Guild Wars 2

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-endgame-reimagined/

So I just read that article, and I’m kind of shocked. Now, to anybody who might recognize my name from MMO-Champion’s GW2 community… They probably think I’m a ridiculously zealous fanboy who has nothing to say but good things about you…

So, my response to this article will likely come to a surprise for people who (think) they’re familiar with my posting: There is no difficult endgame in GW2. Period. If you believe otherwise, you must have a blindfold on.

I love GW2’s design concepts and design goals, I really do… but the endgame we’re given in GW2 doesn’t get more challenging from level 1 to level 80. All of it is just mindless zerg. I want something more than that. What I want is the difficulty of raiding, without any of the nonsense that comes with a raiding guild. None of the roster management, the drama, the stress, the time commitments… none of that.

It’s what I was hoping Orr would be – but it turns out, from everybody I’ve talked to about Orr, (which is the best I’ve got to go on, unfortunately, though I’m close), that Orr is still mindless AoE-fests in zerging proportions.

Ya gotta try harder than that! Now, don’t get me wrong – I’m having fun with the game. I really am enjoying it. But I’m not being challenged at all, and I want to be. Yes yes, the dungeons can be kinda tough, depending on group composition primarily (BIG disappointment there, btw, with how rampant classism already is – doesn’t help that the only tough mechanic in dungeons is pure attrition), but what I want from GW2 is challenging DEs.

I don’t care how often the fail rate is. I’m fine with DEs that fail 9 times out of 10. I still get rewards for them, and that just means they’re incredibly difficult to pull off. In fact, I can safely say I’m absolutely sick and tired of running through zones where all DE paths have been pushed along the maximum progression in the direction of success. I have yet to see a single DE in a failed state!

That’s a big disappointment. It’s bland and boring. Give us some more challenge. And mind you, when I say challenge, I don’t mean “more boss HP!”
No no. I want challenging mechanics. Not tank-n-spank zergfests. I could sleep through most DE boss fights I’ve seen.

Sorry, what does “Zerg” mean?

Could you give some examples of how to make things more challenging?

DrakeWurrum.6049:

In fact, I can safely say I’m absolutely sick and tired of running through zones where all DE paths have been pushed along the maximum progression in the direction of success. I have yet to see a single DE in a failed state!

I agree, this should not be the case. Perhaps decreasing maximum size of player base in the zone and more reliance on overflow servers could help mitigate the zerg feeling. I was questing in Harathi Hinterlands the other day and the major zone event require us to push back the centaurs (that were already pushed back as far as they could be) started, and it was a quick zerg rush to the event. When the boss summoned the three rock hounds they were no challenge to anyone, and the massive amounts of AOE made it frustrating to play in melee range for my guardian. Not that it matters, they dropped quickly and without much effort by those involved. Then the centaur elementalist joined the fray. His tornadoes were laughable, and the earth elemental hands barely stood for 5 seconds before being taken down. Afterwards, I’m not sure what the centaur did beside just take our attack. The sheer amount of spells made it hard to see him and he fell, maybe sending a handful of players into the downed state at times.

I’m sure this encounter would be fun with 10 people, but with the 50 or so that were there it was without challenge. I can understand making early encounters somewhat, but this is not an early zone.

On a side note, the few times I went through this event I always received bronze or silver credit too. despite participating. I’m not specced for damage through my traits or gear, and did use my elite tome of courage to heal, so maybe that had something to do with it.

Definition of zerg: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=zerg

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Sorry, what does “Zerg” mean?

Could you give some examples of how to make things more challenging?

Exactly what you think it means: winning through sheer numbers. Doesn’t matter how skilled anybody is, doesn’t matter how many die, doesn’t matter if not a single person tries to use support/control… nothing but numbers matter.

Not only do I get gold medals without trying, but events get a “success!” ending without anybody trying.

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Sorry, what does “Zerg” mean?

Could you give some examples of how to make things more challenging?

Zerg is basically a very large group of people, and used as a verb, it could be a boss or monster that is defeated by a large group of people attacking it with no other strategy involved. It comes from Starcraft, where one of the races (the Zerg) could produce lots of units very fast, so one strategy when playing them is to make very large quantities of units and rushing the enemy with them early in the match before he could create proper defenses (zergling rush).

Honestly, I don’t think the outdoor events can be made much harder. Everyone has to able to participate on some level. A fight can be good, despite not being very hard. Claw of Jormag for example, is a cool fight, but I don’t think it’s even possible to fail it. Some of the Risen high priests in Orr can be really difficult though. The Balthazar one in particular comes to mind. The Grenth priest also has an interesting mechanic with the shades.

I also wanted to comment on how you think “classism” is rampant. I’ve yet to see anyone being refused a group because they’re the wrong class. When people look for more people for a group, they don’t write “need guardian or warrior for dungeon X”. They write “Need one more for dungeon X”.

I say give it time. Everyone and their dog is on GW2 right now so even the high numbers of enemies a DE can manage can’t defeat a player swarm. Things will slow down and DEs might surprise you. I did one on the snowy right side of Gendarren Fields and there were only three of us. We fought like lions and ultimately lost.

Structured PvP? WvWvW? If it’s challenges you’re looking for, they may be there, they’re just not necessarily the specific ones you’d like.

Brewbeer.8239:

Honestly, I don’t think the outdoor events can be made much harder. Everyone has to able to participate on some level. A fight can be good, despite not being very hard. Claw of Jormag for example, is a cool fight, but I don’t think it’s even possible to fail it. Some of the Risen high priests in Orr can be really difficult though. The Balthazar one in particular comes to mind. The Grenth priest also has an interesting mechanic with the shades.

I also wanted to comment on how you think “classism” is rampant. I’ve yet to see anyone being refused a group because they’re the wrong class. When people look for more people for a group, they don’t write “need guardian or warrior for dungeon X”. They write “Need one more for dungeon X”.

Go ask Elementalists about that. I even know a Ranger who was refused. I haven’t personally experienced it, but I also haven’t bothered with dungeons yet, because I’m taking my sweet time with this game.

But more to the point, yes, you can make open world events more challenging. You know why?
Because failure is an option.

When you fail an event, you still get exp, karma, gold, influence. The only thing you miss out on is being able to loot the big boss monster, and ya know what? This game isn’t gear-driven.

High failure rates due to lack of skill is, imo, fully acceptable. If these EDEs actually required some measure of skill, suddenly guilds would actually have a reason to get organized. The beauty of it is that they still wouldn’t require a particular roster composition or size, so long as people do their damnedest to contribute to the fight without dying horribly.

Bobby.2918:

I say give it time. Everyone and their dog is on GW2 right now so even the high numbers of enemies a DE can manage can’t defeat a player swarm. Things will slow down and DEs might surprise you. I did one on the snowy right side of Gendarren Fields and there were only three of us. We fought like lions and ultimately lost.

Except it’s supposed to be able to scale with those incredible numbers. I’m perfectly happy doing an event with 50 random people, I just don’t want the event to fall over entirely because we’re 50 random people.

I honestly thought the Risen priests in each of the Orrian temples were marginally challenging with Grenth being the hardest. Oddly enough, I remember participating in the zerg-rush for that event but failed it at least three times because either the NPC we had to protect died, the shades killed off the zerg, or we just didn’t had enough DPS.

What I think needs happen in some of the Level 70+ Dynamic Events is that when the amount of people participating reached a certain threshold, then more Veteran and Champion mobs should spawn that have tactical abilities that the player needs to be wary about. I mentioned this in another thread, but I think these kinds of mobs should be immune or have a high-resistance to Ranger traps and AoE abilities; and actually run out of AoE like competent human players.

DrakeWurrum.6049:

from everybody I’ve talked to about Orr, (which is the best I’ve got to go on, unfortunately, though I’m close)

Please, don’t that stop you from judging game play you’ve not experienced.

DrakeWurrum.6049:

But I’m not being challenged at all, and I want to be. Yes yes, the dungeons can be fairly challenging

Rick James?

The game has just been released, there are a lot of people levelling so yes, there will be a higher than otherwise intended amount of people completing/participating in events.

Rocksors.7830:

DrakeWurrum.6049:

from everybody I’ve talked to about Orr, (which is the best I’ve got to go on, unfortunately, though I’m close)

Please, don’t that stop you from judging game play you’ve not experienced.

When compared to my own experience in higher level areas, it doesn’t comfort me in the least, especially considering I know the people sharing these experiences rather well, and have no reason to doubt their judgment.

Rocksors.7830:

The game has just been released, there are a lot of people levelling so yes, there will be a higher than otherwise intended amount of people completing/participating in events.

And as I’ve already mentioned, these events are supposed to scale wrt to number of players participating.

If it’s specifically because of the number of people involved, then their player-scaling system has utterly failed.

I found this article to be great and really lay it down to those who see this game for something it’s not. This game is all about the journey to level 80 and I feel the article really points out that those who chose to breeze through the content really missed out on the meat of the game.

Try thinking outside the box and enjoy a game where you don’t need to watch your XP bar whatsoever. Enjoy the game first and think of levels as secondary, it will make the game much more appeasable to those accustomed to the past decades genre of MMO’s.

Happy huntin’.

Honestly, I don’t see how you can make world bosses hard when 50 players are droppnig stuns slows and knockbacks constantly without making them completely immune to it and then you just have alot of dead people.

By the way, Lok says Hi. He’s got alot of HP and even though I didn’t find him personally difficult to master alot of people didn’t seem to grasp that when he hikes his leg its time to dodge, or just flat out got the timing wrong. Alot of people died constantly and I actually found it entertaining to make my way to downed players and bring them up, all while keeping myself safe on the ground stomps. That fight took at least 5-10 minutes minimum, and it seemed like it took longer.

I think other players nailed it, when the population begins to normalize and there aren’t as many people readily available DE’s will become more formidable and entertaining for those looking for a challenge.

Airien.4798:

I found this article to be great and really lay it down to those who see this game for something it’s not. This game is all about the journey to level 80 and I feel the article really points out that those who chose to breeze through the content really missed out on the meat of the game.

Try thinking outside the box and enjoy a game where you don’t need to watch your XP bar whatsoever. Enjoy the game first and think of levels as secondary, it will make the game much more appeasable to those accustomed to the past decades genre of MMO’s.

Happy huntin’.

I don’t watch my exp bar. I often forget what level I am because I don’t care.

What I do care about is the fact that everything I’ve experienced in the game so far, outside of dungeons (and in the case of dungeons, the only mechanic is “attrition”), is easy, mindless, AOE zergfests on the same difficulty level as LFR.

I wouldn’t be nearly as bothered by that, if the article (and devs in other places) weren’t making these claims:

Our goal with Guild Wars 2 was to continue to build upon what we’ve shown you before while finding new and interesting ways to engage you as a player, regardless of your level. Each new experience, new dungeon, and new giant boss is a chance for us to layer on more difficulty, or teach you an interesting aspect about your profession and what you can do when you combine forces with other players. Guild Wars 2 is a game about banding together with friends and complete strangers to accomplish great things in a world ruled by uncertainty and challenge.

What difficulty? What challenge?

How about that fire elemental in the asura starting zone :P

Maybe he needs to move to Orr lol.

Zerging world bosses with 100 people isn’t fun, especially with no DPS rotations and no tank/healers.

This announcement by ArenaNet totally hit me the wrong way. I just hit 80, gave the game a high review score, but am beginning to think that endgame PvE will be continue to be non-existent.

ituhata.6830:

Honestly, I don’t see how you can make world bosses hard when 50 players are droppnig stuns slows and knockbacks constantly without making them completely immune to it and then you just have alot of dead people.

By the way, Lok says Hi. He’s got alot of HP and even though I didn’t find him personally difficult to master alot of people didn’t seem to grasp that when he hikes his leg its time to dodge, or just flat out got the timing wrong. Alot of people died constantly and I actually found it entertaining to make my way to downed players and bring them up, all while keeping myself safe on the ground stomps. That fight took at least 5-10 minutes minimum, and it seemed like it took longer.

I think other players nailed it, when the population begins to normalize and there aren’t as many people readily available DE’s will become more formidable and entertaining for those looking for a challenge.

Defiance, Unshakable, whatever it’s called. It’s already in the game.

And why does everybody seem to ignore player scaling?

I think all the world bosses should be made much harder personally. The only problem with that is since they seem to happen every 2-3 hours it would make for some sad players if there were >50% failure rates. What do you guys think?

I wonder if they will ever add a hard mode like the original guild wars. Will be interesting to see what they do though.

Guys remember that events only balance for so many people. Last I heard standard Evers scale for up to 10. I know that seems ridiculous but think about how many events there are and how difficult it is to balance them. Once this ridiculously high concurrency goes down things should et significantly better. Nothing in this game can e truly judged as of yet

Dra Keln.2015:

Guys remember that events only balance for so many people. Last I heard standard Evers scale for up to 10. I know that seems ridiculous but think about how many events there are and how difficult it is to balance them. Once this ridiculously high concurrency goes down things should et significantly better. Nothing in this game can e truly judged as of yet

The point of open world events, however, is that they’re supposed to scale. And these big elite events, like Shadow Behemoth as a well-known example, are actually supposed to scale anywhere from 10 to 100 people (those are actually the numbers devs were using before launch!).

The god temple stuff in Orr are all Elite Dynamic Events, right? Doesn’t that mean they’re supposed to scale and remain challenging for upwards of 100 people? If that’s the case, why is 50 too much for them?

The OP is both very right and very, very wrong about a few things…

DrakeWurrum.6049:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-endgame-reimagined/
So, my response to this article will likely come to a surprise for people who (think) they’re familiar with my posting: There is no difficult endgame in GW2. Period.

I would agree with this on the PvE side of things. PvE at “end-game” as you call it (max level I assume you mean) is really not that much more difficult than the rest of the game (though the zones are MUCH more annoying to traverse due to a combination of mob density and environmental effects [my personal most hated being no health regen]). Although the WvW PvP metagame still leaves a great deal of challenge for “end-game.”

It’s what I was hoping Orr would be – but it turns out, from everybody I’ve talked to about Orr, (which is the best I’ve got to go on, unfortunately, though I’m close), that Orr is still mindless AoE-fests in zerging proportions.

Well Orr IS harder, just not so much harder to warrant a great deal of concern or to truly get that feeling of being “challenged.” There are still quite a few fights in Orr that aren’t “mindless AoE-fests” but, due to the amount of players, are still trivialized.

Yes yes, the dungeons can be fairly challenging, depending on group composition primarily (BIG disappointment there, btw, with how rampant classism already is)…

… and then you said this and I’m like “What in the WORLD is this guy TALKING ABOUT?!” And then you say later in the thread to “ask Elementalists about that.” I AM a max level Elementalist. An Elementalist is one the BEST classes to take into a dungeon (assuming the Elementalist isn’t a scrub, but that goes for all classes really), so I have no idea where that tripe came from. Unless, of course, you’re talking about PvP tourney groups…

In fact, the only thing I see sometimes is “LF Guardian preferably” and I always make a point to call those people out for their silliness. I mean, seriously, I laugh when I see that. Guys, let me tell you something, Guardians honestly are not the best class in a dungeon setting. They have one Elite Skill that is very powerful, but other than that they don’t add much else that others can’t provide in a group. Seriously, you HAVE to get out of this “need healz” mindset. Most of the dungeons actually complete better with debuffers and high DPS (not healz lulz). I find it especially funny, because, besides that one Elite, Guardians aren’t even the best healers! Just stop it.

I don’t care how often the fail rate is. I’m fine with DEs that fail 9 times out of 10.

You’ll love Grenth then! You have to protect an NPC who is particularly good about standing in devastating AoE (not saying that’s a good mechanic, but it certainly fails more than it succeeds as a result).

To be honest, it’s terribly difficult to fail events because even if a player dies, they can respawn at a waypoint and run back within a minute. So not only is there a huge throng of players, there is no reliable way for the boss to kill anyone off. The only way I could see a very challenging DE happening is if, a set time after the event happens, there is some sort of lockout which prevents players from entering (or re-entering) the event. This would mean that you have to ress players there or you wouldn’t have them to help. You CAN make mechanics that make ressing difficult and costly to a fight.

This game isn’t completely gear based, so once you get 80 and everyone else is..what really separates people? I heard skill but honestly..Skill in pressing buttons and maneuvering isn’t that substantial to have a hierarchy around like you would gear. There is no progression after 80 and you get your full gear, once you do that you’re left with just WvWvW

Just want to say that Orr was fun in the first week of the game’s release. There was barely anyone there, so just the few of us 80s were being challenged hard by the content (and the bugs…). It was an awesome zone.

Now, it’s a zerg-fest. I guess that goes to prove open-world content can never really be challenging due to numbers.

Srondon.3642:

… and then you said this and I’m like “What in the WORLD is this guy TALKING ABOUT?!” And then you say later in the thread to “ask Elementalists about that.” I AM a max level Elementalist. An Elementalist is one the BEST classes to take into a dungeon (assuming the Elementalist isn’t a scrub, but that goes for all classes really), so I have no idea where that tripe came from.

Most Elementalists I see on public discussion boards, and talk to directly, seem to suggest that Elementalists are grossly underpowered and a terrible choice for dungeons.

It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not or how much – the classism is still there and the composition of your group will still affect how easy or hard the dungeon is. (Plenty of people seem to think that you must have a Guardian, for example – not because it’s required, but because of how easy they make it)

There’s also an entire thread in the Elementalist sub-forum right on these official forums of people sharing their experiences of being denied by groups entirely due to being Elementalist.

DrakeWurrum.6049:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-endgame-reimagined/

… it turns out, from everybody I’ve talked to about Orr, (which is the best I’ve got to go on, unfortunately, though I’m close), that Orr is still mindless AoE-fests in zerging proportions.

You did not read the article carefully enough. Orr is part of their accessible endgame that is intentionally “easy” so that everyone can see it.

Here is the part of the article you were looking for:

For people who love structured and difficult content, we developed the explorable mode for our eight dungeons. A dungeon’s explorable mode has at least three different paths that players can choose to conquer—and each path is a five-character delve into tough content that we designed to push the limits of teamwork and communication.

There is no one who will claim with a straight face that all of the explorable mode paths provide no challenge. Anyone who would make such a claim would say the same thing about the “challenges” offered in other MMOs like WoW’s heroic mode raiding.

Currently, I know of one explorable mode path (out of 25+) that people consider easy (path 2, Magg, in CoF). Pugs clear it regularly, and even there I’d argue there are some appropriate challenges and gameplay is still interesting. Even here, I don’t think you’re guaranteed to clear with a PuG—wait until more average gamers start getting to level cap to see.

And every other path is far more challenging from there. So, you’re asking the wrong people and asking the wrong questions if you’re interested in challenging content.

Srondon.3642:

PvE at “end-game” as you call it (max level I assume you mean)

I was actually referring to endgame in the terms that the dev that wrote that article was using.

We didn’t want the endgame to be something you could only experience after a hundred hours of gameplay or after you reached some arbitrary number. We wanted it to be something that players got to experience every step along the way, spread out across the entire world of Tyria, so we’ve introduced game elements that you’d normally associate with “endgame” at every level and every possible opportunity.

In the sense that the whole game is endgame, and just gets more challenging – problem is, I really don’t feel the increasing challenge.

soulcakeduck.7036:

DrakeWurrum.6049:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-endgame-reimagined/

… it turns out, from everybody I’ve talked to about Orr, (which is the best I’ve got to go on, unfortunately, though I’m close), that Orr is still mindless AoE-fests in zerging proportions.

You did not read the article carefully enough. Orr is part of their accessible endgame that is intentionally “easy” so that everyone can see it.

Here is the part of the article you were looking for:

For people who love structured and difficult content, we developed the explorable mode for our eight dungeons. A dungeon’s explorable mode has at least three different paths that players can choose to conquer—and each path is a five-character delve into tough content that we designed to push the limits of teamwork and communication.

There is no one who will claim with a straight face that all of the explorable mode paths provide no challenge. Anyone who would make such a claim would say the same thing about the “challenges” offered in other MMOs like WoW’s heroic mode raiding.

Currently, I know of one explorable mode path (out of 25+) that people consider easy (path 2, Magg, in CoF). Pugs clear it regularly, and even there I’d argue there are some appropriate challenges and gameplay is still interesting. Even here, I don’t think you’re guaranteed to clear with a PuG—wait until more average gamers start getting to level cap to see.

And every other path is far more challenging from there. So, you’re asking the wrong people and asking the wrong questions if you’re interested in challenging content.

The thing is, I’m willing to bet at least a single account fee that a large portion of the playerbase want DEs to be really challenging. For a large number of gamers, if content is easy, it’s not amazing or epic.

What I’ve heard about dungeons is two specific things, and I’ve seen it in action from a second-hand perspective:
1. Group composition affects the difficulty – which results in rampant classism, regardless of how minimal the differences are, though it may be impossible to address this
2. Dungeons are only challenging in regards to attrition, (i.e. bosses with tons of HP that hit really hard, and not much more than that), which doesn’t really satisfy my desire for challenging content.

And there’s plenty of people who, yes, have claimed that dungeons are not challenging – especially when you run with three Warriors.

Hey OP maybe you should change to a low-pop server

So we need bosses with contested gys ,
Humogous hp ,
Numerous adds ,
Munipulate the elements of nature ,
Cast thunder all over the place every 1 min , forcing the players to hide under trees (whle the trees is burning cuase of the lighting thunders ) ,
Players must kil the adds , while some of them must use the water buckets to burn out the fire/heal the tree before the next thunder or all ppl will whipe ,
While the boss lowers his chin casting slowy 180-turn firebreath ,
Hide behind the trees-rocks (the trees die cause of the humogous damage ) to avoid the firebreath ,
Or players must kill the adds fast and some of them equip the mobs skin as shields , and stand in frond of the tree-players to protect them , likeusing Gear shield and abosrve all the range attacks aiming at ur friend ?

Nah …. too much hassle :P

GW2 is not a game based on the concept of “endgame”, as in being enslaved in a circular flow of repetitive grind→reward system.

Anet has been yelling for months that they were doing away with that kind of endgame and were going to give us legendaries for PvE, WvW for PvPvE guys and sPvP for pvpers.
They did.

Not happy with this formula?
You bought the wrong game for you, regardless Anet yelling this at you for years.
Guess who’s to blame.

Killthehealersffs.8940:

So we need bosses with contested gys ,
Humogous hp ,
Numerous adds ,
Munipulate the elements of nature ,
Cast thunder all over the place every 1 min , forcing the players to hide under trees (whle the trees is burning cuase of the lighting thunders ) ,
Players must kil the adds , while some of them must use the water buckets to burn out the fire/heal the tree before the next thunder or all ppl will whipe ,
While the boss lowers his chin casting slowy 180-turn firebreath ,
Hide behind the trees-rocks (the trees die)
Or players must kill the adds fast ,
Some of them equip the mobs skin as shields , and stand in frond of the tree-players to protect them , likeusing Gear shield and abosrve all the range attacks aiming at ur friend ?

Nah …. too much hassle

Because bosses that 1 shot you is definitely challenging… That’s not challenging that’s just ridiculous, there is no room for improvement.

I will honestly say, and yes it might be bold and arrogant of me, that the longevity in PvE of this game is severely hampered by its spectacular shallow content. What I mean by that is that while events with big dragons is neat and all, it is also very brief and then done. Poof, wait a few more hours or so to see it again if you want, but it never changes and seems nearly impossible to fail.

Now the Developers could say, well we have these explorable mode dungeons. Yeah that is neat and all, and I am sure it is tough as nails, but where is the incentive? Oh right the skins…meh. Look I don’t want to bust my booty for skins, I want some seriously sweet loot to drop! And why not? I earned it if I can complete it anyway right? So loot comes into question.

But even then that is about the depth of the difficulty in a nutshell. The explorable mode dungeons and the bosses that you can encounter within them. Even then they are dungeons, but harder version of them and nothing more.

There is just something missing with this game, and I am not the only one saying this. There is something missing for the structured PvE enthusiast that doesn’t seem to get addressed. There is no real reason to keep playing unless you like PvP battles, and the hilarious thing about that is in WvW you are dominated by other max level players who keep all the stats, unlocked abilities, and what not from exotic gear and traits. They easily overpower the heck out of anyone that is level 2 and comes in and gets boosted to 80. The stat differences are noticeable and painfully difficult to counter or deal with. Don’t even bother playing PvP if you are only level 1/2, cause you will be decimated.

But the reason I make that point is because they say they want the game to be about skill. Or this is the reason I keep hearing all these Guild Wars fans spout. Over and over again I hear about skill and how gear isn’t as important as it. And yet you see how important it actually is when getting decimated by a fully decked out 80, not to mention several due to the large battles, when engaging in WvWvW. It makes no sense to me.

I say to heck with that. If you are okay with people getting nice gear and dominating people without it, then why you are not okay with letting people get more powerful gear from far more difficult content? Why can’t they then use that gear to blast their way through other dungeons for fun? PvE in an RPG as far as I know has always been about improving your gear and getting the best loot you can possibly get. And so with that I see a need for raiding. If the explorable modes won’t give us decent loot then perhaps a raid in or around a higher level range (you already start dungeons at 30), say perhaps level 60 minimum and then a new raid each 10 levels. They could be out in the world or in an instance, but they would provide loot specific to your level that is awesome! It would be something else to do that seems interesting at least.

But anyway that is my off the top of my head rant…thanks if you read that. Now proceed to tear my argument apart as you see fit.

Red Falcon.8257:

GW2 is not a game based on the concept of “endgame”, as in being enslaved in a circular flow of repetitive grind->reward system.

Anet has been yelling for months that they were doing away with that kind of endgame and were going to give us legendaries for PvE, WvW for PvPvE guys and sPvP for pvpers.
They did.

Not happy with this formula?
You bought the wrong game for you, regardless Anet yelling this at you for years.
Guess who’s to blame.

Completely unrelated to what I’ve actually been saying.

DirtyHoudini.2917:

Killthehealersffs.8940:

So we need bosses with contested gys ,
Humogous hp ,
Numerous adds ,
Munipulate the elements of nature ,
Cast thunder all over the place every 1 min , forcing the players to hide under trees (whle the trees is burning cuase of the lighting thunders ) ,
Players must kil the adds , while some of them must use the water buckets to burn out the fire/heal the tree before the next thunder or all ppl will whipe ,
While the boss lowers his chin casting slowy 180-turn firebreath ,
Hide behind the trees-rocks (the trees die)
Or players must kill the adds fast ,
Some of them equip the mobs skin as shields , and stand in frond of the tree-players to protect them , likeusing Gear shield and abosrve all the range attacks aiming at ur friend ?

Nah …. too much hassle

Because bosses that 1 shot you is definitely challenging… That’s not challenging that’s just ridiculous, there is no room for improvement.

What is challenging for you then? It sounds like you won’t ever be satisfied.

gamingglory.2097:

I will honestly say, and yes it might be bold and arrogant of me, that the longevity in PvE of this game is severely hampered by its spectacular shallow content. What I mean by that is that while events with big dragons is neat and all, it is also very brief and then done. Poof, wait a few more hours or so to see it again if you want, but it never changes and seems nearly impossible to fail.

That’s exactly how it feels. “Shallow” is a good word.

I do personally put value into the cosmetic rewards, but I don’t put value into content that’s nearly impossible to fail.

Eochaidh.4106:

DirtyHoudini.2917:

Killthehealersffs.8940:

So we need bosses with contested gys ,
Humogous hp ,
Numerous adds ,
Munipulate the elements of nature ,
Cast thunder all over the place every 1 min , forcing the players to hide under trees (whle the trees is burning cuase of the lighting thunders ) ,
Players must kil the adds , while some of them must use the water buckets to burn out the fire/heal the tree before the next thunder or all ppl will whipe ,
While the boss lowers his chin casting slowy 180-turn firebreath ,
Hide behind the trees-rocks (the trees die)
Or players must kill the adds fast ,
Some of them equip the mobs skin as shields , and stand in frond of the tree-players to protect them , likeusing Gear shield and abosrve all the range attacks aiming at ur friend ?

Nah …. too much hassle

Because bosses that 1 shot you is definitely challenging… That’s not challenging that’s just ridiculous, there is no room for improvement.

What is challenging for you then? It sounds like you won’t ever be satisfied.

Bosses that can 1 shot you just plain isn’t challenging because there’s not much to those mechanics. You either avoid the mechanic and beat the boss, or don’t avoid the mechanic, and don’t. That’s… not a challenge. There’s nothing deep or complex about that.

Shadow of the Colossus, that was challenging. (unless you just went to youtube instead of figuring it out on your own)

Define challenging endgame. Even the hardest bosses in other MMOs follow simple rules writen to their AI code. I always hate to fight against predesined endgame encounters. Hard part is organising a group and fallow a perfect skill and movement rotation between phases, thats all. I simply don’t like the idea behind it. %99,99 of the time its about gearcheck not skill. %99,99 of the time mobs are unresponsive against your skill or movement inputs. Dungeons and leveling is good for learning your character’s capabilities. But endgame PvE content always failed me. It’s much like studying/learning a group dance, the more you repeat/study the more you succeed.

PvP is another story. There is no repatable perfect act. Succession comes from IQ and cool headed keyboard/mouse usage. There is no endgame. There is always people around your skill level. Mentally harder and mentally more rewarding. Come on this is guild wars. “GUILD WARS!”… Why do you except a complex endgame PvE content from it. I’d prefer more PvP type areas, more balancing, more fixes, than more dungeon designs.

Don’t jump on me like “you’re a PvP guy! go away!” I’m saying that “I’m a boss, I’m challenging and beat me if you can!” Dungeons are old PC adventures imo. I played, conqured and bored. We have fast connections, and well designed, PvP games today. Going top while PvPing is 10x harder than beating the most powerfull boss ingame. Any modern MMO without a good PvP system is failing today.

At the end; this is my opinion behind a basic logic and you have rights to refuse it all for your own tastes :P. I just wanted to show you another point of view for endgame.

Red Falcon.8257:

GW2 is not a game based on the concept of “endgame”, as in being enslaved in a circular flow of repetitive grind->reward system.

Anet has been yelling for months that they were doing away with that kind of endgame and were going to give us legendaries for PvE, WvW for PvPvE guys and sPvP for pvpers.
They did.

Not happy with this formula?
You bought the wrong game for you, regardless Anet yelling this at you for years.
Guess who’s to blame.

You know what is hilarious, you say they didn’t want to do this but they did. The whole game has many aspects that promote a circular grind already for a reward.

So you know what? Why not let us structured PvE folks have our rewards for completing harder content with more powerful loot.

DrakeWurrum.6049:

Except it’s supposed to be able to scale with those incredible numbers. I’m perfectly happy doing an event with 50 random people, I just don’t want the event to fall over entirely because we’re 50 random people.

It doesn’t. ArenaNet has stated that most events scale up to 10 players, and a few big events like the Shatterer scale to up to 100 players.

Everything you see as a Zerg is an event made too easy since it was not made to deal with that many players. Considering how it’s likely that we will only have that many people playing in the same area during release and a few weeks after that, the limits of the current scalling aren’t a problem, IMO.

Most DEs are too easy, though. This is a big issue – if all events are eternally at the most favorable outcome, players won’t be in a dynamic world – players will just be fighting the same enemies over and over while keeping the same status quo. Someone at GW2Guru claimed that a dynamic event should become more difficult the more it has been successful, which IMO is a great idea. So the “Defend the village from centaurs” event would be easy… The first time. The third time players manage to succeed when doing it, the next attack would be so big that it would be almost impossible for players to win, “forcing” the world to change so players actually see how dynamic the events can be.

So…

My takeaway from this thread is that GW2 endgame isn’t what everyone expects it to be… which is exactly what the devs just got done saying would be exactly the case. I’m confused that when they said the game wouldn’t play or feel like the current generation of MMOs, that as many people as are seem to be upset that the game isn’t like what they’ve been playing. If the endgame isn’t standing around waiting to get 10, 25, 40, 50 or 60 people in one place to do a three hour run through an instanced dungeon with the intent of only 3-5 of those people to get some uber-awesome drop that is part of a set that may require hundreds of runs to get then there is no endgame? If you blew through the content at release expecting there to be thousands of hours of grindy endgame, then the loss is yours. The game is exactly what ti is supposed to be, and it will continue to be exactly that.

Erasculio.2914:

Most DEs are too easy, though. This is a big issue – if all events are eternally at the most favorable outcome, players won’t be in a dynamic world – players will just be fighting the same enemies over and over while keeping the same status quo. Someone at GW2Guru claimed that a dynamic event should become more difficult the more it has been successful, which IMO is a great idea. So the “Defend the village from centaurs” event would be easy… The first time. The third time players manage to succeed when doing it, the next attack would be so big that it would be almost impossible for players to win, “forcing” the world to change so players actually see how dynamic the events can be.

That could be a start, but… so far that I’ve seen, Arena Net’s idea of making stuff “harder” is to just give it more HP and make it hit harder.

Drakkon.4782:

So…

My takeaway from this thread is that GW2 endgame isn’t what everyone expects it to be… which is exactly what the devs just got done saying would be exactly the case. I’m confused that when they said the game wouldn’t play or feel like the current generation of MMOs, that as many people as are seem to be upset that the game isn’t like what they’ve been playing. If the endgame isn’t standing around waiting to get 10, 25, 40, 50 or 60 people in one place to do a three hour run through an instanced dungeon with the intent of only 3-5 of those people to get some uber-awesome drop that is part of a set that may require hundreds of runs to get then there is no endgame? If you blew through the content at release expecting there to be thousands of hours of grindy endgame, then the loss is yours. The game is exactly what ti is supposed to be, and it will continue to be exactly that.

No, what you should take away from this thread is that the devs are claiming that DEs at higher levels are challenging, throwing stuff at you, and actually making you try, when they’re not.

DrakeWurrum.6049:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-endgame-reimagined/

So I just read that article, and I’m kind of shocked.

dude, the whole point of the article was that Orr ISNT the entire endgame. once u get to Orr and finish it, u move on to the rest of the world (lower level zones) and complete the content youve missed. or you level crafting. or explore.

DrakeWurrum.6049:

Drakkon.4782:

So…

My takeaway from this thread is that GW2 endgame isn’t what everyone expects it to be… which is exactly what the devs just got done saying would be exactly the case. I’m confused that when they said the game wouldn’t play or feel like the current generation of MMOs, that as many people as are seem to be upset that the game isn’t like what they’ve been playing. If the endgame isn’t standing around waiting to get 10, 25, 40, 50 or 60 people in one place to do a three hour run through an instanced dungeon with the intent of only 3-5 of those people to get some uber-awesome drop that is part of a set that may require hundreds of runs to get then there is no endgame? If you blew through the content at release expecting there to be thousands of hours of grindy endgame, then the loss is yours. The game is exactly what ti is supposed to be, and it will continue to be exactly that.

No, what you should take away from this thread is that the devs are claiming that DEs at higher levels are challenging, throwing stuff at you, and actually making you try, when they’re not.

uh no, the article has absolutely NOTHING to do with what you just said.

Yeah he said in his post that Orr was just bigger more spectacular versions of what you have already seen in the rest of the game. Which is neat and I look forward to seeing it, but it stops just shy of what many of us expect in epic large scale encounters of extremely dangerous locations. And I mean like fighting off not one boss, but several along a massive and terrifying path. That kind of thing gets your heart pumping and the adrenaline rushing! Oh yeah!

It doesn’t have to rely on tiered gear to complete it, nor a max level player either. Heck by level 60 you have most everything unlocked anyway. But what it would rely on is teamwork in order to down these bosses to loot a massive chest and get some sweet loot! It isn’t about progression so to speak, but it is about the glory of such massive encounters that require more than 5 people. That is all really.

nerva.7940:

DrakeWurrum.6049:

Drakkon.4782:

So…

My takeaway from this thread is that GW2 endgame isn’t what everyone expects it to be… which is exactly what the devs just got done saying would be exactly the case. I’m confused that when they said the game wouldn’t play or feel like the current generation of MMOs, that as many people as are seem to be upset that the game isn’t like what they’ve been playing. If the endgame isn’t standing around waiting to get 10, 25, 40, 50 or 60 people in one place to do a three hour run through an instanced dungeon with the intent of only 3-5 of those people to get some uber-awesome drop that is part of a set that may require hundreds of runs to get then there is no endgame? If you blew through the content at release expecting there to be thousands of hours of grindy endgame, then the loss is yours. The game is exactly what ti is supposed to be, and it will continue to be exactly that.

No, what you should take away from this thread is that the devs are claiming that DEs at higher levels are challenging, throwing stuff at you, and actually making you try, when they’re not.

uh no, the article has absolutely NOTHING to do with what you just said.

It actually said exactly that:

Each new experience, new dungeon, and new giant boss is a chance for us to layer on more difficulty

These massive dynamic events usually come at the end of one of our meta-event chains, and they reward players with a challenging encounter

but later in the game, these giant bosses really come at you with gloves off.

WoW has some very interesting PVE bosses which you could look at for inspiration.

Outdoor bosses where the strategy for killing them isn’t spelled out (so that players would have to trial and error how to kill them) would go a long long way to adding the level of “raid-boss depth” that players of WoW are used to.

MistaMike.7356:

WoW has some very interesting PVE bosses which you could look at for inspiration.

Outdoor bosses where the strategy for killing them isn’t spelled out (so that players would have to trial and error how to kill them) would go a long long way to adding the level of “raid-boss depth” that players of WoW are used to.

WoW bosses, unfortunately, aren’t nearly as challenging as they could be, but it would be a step in the right direction. I’ve heard Rift is actually better at that, which means I may someday have to consider trying Rift – but I have no desire to play a subscription MMO anymore.