Guild Wars 2

I’m not sure if this has been suggested before, so I apologize. If it has been suggested before, please merge this with the existing thread so the forums don’t get too cluttered! (the forum search function gave me nothing)

EDIT: Real quick edit here! The changes presented here will NOT carry over into PvP, but they WILL carry over into WvW. Subject to change obviously!

I present a Hard Mode for players looking for a challenge. This mode would be selectable when you create a new character, and will only be active for that character as long as it is in a character slot. It would offer a slightly higher challenge by changing a few basic things:

Arbitrary changes:

-Slightly less stats across the board
-More falling damage than usual
-Skills cost a bit more to unlock (discuss? This was just a random one I thought I’d add for discussion)
-Armor is damaged far easier after each death

Other changes:

-[Exhausted Debuff] Similar to how the current debuff functions (when you go down, you get less HP for every consecutive down), this would, on top of the already present debuff, make you wait for a few seconds before respawning at a waypoint. You will have to wait increasingly longer for each consecutive death, and you can get rid of the debuff by staying alive for long enough to make it go away (similar to how respawns work in competitive games).*

*I just realized that a player laying there down for long enough could mean upscaling events and things of that nature. We could change this to an across-the-board 5-10 second respawn with no increase in wait time for consecutive deaths.

-Death Clause: If you die a certain number of times, you are only able to waypoint back to the nearest waypoint closest to an area transition gate (for example, you die 5 times fighting Shadow Behemoth, you must use the Shaemoor Village waypoint, etc.). This is to increase the amount of money spent on waypoints to prevent the ‘die, respawn’ cycle. This clause disappears if you waypoint out of the map entirely (for example, you die 5 times as above, but you waypoint into Kessex Hills, you are able to waypoint to any point open in Kessex Hills, but not Queensdale)

Those are just general changes. Here are some proposed changes to the Personal Story/Living story (all changes suggested ABOVE are still in effect when in any instance):

Arbitrary changes:
-PS/LS enemies and bosses have slightly more health and stats
-Stability and Defiance last slightly longer on enemies
-Slightly more trash enemies (not sure about this one honestly)

Other changes:
-Death Clause: If you die X amount of times during a Living Story episode, you must start from the first chapter of that episode. All achievements and rewards/items gained during that episode are KEPT upon death, however.

So, why would a player want to try Hard Mode? It’s easy: more rewards. Things like unique skins for beating the PS, unique titles for reaching milestones on a Hard Mode character, and possibly even other things. Here are some proposed rewards for milestones in Hard Mode:

[Beat the Personal Story] – When a Hard Mode character beats their personal story, they are rewarded with a unique skin of their choice for a weapon and an armor piece. The piece of equipment will be account bound. They are also rewarded with 7 Tomes of Knowledge.

[Beat a Living Story episode] – When a Hard Mode character beats a Living Story episode, they are rewarded with slightly more money, karma and EXP, as well as a unique loot bag called, “Bag of Heroic Goods” (subject to change…) which will contain one of the following (players can CHOOSE what they want from the Bag):

-A Bag of T6 crafting materials
-A rare/exotic armor/weapon (possibly same loot table as current bags that drop them?))
-5 Skill Point Scrolls
-2,000-3,000 Liquid Karma
-10 Mystic Coins
Once used, the Bag is consumed. You cannot receive more bags from consecutive playthroughs on the same character, on the same episode.

[Titles] – Some unique titles for reaching these milestones (which, of course, will have achievement points tied to them):

-{Heroic Dragonslayer} – Defeat Zhaitan as a Hard Mode character
-{Stoic Dungeoneer} – Complete every dungeon’s Story Mode and every dungeon’s Explorable Mode path as a Hard Mode character
-{Steel Legs} – As a Hard Mode character, complete every Jumping Puzzle.
-{Antique Atlas} – Explore 100% of the world as a Hard Mode character
-{A Legend Is Born} – Craft a Legendary weapon on a Hard Mode character

So, any thoughts, suggestions of your own? What would YOUR version of Hard Mode challenge a player with? Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to see what you all think!

No offense, but “hard” in GW2 is more dependent upon individual player skill than anything else.

Simulated hard mode has already been demonstrated by such things as naked and un-traited dungeon runs, solo runs, etc.

While providing additional rewards for this style of play would be nice, players able to perform under such conditions are already inherently compensated by being able to acquire gold/exp/karma/tokens/loot at a faster rate than “average” players under the existing implementation. So much so that changes were implemented to nerf rewards, and events to slow down the earning rate – even so far as to be entirely removed.

Additionally, unless a way to explicitly segregate “hard” tagged characters from the rest of the population is implemented, it’d be easy to exploit the rewards by being carried by “normal” players. While possible, it’s development resource that could probably be better spent elsewhere on existing content that needs attention (or new content) accessible by the majority of the player base.

Not trying to come down on the idea, but if a challenge is the goal (not the reward) than this can already be done on an individual basis quite easily. As another example, someone in Queensdale was map-chatting about attempting getting level 80 and world complete w/o a death (perma-death style) – even though there is no “survivor” title. People are already challenging themselves w/o expectation of reward – the effort being its own reward.

It’s fine, I knew it was a really, really stupid idea from the get-go. I should probably avoid theorycrafting altogether from now on, I’m horrible at it

Let’s let this thread disappear into the depths.

MrWubzy.3587:

It’s fine, I knew it was a really, really stupid idea from the get-go. I should probably avoid theorycrafting altogether from now on, I’m horrible at it

Let’s let this thread disappear into the depths.

Not a stupid idea at all; it’s been done well in other games.

Unfortunately, it just may not be optimal for GW2 at this time. Never hurts to explore options which could benefit the game.

Mourningcry.9428:

MrWubzy.3587:

It’s fine, I knew it was a really, really stupid idea from the get-go. I should probably avoid theorycrafting altogether from now on, I’m horrible at it

Let’s let this thread disappear into the depths.

Not a stupid idea at all; it’s been done well in other games.

Unfortunately, it just may not be optimal for GW2 at this time. Never hurts to explore options which could benefit the game.

I understand it’s not very optimal. And it’s probably best that it’s not put in, seeing as we already have many players who have issues completing content as is. But as you said, it never hurts to explore other things! I’d like to hear other people’s opinions, maybe we can improve this suggestion with some more critique?