Guild Wars 2

I found this disccusion on guru and it’s about Null mechanics, but I would like to extend it to a general discussion, because I really despise having to play the “DPS or GTFO” game.

Takami:

Stupid enrage counter mechanics shouldn’t exist ever
They serve no purpose other than to frustrate players. If someone solo completes it, then well done to them. Why put in DPS checks?

Lordkrall:

Because standing around for hours without killing the boss means you are doing something wrong?
It is simply there to inform people that they are doing something wrong. If people are doing it the right way they will have no issues with the “DPS checks” (which I assume is the constant damage after some time?)

Takami:

Erm, we were doing extremely well as a 3 man team. It was quite challenging with such numbers actually, I’d almost go as far as say it was fun. Then you basically die instantly to DPS check. As a 5 man team we obviously facerolled it, nigh on zero challenge. I still can’t understand why it exists? What if players didn’t want to play DPS or GTFO? God forbid anyone tries a condition focused build instead of flavor of the month!

I have serious issue with this feature creeping in. It’s a bit of a world of warcraft mechanic. If they keep adding it to bosses like this, there’s nothing to say they won’t raise the bar entirely for future encounters where the DPS check actually turns into a gear check; i.e. only people running the correct build and the highest ASCENDED gear will be able to complete the encounter before the party wipes.

What do you think about it? Could it be a way to verify if people are ok with what Takami is hypothesizing?

i hate how pve basicly = DPS DPS DPS what they need to do is find a good ballence where all trash mobs drop loot and boost trash mobs numbers up so players r taking more dmg, MORE CONSISTANT DMG TO PLAYERS so some players may need more then full zerker and jus dodging / mitigation mechanics.

I agree with Takami for the same reasons as he stated.

There’s a rage timer on Null?

If so – that’s VERY BAD design.

A rage timer is basically a cop-out by the game designer. A “we ran out of ideas to make this engaging so we’ll just put in a timer.”

And this encounter hardly needs it. Its a rare case in GW2 of an encounter where you have to mix doing the gimmick (greening traps) and attacking the enemy.
- for gw2 players that’s a level of tactical mixup many are not used to, so it already has enough challenge built in for half or more of the playerbase.

And a raid-timer isn’t a challenge. Its just a cop-out… no mechanic to it… nothing to master other than “play faster”…

I personally would like to see the opposite come into some boss fights. Have the speed of the bosses attacks/damage from attacks scale to the amount of DPS/sec coming in, hell even retribution starting to stack at the highest end of DPS.

SO yes you can DPS it down fast, but to do this you are going to have to play better, dodge more often, deal with damage coming in. This would mean the best team wouldn’t be the highest DPS team, but the team that could get the highest DPS while maintaining enough support, it would be far more of a tightrope rather than >DPS is better.

DPS checks are garbage.

I know some people will say “You shouldn’t be able to kite a boss for 7 hours and outlast it”. But it’s my right to pick such a choice, and arbitrarily removing it via lazy design is stupid.

In a PvE that already prioritizes DPS above all else, that would just be another way to make non-dps gear even more useless.

Blizzard had the good sense to remove it from most of D3, I hope nobody repeats the same mistakes here.

DPS checks will lead to exclusion. We’d have to kick people out who don’t have enough DPS since it would make the thing literally unfinishable. People are already upset about excluding those that slow down a run by 1-2 minutes. What if it becomes necessary, where some parties literally can’t do it at all?

I haven’t done the dungeon yet so this is an honest question. Are you implying that this new dungeon is “Zerk Warriors ONLY!” material? In the same way that CoF p1 is perfectly fine with any group, but a certain segment of the playerbase demands 4 Zerk War + Mes ONLY groups because it is “more efficient”? If so, that’s an extremely poor choice in dungeon design… Is there even a point to having anything other than Berserker gear if this is the path we’re headed?

Sokar Rostau.7316:

I haven’t done the dungeon yet so this is an honest question. Are you implying that this new dungeon is “Zerk Warriors ONLY!” material? In the same way that CoF p1 is perfectly fine with any group, but a certain segment of the playerbase demands 4 Zerk War + Mes ONLY groups because it is “more efficient”? If so, that’s an extremely poor choice in dungeon design… Is there even a point to having anything other than Berserker gear if this is the path we’re headed?

It is not, but you will do it much faster with zerk warriors. And this is not dungeon. Unless you are guardian really no point (maybe, and just maybe some cond gear for necro and classes like that but you will have to work your a……. to catch up with others raw damage)

Null doesn’t have a very high DPS check.

I feel that enrage timers are perfectly fine as long as they’re limited to a few encounters. They’re not “bad design” in and of themselves, “bad design” is leaning on ANY mechanic too heavily in order to add difficulty to pve encounters. In this case, the dps check is counterbalanced by an invincibility shield and healing turrets — much better thought out than “hur hur, here’s a bag of hit points, kill it quick!”, as you can actively effect the outcome with MORE than “just” dps.

Takami’s opinion in the original post is a slippery slope fallacy, btw…

Sokar Rostau.7316:

In the same way that CoF p1 is perfectly fine with any group, but a certain segment of the playerbase demands 4 Zerk War + Mes ONLY groups because it is “more efficient”?

How is this relevant at all? Maybe those people are not so narrow-minded when you take into account that they’re there to farm not sight-see the path for the 200th time, and small differences (actually not small if it’s a case of everything goes) eventually add up. Would you rather cut an entire field worth of grass by hand or use a machine?

And there are also ready some subtle dps checks in dungeons, the most apparent is the fractal champion grawl event. Try doing that 40+ with 5 condition necros.

“DPS check: a way to teste players’ reactions?” you do know a teste is a testical don’t you. -LOL

I have to admit, that is the first thing I noticed, Im Mudbone. I was wondering if it had something to do with ‘Males Only’.

Im Mudbone.1437:

“DPS check: a way to teste players’ reactions?” you do know a teste is a testical don’t you. -LOL

spelt testie, singular form.

actually, it is spelled testis, singular form…lol

and teste is a witness (in law)…

but, funny nonetheless =)

Well that title had me… confused a bit… hehehe :P

But not to stray from the originally intended discussion, we did the run first time and a side from a few hiccups in getting the mechanics right, we never even noticed the dps check/enrage timer mechanic. But did it another time with a different group, and well… let’s just say we CERTAINLY noticed it this time!

My conclusion is that it is a minor dps check, hardly anything so high that it is impossible except to only a ‘select few’. Rather I think most ppl can do it with moderate amount of DPS. But I am AGAINST the idea of this mechanic regardless. In itself, this instance’s dps check is negligible to the point I don’t really feel it warrants that much outcry, but the implications of having said mechanics in the long run is that it is a trend that, once again, favors dps groups.

Look, I know zerker builds are all the rage right now but that is because high dps is like the shortcut to almost all encounters. I think that if anything, we should find ways to lessen the constant demand for high dps builds only otherwise it will lead to the game having only one flavor of doing things.