vayne.8563:

Astralporing.1957:

Because basing difficulty of the game on a very tiny (even if equally loud) minority that will finish any content in hours anyway, and then cry there’s no endgame is not really a good strategy in a game that was advertised as catering to casuals.

So much this. The harder you make content, the less people will actually end up doing it. Anet made AC harder than it was. People stopped running it.

Why would Anet make content people don’t play?

I’m sorry?
See attachment. And this is a monday night!

lorazcyk.8927:

Casual as in “limited time to play”, not “bad player”.

^ x9999999999999999999999999999999999999.