Guild Wars 2

The game in my opinion has a good combat design and has a lot of potential. It just needs to be harder in many areas. I understand the starting areas should be easy to help people learn without dying constantly, but mid to later areas should be full of fear.. that cave over there do I really want to go in there? should be in the back of my head. Long battles are not necessarily bad, increased enemy hp is a decent way to make challenges more difficult, but just be careful, too much hp makes it boring and redundant. The HP has to match the emphasis of the boss. If it is suppose to be a major battle and a major boss then yeah it should not die in 20 seconds no matter how skilled the player or players are. I know they mentioned they are wanting to make earlier areas harder so I believe they are working on my biggest disapointment with the game. Just make the game more exciting with the threat of dying, not the punishment of death.

The devs need to balance the usefulness of stuff besides DPS to achieve this however; right now the PvE metagame is all kinds of broken.

You talk about not making enemies bullet sponges; but take lupicus for example. One group downed him in 46 seconds using crazy DPS, no control, minimal support – most groups would take minutes to down him, and it’d be a tough fight – how hard people will find a fight is heavily dependent on how long the fight lasts and that in turn depends primarily on DPS.

Increase hitpoints, fights last longer, glass cannons are more likely to die, but then badly-built characters, or bunkerish characters get bored as the fight takes too long. Lower the hitpoints, fights become quicker but glass cannons literally faceroll through the content.

It’s quite the conundrum how to make things challenging while keeping the challenge relevant to all classes and builds.

Ryuujin.8236:

The devs need to balance the usefulness of stuff besides DPS to achieve this however; right now the PvE metagame is all kinds of broken.

You talk about not making enemies bullet sponges; but take lupicus for example. One group downed him in 46 seconds using crazy DPS, no control, minimal support – most groups would take minutes to down him, and it’d be a tough fight – how hard people will find a fight is heavily dependent on how long the fight lasts and that in turn depends primarily on DPS.

Increase hitpoints, fights last longer, glass cannons are more likely to die, but then badly-built characters, or bunkerish characters get bored as the fight takes too long. Lower the hitpoints, fights become quicker but glass cannons literally faceroll through the content.

It’s quite the conundrum how to make things challenging while keeping the challenge relevant to all classes and builds.

Yeah, they need to move away from dps-only based fights.

A suggestion for the devs:

1. Get rid of or modify Defiant, and return to the original plan of the dps-control-support class configuration. Roles aren’t a bad thing…

2. This needs to be accompanied by new weapon skills and perhaps even the ability to swap out some abilities for others on one or two weapon skills.

3. Make fights based on timely interrupts and control, the cleansing of conditions and the application of buffs. The deadly lizards in Southsun were a step in the right direction.

All good comments so far.

The problem of course is once you make an area harder, people will want more reward for doing it, and that’s where the problem lies.

Anet doesn’t want everyone hanging out in Orr. If you create harder zones, and you don’t reward people for doing them, people won’t do them. That’s already been proven…and yes, I know some people will, but not nearly enough.

Honestly I don’t really see a solution to this issue.

Vayne.8563:

All good comments so far.

The problem of course is once you make an area harder, people will want more reward for doing it, and that’s where the problem lies.

Anet doesn’t want everyone hanging out in Orr. If you create harder zones, and you don’t reward people for doing them, people won’t do them. That’s already been proven…and yes, I know some people will, but not nearly enough.

I can’t speak for everyone, but I’m generally happy without extra rewards for harder content (if that content is fun, obviously). I did speed runs in Stratholme in WoW for fun. The people I went with just wanted a shot at the Deathcharger mount—a cosmetic upgrade. With the right mechanics, something like this could work well.

Honestly I don’t really see a solution to this issue.

Wait, what? An issue where I’m more optimistic than you are?

Ryuujin.8236:

The devs need to balance the usefulness of stuff besides DPS to achieve this however; right now the PvE metagame is all kinds of broken.

You talk about not making enemies bullet sponges; but take lupicus for example. One group downed him in 46 seconds using crazy DPS, no control, minimal support – most groups would take minutes to down him, and it’d be a tough fight – how hard people will find a fight is heavily dependent on how long the fight lasts and that in turn depends primarily on DPS.

Increase hitpoints, fights last longer, glass cannons are more likely to die, but then badly-built characters, or bunkerish characters get bored as the fight takes too long. Lower the hitpoints, fights become quicker but glass cannons literally faceroll through the content.

It’s quite the conundrum how to make things challenging while keeping the challenge relevant to all classes and builds.

That group that downs Lupi in 46 seconds have probably fought him hundreds of times, know his every movement, and when to cast certain skills(reflect ect). Please go Melee lupi with a pug full of berserkers and see if you can imitate his results, it should be entertaining .

Guns and Giblets.9308:

Vayne.8563:

All good comments so far.

The problem of course is once you make an area harder, people will want more reward for doing it, and that’s where the problem lies.

Anet doesn’t want everyone hanging out in Orr. If you create harder zones, and you don’t reward people for doing them, people won’t do them. That’s already been proven…and yes, I know some people will, but not nearly enough.

I can’t speak for everyone, but I’m generally happy without extra rewards for harder content (if that content is fun, obviously). I did speed runs in Stratholme in WoW for fun. The people I went with just wanted a shot at the Deathcharger mount—a cosmetic upgrade. With the right mechanics, something like this could work well.

Honestly I don’t really see a solution to this issue.

Wait, what? An issue where I’m more optimistic than you are?

I don’t know. I’d like some harder content too. But as soon as that content comes out, someone is going to come here and start raging about the content being too hard. There are already people complaining about the reward/effort ratio.

I’m thinking that Anet doesn’t want to kitten off casual players by making rewards they can’t really get. I mean a lot of casuals won’t be getting dungeon master, even though others claim the dungeons are easy. But many people who are saying they’re too easy also talk about increasing the rewards.

And I just don’t see Anet doing that.

Harder content is always welcomed by most people, sure a few people might have troubles but everything is pretty easy to learn. I mean at release Arah/Lupi were impossible unless you were the best players in the game, now look at it, most pug teams can do it with minimal trouble.

As the difficulty scales in fractals most people play their guardians because that’s really the only truly viable profession for pug teams. If you play with a structured guild team you have no problem with 40+ fractals (and they are pretty easy for being the “hard” content).

Also, I would love to see the new content bosses have lower health and higher toughness to make condition builds viable.

Lunar Sunset.8742:

Harder content is always welcomed by most people, sure a few people might have troubles but everything is pretty easy to learn. I mean at release Arah/Lupi were impossible unless you were the best players in the game, now look at it, most pug teams can do it with minimal trouble.

As the difficulty scales in fractals most people play their guardians because that’s really the only truly viable profession for pug teams. If you play with a structured guild team you have no problem with 40+ fractals (and they are pretty easy for being the “hard” content).

Also, I would love to see the new content bosses have lower health and higher toughness to make condition builds viable.

I think you’ll find harder content isn’t welcomed by most people. That’s what devs have been saying for years, and it’s why content gets nerfed in almost every game.

I not mind increasing difficulty but the developers need to increase rewards as well. Recently, difficulty in higher scale FOTM been increase but the drops has been remain the same. This makes doing the dungeons a lot less rewarding. If I am not trying to get my last 2 weapons skins I won’t even be bother with it.

Can we have a level 90 zone?

Cloudwalkernz.1328:

I not mind increasing difficulty but the developers need to increase rewards as well. Recently, difficulty in higher scale FOTM been increase but the drops has been remain the same. This makes doing the dungeons a lot less rewarding. If I am not trying to get my last 2 weapons skins I won’t even be bother with it.

This is what I’m talking about. There’s no real point in increasing difficulty without increasing rewards. A very small percentage of people will do harder content if you can get the same rewards for easier content. So more people are running CoF path 1 than any path of Arah for example. It’s easier and the reward is the same.

For challenging content to have a chance, the rewards must be better. And then you have a portion of the community, most likely the largest portion, complaining about a reward they’re locked out of.

It’s a lose/lose situation.

I’m all for increasing difficulty as long as it is not giving mobs and insane health pool with cheap instagib mechanics and as long as that challenging content is justly rewarded.

I love the monster design from southsun, more of that please

Vayne.8563:

Lunar Sunset.8742:

Harder content is always welcomed by most people, sure a few people might have troubles but everything is pretty easy to learn. I mean at release Arah/Lupi were impossible unless you were the best players in the game, now look at it, most pug teams can do it with minimal trouble.

As the difficulty scales in fractals most people play their guardians because that’s really the only truly viable profession for pug teams. If you play with a structured guild team you have no problem with 40+ fractals (and they are pretty easy for being the “hard” content).

Also, I would love to see the new content bosses have lower health and higher toughness to make condition builds viable.

I think you’ll find harder content isn’t welcomed by most people. That’s what devs have been saying for years, and it’s why content gets nerfed in almost every game.

quoted for truth.

guild wars 2 is a casual online game.

all the dungeons were much harder during launch, and got their difficulties toned down very soon.

and i think casual players are also more likely to spend real dollars on the games, unlike the so called hardcore players.

I see alot of threads on people requesting that ANET increase the difficulty of the game or introduce new harder content. To me that is worrying because:

1. Actions speak louder then words

OK I read alot of threads about people asking for harder content, yet while in game I find alot of difficult or hard content is ignored by the majority of players. For example: Trying to spawn the Karka queen, temple of Grenth, a few dungeons, champions etc. Goto gw2lfg.com and look at the amount of players LFG for easy content e.g. COF p1 and compare that to harder dungeons and you see that the majority of players prefer to do the easier stuff.

Remember when Ascalonian Catacombs was known for being one of the easiest dungeons (for those who knew how it worked) and how people kept saying “oh it’s too easy”, so ANET decides to make it harder, tweak the mechanics and then suddenly the amount of players doing it dropped off dramatically (most likley to do the easier COF p1).

What I am trying to say is, sure you may ask for harder content, but observation of in game activity shows most players prefer the easier stuff.

2. Harder content often means “one off”

Lets say ANET hypothetically listened to all the people requesting a harder dungeon and made a super difficult, permanent dungeon/area. For the first week there will be complaints of it being too difficult, followed by counter-arguments of “learn to play”. After a few more weeks, the amount of players doing the dungeon will drop off, either cause they managed to acquire the loot or gave up in frustration. But after that it’ll probably be emptied and ignored. Imagine the poor new guy who finally makes it to the area, only to find it takes an hour just to find a party (even if s/he is in a large guild) and even when they do find a party, they will probably fail the first couple of times (sound familiar?).

No one is going to go out of their way to help a stranger or even a guildie, if they know the chances of failure is high and the length of time is considerable. So in the end this super difficult dungeon that everyone is begging for ends up being ignored.

3. Less friendly atmosphere

One of the things that set GW2 apart from other MMOs is how they encourage co-operative gameplay and helping others. I am sure many of you can recall a time when you were stuck in an event, barely clinging to life, only to have some other players randomly wander bye and save you. Or trying a dungeon for the first time e.g. Fractals of the mist, and having a really, really nice experienced person guide the team.

The problem with having an instantly difficult dungeon is it encourages elitism, and what’s worse, how can people “learn to play” when they can’t get people to help them?. Yes the problem occurs on easier dungeons, but at least with easy dungeons it, doesn’t take long to form your own group.

Another problem with harder dungeons is that it almost guarantees class specific teams, and once an ideal team has been identified (most likely warrior, guardian and mesmer), you are going to have a tough time finding a group if you are not one of those preferred classes.

And finally lets not forget dreaded “nerd ragers”.

More harder content = high chance of frustration = more nerd rage.

Going through these forums you can find alot of evidence of people who have had their entire game play experience spoiled by some gamer who kicked/abused them because they were new, had internet/computer lag issues or were just plain impatient.

In the end what I really want is: more content
More things to do, more areas to explore, minigames (maybe even involving our minipets), own instanced area/house/guild hall that can be customized, more skins. And lets not forget the bug and balance fixes

I suppose the second hard part is differentiating between difficulty and bad game design. When people speak of difficulty, I keep thinking of how fractals were when they were first released: Cheesy death mechanics with no way to resurrect fallen players aside from total group suicide. I mean, any one of those by themselves would’ve been acceptable, but put together it wasn’t difficult insomuch as it was frustrating and luck based.

Guns and Giblets.9308:

Ryuujin.8236:

The devs need to balance the usefulness of stuff besides DPS to achieve this however; right now the PvE metagame is all kinds of broken.

You talk about not making enemies bullet sponges; but take lupicus for example. One group downed him in 46 seconds using crazy DPS, no control, minimal support – most groups would take minutes to down him, and it’d be a tough fight – how hard people will find a fight is heavily dependent on how long the fight lasts and that in turn depends primarily on DPS.

Increase hitpoints, fights last longer, glass cannons are more likely to die, but then badly-built characters, or bunkerish characters get bored as the fight takes too long. Lower the hitpoints, fights become quicker but glass cannons literally faceroll through the content.

It’s quite the conundrum how to make things challenging while keeping the challenge relevant to all classes and builds.

Yeah, they need to move away from dps-only based fights.

A suggestion for the devs:

1. Get rid of or modify Defiant, and return to the original plan of the dps-control-support class configuration. Roles aren’t a bad thing…

2. This needs to be accompanied by new weapon skills and perhaps even the ability to swap out some abilities for others on one or two weapon skills.

3. Make fights based on timely interrupts and control, the cleansing of conditions and the application of buffs. The deadly lizards in Southsun were a step in the right direction.

Remove defiant and you end up with bosses being chain cc’d

Vayne.8563:

I don’t know. I’d like some harder content too. But as soon as that content comes out, someone is going to come here and start raging about the content being too hard. There are already people complaining about the reward/effort ratio.

I’m thinking that Anet doesn’t want to kitten off casual players by making rewards they can’t really get. I mean a lot of casuals won’t be getting dungeon master, even though others claim the dungeons are easy. But many people who are saying they’re too easy also talk about increasing the rewards.

And I just don’t see Anet doing that.

yes, because of some crybabies, we should take away the (fix your filter anet) essence of gaming and just play a colossal grind where the objective is dressing our character up. the more we play, the prettier they look! “content” is not just king because it’s there. the entire open world pve experience is a snoozefest because it’s all so godkitten easy and the same everywhere. but it’s still content. content nobody should be interested in playing more than once(or even at all after doing similar areas). how some people can be so weak as to come on a forum and cry about an encounter being too hard instead of manning up and doing it is beyond me. everybody is a winrar right?! except then you take away the meaning of winning…

+1 OP

Vayne.8563:

Lunar Sunset.8742:

Harder content is always welcomed by most people, sure a few people might have troubles but everything is pretty easy to learn. I mean at release Arah/Lupi were impossible unless you were the best players in the game, now look at it, most pug teams can do it with minimal trouble.

As the difficulty scales in fractals most people play their guardians because that’s really the only truly viable profession for pug teams. If you play with a structured guild team you have no problem with 40+ fractals (and they are pretty easy for being the “hard” content).

Also, I would love to see the new content bosses have lower health and higher toughness to make condition builds viable.

I think you’ll find harder content isn’t welcomed by most people. That’s what devs have been saying for years, and it’s why content gets nerfed in almost every game.

Hard content IS 100% welcomed, it is only not welcomed when they make it forced (like to get new armour) however if they do new content such as hardcore dungeons that give better rewards this would definitely be welcomed

Dungeons that take 2 hours because they are hard and you are well rewarded afterwards is fun.

Dungeons that take 2 hours because they are filled with padding that is “hard” (ie its hard to search Youtube and look for “how to skip”) and you are rewarded the eqvivalent of a slap in the face for completing it, is not that fun.

Arah is the prime example of this. Its not hard, its just kittened. Some elements are good (Lupi is just fine), some elements are so bad its embarassing (bosses that cant even damage you for the lulz) but most of it is pure time consuming crap designed just to annoy players.

So yes, I would welcome a well designed, hard dungeon.

RoRo.8270:

Remove defiant and you end up with bosses being chain cc’d

Defiant is used to paper over some serious deficiencies in the design of this game. For that reason, I agree that removing it now would be problematic. It needs to be removed (or modified—my other qualifer) in conjunction with other changes in order for content to be more than a dps/dodge spam fest.

I don’t know if this is a good idea. One thing I discovered is that there is a very wide difference in skill level among the players. Whats merely challenging for one group might be impossible for another.

For example, I had even been in a group that fail CoF path 1. I know, sounds unbelievable right, that’s what I thought when a guild mate ask for my help. One of the party member had rage quit at the gate part. I took down the gate, but the boss is just impossible with one group member running naked and a few keep getting downed/defeated. Rez them and the boss is back a full health.

I can’t imagine how ArenaNet can make the game more difficult while catering to the weaker players.

Vayne.8563:

All good comments so far.

The problem of course is once you make an area harder, people will want more reward for doing it, and that’s where the problem lies.

Anet doesn’t want everyone hanging out in Orr. If you create harder zones, and you don’t reward people for doing them, people won’t do them. That’s already been proven…and yes, I know some people will, but not nearly enough.

Honestly I don’t really see a solution to this issue.

Oh I have a long list of solutions for the lack of rewards in this title trust me, gathered from years of mmo gameplay of 15 mmos and 5 2d hacknslash and 2 RTS titles. There’s penty they could be doing.

As far as the creatures go, if they go in this direction they had better make sure the classes are correctly functioning and elegant beforehand of they will have a serious backlash. You see not all classes are balanced or elegant for PVE some classes have multiple sets of boon builder choices in their design, they have well placed mini traits and have great traits to allow for relatively high DPS and defense similtaneously, and then there are classes like Engineers where they can’t decide if they are adventurer dps classes or soldier defense classes, the traits are all over the place (grand master for 50% endurance regen?) and nary a burst option available complete with the only means by which to travel well and found in every single build 10 points in the final line because we don’t have a 25% run speed option on a gadget.

I don’t mind harder content I really don’t but they have a long way to go before these classes are ready. (Ranger/Necro too)

Also there’s something they haven’t done that others have. Heroic dungeons. If they really wanted to open up dungeon running they need to be able to select which one for story or paths, they need to improve the rewards not hinder them bye bye DR, and they need to allow for this in the personal story and make the personal story dungeons repeatable.

And finally they need to do something about their trinity long long before they ever decide to do this as well. Support and CC need to have a better placei n the game, they need to redo alot of the support skills, engineers for example don’t need 4 separate regen skills and all support classes need a direct heal of some kind not all AOEs all the time some of the cone attacks could be converted but they also need to finally and at long last fix the cone attacks to make them work properly which they still haven’t done they just stuck a bandaid on them.

Cymric.7368:

I can’t imagine how ArenaNet can make the game more difficult while catering to the weaker players.

Solution: revamped mechanics and boss design where intelligent use of control and support matter

Implementation: normal mode and hard mode

Catering Outcome: all player types

Forum Whining Level: minimal

Yes the game needs to be harder but not more cheesy…I’m a fully tank specced guardian and some bosses just take 70% of my hp away in 2seconds (not standing in red circles).

And the hard continent must be WELL rewarding even the normal difficulties…26silver and 9 blues (most of the rime, sometimes a green but rares are like once a week and I can’t even remember if I ever had an exotic from a dungeon chest) it’s just not rewarding at all and I don’t mind diminishing returns cause I don’t want to farm the same dungeon path. So what about an extra reward (specialy coins) if u complete 3 dungeon paths if the same dungeon at the same day? what about 3 extra gold if u complete them 3 at the same day….people wont do just 1 and 2 in CoF, 1 and 3 in SE, 1 and 3 in CoE, up and forward forward in TA,…

Ryuujin.8236:

The devs need to balance the usefulness of stuff besides DPS to achieve this however; right now the PvE metagame is all kinds of broken.

+1.

No need to kill the DPS builds/making bosses less weak to them or anything like that.

Change Defiant to make CC’s worthwhile (but not abusable for a full time boss CC lock).
Change Ai to be less exploitable.
Trow in some fights mechanics to test the resilience of characters.
“Soft” enrage boss status, timer or life based, manly when bosses have some unique mechanics to make dps mandatory only for final blow (i mean, placing enrages in current state would just push further the DPS or nothing meta. fights needs other reworks before this.)
Less “no dmg or one shot (usually random)” bosses. Less dmg sponges bosses.
More phased bosses (like lupi), at least final ones.

Just few things on top off my mind.
Oh, plus all the
fix bugs
fix rewards/time/effort ratio
and other usual DGs problems already discussed elsewhere.

Cymric.7368:

I can’t imagine how ArenaNet can make the game more difficult while catering to the weaker players.

solution: kitten the weaker players if they refuse to improve. that’s how games used to work. can’t do it? tough kitten, try harder.

As I’ve said before, it’s not so much that we want ‘hard content,’ I think it’s more we desire the social interactions and depth that we get from challenging content.

Yes, we would like some more challenging content, but not hard for the sake of being hard. (There is a difference) We want content that makes us think, forces us to interact with each other (although some of us would like heroes available). Content that makes other functions (beyond pure punch) desirable, and even necessary. We want depth, strategy, and teamwork. In short we want the old Underworld, Fissure of Foe, Deep, Urgoz, and even Sorrow’s Furnace. Content like that before it was ‘easy mode’d with speedclears and shadowform. Back when they required thought, strategic team builds, etc.

For me it is less about more difficult content and more about increasing the value of support and control as you said.

I think there is plenty of more difficult content, but the reward is not there, so getting people to go is difficult. I really want to run Arah, but my guildmates just want to do CoF, because they are trying to get gold for their legendaries. Having CoF be a gold mine in combination with the only end-game goal as getting legendaries and that in combination with the lack of usefulness of support/control, ANet has created a perfect storm for the 4 zerk warrior + mesmer CoF run.

I’d like to see Arah be more rewarding and for support/control to be more important for fights.

Above all, for me, I’d like to see death actually mean something. Right now dying is an annoyance. I die and am like grr now I gotta WP. I want death to actually be something I fear happening to my character. The best step towards this was the fact that you cannot WP during combat in dungeons, but imo, more needs to be done.

i think they should rework on the way players are downscaled because right now a lv 80 being lowered will 2/3 shot mobs in lower level areas i they could make the character a little bit stronger(considering the fact that players can get exo and even ascended tiers) than people one recommended area level.

Ryuujin.8236:

It’s quite the conundrum how to make things challenging while keeping the challenge relevant to all classes and builds.

Make a boss that tries to “eat” a character, but takes 150% damage increase when they do so. Make it so that the player “eaten” can be directed to a specific character, and if that character has too low hp/toughness, they die inside. A high tough/hp character would help the group by doing what they do best, taking damage.

Make a boss that requires a timed JP. 4 paths, 1 minute timer, random elements that try and knock you off on the way. The quicker it gets done, the more damage the boss takes. Put em close enough so that you can give boons like swiftness. Voila, now you’ve given a boss that high mobility characters can do well.

Give a boss that has no defiance (which should be gone in the first place), and has 4 legs. Stun/KD durations on the legs are tripled, to make it easier. Make one player carry an orb/other object to grab its attention while 4 others stun it at the same time to knock it to the ground, and the orb carrying player has to shove it in its mouth or whatever. Now you’re enabling people with larger control skills.

You want some more?

It’s not all that difficult (though actually making it would likely be tough, but that’s a whole new can of worms).

First let us consider the perspective of the company:
1. They require players
2. They want to improve in a cost effective manner
3. They want a strong positive community of gamers

Second let us consider the motivations of players:
1. Difficult content for the sake of difficult content (Traditional Nintendo Hard Gamer)
2. Item Reward (LBP)
3. Sightseers (Skyrim/ Journey/ Pokemon Snap)
4. Farmers/crafters (minecraft etc.)
5. Story gamers (Portal/ RPGs)
6. Mini-gamers (Mario Party,)
7. Barbie/GiJoe players (Sims)

What we experience now is the difficulty of meshing the rewards with the added complications of player skill and time. A player with restricted game time shouldn’t be expected to forfeit the dungeon section of the game completely because the game went from ranged difficulty to an all hardcore WoW clone. Wasn’t part of this games appeal in the diverse styles of play available, including solo non-support and experimentation with character builds?

Drops should be significant enough to at least pay for porting to an event location and armor repair. And as a story obsessed player I cannot begin to express how having the option of a post Zhaitan Orr would cause my cdo based facial ticks to ease.

Having new monsters and different objectives could alleviate some of the fatigue players are experiencing. Like maybe incorporating different styles of puzzles like cryptography or even putting game hints in the novels currently being released.

As far as Orr being ugly and unappealing to some players, the fix might be to aim for something horrifying but beautiful. The Richard (kitten) Tracy style cut-scene in Dragon Bash, and the purple crystal swath of Ascalon seem like appealing examples of what could be done to spice up the scenery where the zombies dwell. Like changing the style of the mist, perhaps forming it into spiky contorted units of graffiti. Even making the mist form the words of the current tortured wraiths, or the echoes of the cultural works of pre-destroyed Orr.

Hopefully many of these issues will be addressed by the industrious devs along with the addition of more languages

As a casual gamer, I wouldn’t be adverse to harder content being in the game. However, I would say that it would be a wise move for Anet if they made it in such a way that it was entirely optional and didn’t count towards some of the achievements as there’s probably no way for me to get them.

Yes, shout “man up and do it” to me all you want, I know where my skill level is and I know where my tolerance for fun is, and they don’t equal the 2 hour battles that some others find fun. I don’t judge them for finding it fun at all – all the best to them – but the more casual people shouldn’t be punished for not enjoying this either.

Basically, what I’m saying is, balance is needed. It’s likely that if Anet introduce harder and harder elements, a lot of people who originally tried GW2 for the very fact that it is designed so a casual gamer (perhaps, one like me who doesn’t have many friends who are also gamers and so can find it harder to group up and tackle dungeons with people who are tolerant of my inexperience and the fact that I choose builds I like to play rather than ones necessarily optimized for one particular gaming aspect) can enjoy the game and not feel marginalised or punished for this.

CrossedHorse.4261:

As a casual gamer, I wouldn’t be adverse to harder content being in the game. However, I would say that it would be a wise move for Anet if they made it in such a way that it was entirely optional and didn’t count towards some of the achievements as there’s probably no way for me to get them.

Yes, shout “man up and do it” to me all you want, I know where my skill level is and I know where my tolerance for fun is, and they don’t equal the 2 hour battles that some others find fun. I don’t judge them for finding it fun at all – all the best to them – but the more casual people shouldn’t be punished for not enjoying this either.

Basically, what I’m saying is, balance is needed. It’s likely that if Anet introduce harder and harder elements, a lot of people who originally tried GW2 for the very fact that it is designed so a casual gamer (perhaps, one like me who doesn’t have many friends who are also gamers and so can find it harder to group up and tackle dungeons with people who are tolerant of my inexperience and the fact that I choose builds I like to play rather than ones necessarily optimized for one particular gaming aspect) can enjoy the game and not feel marginalised or punished for this.

Don’t get me wrong, but don’t you think that players who show skill should be rewarded with achievements? A lot of players like to work on difficult content until they become good enough to get through it and there’s nothing as rewarding as to meet a challenge. Why do you want all the achievements if you know that at the moment you can’t compete with the average player?

Difficult content isn’t always in the end of a looong dungeon etc. It’s not always group-stuff. Some Jumping Puzzles are quite difficult for most players and those who make it to the end should be rewarded for investing the time to learn the puzzle imho.

Furthermore there are tons of achievements for casual players, but how many are there for skilled players? This should be in balance imho.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

CrossedHorse.4261:

As a casual gamer, I wouldn’t be adverse to harder content being in the game. However, I would say that it would be a wise move for Anet if they made it in such a way that it was entirely optional and didn’t count towards some of the achievements as there’s probably no way for me to get them.

Yes, shout “man up and do it” to me all you want, I know where my skill level is and I know where my tolerance for fun is, and they don’t equal the 2 hour battles that some others find fun. I don’t judge them for finding it fun at all – all the best to them – but the more casual people shouldn’t be punished for not enjoying this either.

Basically, what I’m saying is, balance is needed. It’s likely that if Anet introduce harder and harder elements, a lot of people who originally tried GW2 for the very fact that it is designed so a casual gamer (perhaps, one like me who doesn’t have many friends who are also gamers and so can find it harder to group up and tackle dungeons with people who are tolerant of my inexperience and the fact that I choose builds I like to play rather than ones necessarily optimized for one particular gaming aspect) can enjoy the game and not feel marginalised or punished for this.

Don’t get me wrong, but don’t you think that players who show skill should be rewarded with achievements? A lot of players like to work on difficult content until they become good enough to get through it and there’s nothing as rewarding as to meet a challenge. Why do you want all the achievements if you know that at the moment you can’t compete with the average player?

Difficult content isn’t always in the end of a looong dungeon etc. It’s not always group-stuff. Some Jumping Puzzles are quite difficult for most players and those who make it to the end should be rewarded for investing the time to learn the puzzle imho.

Furthermore there are tons of achievements for casual players, but how many are there for skilled players? This should be in balance imho.

Oh absolutely. You misinterpret me when I suggest caution and balance. I don’t mean there shouldn’t be harder/more difficult gameplay available and equally scaled rewards at the end of it.

My point was simply that it should be exactly that – optional stuff for the more skilled players, but without making the more casual/less experienced players feel like they’re unable to achieve things in the game if they don’t complete these. By all means, add new achievements, but don’t make them count towards some of the meta achievements all players would like to collect.

I completely agree with you that there should be a balance, and this is exactly what I was calling for. And I don’t want all the achievements. I’m content with the fact that due to various constrictions I will probably never get Dungeon Master, for instance. That’s fine, there are other ways to play the game, and I am ok with the fact that many of the rewards for completing dungeons will not come my way.

I guess I’m speaking from experience on a few other games where calls for harder and harder content became the norm, and in the end, a game that many casual players enjoyed became way beyond their scope, but we felt we needed to battle it out in order to play the game at all, which ruined the fun for everyone.

Ah I see what you mean. Well we want the same thing then.

CrossedHorse.4261:

By all means, add new achievements, but don’t make them count towards some of the meta achievements all players would like to collect.

Well I like a part of how they handled the latest living story rewards: The Shattered Wings were easy to achieve for every player if you show a bit of dedication and the other wings were more difficult to get. There is only a difference in appearance so you can see who tackled the harder stuff. The problem imho was: these wings were tradeable, so everyone could/can buy those for 13g. Also the way to get those was grindy.

What I would have loved to see: the holo-wings are for people who meet challenging stuff. The way it is now every player can grind both rewards. Meh.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Ah I see what you mean. Well we want the same thing then.

CrossedHorse.4261:

By all means, add new achievements, but don’t make them count towards some of the meta achievements all players would like to collect.

Well I like a part of how they handled the latest living story rewards: The Shattered Wings were easy to achieve for every player if you show a bit of dedication and the other wings were more difficult to get. There is only a difference in appearance so you can see who tackled the harder stuff. The problem imho was: these wings were tradeable, so everyone could/can buy those for 13g. Also the way to get those was grindy.

What I would have loved to see: the holo-wings are for people who meet challenging stuff. The way it is now every player can grind both rewards. Meh.

I thought this was good too, though really since the regular holo wings were also available as rare drops from dragon coffers, this sort of negated any sign of skill/dedication etc. You could have got lucky with the first one, which was a bit of a shame.

I agree with your last paragraph. My only regret is that since I am relatively new to the game, I don’t have a character levelled enough to have a backpiece to transmute my Shattered Wings on to!

just something for players who think they aren’t good players:

a good keybind AND/OR a nice gamepad work wonders. I absolutely saw a huge increase of skill when I look back at the release compared to now. I use this: http://img.clubic.com/02283070-photo-logitech-g-series-logitech-g13-1.jpg and it’s like magic. The best thing: my thumb controlls my movement WASD via the small joystick. The gamepad is great for every PC-game also, so I’d recommend it to everyone out there who still plays with the keyboard.

just to give some casuals hope, you will get better. You will get a lot better using keybinds / gamepads. You may not notice it that much because it consists of thousands of tiny steps, but others can see the difference clearly.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

just something for players who think they aren’t good players:

a good keybind AND/OR a nice gamepad work wonders. I absolutely saw a huge increase of skill when I look back at the release compared to now. I use this: http://img.clubic.com/02283070-photo-logitech-g-series-logitech-g13-1.jpg and it’s like magic. The best thing: my thumb controlls my movement WASD via the small joystick. The gamepad is great for every PC-game also, so I’d recommend it to everyone out there who still plays with the keyboard.

just to give some casuals hope, you will get better. You will get a lot better using keybinds / gamepads. You may not notice it that much because it consists of thousands of tiny steps, but others can see the difference clearly.

This sounds amazing. I’ll be saving up for one. I’ve often wondered how players I admire seem to keep up the constant motion while firing off skills at the same time (not saying this is how they’re all doing it, of course), whereas even at high level it seems others were much less fluid with their multi-tasking. I thought they must have a third hand or something, lol.

Thanks – and thanks for the encouragement. GW2 is definitely a game I want to become good at.

CrossedHorse.4261:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

just something for players who think they aren’t good players:

a good keybind AND/OR a nice gamepad work wonders. I absolutely saw a huge increase of skill when I look back at the release compared to now. I use this: http://img.clubic.com/02283070-photo-logitech-g-series-logitech-g13-1.jpg and it’s like magic. The best thing: my thumb controlls my movement WASD via the small joystick. The gamepad is great for every PC-game also, so I’d recommend it to everyone out there who still plays with the keyboard.

just to give some casuals hope, you will get better. You will get a lot better using keybinds / gamepads. You may not notice it that much because it consists of thousands of tiny steps, but others can see the difference clearly.

This sounds amazing. I’ll be saving up for one. I’ve often wondered how players I admire seem to keep up the constant motion while firing off skills at the same time (not saying this is how they’re all doing it, of course), whereas even at high level it seems others were much less fluid with their multi-tasking. I thought they must have a third hand or something, lol.

Thanks – and thanks for the encouragement. GW2 is definitely a game I want to become good at.

My pleasure! Believe me, it makes a huge difference. I tried the keyboard first but when it didn’t work out I felt bad and was quite convinced that I’m just a bad player. I had problems strafing while pressing other keys and F1-F4 were rarely used. Now I cycle through the Ele-attunements nearly too fast… it’s so handy. I don’t even have to use shift+commands, every single skill can be used with pressing 1 button. I even have a hotkey for the map, the charactersheet and my inventory.

if you haven’t found it yet, look here:
http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-G13-Programmable-Gameboard-Display/dp/B001NEK2GE/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

it seems a bit expensive at first, but I use it for every single game and imho it was worth it. If it would break somehow, I would buy the same again and again. Believe me, when you have the keybind in your head (configured how it is logical for you) and don’t have to press multiple commands with the same finger while trying to move with the same, you will become much better.

this is my personal gw2 configuration on the g13:
http://i.imgur.com/pteyNyB.jpg
G14 – V is the most important one. Having “Dodge” on one button instead of double tab is so much better.

Wow – I can imagine that taking a while to get to grips with. Though I already know I’d find the joystick element useful as I’m primarily a console gamer. WASD etc really doesn’t come naturally for me, lol. :p

The other thing I’ve heard about is the MMO mouse rather than a whole gaming pad? I know I’d still have to use the WASD keys for movement, but the skills could at least all be reached very easily by one finger (er, thumb) on my mouse. I don’t know if you’ve used one of these, or just the gamepad route?

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

just something for players who think they aren’t good players:

a good keybind AND/OR a nice gamepad work wonders. I absolutely saw a huge increase of skill when I look back at the release compared to now. I use this: http://img.clubic.com/02283070-photo-logitech-g-series-logitech-g13-1.jpg and it’s like magic. The best thing: my thumb controlls my movement WASD via the small joystick. The gamepad is great for every PC-game also, so I’d recommend it to everyone out there who still plays with the keyboard.

just to give some casuals hope, you will get better. You will get a lot better using keybinds / gamepads. You may not notice it that much because it consists of thousands of tiny steps, but others can see the difference clearly.

I’ve actually tried this with not much luck. I bought a Nostromo, but the issue comes down to the fact that I am srsly handicapped with my left hand. As yet, I’ve not been able to overcome this issue (I don’t WASD, I use the mouse to move). I’m trying, but its amazingly frustrating.

Tuning up Diff without tuning Spawn Rates down first is a Disaster in the making.
All it does is put even more emphasis on TTK which is overemphasized as it is

.

(yeah I use a gamepad too … it makes a big difference … but I was lefthanded to begin with so YMMV)

I tried a Gamer Mouse but it doesn’t work for me personally. I need my right hand to fully move the camera and I can’t do this viable and at the same time handle skills with it.

personal preference

there wasn’t much getting used to the G13, it worked quite fast actually. I played with keybinds on the keybord at first but since the keys are diagonally I always had problems hitting the right key when moving up or down with my fingers. The G13 has the keys one below the other.

I think something that people REALLY need to stop focusing on is the idea that there has to be JUST hard or JUST easy content.

There can be very easy or easy content (the current), medium content, moderate content, hard content and very hard content.

GIVE PLAYERS GAMEPLAY PROGRESSION, I dunno maybe I spend too much time as a GM doing pen and paper roleplays and designing encounters but it is very doable to give players multiple options and places/challenges.

Time is something that needs to be rewarded and challenge is something that should lower the time barrier for the same reward. Defiance needs a change, it needs to be there but I think it needs a major change up in how it works.

Boss fights need to be more like fractal boss fights, the MF charged berserker or most of the story boss fights.
I swear go back to the story dungeons, imagine a harder version of it that was a bit more punishing and had some fractal mechanics… that is all that is needed to balance out dungeons.

The game can survive with harder content but it is needing that middle ground so people CAN learn to play the game, so they CAN learn how to use their trait lines and not just spam an ability.

People complain about the grawl fractal boss but by god he is well designed, it takes advantage of CC abilities, DPS and support, admittedly CC could be better but it still takes advantage of all three.

Also until the much higher levels fractal trash mobs get the HP/damage ratio just right… They have CC, they support each other, they do enough damage and they aren’t HP tanks that destroy the active feel of combat… The fights are fun and engaging without being boring or too time consuming.

But yeah as I said, go back to the story mode dungeons and see how much better designed the encounters are and how the dungeons themselves are longer.
Personally I am going to go back and two man every storymode dungeon just for laughs and because I can see it being a fun experience.

Oh and world boss meta events, make them harder and make a big chain of events to unlock the meta boss with a failure state… This way you can reward the completion with higher rewards without unbalancing the structure of the game.

I can stand still in the red circles of the shadow behemoth and not get hurt, even with my recently created level 8 asura… Not a single person goes down or gets hurt…. Why can’t there be more portals around queensdale that randomise in location and number, have people do more, have the shadow behemoth trying to break through in multiple areas, or rise up in different parts of the swamp (like a gigantic whack a mole)

Different attacks… I was watching beta footage again from the first beta, holy cow things did more damage… even at level 10-15 they did HEAPS more damage, heck bandits even dodged… dodging enemies. The frostwurm from the norn opening could down players with one whip around…

Keep dreaming about GW2 having good PvE bros. What has AN done in a YEAR that gave you any hope ?

No thank you. The difficulty is just fine for me.
There is a simple way to make “easy” content more challenging. Take off your exotics and accessories. Use builds that you haven’t “min/maxed”. Use armor/skills that are appropriate for the level area you are playing in.

Lynne.8416:

No thank you. The difficulty is just fine for me.
There is a simple way to make “easy” content more challenging. Take off your exotics and accessories. Use builds that you haven’t “min/maxed”. Use armor/skills that are appropriate for the level area you are playing in.

So rather than have a balanced game with 60-70% in the easy area… Everyone should have easy content with no medium, hard or very hard content because YOU don’t want it.

Hate to tell you but running dungeons with most builds and even with masterwork gear and only exotic armour isn’t exactly a hard thing… I even run with under 80’s for stuff like AC and CM.

The thing is more about how they are set up at the moment is terrible.

I bet you are one of those people who consistently whine about the mobs in SS being too hard r_r… when all 80 areas should be atleast that damaging.

unknowable.8470:

Lynne.8416:

No thank you. The difficulty is just fine for me.
There is a simple way to make “easy” content more challenging. Take off your exotics and accessories. Use builds that you haven’t “min/maxed”. Use armor/skills that are appropriate for the level area you are playing in.

So rather than have a balanced game with 60-70% in the easy area… Everyone should have easy content with no medium, hard or very hard content because YOU don’t want it.

Hate to tell you but running dungeons with most builds and even with masterwork gear and only exotic armour isn’t exactly a hard thing… I even run with under 80’s for stuff like AC and CM.

The thing is more about how they are set up at the moment is terrible.

I bet you are one of those people who consistently whine about the mobs in SS being too hard r_r… when all 80 areas should be atleast that damaging.

Nope, not a whiner. Whatever Anet chooses to do, I’m okay with and will adapt or go elsewhere. It’s just a game to me.
If I feel content is too difficult, then I stay away from it or go with a group. I do what is fun in the game for me. If it’s not fun to me, then there is no sense in doing it then.