Guild Wars 2

Hello,

After facing the bosses of the Super Adventure Box, it got me thinking of what I would like to see in the Meta/Dungeon bosses in the real world. I am quite anxious to see what the new Tequatl the Sunless has to bring, but I would like to bring up a few suggestions that could potentially make the other Meta bosses more interesting/accessible:

1) The players’ use of Environmental Weapons such as Bundles/Turrets should be the focus of defeating the Boss
I present this point mostly in regard to the newly released Ascended weapons; no doubt, those with Ascended weapons will deal more damage than those without. To fix this I think that environmental weapons (with interesting skills) should be available in all meta boss fights, that are a more effective means than a normal weapon of any tier when used correctly. These weapons should have skills that need to be used in the right way to maximize effectiveness. What will this accomplish?

• You will not need a BiS weapon when facing a boss. You will be able to participate regardless of what weapon you have.

• Since these weapons will be available for Bosses only, you would still have an incentive to try to get BiS gear to use in other areas of the game.
  I think that the Claw of Jormag fight is a good start to this, with the Charrzookas and the Pact Golems/Flamethrowers.

• Your performance will be based on how well you use/learn to use these new skills, rather than how much damage your normal weapon deals.

2) Meta bosses should have more target-able areas to attack, with different locations producing different effects depending on the method they were damaged
Again, I will use the Claw of Jormag fight as an analogy. Suppose that using a Pact Bomb (which no one uses as of today) on the Claw’s foot enough times would cause him to loose balance, and open up a target on his head for period of time that was more vulnerable. Something along these lines would be a good base. Of course, there should be a large risk attached that requires good skill to execute, but the payoff could be huge. What does this accomplish?

• This puts more emphasis on involving yourself in the battle, as well as trying to discover different ways to use your environmental weapon and figuring out the boss’s weakness.

• It allows skilled players to be able to test themselves and perhaps defeat the boss quicker, and allow lesser-skilled players to avoid doing so if they feel faint-of-heart.

3) Bosses should react to the concentration of players in an area
It would be difficult to do for all cases, but there should be some “safe spots” during boss fights that are not so safe if too many players congregate to them. A dragon should be smart enough to slam its foot down on a bunch of people. There could even be destructible areas the boss could destroy (that would reappear later). Even if bosses are given a scripted attack pattern, like SAB’s Storm Wizard (Phase II), there should be some incentive to have the players constantly aware of the boss’s positioning as well as their own. What does this accomplish?

• Again, it gets the player more involved in actually fighting the boss instead of standing in one spot and attacking it.

• Players could be driven to attack other areas of the boss to induce what was mentioned in 2)

• The environment would play a bigger part in the battle instead of just being scenery.

I presented my suggestions to some guildies who seemed to misunderstand some of my points, so I will clarify a few things just in case.
-I am not saying that your equipment shouldn’t matter: I think equipment should matter with things like trash mobs but Environmental Weapons should be the key to taking down the boss.
-I am not saying that the bosses should be impossible; the bosses should be more engaging and enticing to play from start to finish.
-I am not considering the loot at the end: that’s a whole ’nother can of sardines.

Overall I believe skillful gameplay is the best reward in itself.

http://assets0.ordienetworks.com/images/GifGuide/michael_scott/The-Office-gifs-the-office-14948948-240-196.gif

This is the worst suggestion ever.

runeblade.7514:

http://assets0.ordienetworks.com/images/GifGuide/michael_scott/The-Office-gifs-the-office-14948948-240-196.gif

This is the worst suggestion ever.

How so?

I personally think these points have some merit:

• requiring the use of various environmental weapons gives the whole organizational aspect to a fight. As well as this, it adds a layer to the fight; needing to protect the environmental weapons.
• Having the boss focus fire on large clumps of enemies eliminates safe zones where people stand and just auto-attack.

However, without improving the targeting system first, number 2 would just be frustrating.

Adding to this:

• Any mechanics the boss has should scale according to the number of players participating, to encourage all players to take not of the mechanics. For example: The Shatterer’s healing crystals; Shadow Behemoth’s portals

• Megaboss fights should have multiple ways you can fail it so that not all players are focused on one thing. For example, with The Shatterer, if: all of the siege are destroyed; all of the players are dead.

Although having some bosses focused on bundles aren’t bad, I still play a dungeon mostly to play my char, my class and my build, not something fixed I’ll never see again elsewhere.

I like your ideas, but one thing you have to keep in mind when discussing open world bosses is FPS and lag. Although I like the idea of being more on edge during these fights, I would not enjoy too much dependence on moving and reacting quickly to the bosses movements as I get very low performance during these fights..

Your suggestions to the instanced dungeon bosses I’m more welcome to though

sazberryftw.3809:

I like your ideas, but one thing you have to keep in mind when discussing open world bosses is FPS and lag. Although I like the idea of being more on edge during these fights, I would not enjoy too much dependence on moving and reacting quickly to the bosses movements as I get very low performance during these fights..

Your suggestions to the instanced dungeon bosses I’m more welcome to though

Lag can be “fixed” if they add an option to “turn off special effects”. The other game I used to play have this. Sure, it’ll look dull and bland, but hey, playable > lag.

OP’s suggestion needs to be implemented inside dungeons too.

TheDaiBish.9735:

runeblade.7514:

http://assets0.ordienetworks.com/images/GifGuide/michael_scott/The-Office-gifs-the-office-14948948-240-196.gif

This is the worst suggestion ever.

How so?

I personally think these points have some merit:

• requiring the use of various environmental weapons gives the whole organizational aspect to a fight. As well as this, it adds a layer to the fight; needing to protect the environmental weapons.
• Having the boss focus fire on large clumps of enemies eliminates safe zones where people stand and just auto-attack.

However, without improving the targeting system first, number 2 would just be frustrating.

Adding to this:

• Any mechanics the boss has should scale according to the number of players participating, to encourage all players to take not of the mechanics. For example: The Shatterer’s healing crystals; Shadow Behemoth’s portals

• Megaboss fights should have multiple ways you can fail it so that not all players are focused on one thing. For example, with The Shatterer, if: all of the siege are destroyed; all of the players are dead.

trivialize the profession you choose to play and game mechanics.

Exactly like SAB does.

If you like gw2 you don t play SAB (personal opinion)

For me, a large part of the fun comes from preparing my build for a fight. Making all my skills and traits line up in perfect synergy. Preferably to the builds of my teammates aswell.

Dungeons are pretty much the only places in which this comes into play. And even there I believe changes could be made to improve this. (here)

If my fighting capabilities were to be outshined by an environmental weapon this would take out a large part of the fun for me. Building a character over the course of the game, getting to know the mechanics and learning when to use which traits and skills is to me one of the most awesome parts of the game.

I can see that your suggestion would take away the unbalance between people with better and worse gear. I would also prefer ascended weaponry not to be more powerful than exotic gear. But even with it’s current increase, the rest of a build should still easily outshine the gains made by wearing ascended over exotic.

Areas like SAB are cool in a sense that they allow you to play at top level without having to invest time in leveling or getting fitting gear. I just don’t think this should be applied to dungeon bosses, since this is pretty much the only place where the other approach really shines. (Dungeon bosses take up most of the time in dungeons, trash mobs… well you don’t really need to have any good gear or traitsets to get past those in most cases)

On world bosses, I think it would be cool if the pact weapons were more effective. The joy of bringing a good build is lost in this zergfestival most of the time anyways. Running bombs actually allows for a lot more active gameplay than just standing on the hills spamming 1.

Regarding your second suggestion. I believe it would be pretty cool if there was a way to get above the claw of Jormag to drop a bomb on her head for some sort of extra impact. (Perhaps replacing one golem bomb-hit). A tough jumping puzzle that the claw would protect by fear and trying to blow you off.

More strategies than just attacking the crystals or the boss would spice up the world boss fight indeed.

As for suggestion 3, I would absolutely love to see the claw swipe her tail over the safe spot every now and then to toss all the players over the side.

I think you have some good suggestions for world bosses, but I would like my buildchoice to matter on dungeon bosses.

I’m excited to see what they have done with the new Tequatl fight. Hopefully there will be no safe spots anymore and people actually have to TRY to win the event.

I agree that bosses should focus more on concentrations of players. But I disagree that all of our weaponry should be rendered useless. What’s next, our armor? Cause we’ll have to craft ascended armor as well, so obviously some people will soon have an advantage over those that don’t have it. What really is the point of bosses, if we design them in such a way, that they render most of the game mechanics irrelevant? The whole point of ascended weapons and armor, is that you can craft something that is better than the normal variant. To then make that ascended status irrelevant against bosses, defeats the purpose of having those items in the first place.

I do agree that Bosses need to have more mechanics, which require us to play strategically and skillfully.

Each of your points hold merit OP, however point one is flawed slightly. By having the environmental effects (bundles, kits, w/e) become the ‘necessity’ to winning, you negate our weapons and skills. It becomes less about skill and more about simply knowing the rotation for the needed item. Instead, the environmental ‘extras’ should be part of the strategy to killing the boss – ie, needing to set up a laser at a given time, needing to kite him into a trap to weaken him enough to finally slay him, etc. These things in conjunction with skilled play. They’ve started do this some from the sounds of the Tequatl changes. Now they simply need to build on it.

1. HELLL NO- instant uninstall if this happens

2. That’s fine. Already in the game but fine.

3. Also already in the game in a very very limited capacity, but also fine.

1. Not in my lifetime. Like others have stated, this will be an instant uninstall if this happens.

2. I’m okay with that.

3. You’re basically talking about artificial intelligence at this point, which would be incredibly difficult to program, I’d imagine. With my limited knowledge of programming, I can already tell you that it’d be difficult, but doable. I’d like to see more of this in the future though.

[quote=2804638;LanfearShadowflame.3189:
Each of your points hold merit OP, however point one is flawed slightly. By having the environmental effects (bundles, kits, w/e) become the ‘necessity’ to winning, you negate our weapons and skills.[/quote]

I took the suggestion more charitably and read it as that these environmental weapons would be necessary, but not sufficient for success. Meaning there could be other areas of the encounter that we’d put to use our other skills if we so desired. Such as protecting the environmental weapons, making certain buffs more crucial to success, and of course direct damage.

SirMoogie.9263:

I took the suggestion more charitably and read it as that these environmental weapons would be necessary, but not sufficient for success. Meaning there could be other areas of the encounter that we’d put to use our other skills if we so desired. Such as protecting the environmental weapons, making certain buffs more crucial to success, and of course direct damage.

Just differences in how we perceive the same thing is all. Where you took it as ‘a necessary part of’ I took her phase ‘focus of defeating’ more as a ‘you need to use this to beat him instead of.’ Which in some instances, I’m still fine with that tactic. It changes it up a bit. I just wouldn’t want all bosses that way, because then I’d be asking myself why I bothered bringing my own stuff at all. chuckle Thus why I said ‘flawed slightly.’ =)