Guild Wars 2

Hi everyone, I think that the game needs a hard mode. It’s too easy.
I feel like I could play this game blind folded and not die a single time. Okay, maybe a few times, but generally, when playing the game I don’t feel like I am actually being challenged enough.

If A-net would introduce a hard mode and even a Hardcore mode, I would probably delete half of my characters and start from scratch, just to get a real feel of what the game should REALLY be like. Because right now it feels like a bunny rabbit infiltrated A-net headquarters and set everything on “fluffy mode”.

PLEASE, give us a hardcore mode.

Is this a game, or is this a place we’re supposed to go to to chill out before we pass on?

i higly doubt they will divide the playerbase

The game is easy for you because you learned it.
Now get a fresh 80lvl player with 500 AP and tell him to do any explorable dungeon. Not so easy, eh?

Kinda hard to care if you’re bored if that’s your attitude, but I’ve seen a few threads on the topic.

Hard content needs good rewards, which we know ANet isn’t so keen on rewards. Also, challenge exists, but players have proven time and again they don’t actually want “challenge” they want “loot”. Case in point, Aetherpath. Or maybe Aetherpath just needs better loot. Eh. Or Southsun. The mobs are annoying and significantly more fatal than average, but people hate that place.

So, I have to wonder if a Silverwastes-type map with nothing but Elites (and not Champions) showed up, if people would go for the “challenge”. I suspect not.

segman.3560:

The game is easy for you because you learned it.
Now get a fresh 80lvl player with 500 AP and tell him to do any explorable dungeon. Not so easy, eh?

This. It’s not so much that we need harder content, we need new content with new mechanics and challenges that we haven’t mastered yet.

CureForLiving.5360:

segman.3560:

The game is easy for you because you learned it.
Now get a fresh 80lvl player with 500 AP and tell him to do any explorable dungeon. Not so easy, eh?

This. It’s not so much that we need harder content, we need new content with new mechanics and challenges that we haven’t mastered yet.

I think we need both, but Anet shouldn’t change the content we already have. I just hope HoT will add harder content as well as new challenges with new mechanics.

Hard mode doesn’t need good rewards, It just needs to give people a reasonable (possibly scalable) challenge.
So when people ask for something, to answer those people with more than what they wanted and more than they could possibly handle, such an amount that makes them sorry for asking in the first place, is cruel and unfair.

Do you know what I mean? Lets say I live somewhere where there is drought, and I pen a letter to god and ask for water. Would it be kind of god to answer me by flooding my land with so much water than all of my live-stock drowns? Would it be cruel? Or would it just be what I asked for?

You have to realise that some people truly don’t know what they want. It’s kind of a part of nature. But some people are very intelligent and lets say more experienced and they do know what they want.

What people want is INTRIGUE. They want their human sensors to be tickled in a delightful and pleasant way. People want to learn and to learn means to experience something new and possibly surprising.

A map full of elites? See now, that is over the top.

The question is, how do you avoid splitting the population when implementing separate game modes?
Maybe by having dynamic creatures? When they see you coming, they can sense whether you’re on normal, hard or hardcore mode, (Judging by the amount of determination they can see in your eyes) and if you’re on either of the 2 latter modes, they will reach into their pocket and take a sip of either 1 of two strength potions. (Strength or Super strength)

Also, the game truly feels like every fight is a smash and bash.

All you do is avoid damage and hit 1 of 5 buttons while facing the creature you’re fighting against. Isn’t that sort of what A-net wanted to avoid?

I thought they said they wanted a DYNAMIC game?

What do we want?
More dynamism!
When do we want it?
YESTERDAY!

Rauderi.8706:

Kinda hard to care if you’re bored if that’s your attitude, but I’ve seen a few threads on the topic.

Hard content needs good rewards, which we know ANet isn’t so keen on rewards. Also, challenge exists, but players have proven time and again they don’t actually want “challenge” they want “loot”. Case in point, Aetherpath. Or maybe Aetherpath just needs better loot. Eh. Or Southsun. The mobs are annoying and significantly more fatal than average, but people hate that place.

So, I have to wonder if a Silverwastes-type map with nothing but Elites (and not Champions) showed up, if people would go for the “challenge”. I suspect not.

aetherpath isnt that well executed though.
just like a silverwastes type map with nothing but elites would also be a poor execution on creating challenge.
(sure it does create challenge, but in a crappy way)

There could simply be a hard mode that casuals can do, too.
Like instanced versions of all maps, where every foe gets the veteran rank, and where you have to kill everything (like vanquishing in GW1).

I’d really enjoy to complete the world this way, and I’m sure that even “weaker” players could do that, too.

Thanathos.2063:

There could simply be a hard mode that casuals can do, too.
Like instanced versions of all maps, where every foe gets the veteran rank, and where you have to kill everything (like vanquishing in GW1).

I’d really enjoy to complete the world this way, and I’m sure that even “weaker” players could do that, too.

Not instanced maps. Just give mobs Strength potions and tell them to drink it when they see players with more “sparkle” in their eyes than usual. And they don’t have to necessarily be “over the top” harder to kill!

Notorious Dog.1043:

Hard mode doesn’t need good rewards, It just needs to give people a reasonable (possibly scalable) challenge.
So when people ask for something, to answer those people with more than what they wanted and more than they could possibly handle, such an amount that makes them sorry for asking in the first place, is cruel and unfair.

Do you know what I mean? Lets say I live somewhere where there is drought, and I pen a letter to god and ask for water. Would it be kind of god to answer me by flooding my land with so much water than all of my live-stock drowns? Would it be cruel? Or would it just be what I asked for?

You have to realise that some people truly don’t know what they want. It’s kind of a part of nature. But some people are very intelligent and lets say more experienced and they do know what they want.

What people want is INTRIGUE. They want their human sensors to be tickled in a delightful and pleasant way. People want to learn and to learn means to experience something new and possibly surprising.

A map full of elites? See now, that is over the top.

The question is, how do you avoid splitting the population when implementing separate game modes?
Maybe by having dynamic creatures? When they see you coming, they can sense whether you’re on normal, hard or hardcore mode, (Judging by the amount of determination they can see in your eyes) and if you’re on either of the 2 latter modes, they will reach into their pocket and take a sip of either 1 of two strength potions. (Strength or Super strength)

Much better critique! Thank you, and I apologize for my tone earlier.

Requesting an A.I. revamp? I’m certainly for that. And I believe ANet has been looking into it. More abilities and less useless spamming (looking at you Ascalonian shield fighter).

It brings up an interesting dialog on what could be challenging, not just in games in general, but specific to GW2.

Adding more damage or more HP-sponge doesn’t really do much to make fights more interesting, just unnecessarily long or punishing. (Side note, insta-death is one of the reasons why I’m sour about the much-lauded Liadri fight, because it removes several aspects of build design.)

Making content hard enough for a group just leads to zergeasymode, so guild challenges like bounties are right out. But it’s not a terrible idea to apply to single mode…

I’d actually recommend Hunting Zones. Could be instanced content that scales from 1-5 people, less dungeon-like, where more challenging, more dynamic enemies live and support their leader, the target of the hunt.

Notorious Dog.1043:

Also, the game truly feels like every fight is a smash and bash.

All you do is avoid damage and hit 1 of 5 buttons while facing the creature you’re fighting against. Isn’t that sort of what A-net wanted to avoid?

I thought they said they wanted a DYNAMIC game?

What do we want?
More dynamism!
When do we want it?
YESTERDAY!

Last I checked in order to avoid that damage you have to play, making the combat dynamic. What they wanted to avoid is standing still and taking the hits while a healer is healing you from behind, that’s hardly dynamic, and they avoided that.

As for “hardcore” content, there are many ways to increase the difficulty in the game but the way they use at the moment is terrible. For example, higher level fractals and high population scaling events in SW use the upscaling mechanic to raise difficulty, give mobs more hit points and more damage. That’s hardly “challenging”, only boring.

Some better way to increase the difficulty is needed. There is no need for extra rewards if that added difficulty applies to event scaling, instead of increasing hit points / damage, increase mob AI, mob variety, add more skills to them etc

Thanathos.2063:

There could simply be a hard mode that casuals can do, too.

Casual and hardcore tend to be seen as polar opposites. Things that casuals can do and accomplish will automatically be labeled as easy.

Add in a permadeath option, scale all maps above your current level, but give leveled exotic/ascended gear every 5-10 levels?

maddoctor.2738:

Notorious Dog.1043:

Also, the game truly feels like every fight is a smash and bash.

All you do is avoid damage and hit 1 of 5 buttons while facing the creature you’re fighting against. Isn’t that sort of what A-net wanted to avoid?

I thought they said they wanted a DYNAMIC game?

What do we want?
More dynamism!
When do we want it?
YESTERDAY!

Last I checked in order to avoid that damage you have to play, making the combat dynamic. What they wanted to avoid is standing still and taking the hits while a healer is healing you from behind, that’s hardly dynamic, and they avoided that.

As for “hardcore” content, there are many ways to increase the difficulty in the game but the way they use at the moment is terrible. For example, higher level fractals and high population scaling events in SW use the upscaling mechanic to raise difficulty, give mobs more hit points and more damage. That’s hardly “challenging”, only boring.

Some better way to increase the difficulty is needed. There is no need for extra rewards if that added difficulty applies to event scaling, instead of increasing hit points / damage, increase mob AI, mob variety, add more skills to them etc

about the more damage versus hp thing.
I would say increasing damage, up to a point can make an encounter more interesting (less room for error)
but adding more hp, almost always makes it boring, other than letting it live long enough to actually use mechanics.

definately though, adding more interesting mechanics, enemy behaviors, and predicting/reacting to enemy behaviors is always going to be more interesting

It would also be nice if there were certain maps where you could set PVP mode.
Kind of like the “wild” in Runescape. That was fun, except for when you lost all your stuff.

Notorious Dog.1043:

It would also be nice if there were certain maps where you could set PVP mode.
Kind of like the “wild” in Runescape. That was fun, except for when you lost all your stuff.

eotm basically fulfills that niche

People always take path of least resistance. If a hard mode with no improved rewards is implemented, the proportion of population who will run it more than once will be miniscule. Considering the amount of effort it would take to implement and maintain balance in the said hard mode, I simply don’t see it happening.

Play naked or with white level 5 armor / weapons .. also reset all your traits.

There you have your hardcore mode,

Oh .. of course it gives no better loot .. if that was it what you really wanted.

Notorious Dog.1043:

Hi everyone, I think that the game needs a hard mode. It’s too easy.
I feel like I could play this game blind folded and not die a single time. Okay, maybe a few times, but generally, when playing the game I don’t feel like I am actually being challenged enough.

If A-net would introduce a hard mode and even a Hardcore mode, I would probably delete half of my characters and start from scratch, just to get a real feel of what the game should REALLY be like. Because right now it feels like a bunny rabbit infiltrated A-net headquarters and set everything on “fluffy mode”.

PLEASE, give us a hardcore mode.

Is this a game, or is this a place we’re supposed to go to to chill out before we pass on?

Hard mode will never happen for the open world. ArenaNet has expressed dozens of times that they have no desire to split the open world playerbase, and that’s exactly what they’d have to do with hard mode.

Dungeons and story instances (at least the replayable ones) could arguably be given a hard mode. And some story instances already do. It’s called the Challenge Mote.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

but Anet shouldn’t change the content we already have.

I disagree with this. I don’t know about you, but various parts of the personal story could use changes, the trait system can use changes, the dungeons (both story and explorable) can use changes, and most definitely world bosses need improvements (to be somewhere between Claw and Tequatl level depending on level of the boss).

I, for one, would love to see the Shatterer and Claw of Jormag brought to Tequatl level, and for the other world bosses to be improved as well to about where Claw is currently (but with only 15 minutes on timer) in regards to difficulty.

I, for one, would love to see all explorable dungeons rebalanced for level 80, receiving rebalances like Ascalon Catacombs got a long while back, and for story dungeons to be rebalanced to support between 1 and 5 players (much like Arah story will be getting, but preferrably without the one-time part). And I see no reason why the G-Lupe should ever be able to be killed in 7 seconds.

Explorable dungeons and world bosses should be considered end-game content just like Fractals, and should be relatively equal to each other with a few exceptions (mainly low level world bosses), and as such they should be the hardest content in the game.

And I for one would like some Personal Story bosses that are tougher than open world standard veterans (which are very much just slow-attacking decent-hitting high-health versions of the weak and simple standard mobs – the sad fact is that open world mobs are too simple with too few skills and too slow response, which is fine for low level content but I think those in higher level areas could use a bit of a buff), with their own unique mechanics – much like bosses in Season 2.

And I for one think that all events should be rebalanced in their upscaling to be able to survive a bunch of level 80s showing up for the event dailies.

I do not think that they need to rebalance everything, but pretty close to such. Players greatly surpassed ArenaNet’s expectations – or ArenaNet were greatly undermined in how much time they had to ensure their content was a good combination of challenging-and-unique and easy-and-simple, because too much of it leans towards the “easy-and-simple” end.

I would check out WildStar it has challenging group content.

BrooksP.4318:

Add in a permadeath option, scale all maps above your current level, but give leveled exotic/ascended gear every 5-10 levels?

Oh yeah .. i would also support permadeath for everyone who says the game is
to easy.

For me every single death counts and i will never understood why people think
a game is only “hard enough” if they die at least 50 times a day.

I wonder who of them ever playes something like D2 hardcore.

CureForLiving.5360:

segman.3560:

The game is easy for you because you learned it.
Now get a fresh 80lvl player with 500 AP and tell him to do any explorable dungeon. Not so easy, eh?

This. It’s not so much that we need harder content, we need new content with new mechanics and challenges that we haven’t mastered yet.

See the problem with this is that there is almost zero replayability

honestly how about this – the rewards are exactly the same, however there is a “normal” version of every dungeon and a “hardcore” version. The only difference is that hardcore reset is separate from casual reset, therefore if you do both you can get 360 tokens a day instead of 180.
That way barely anyone would do hardcore, everyone would still farm the normal mode, but people that want to progress faster towards the dungeoneer, or earn twice as much gold from dungeons could do both.

RoRo.8270:

I would check out WildStar it has challenging group content.

it’s a bit dead though.

People throw the aetherpath card whenever saying people dont want challenge they want rewards. To an extent this is true.
However, consider:

Typical completion times for my guild groups:
arah: 1/2: 20-30 minutes each.
Reward: 3g each.
Aether: 40-60 minutes.
Reward: 2g + ( miniscule chance of rare skin).

So in similar time, do I want 2g, or 6g?

In terms of difficulty/learning curve, I don’t think there is much in it at all. If anything aetherpath has a longer learning curve due to unique mechanics.

So I’d say its fair to call aetherpath rewards poor.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

People throw the aetherpath card whenever saying people dont want challenge they want rewards. To an extent this is true.
However, consider:

Typical completion times for my guild groups:
arah: 1/2: 20-30 minutes each.
Reward: 3g each.
Aether: 40-60 minutes.
Reward: 2g + ( miniscule chance of rare skin).

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

Granted speed clear dedicated guilds have gotten those times down to 10 minutes for arah, and 20 for aetherpath. However the ratio of time is still pretty similar. 2 paths of arah to 1 aether.

So in similar time, do I want 2g, or 6g?

In terms of difficulty/learning curve, I don’t think there is much in it at all. If anything aetherpath has a longer learning curve due to unique mechanics.

So I’d say its fair to call aetherpath rewards poor.

I would say Aether is kind of the same as COF P3. CoF P3 needs similar amount of syncing with your group (example is oozes at Aether and torches at COF) and is similarly underwhelming at the end. Sure CoF P3 is much much faster than Aether, but in comparison to other paths of the same dungeon (P1 is braindead easy), it’s just not worth the effort.

I still like running both though. Sometimes simply because nobody else does it and every time I’m in a pug I get to teach new people how those paths are done

Artemis Thuras.8795:

People throw the aetherpath card whenever saying people dont want challenge they want rewards. To an extent this is true.
However, consider:

Typical completion times for my guild groups:
arah: 1/2: 20-30 minutes each.
Reward: 3g each.
Aether: 40-60 minutes.
Reward: 2g + ( miniscule chance of rare skin).

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

Granted speed clear dedicated guilds have gotten those times down to 10 minutes for arah, and 20 for aetherpath. However the ratio of time is still pretty similar. 2 paths of arah to 1 aether.

So in similar time, do I want 2g, or 6g?

In terms of difficulty/learning curve, I don’t think there is much in it at all. If anything aetherpath has a longer learning curve due to unique mechanics.

So I’d say its fair to call aetherpath rewards poor.

Mostly lends support to the “don’t want actual challenge” statement. So not that it’s wrong or right, but a discussion on challenge in gaming must be paired with reward or most players will write it off as uninteresting and not worth the time.

If the ones asking for “more challenge” would take the challenge without the carrot dangling on the end, that’d be a different story, but I find it very rare that someone does something in a game just for the challenge.

phys.7689:

Notorious Dog.1043:

It would also be nice if there were certain maps where you could set PVP mode.
Kind of like the “wild” in Runescape. That was fun, except for when you lost all your stuff.

eotm basically fulfills that niche

“Basically” is right. What I am sure that a lot of people want, is not some place where you go to fight, but a map that is open to fighting, where it isn’t necessary, It’s just possible.
If you have an open world map with pvp, it’s more natural, it’s more intrinsicint to casual gaming.

Rauderi.8706:

Artemis Thuras.8795:

People throw the aetherpath card whenever saying people dont want challenge they want rewards. To an extent this is true.
However, consider:

Typical completion times for my guild groups:
arah: 1/2: 20-30 minutes each.
Reward: 3g each.
Aether: 40-60 minutes.
Reward: 2g + ( miniscule chance of rare skin).

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

Granted speed clear dedicated guilds have gotten those times down to 10 minutes for arah, and 20 for aetherpath. However the ratio of time is still pretty similar. 2 paths of arah to 1 aether.

So in similar time, do I want 2g, or 6g?

In terms of difficulty/learning curve, I don’t think there is much in it at all. If anything aetherpath has a longer learning curve due to unique mechanics.

So I’d say its fair to call aetherpath rewards poor.

Mostly lends support to the “don’t want actual challenge” statement. So not that it’s wrong or right, but a discussion on challenge in gaming must be paired with reward or most players will write it off as uninteresting and not worth the time.

If the ones asking for “more challenge” would take the challenge without the carrot dangling on the end, that’d be a different story, but I find it very rare that someone does something in a game just for the challenge.

Something equally challenging should be equally rewarding.

Cof p3 is actually much easier than it used to be. I’d agree a small buff wouldn’t hurt, but it can be done very quickly (almost as quick as p1). I see the “extra reward” for coordination being that its faster, and more interesting than p2 for the same quantity of gold.

There will never be harder game than vanilla wow, Naxx40 is hardest and most time consuming group content ever created in gaming industry.
Only 0.1% of US playerbase actually completed that raid.

After 1.12.1. WoW patch every game went downhill in terms of hard content. (including WoW itself)
Making content that will be reachable to 5% of playerbase and which will be completed by even less percentage is not profitable.

Even tough I personally like the idea of hard stuff (I’ve recently started on fresh launched vanilla wow server) I don’t think we will ever witness seriously hard gameplay ever again.

By playing most of tittles out there I can say from my own experience that GW2 is ok in terms of difficulty. It’s not super easy…

Of course we will witness seriously hard game play. Because people like to deliver what people want.
One day a game designer will think back to when S/HE wanted something challenging, and they’ll be like… ?? Screw this, I bet there are a heap of others out there who will be thankful if I make them a nice HARD game.

Be positive. I know I know, it can be hard at times. (to be positive)

Tomerant.2701:

There will never be harder game than vanilla wow, Naxx40 is hardest and most time consuming group content ever created in gaming industry.
Only 0.1% of US playerbase actually completed that raid.

After 1.12.1. WoW patch every game went downhill in terms of hard content. (including WoW itself)
Making content that will be reachable to 5% of playerbase and which will be completed by even less percentage is not profitable.

Even tough I personally like the idea of hard stuff (I’ve recently started on fresh launched vanilla wow server) I don’t think we will ever witness seriously hard gameplay ever again.

By playing most of tittles out there I can say from my own experience that GW2 is ok in terms of difficulty. It’s not super easy…

this is an interesting topic actually.

One of my community members was asking for a game where PVE content is tough and requires communication and coordination. He comes from Wildstar.. That game kind of bored him in the end because all PVE content nerfs itself as people learn it, however we honestly couldn’t suggest him an alternative. Mostly because MMOs are a social genre, but not really a difficult one (EDIT hard together with a number gets censored)

All I could say to him is that if he wanted difficulty, he had to create it himself. Like for example people that solo fractals level 50, or Arah, or any other dungeons.

Perhaps it wouldn’t be that bad if there was some sort of computer generated hard mode for players like him? The consensus normally is that it’s bad if people can’t see content (the game is catered too much to hardcore) and because of that other players miss out (happened in WoW and that’s mostly why they changed), however if identical content is presented in multiple difficulty modes, that could satisfy a bigger audience. And we do have something kind of like that with fractals. Except that fractals are also gear gated and I don’t think that that should be the way that it is done. Because a player that wants to experience difficult content, doesn’t necessarily want to grind not so difficult content to get gear for it.

One more note about “rewards”. Sometimes recognition is reward enough.
Maybe some kind of heroic music when you finish a hardcore mode dungeon for example?
Something like that?
People do like to get item rewards, but by giving people too much rewards items, you’re sort of conditioning thema little bit into becoming greedy, I think.

N.Dog, you mentioned the word “dynamic” earlier, and that makes sense to me. I don’t know if it’d be really applicable in open world, and I don’t see dungeons getting a much-needed makeover, but one of the ideas I keep nursing is the notion of an increasingly-difficult randomized dungeon. (Again, scale for 1-5 players :P)

I take inspiration from Diablo III’s rifts and its various clones, and Left 4 Dead (if I recall right).

A shuffle of enemies means that the players don’t know what’s coming. They can’t plan tight, well-rehearsed tactics because the terrain and creatures differ. Mobs with unique abilities above their typical counterparts add more to the mix. Randomized bosses per floor could be made harder by various boss room (lairs?) mechanics.

I bring up Left 4 Dead, because I remember some chatter in their design front that had a sort of “backstage director” that could pace how the players were doing and adjust the action accordingly. Sitting around too long? Bam, hostile mob spawns nearby and starts walking. (Anything to keep it from being like the Fire Elemental pre events -_-)

It’s not quite enough to give the enemies themselves flexibility, but to add the environment and a strong dose of randomness to pull basic encounters away from scripted fights and into more dynamic gameplay.

Notorious Dog.1043:

One more note about “rewards”. Sometimes recognition is reward enough.
Maybe some kind of heroic music when you finish a hardcore mode dungeon for example?
Something like that?
People do like to get item rewards, but by giving people too much rewards items, you’re sort of conditioning thema little bit into becoming greedy, I think.

recognition would have to come from other players.
Thus would be bound to achievements and/or rare/expensive items.
Perhaps new legendaries will go some way to address this.

The problem is the replay value is low.
Do it once, get achievement, back to repeating the profitable stuff.
Like LS2 – I wont be going back to redo anything there. I wont be bothering with SW since my lumi armor is done. Even though SW is highly profitable – it’s also boring, reliant upon a zerg ( which I have zero control over), and easy. ( I just checked, no taxis, and dead map, typical state every time I check).

There needs to be fair challenge, and fair rewards. If the two are not in good balance then the content will be overused ( old cof p1 days, prenerf sw chest farm; coiled watch) or largely ignored (aetherpath).

One feature of hard core mode would be randomly generated builds (or at least a certain build in a list that is then randomly chosen for you) that it locks you into for the duration of the challenge.

I think part of why people feel the game is too easy is because they always take the path of least resistance. Sometimes you just have to do unorthodox stuff. Yeah it’s not “hard” but it can be fun to make a build work and do what you want it to do.

GW1 hard mode; and DDO elite dungeons at level; were some of the most enjoyable content I’ve ever done. Those two games worked that way because nearly everything was instanced, so it didn’t really separate the populace as much as open world difficulty settings would.

What made those two more enjoyable as well, is that mechanics/spells/skills changed, (for GW1) AI in hard mode was better, and it wasn’t JUST increased health and damage dealt by the mobs. There was also a small increase in reward depending, which gave a bit of incentive to repeat.

Leo G.4501:

One feature of hard core mode would be randomly generated builds (or at least a certain build in a list that is then randomly chosen for you) that it locks you into for the duration of the challenge.

I think part of why people feel the game is too easy is because they always take the path of least resistance. Sometimes you just have to do unorthodox stuff. Yeah it’s not “hard” but it can be fun to make a build work and do what you want it to do.

So you are saying:

• we should be locked into predetermined RNG selected builds ( which would likely not be tailored to the content at hand)

• people find it too easy because they have tailored their build to the content at hand ( path of least resistance)

• its fun to tweak builds to fit the content at hand.
• it’s fun to make the rest of your party tweak their builds to fit around your build ( because you refuse to adapt), and the content at hand? <— This description may fit better.

Am I understanding you correctly?

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Leo G.4501:

One feature of hard core mode would be randomly generated builds (or at least a certain build in a list that is then randomly chosen for you) that it locks you into for the duration of the challenge.

I think part of why people feel the game is too easy is because they always take the path of least resistance. Sometimes you just have to do unorthodox stuff. Yeah it’s not “hard” but it can be fun to make a build work and do what you want it to do.

So you are saying:

• we should be locked into predetermined RNG selected builds ( which would likely not be tailored to the content at hand)

• people find it too easy because they have tailored their build to the content at hand ( path of least resistance)

• its fun to tweak builds to fit the content at hand.
• it’s fun to make the rest of your party tweak their builds to fit around your build ( because you refuse to adapt), and the content at hand? <— This description may fit better.

Am I understanding you correctly?

within the framework of a challenge, having a predetermined build with some variation as you play through the challenge can be really, really entertaining, and well balanced.
(phantasy star online Challenge mode was extremely entertaining for me)

however it isnt that easy to do, and off putting to some people.

oh yeah, and it needs cool rewards (not gold based, something unique like sab skins/colors)

Considering the QQ at the “lack of pve build diversity” ( or something to that effect) I doubt there will be many players supporting further lockdown of what builds can be used.

Nice attempt to force people out of running meta builds though.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Considering the QQ at the “lack of pve build diversity” ( or something to that effect) I doubt there will be many players supporting further lockdown of what builds can be used.

Nice attempt to force people out of running meta builds though.

its not really about builds at all, its basically about making a challenging encounters, and variation. That type of mode would be really limited anyhow, it wouldnt shift the meta at all since gear wouldnt matter there.

if they did add something like that, it would most likely be like SPVP which has much fewer build options

Just wait till SAB returns and do Tribulation mode I guess.

phys.7689:

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Considering the QQ at the “lack of pve build diversity” ( or something to that effect) I doubt there will be many players supporting further lockdown of what builds can be used.

Nice attempt to force people out of running meta builds though.

its not really about builds at all, its basically about making a challenging encounters, and variation. That type of mode would be really limited anyhow, it wouldnt shift the meta at all since gear wouldnt matter there.

if they did add something like that, it would most likely be like SPVP which has much fewer build options

So you want to restrict the player to make content more challenging?
That won’t change anything. It only leads to frustrated players.
What really should be improved are the AI, the monster mechanics and the dungeon/fractal rewards.

phys.7689:

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Considering the QQ at the “lack of pve build diversity” ( or something to that effect) I doubt there will be many players supporting further lockdown of what builds can be used.

Nice attempt to force people out of running meta builds though.

its not really about builds at all, its basically about making a challenging encounters, and variation. That type of mode would be really limited anyhow, it wouldnt shift the meta at all since gear wouldnt matter there.

if they did add something like that, it would most likely be like SPVP which has much fewer build options

So your saying RNG selected predefined builds isn’t about forcing people to play with a specific build?

and/or

With all the QQ about lack of diversity, you want to reduce the number of stat options?
You want to remove zerker so people have to go and find the next best gear of what is available, only there will be QQ about that meta instead. Until one day there is only one stat option and then no stats on gear at all. Which is also ultimately about forcing a specific gear type. <— I suspect this is a better understanding of what you’re saying.

Whut?

Moka.8432:

phys.7689:

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Considering the QQ at the “lack of pve build diversity” ( or something to that effect) I doubt there will be many players supporting further lockdown of what builds can be used.

Nice attempt to force people out of running meta builds though.

its not really about builds at all, its basically about making a challenging encounters, and variation. That type of mode would be really limited anyhow, it wouldnt shift the meta at all since gear wouldnt matter there.

if they did add something like that, it would most likely be like SPVP which has much fewer build options

So you want to restrict the player to make content more challenging?
That won’t change anything. It only leads to frustrated players.
What really should be improved are the AI, the monster mechanics and the dungeon/fractal rewards.

yeah, those things would be good for general purposes, But a Challenge type mode would be a different type of thing.

also within those area, since the rules are different, they can do more interesting mechanics, and special rules.
like lets say there are treasure chests with might on swap sigils, now, you can choose to go to that area for the might on swap sigils, or you can ignore them. Parts with a repair anvil. Things that break current conventions.

basically it opens up a whole new style of play, and allows for a deeper design in an instance. Im not saying they have to do it, but it can be one of the most challenging, and entertaining designs.

SAB gives you an example of how entertaining an instance can be when its designed without having to consider/work with pre existing investments and long term progression mechanics.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Leo G.4501:

One feature of hard core mode would be randomly generated builds (or at least a certain build in a list that is then randomly chosen for you) that it locks you into for the duration of the challenge.

I think part of why people feel the game is too easy is because they always take the path of least resistance. Sometimes you just have to do unorthodox stuff. Yeah it’s not “hard” but it can be fun to make a build work and do what you want it to do.

So you are saying:

• we should be locked into predetermined RNG selected builds ( which would likely not be tailored to the content at hand)

• people find it too easy because they have tailored their build to the content at hand ( path of least resistance)

• its fun to tweak builds to fit the content at hand.
• it’s fun to make the rest of your party tweak their builds to fit around your build ( because you refuse to adapt), and the content at hand? <— This description may fit better.

Am I understanding you correctly?

I guess if you want to get all serious and snippity, you can think of it how you want. People need to remember this is a game. One way to make a game tough is to change the rules. Which would you rather have:

• the devs change the rules of the whole game so you can’t tailor your build to obliterate every encounter.

• the devs introduce challenges which cause you to play within certain criteria.

Think of examples that already exist:
- the games they introduce that give you specific skills to use during it
- costume brawls
- PvP to a limited extent cause you to use a specific amount of gear stats

I’m just taking things to a typical conclusion but rather than put you in a dungeon or map where you have to use a set of unfamiliar skills, you’ll be using your same profession skills and traits.

I think the best way to use more predefined builds is like in the Caithe instances. Give players specific skills to use in order to defeat certain content, that way it can be always balanced and all skills tested to work as intended. We already have the opposite in the game, bosses that cannot be defeated unless you use some very specific patterns regardless of your build, for example to defeat Liadri you must use the orbs.

Giving players certain skills to work with is a good way to keep these encounters challenging and balanced when multiple players try them. I believe some of the Adventures will have players use specific skills to defeat them, and not allow players to use any skill they want.

It’s good for things like Adventures, challenging little content with their own leaderboards, making sure there is lots of competition there, but I’m not a fan of making people stay in new/random builds while doing dungeons or exploring the world, that’s a horrible idea.

So predefined builds for specific content types / instances is good, specific builds for anything else is not, randomized builds is the worst and I find no reason (or benefit) on RNG builds.

BammBamm.6719:

i higly doubt they will divide the playerbase

it already is. open world zombies and players who want more challenging content.

Rauderi.8706:

So, I have to wonder if a Silverwastes-type map with nothing but Elites (and not Champions) showed up, if people would go for the “challenge”. I suspect not.

-open world
-challenge

pick one.

Rauderi.8706:

Also, challenge exists, but players have proven time and again they don’t actually want “challenge” they want “loot”. Case in point, Aetherpath. Or maybe Aetherpath just needs better loot.

more like anet has proven that they didnt know how to make challenging content and instead of good fights and cool mechanics you have to solve boring and anti fun puzzles.

Tomerant.2701:

There will never be harder game than vanilla wow, Naxx40 is hardest and most time consuming group content ever created in gaming industry.

youtube wildstar datascape bosses.

Mirta.5029:

One of my community members was asking for a game where PVE content is tough and requires communication and coordination. He comes from Wildstar.. That game kind of bored him in the end because all PVE content nerfs itself as people learn it,

thats always the case. everything becomes easier as you learn.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Considering the QQ at the “lack of pve build diversity” ( or something to that effect) I doubt there will be many players supporting further lockdown of what builds can be used.

Nice attempt to force people out of running meta builds though.

players who QQ at the lack of pve build diversity dont understand how this game works and they dont really care anyway.

but there is no way to balance challenging content around builds that dont make any sense.

Notorious Dog.1043:

Hi everyone, I think that the game needs a hard mode. It’s too easy.
I feel like I could play this game blind folded and not die a single time. Okay, maybe a few times, but generally, when playing the game I don’t feel like I am actually being challenged enough.

If A-net would introduce a hard mode and even a Hardcore mode, I would probably delete half of my characters and start from scratch, just to get a real feel of what the game should REALLY be like. Because right now it feels like a bunny rabbit infiltrated A-net headquarters and set everything on “fluffy mode”.

PLEASE, give us a hardcore mode.

Is this a game, or is this a place we’re supposed to go to to chill out before we pass on?

You mention the word challenge! So instead of Arena net making each class challenge: make a hard mode for solution? Example: car race— There are some cars that have turbo engine and some who do not. To your suggestion: create a new racing track that is hard?

Do you see what the problem with your suggestion?

1st Problem- The hard racing track will make the cars with the turbo engine challenge-able but not the other car who do not have turbo mode engine.

2nd Problem—- why? Because they will be push back more: not only already by the cars with turbo engine but with the hard racing track. The cars with no turbo engine will be out-advantage 2 times: turbo engine car+hard mode track.

That is not acceptable and cruel to challenge and fun. It Punish other class who already have a hard time dealing with those Super Class who has unlimited advantage! of wining: without risking any effort or risking paying any consequence for mistakes.
(“reset fights”), <YES YOU!!.

It give these Super Class more reason to have more control and power to do whatever they want. To set set their own rule and policy of how challenge and fun should be

If it is going to only Benefit the Super Class and Punish the class who have hard time challenging them: I will not approve it!!

I disagree with this hardcore game mode. ( I do not think Notorious Dog intention is this but i already see problem with this suggestion and only give my opinion )