Guild Wars 2

Sounds like I have to check Orr out again. I’ve never enjoyed my time there because of the ridiculous mob density and as a result, I’m sure I’ve missed ton of cool events.

Sorry 100% world completion, you’ll have to wait for a bit more…

Love the changes to Orr.

LOVE THE CHANGES TO ORR. So much easier to run from point A to point B without being chain pulled by Carl Lewis & 100m Zombie Sprint Finalists.

Love the changes, well, except the two catapults down the stairs from Arah…. lol

They keep knocking me on my kitten

Iruwen.3164:

digiowl.9620:

One thing i am learning from all this is that one players insanely difficult is another’s snooze fest. Can’t say i envy ANet trying to make the game fun for that wide a spread…

Mainly because the different classes and builds actually play very different. I.e. depending on your class and spec,you can eventually handle a lot of enemies or a few which are very strong, but they may respawn instantly once they’re down, leaving you no time to recover.

Perhaps. But independent of that the game focuses heavily on active defense.

Meaning that there are very little room for a build that do not require the player to continually run in circles, time dodges, blocks and interrupts (calling them controls are imo a misnomer) to within a second, and keep a internal by the second count so that he knows when his alternate, out of view, skill set is recharged and ready for use.

Meaning that if you are weak on any of those, the difficulty quickly skyrockets. I ever so often wish we could opt for a more “sustained” kind of blocking. This in that rather than having a 2-3 second window where the block has any effect, you hold down the block skill and, forgo any other actions, while waiting for the opponent to attack and run into the block.

I wonder how many blocks i have wasted, or not even bothered attempting, because i was a half second too late or too soon (meaning the block dropped right before the expected attack actually came).

In essence i find it quicker to just focus on grinding the enemy down than try, and likely fail, being fancy with blocks and interrupts. End result is that nearly half the 1-5 set goes unused on the weapon sets i try out.

Revamped Orr is more fun for this player, too. Thanks to whoever reworked the area.

its a bit better, bigger models and temple effects are cool.
mob density? doesnt change a thing for me, risens are like flys anyway, i smash them with my spin to win. keep them comin!

Here is a graphic representation of how I rate difficulty in GW2:

Std Zone=^
New Orr = #
Old Orr = %
Dungeon=*

Scale:
|.^.#…%…………………………..*.|

Orr should be a noticeable step more difficult vs a Std Map imo., the old Orr wasn’t far off, the new one plays a lot like a std map, other than you have the Cathedrals, which those are a noticeable step up from Std maps, that is good.

agreed.

open world is a bit too easy when your a geared 80.

it becomes a bit.. lame.. to smash all these beasties.

orr can bring a challenge once in a while.

The density wasn’t so much the issue imo as was the CC/snare effects. Now the snares seem to fail a lot for the poor things. The underwater one is still a pain, but haven’t seen them very much either.

Overall I think its quite ok, its definitely easier. Sadly it makes Lost Shores zone even more hard in comparison (I know this will be looked into later).

I think the upgrades to the temple fights are a quite a nice touch. Made them a little harder in some temples, but I like it. I think it makes up for the zone generally being easier.

Its definitely a step in the right direction considering, if you look at the amount of people that have now come back to Orr or even bother with Orr now it is quite fun. If the normal mobs and events are better and enjoyable (and travelling easier), then there is more people around when the temple events come up to participate. Which is always a good thing.

Yup there is more fun and less farm and grind, that’s what the game needs.

i dont see how being easier makes it more fun.

sooner than later, the only content that will interest me in pve will be the dungeons, everythin else is faceroll.

i can litteraly kill jormag while being afk.

and most temple are huge zerg. usually pretty easy because of the sheer number of toons there.
i dont feel “proud” when i finish an open world zerg event. its simply too easy.

challenge is about right when there is no zerg, while levelling up

Unfortunately this is an MMO, so it would be quite hard to exclude people from such events – that’s why dungeons exist. Although I agree that other games had more interesting mechanics for open world events, like Kazzak for example.

thats a problem with open world event..

mass zerg is never fun.. at least, imo.

dungeons is where it’s at. make half the world instanced for all i care! (wasnt gw1 like that? i never played)
themepark open world is full of fail at endgame (its great while levelling up/ gearing up, but thats it, then you are left with a few challenging maps only and a big world that you can spank for loot if you dont feel like playing.

I agree it’s much better now.

But it’s missing one important thing: Dragons. Still no excuse why we couldn’t have had a dragon in each of the 3 zones when they’re roaring around the place and flying in the sky.

I like the changes, it is fun instead if tortuous. AOE zergfest notwithstanding. Karma is secondary to tagging mobs for loot so you see the “best” in humanity.

That said it is now very possible to explore and hunt solo and that is a nice change of pace.

i soloed all orr prepatch on a guardian. easily.

but yeah, now i go there if i feel like spamming 1 on my staff attack to loot mobs……
which, i usually dont feel like.

Avatar.1923:

i dont see how being easier makes it more fun.

sooner than later, the only content that will interest me in pve will be the dungeons, everythin else is faceroll.

i can litteraly kill jormag while being afk.

I understand your point, but then you and others and some really mean it litterally….
“i can litteraly kill jormag while being afk”

I do not know how to do that, I am not even close to being able to do that. So build and gear must kick in something that a standard build simply doesn’t have. If what you say is true, this is a HUGE issue for Anet. They need to nerf the poop out of your build. That isn’t in the spirit of the game. I would suggest if you then want more a challenge, to not use a Exploiting build. There is no way on any of my chars my guy can beat anyone of note worthiness while being AFK. What that tells me, if true, you heal faster naturally then you take damage, as I would consider AFK means you are just auto-attacking back.

I write this as this has been said enough over the months about “I go change laundry while still fighting and beating X”. Either that is botting which I won’t accuse you of, or something so simple that you stand there, auto attack kicks in and you heal naturally faster than the damage they deal to you. I HAVE NEVER SEEN THIS. You shouldn’t be complaining about the AI toughness but your builds total overall power.

Avatar.1923:

thats a problem with open world event..

mass zerg is never fun.. at least, imo.

dungeons is where it’s at. make half the world instanced for all i care! (wasnt gw1 like that? i never played)
themepark open world is full of fail at endgame (its great while levelling up/ gearing up, but thats it, then you are left with a few challenging maps only and a big world that you can spank for loot if you dont feel like playing.

GW1 was all instances. However their instances were 3x easier then GW2 dungeons. Meaning any player could beat 95% of 100 instances without complaining. Which is well under your skill level. They did add a hard, which is probably 1/2 the difficulty of GW2 dungeons.

hehe.
just keep shooting range at jormag.
with a guard, he cant down you.

when the mobs appear, this is more tricky.

but overall its a very VERY forgiving fight…
its not a challenge whatsoever.
its a graphic show off with free loot.

I’m probably in the minority, but I liked Orr, difficulty wise, the way it was. Rather than cutting the difficulty I would have liked it if they just upped the reward.

The game needs more open zone areas where player cooperation is highly encouraged by difficulty, not less.

Orr is just plain too easy now. That’s fine, but can we get something in terms of an open zone with a better risk/reward? I honestly like southsun, but don’t bother soloing the vets (which are the most fun mobs to fight) any more because the drops are awful, and now, without the rich orichalum node, the entire “adventure” of the average southsun run doesn’t have much of a payoff.

Avatar.1923:

hehe.
just keep shooting range at jormag.
with a guard, he cant down you.

when the mobs appear, this is more tricky.

but overall its a very VERY forgiving fight…
its not a challenge whatsoever.
its a graphic show off with free loot.

Ok, so is this very specific to a few encounters? Lets say you go into a general dungeon, with so-called Dungeon trash mobs, can you AFK them with Auto-Attack? I go down in about 6 seconds.

PopeUrban.2578:

I’m probably in the minority, but I liked Orr, difficulty wise, the way it was. Rather than cutting the difficulty I would have liked it if they just upped the reward.

The game needs more open zone areas where player cooperation is highly encouraged by difficulty, not less.

Orr is just plain too easy now. That’s fine, but can we get something in terms of an open zone with a better risk/reward? I honestly like southsun, but don’t bother soloing the vets (which are the most fun mobs to fight) any more because the drops are awful, and now, without the rich orichalum node, the entire “adventure” of the average southsun run doesn’t have much of a payoff.

I can buy into that. The pulling seemed to be the biggest annoyance. Perhaps just limiting that and keeping density might have been a good middle ground. But I could also have seen the baddies just being another say 25% tougher. Now it’s a gold mining area, which I’m ok with that, can use the gold.

Horrorscope.7632:

Avatar.1923:

hehe.
just keep shooting range at jormag.
with a guard, he cant down you.

when the mobs appear, this is more tricky.

but overall its a very VERY forgiving fight…
its not a challenge whatsoever.
its a graphic show off with free loot.

Ok, so is this very specific to a few encounters? Lets say you go into a general dungeon, with so-called Dungeon trash mobs, can you AFK them with Auto-Attack? I go down in about 6 seconds.

no!
dungeons are cool!
nice difficulty!
i want more of this.
more dungeon and more instanced epic boss fights (to avoid zergs).

Horrorscope.7632:

PopeUrban.2578:

I’m probably in the minority, but I liked Orr, difficulty wise, the way it was. Rather than cutting the difficulty I would have liked it if they just upped the reward.

The game needs more open zone areas where player cooperation is highly encouraged by difficulty, not less.

Orr is just plain too easy now. That’s fine, but can we get something in terms of an open zone with a better risk/reward? I honestly like southsun, but don’t bother soloing the vets (which are the most fun mobs to fight) any more because the drops are awful, and now, without the rich orichalum node, the entire “adventure” of the average southsun run doesn’t have much of a payoff.

I can buy into that. The pulling seemed to be the biggest annoyance. Perhaps just limiting that and keeping density might have been a good middle ground. But I could also have seen the baddies just being another say 25% tougher. Now it’s a gold mining area, which I’m ok with that, can use the gold.

follow the zerg and spam aoe….
:/

^ on a guard it means,

use staff attack 1. again and again and again.
throw some buffs/powers here and there to amuse yourself.

Avatar.1923:

Horrorscope.7632:

Avatar.1923:

hehe.
just keep shooting range at jormag.
with a guard, he cant down you.

when the mobs appear, this is more tricky.

but overall its a very VERY forgiving fight…
its not a challenge whatsoever.
its a graphic show off with free loot.

Ok, so is this very specific to a few encounters? Lets say you go into a general dungeon, with so-called Dungeon trash mobs, can you AFK them with Auto-Attack? I go down in about 6 seconds.

no!
dungeons are cool!
nice difficulty!
i want more of this.
more dungeon and more instanced epic boss fights (to avoid zergs).

Got it, but please don’t ignore my point. Is it because you have a great build and I have an average one? That could vary difficulty wildly. My guess is Anet wants all reasonable builds to be competitive with another. So lets say you have a great build, that could affect your reasoning of balance, as does my build.

There is a huge difference, I’m talking on a level of 10x if you can stand there in a dungeon and take down mobs doing really nothing. No wonder you like it or want it more difficult. You make it sound like a level 80 in the OW going to Level 20 and fighting in a zone. I have never experienced that at all in a dungeon. So perhaps I’m barking up the wrong tree. Maybe builds need to be normalized and then from there adjust Dungeons if needed.

Maybe I’m just a weirdo, but I never actually found Orr hard. It was just monotonous. It was just fighting the same set of enemies all the time, with no real variation – just throwing in lots of fights to compensate for the repetition.

The only time I would actually run into difficulty would be when I got so bored of killing more or less identical Risen that I would lose patience and make a run for wherever I wanted to go, and in the process draw too much aggro.

So to me, it’s not about difficulty, it’s about turning the zone into more than just mashing the same buttons over and over, and actually having the breathing room to choose whether I want to fight every possible fight, or keep moving toward a further goal. For me, that’s a welcome change.

Basically, almost everyone I’ve seen that says they liked how Orr was before is a Guardian or Warrior with the usual overpowered builds who just faceroll through everything the game has.

The rest of us are playing the other classes in the game who have a hard enough time as it is and were struggling with massive amounts of frustration in Orr. Personally, I’m actually enjoying the zones now, whereas before I simply refused to go in them. I had resigned myself to waiting to complete those maps until I absolutely had to(and could get a group of guildies to go with). Now, I’m enjoying myself.

Rhysati.4932:

Personally, I’m actually enjoying the zones now, whereas before I simply refused to go in them. I had resigned myself to waiting to complete those maps until I absolutely had to(and could get a group of guildies to go with). Now, I’m enjoying myself.

Same. My main is a Ranger, and I wasn’t having trouble with the survivability or winning the fights… it was just so boring. I would avoid Orr because it took forever to fight through loads of very similar mobs to get anywhere, and that’s not interesting to me.

Now I’m actually having fun exploring Orr because I can look at things besides Risen health bars and skill animations.

It seems like some posters (not the person I quoted) think the only reason people might welcome this change is to lower the difficulty, and that isn’t the case.

Horrorscope.7632:

Avatar.1923:

Horrorscope.7632:

Avatar.1923:

hehe.
just keep shooting range at jormag.
with a guard, he cant down you.

when the mobs appear, this is more tricky.

but overall its a very VERY forgiving fight…
its not a challenge whatsoever.
its a graphic show off with free loot.

Ok, so is this very specific to a few encounters? Lets say you go into a general dungeon, with so-called Dungeon trash mobs, can you AFK them with Auto-Attack? I go down in about 6 seconds.

no!
dungeons are cool!
nice difficulty!
i want more of this.
more dungeon and more instanced epic boss fights (to avoid zergs).

Got it, but please don’t ignore my point. Is it because you have a great build and I have an average one? That could vary difficulty wildly. My guess is Anet wants all reasonable builds to be competitive with another. So lets say you have a great build, that could affect your reasoning of balance, as does my build.

There is a huge difference, I’m talking on a level of 10x if you can stand there in a dungeon and take down mobs doing really nothing. No wonder you like it or want it more difficult. You make it sound like a level 80 in the OW going to Level 20 and fighting in a zone. I have never experienced that at all in a dungeon. So perhaps I’m barking up the wrong tree. Maybe builds need to be normalized and then from there adjust Dungeons if needed.

i said the dungeon difficulty is good. i cannot, repeat, cannot facetank beasts in there.
open world is the problem.

Rhysati.4932:

Basically, almost everyone I’ve seen that says they liked how Orr was before is a Guardian or Warrior with the usual overpowered builds who just faceroll through everything the game has.

The rest of us are playing the other classes in the game who have a hard enough time as it is and were struggling with massive amounts of frustration in Orr. Personally, I’m actually enjoying the zones now, whereas before I simply refused to go in them. I had resigned myself to waiting to complete those maps until I absolutely had to(and could get a group of guildies to go with). Now, I’m enjoying myself.

thats possible. i play guardian. with a GS…

but how come i’m useless in wvw

Now we should make topics for unofficial temple rush server so we can guest to it and all play there when we want to get a lot of temples done/get to the karma merchants. I honestly feel that that is the only reason guesting was needed. Orr can be a huge population on one server and everyone can guest there.

its a bit bORRing with too many people.

zerg kill the temple no sweat.

make the temples as instances.
with a queue, full on wow style.
at least there’s gonna be some challenge and pressure.
make the other people able to watch your group get spanked for tyria on the big screen!

Rhysati.4932:

Basically, almost everyone I’ve seen that says they liked how Orr was before is a Guardian or Warrior with the usual overpowered builds who just faceroll through everything the game has.

what about this squishy Elementalist then? xD

I agree they did a nice job on most of the stuff in the last patch.

Rhysati.4932:

Basically, almost everyone I’ve seen that says they liked how Orr was before is a Guardian or Warrior with the usual overpowered builds who just faceroll through everything the game has.

The rest of us are playing the other classes in the game who have a hard enough time as it is and were struggling with massive amounts of frustration in Orr. Personally, I’m actually enjoying the zones now, whereas before I simply refused to go in them. I had resigned myself to waiting to complete those maps until I absolutely had to(and could get a group of guildies to go with). Now, I’m enjoying myself.

+1

I wonder if we did poll here of the comments vs the profession would it show up any real trends. I think (totally anecdotal opinion) that those commenting that Orr is now too easy fit into one or two “blessed” professions in terms of current combat effectiveness….ie it is a class balance issue rather than a scenario design issue.

Did Grenth the other night and was expecting to get blown to bits from what everyone was chatting about on the boards here, but we didn’t wipe at all, and it was actually a lot more fun than before. I dig it

The Putrifier pull attack has been nerfed, I believe. I miss it because he always looked funny, as ke knocked himself out as well with it. The spiders still pull, though, which is nice.

The abomination looks way mroe abominable now. Good graphical change, and ditto for every Risen Veteran that was enlarged.

I was afraid they were going to make it too easy (I never thought the density was a problem), but it seems about right. I can still gather a few mobs around me if I so desire.

Aoshi.4785:

Did Grenth the other night and was expecting to get blown to bits from what everyone was chatting about on the boards here, but we didn’t wipe at all, and it was actually a lot more fun than before. I dig it

There was another small patch that addressed several parts of it.

Horrorscope.7632:

Aoshi.4785:

Did Grenth the other night and was expecting to get blown to bits from what everyone was chatting about on the boards here, but we didn’t wipe at all, and it was actually a lot more fun than before. I dig it

There was another small patch that addressed several parts of it.

That was probably it then. When I saw the AOE’s cover the floor, I was like “ok here we go” and got launched once, but I figured it out, and it wasn’t so bad.

That and the zerg we were in was the stuff of legends, lol.

Yeah here was the update:

Made the following changes to the Champion Risen Priest of Grenth boss:

Increased cooldown on Grenth’s Shadow Pull skill
Changed radius of spells
Modified attacks to do less damage
Modified attack area so as not to overlap on attacks
Modified Velocity of Teleport to allow player to not go into ceiling
Decreased the damage of Grenth’s Shadow Pull skill
Decreased the numbers of spells

Creeper.9360:

I think the changes to Orr have been excellent. Perhaps now add a few different events to change up the pace there and it’ll be gold.

I agree. A few guild mates and I ran through the Cursed Shores area last night to help one get the map open there, farm the plants and metal nodes and actually get involved with some of the events to finish out our new Dailies. Instead of dreading it, we had a lot more fun than expected.

Aoshi.4785:

Did Grenth the other night and was expecting to get blown to bits from what everyone was chatting about on the boards here, but we didn’t wipe at all, and it was actually a lot more fun than before. I dig it

We also got involved with this event as well. I remember the only other time I ever did this event, I spent more time defeated and running back from the way point to try and help out so the event would not fail.

Last night, however, I was actually able to help a lot better. I have the extended distance on my long bow and it came in very handy. I was able to help keep the NPC alive from all the shadows that kept spawning. But we had a very good group in there and managed to do a great job defeating them and the priest.

All-in-all this area has been improved. I actually like how the changes have affected my ability to be effective in my ranger build now. Before I had a lot of problem because of the density and insane CC of those mobs…so much so that I stayed away from it once I completed the map.

I didnt mind the amount of risen,they were no problem..it was the spawn rate time that bothered me.

Ghettoblade.7962:

I didnt mind the amount of risen,they were no problem..it was the spawn rate time that bothered me.

/…groan… please don’t get me started on that insane spawn rate timer. THAT was freakin idiotic.

My main is a thief, which meant Orr has never really been a challenge to navigate.

However the changes were much needed (after all my class is not the center of the universe) and iv actually been able to play through a few of the temples, much to my delight were extremely difficult.

Now if only Anet added a roaming/flying champion dragon on each of the orrian maps that kicked off a zone event in which a wide range of players and skill were needed to take it down….. Orr would be perfect.