Guild Wars 2

Vanquisher Title

Each zone should count toward progress on the overall Vanquisher title. To allow for expansion, the title could be split into region subsets (Maguuma Jungle Vanquisher, Krytan Vanquisher, etc.). Once gained, the title is not lost, but the required zones should expand to match the greater extents of additional zones.

Another possibility for the title is to have different levels based on region completion. Finishing one region awards one achievement and unlocks the next achievement, similar to PvP title progression. One region completed is a “Vanquisher.” Two, “Accomplished Vanquisher.” And so on.

The highest available tier should always be Legendary Vanquisher (as of this writing, that would be 6 regions: Ascalon, Shiverpeaks, Maguuma Jungle, Kryta, Orr, Maguuma Wastes). When new regions are added, the existing highest title should be renamed as appropriate, and the new highest tier renamed Legendary Vanquisher.

Being a “world complete vanquisher” (read: every zone vanquished) should change the map completion star from yellow to red, similar to GW1’s Hard Mode coloring.

Hard Mode Specific Achievements

Doing anything in Hard Mode should be substantially harder, so having simple counter achievements for the following makes sense:

• Kills (Capping at 5000)
• Champion Kills (Capping at 500)
• Sectors Cleared (Capping at a much higher number than the number of sectors in GW2)
• Hard Mode Slayer (Steal the slayer achievements, but at slightly lower caps)

Also, some “introduction to HM” achievements can help ease people in:

• Region Sector Cleared (a 1/1 achievement for clearing a sector in each region)
• Region Zone Cleared (another 1/1)
• Mob Coverage (an achievement for killing each type of mob in Hard Mode; one each of the Slayer title categories)

Unique Rewards

Beyond the long-term goal of some swanky titles and a unique icon, there should be unique rewards that are only available through Hard Mode.

Unique Armor and Weapons

Taking a page out of the Silverwastes Carapace/Luminescent Armor and Dry Top Ambrite, having a unique armor and weapon set obtainable by putting pieces together from zone completions (or champion kills) would be ideal.

Zone completion should have a guaranteed piece, while champion kills only a chance of one. To prevent grinding out the exact same, easier zone to get the required pieces, each region should drop one type, with perhaps one piece overlapping.

In the case of weapons, 4 different pieces per region, with a slight overlap. Or perhaps, each zone has its own unique weapon, the core piece gotten from zone completion, the other pieces from champion kills within the zone, with minor overlap (there are 28 zones in the game at present, only 19 weapons).

The unique gear should be stat-selectable exotic on acquisition, with the option to make it ascended in the Mystic Forge with the application of Hard Mode-only tokens and other related materials.

One possibility is to have the collections repeatable to account for multiple characters wanting to get the gear.

Stat-selectable Drops

Getting the gear someone wants via drops alone is a crapshoot. To compensate for the difficulty of Hard Mode, exotic or ascended drops should have a chance of being a stat-selectable chest similar to Ascended Weapon and Armor chests instead of a specific item. No sigils or runes should be attached to exotic and ascended chests, but can be attached to exotic drops that aren’t within chests.

Ascended Gear

Ascended trinkets, weapons, and armor should have a drop chance in Hard Mode.

Hard Mode Tokens

Similar to Badges of Honor, kills in Hard Mode should have a chance of dropping Hard Mode Tokens (better name likely preferred). Champion kills are guaranteed to drop Hard Mode Tokens. Hard Mode Tokens function as both a currency and an anti-RNG-hate mechanism.

Hard Mode Tokens can be used for the following:

• Upgrading unique exotic rewards into ascended versions via the Mystic Forge.
• Acquiring collection pieces directly for a sizable number of tokens (200-250).
• Acquiring specific gear (exotic and ascended) for an even more sizable number of tokens (1000-1500). Gear acquired this way is account bound.
• Acquiring other rare materials (T6 crafting mats, obsidian shards, etc.).

The idea of the Tokens is to have a deliberate “maximum time” to acquire any unique reward, rather than the unbounded “RNG god hates you” present in some parts of the game (e.g., Fractals).

Increased Rewards

Magic Find

Magic find should have a blanket increase while in Hard Mode. In GW1, it was 3 times more likely to get uncommon/rare gear. That would likely be a bit too good, but that’s the sort of idea. Junk items should have practically zero drop chance.

Unique Bag Drops

Rather than dropping more of the typical normal mode loot bags, Hard Mode drops should be unique versions with a different loot table (crafting mat bags that have more in them, and champion boxes that have a chance of ascended gear, or a collection piece).

One key thing here is that mobs should still retain the proper “crafting tier” of materials for their zone. That way, doing Hard Mode through a zone like Timberline Falls has a higher chance of garnering needed Linen, Platinum, and Hard Wood.

Experience

Experience gained should be 50% higher on everything, from event completion to monster kills.

Gold Find

Gold find should have an increased rate, likely equivalent to Magic Find’s.

Advantages of Adding Hard Mode

Smooth out the Risk/Reward Curve

Doing Hard Mode should be substantially more difficult, and substantially more rewarding. As such, it has the potential to reduce and remove the complaints about a mindless farm being a better use of time than playing difficult content.

Making other Stat Combinations Useful

With updated AI and skillsets based around whittling down and disabling players, zerker and dodge will be less powerful, and in certain cases might even be suicidal. Giving greater use to other stat combinations, particular tanky specs, would be a natural side effect of the change in mob behavior.

A Potential Introduction to sPvP

Hard Mode mobs will act a lot more like players, with similar skills, behavior, and limitations (only so many dodges/minute). Rather than spamming every skill the instant it is off CD, players will have to be more tactical with their choices, lest the Big Nuke get dodged.

Likewise, positioning and movement will be more important as mobs seek to take down the weakest target, or protect their own weakest target.

Finally, intelligent use of disables by players will mitigate a lot of the danger of the updated mobs.

Stick all three things together, and you’ve got a pretty decent introduction to how sPvP works.

Double the Content, Instantly

If anything, GW1’s Hard Mode was a relatively easy masterstroke on ANet’s part. By slapping some level increases, skillset changes, and increased rewards on the exact same existing content, they effectively doubled the amount of content available.
Implementing Hard Mode in GW2 would take much less time than crafting new zones, and generate more playable space.

Easy Implementation of RP-preferred Shards

Since Hard Mode will by default require a flag to denote “send me to the Hard Mode version”, it’s not too far-fetched to have a flag that denotes “send me to the RP-preferred version”. This is a side benefit, but a potential benefit nonetheless.

Expansion Potential

What I’m proposing here only accounts for open world PvE zones, but with the groundwork of something like this, adding Hard Mode dungeons, fractals (though in this case, higher levels should automatically be considered Hard Mode, say 51-100), instances, and achievements would not be as difficult.

Consider that mobs got a complete makeover, and AI has seen vast improvements. Porting that over to the relatively contained areas of dungeons and instances is fairly easy.

Improving Normal Mode

By taking the time to create new Hard Mode AI, and improved mob behavior, porting a toned-down version back to normal mode will reduce the snooze factor of it and make combat more engaging. Though not as deadly.

Adding a Reason to Party

Right now, outside of dungeons, guild missions, and Teq/Wurm, the only reason to party with other people is to increase mob tag chances. With Hard Mode being balanced around a full party, LFG will get a lot more use in areas not named Silverwastes.

Unique Bragging Rights

Vanquishing in Guild Wars 1 was hard (at least until Discordway made everything a joke). Doing it in Guild Wars 2 will also be hard. Being able to walk around with a red star icon that says “I vanquished this entire world” is on the same level as running around in every Luminescent piece that exists, if not higher.

Obstacles to Adding Hard Mode

So having established that Hard Mode would make a good deal of sense, with a potential implementation and some good advantages, what of the difficulty (no pun intended) of adding it to the game?

Programming Requirements

• Refining a better AI. Even if a good start exists in the BWE1 version, Hard Mode would require a lot more than simply having them evade AoE. This is the single biggest obstacle.
• Creating a “shard selection” option to allow players to select a normal zone, or a Hard Mode zone. Handy bonus on this: it also sets the framework for creating RP-friendly zones.
• Creating the ability for different megaserver instances to have different contents (HM vs. NM).

Database Requirements

• Creating two versions of every monster, to include different stats, different skill sets, and better AI. This overlaps with programming.
• Adjusting the loot tables for HM monsters and areas to add new items, as well as updating formerly lower-level mobs to have Level 80 gear exclusively.
• Implementing new rewards, like achievements with attached titles and new “status” items that can only be obtained in Hard Mode.

Art Requirements

• Creating new items (weapons, armor) as exclusive Hard Mode rewards.
• New art to denote a Hard Mode zone (like the “Hard Mode Helmet” of GW1).

Economy Concerns

Having Hard Mode with a blanket increase in magic find and rarity will have an effect on the economy, and we all know that ArenaNet cares a good deal about the GW2 economy. There are three different ways to mitigate the potential effect (or work with it):

1. Let the market shock happen and resettle. At first some materials might crash in value as there is a relative flood, but things will resettle at a slightly lower normal. This assumes that most of the active player base is capable of Hard Mode. (The Twisted Marionette would bely such an assumption)
2. Nerf the Hard Mode drop rate, either by locking down materials as account bound, or making the blanket increase in magic find fairly minimal (e.g., 25-30% instead of 50-60%).
3. Nerf Normal Mode drop rates and let Hard Mode increases compensate for the reduced Normal Mode supply.

Personally, I’m partial to solution 1, though solution 3 is how HM in GW1 panned out. Rare drop rates were so abysmal in Normal Mode that a threefold increase in Hard Mode made them fairly tolerable.

Population Concerns

Doubling the amount of functional content has the knock-on effect of spreading out the player base. Most of this concern can be addressed by the megaserver technology, but it may be too limiting.

However, Hard Mode has the potential to bring back many players who quit the game due to not having enough challenge and things getting repetitive. At least for as long as it takes to run through the new content (which should take a while if implemented well), all those players will be playing again.

Expansion Concerns

One problem that ArenaNet ran into with GW1’s Hard Mode was continuing maintenance of it. Going forward, they had to release not just a Normal Mode of everything, but a Hard Mode, too. Domain of Anguish was delayed from Nightfall’s release, and the Hard Mode of the same was delayed further. The same problem occurred with Eye of the North.

The same potential exists in this system, with any new mob and zone requiring both a Normal Mode and a Hard Mode. However, if a good number of the Hard Mode changes (particularly AI) are ported back to Normal Mode, the amount of time to implement both won’t be double.

Conclusion

In sum, I think there’s a strong incentive to create a Hard Mode in GW2, and that the advantages (both now and future) outweigh the amount of development time that would be required to create it. It will bring more challenge to open world PvE, pave the way for additional content in other areas of the game, and provide an answer to the complaints of not enough reward in difficult content.

You are missing a rather large difference between Guild Wars 1 and Guild Wars 2.

In Guild Wars 1 everything was instanced and created specifically for you and your party.
In Guild Wars 2 you share all maps with everyone.

For hard mode to work they would basically need to run multiple different versions of every map at all times.

Another thing that made HM what it was in Guild Wars 1 was vanquishing, something that won’t really work in Guild Wars 2 due to mobs respawning and such (yet again due to lack of personal instances).

You fastposted my entire suggestion. I reserved so many posts for a reason.

How would you prevent the HM maps turning into “trains”, with a huge blob of players tagging everything and just mindlessly running around?

That’s an overall “structure of open world” problem that I haven’t sought to solve here. I have ideas, but none of them fit under the umbrella of “not penalizing the next player who shows up,” which is an ANet design cornerstone.

RelZo.1370:

How would you prevent the HM maps turning into “trains”, with a huge blob of players tagging everything and just mindlessly running around?

I think it would/could come from the design of the mobs. The pavillion was a good example of such mobs. Shurak and the bomber could crush mindless spammers easily, another example the lich in the halloween labyrinth could crush mindless zergs as well just by simple mechanics. If we apply similar mechanics to these mobs then these mobs can punish mindless zerg especially with proper event scaling.

That being said zergs in itself should not be punished. Mindless play should, so if we have zerg busting abilities then with smart play (proper use of boon removal , cc, condition cleanses,… ) should be able to make those abilities managable.

lordkrall.7241:

You are missing a rather large difference between Guild Wars 1 and Guild Wars 2.

In Guild Wars 1 everything was instanced and created specifically for you and your party.
In Guild Wars 2 you share all maps with everyone.

For hard mode to work they would basically need to run multiple different versions of every map at all times.

Another thing that made HM what it was in Guild Wars 1 was vanquishing, something that won’t really work in Guild Wars 2 due to mobs respawning and such (yet again due to lack of personal instances).

Did you even bother to read his posts?

How about an option, when in HM, to create an instanced, HM version of the map you are currently in with your group? That would solve the “trains” issue (there’s a max of 5 ppl per instance). Also, in the instance, mobs don’t respawn, thus allowing the implementation of the Vanquish achievement.

Same thing for story mode HM.

This said, I don’t know anything about the theoretical “costs” of setting up all this, in terms of manpower, or just even hardware/software issues (e.g. is it too “heavy on the system” to create an instance of a map X for each group that want to do so at any given moment?)

(sorry for my english :P)

Also, I’d LOVE to be able to play all this. HM revamped GW1 for me, A LOT (finished legendary vanquisher on 2 alts, almost 3).
It would be like being able to play it again from scratch!

Mental Paradox.3845:

Did you even bother to read his posts?

Yes, but when I posted he had only made the FIRST post, which didn’t in any way or for address those issues.

Hard mode dungeons? Sure.
Hard mode maps? Won’t work.

The issue with this, in my opinion, is that Guild Wars 2 is setup entirely differently than GW1.

The fundamental differences (i.e. GW2 having live servers with mobs having respawn timers, rather than instanced servers) make “Vanquisher” stuff near impossible to implement without completely writing new code for Hard Mode.

Secondly, GW2 implemented scaling as a way to try to keep old zones relevant. (And Ascended crafting functions similarly, by still requiring low-level mats.) This isn’t the same as Hard Mode, obviously, but I think it greatly decreases the chances of it happening.

Last, but not least, Hard Mode in GW1 was fairly simple (code-wise) changes.
Buff all monsters to appropriate levels and armor. Give change the skill-bars of low-level monsters giving them elites.

TL;DR: What you’re asking (giving champs better moves, server-code changes) would require a lot of work. I don’t think it would pay off in the long run.

I, for one, would much rather just have ArenaNet work on more new zones like the Silverwastes while occasionally adding new event chains and such to old maps (and changing/improving them in other ways).

I just want to say that I love this idea but it’s very unlikely that we’ll see something like this in GW2. I think that they will more probably stick with the idea of map mastery (Like in Silverwastes – Finish the ‘hardmode’ of personal story for a item you need for map specific collection → Farm map specific tokens → Get map specific rewards and titles. That is Luminescent Armor for Silwerwastes) And I actually pretty much enjoy that way of introducing new maps. And I’m not sure if you have noticed but SW meta events (except for the pacman run bonus) can be completed with no more than 30 people. So that’s not very zergish. Now let’s just hope that they will introduce more than three of them soon but I wouldn’t count on that as long as we don’t hear anything about an expansion sized update.

What if,
You are only able to reach a hardmode map by rezoning. An example; enter the Gendarran Fields hardmode map via portal from Lions Arch, Kessex Hills or any other of the adjacent maps. This requires a full 5-man group which all have that particular map completed, if one does not have that map completed, the group enters NM.
Party members don’t have enter the portal at exactly the same time.
Waypoints in those maps are locked until the player has vanquished surrounding regions. Another example; killing the hardmode pirate champion on the Brigantine Isles unlocks its waypoint.

A question to your concept of vanquishing: would it be possible to kill the same easy monster (group) over and over again to reach 90%, or would you increase respawn timers, for example 5-10 minutes.

I definitely do enjoy the prospect of having PvE Hard Mode out in the open world as organized open world “raids” instead of instanced closed off dungeons. OP’s suggestions succeed in tackling the lack of good, challenging content in the game, but ignores the problem of deserted starter and mid-level zones – the resolution of which would really be the only reason to have Hard Mode PvE content in the open world in the first place. Yes, you have a Hard Mode shard…but what about the actual shard below? It’s still deserted, it’s no different than a mass instanced dungeon. New Players still see the signs of a “dying” game when really it’s just a lack of good rewarding content in the zone. I think there would be a more elegant solution to these problems without making it so complex.

Let’s take a page from the old Korean P2W MMO Trickster Online. The game itself was a crappy Korean 2.5D isometric powercreep money-milker, but in its old age the game came up with a couple of interesting ideas to retain its player base. Trickster Online experienced the same problem as GW2 is experiencing right now: Too many unhabited maps and a “map of the month”. It was a shame really. The maps were beautifully designed. For awhile the Devs put out map after map, but the players kept devouring what content they offered at an insatiable rate…then came the “Shadow World” update.

What the update did was launch a new quest line for characters Level 285+ to learn about another world (the titular Shadow World) out of phase with the real world, but was creeping into it. Dark malevolent spirits from The Shadow World began to phase into the real world and began to roam the maps from starter to endgame. Players embarked on a quest to learn a skill called “The Mind’s Eye” which would apply a buff that would reveal these dark spirits and allow combat with them, while at the same time making normal mobs too timid to fight them. Only players with “The Mind’s Eye” buff active could hurt/be hurt by the dark spirits that roamed the maps, but other players could see them fighting said spirits. The Dark Spirits of course, were fully decked out stat-wise, had advanced AI, and had advanced skills out the wazoo; WAY more difficult than the mobs that were on existing max level maps. This would lead to hilarious instances where a full party of Level 300’s could be found wiped on a level 10-15 map.

The results of “The Shadow World” update reinvigorated the previously dead maps and increased newbie-veteran interaction drastically – newbies would stumble across Dark Spirit hunting parties, Dark Spirit hunting parties would run into newbies, etc. Map chats suddenly became active, and the community became closer for a time.

Could such a “shadow world” system be done with Guild Wars 2 with (relatively) low resource cost? Yes. As demonstrated with the Silverwastes bandit camp, GW2 has the capacity to switch individual player’s mob aggro from friendly/passive to foe/hostile on SPECIFIC mob units and varieties by means of a buff. GW2 “dark spirits” could appear as translucent passive images to newbies who do not have the buff, and appear as hostile mobs and turn solid when aggroed for veterans who have the buff.

How would this fit in lore-wise? Heck there’s different levels of The Mists, Mursaat phasing in and out, yada yada. They could easily make it fit. (Jeff Grubb or Ree Soesbee, if you’re reading this, I’m the Asian NA player you met at the Chinese Beta Festival in Beijing. I was badgering you guys all night with Mists-related questions. I have my own theory in how this could be implemented lore-wise if you’re interested…message me pls <3)

OF COURSE there’s the issues of economic instability, increased mob complexity and the server consequences, I know, I’m not going to address those because I have no good possible solutions, I’m just here to offer an alternative to a separately instanced “Hard Mode” <3

On the case of Blobbing Mentality and zerging the content…I have a potential solution. Make the “Dark World” content daily map assignments based on the number of players already assigned to maps. Instead of having all of the “Dark World” accessible to everyone, how’s about making it a daily variety? There are a plentiful number of maps in GW2 – if one were to evenly spread out the population of players who are actually interested in Hard Mode content throughout these maps, one could potentially decrease zerg size from a 50 man blob to a 15 man group per map. One day a player could be assigned Queensdale, the next, Fireheart Rise, both of which’s “Dark World” is the same difficulty and etc. The assignment system would do it’s best to equal out the Hard Mode-goers of each map as to make blobbing a rarer occurrence.

Anyways! Just my two cents. I doubt this will ever be implemented so I’m not going to defend these suggestions. Just putting it out there as a possibility!

Really like these suggestions! I would play this.

Though, it would seem this is a fairly huge change that would suck up alot of development time and would only please a very small % of the playerbase. I do not think this would be high on anets priority list. Which is a shame to be honest. I feel they could throw us hardcore pve’rs a bone every now and then. The last year has all been about the casual majority playerbase and I feel it’s our turn now but hey, what can ya do?.

DeviantBias.3627:

Snip for preventing double wall of text

I really like this idea, and it’s something I hadn’t considered. Personally, I’m still partial to much better AI and tougher challenges, but having mobs “phasing in from the Mists” could potentially do that. It might make maps a bit more crowded in some spots, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Arcan Soulstorm.4356:

.A question to your concept of vanquishing: would it be possible to kill the same easy monster (group) over and over again to reach 90%, or would you increase respawn timers, for example 5-10 minutes.

I put 10 minutes as a potential example, but depending on the mob count it might need to be lower or higher.

Perhaps to encourage doing it properly, respawn timers in Hard Mode are much higher than in Normal Mode, on the order of 75-80% of the mob count timer. Thus, cheesing the same mobs over and over again isn’t viable.

My suggestion is to put the focus on killing champions and clearing sectors, rather on murdering a pile of enemies. There’s a vanquishing element to it, but it’s more of a showing mastery of the enemy mechanics of the sector.

TaCktiX.6729:

-snip-

Oh no, I was only offering an alternative to having a separate shard for Hard Mode. I fully support your idea for better AI and tougher challenges. The mobs that fade in would have such elements!

Would enjoy to seem something like this implemented into GW2, challenging content with non-RNG rewards.

It sounds great even when it will be much more difficult to make then it was in gw1. Only problem is player base in gw2 is faaaar more casual (I wish there is some word even for casual casuals) then it was in gw1 and whole dev team will drown in tears 5 minutes after this feature will launch:-D

Rozbuska.5263:

It sounds great even when it will be much more difficult to make then it was in gw1. Only problem is player base in gw2 is faaaar more casual (I wish there is some word even for casual casuals) then it was in gw1 and whole dev team will drown in tears 5 minutes after this feature will launch:-D

Ah yes. The good old copy a bunch of builds from the internet and then AFK most of the fights? ^^

Rozbuska.5263:

It sounds great even when it will be much more difficult to make then it was in gw1. Only problem is player base in gw2 is faaaar more casual (I wish there is some word even for casual casuals) then it was in gw1 and whole dev team will drown in tears 5 minutes after this feature will launch:-D

As I’ve outlined it, Hard Mode should be in the exact same boat it was in GW1: completely, and utterly optional. Sure, the rewards are better, and unique (kind’ve the point), but they’re either cosmetic, or equivalent to things that can be gotten in the normal part of the game.

If people want to cry about optional features that a lot of other people love, then I really don’t know what to say, other than my faith in humanity is lowering at a rapid rate.

I didnt play gw1 but this sounds like it could be a pretty cool feature, and with the megaserver i dont think itd be impossible to put in game.

Only thing I would suggest is instead of having to kill x mobs to spawn some champs, why not just use the event chains already in place (with improved ai/mechanics, not just billions of hp on every mob). Almost all zones have those “meta” event chains that people barely know about, mostly because the risk/reward is lower than anything else in game. Silverwastes is already an example of a zone with a good meta event+rewards and different ai mechanics, so all itd take is using those ideas on other maps and jacking up the difficulty.

That “shadow world” idea someone mentioned could also be really cool on some zones, and itd be awesome for keeping zones populated, though probably impossible to code (or maybe not?)

Id also suggest a gem store item to pay for it to cover the costs (as much as people hate paying for something that can give them hundreds of hours of entertainment, programmers need to eat too). Make it 400 (or 800) gems to access it a month, which im sure the serious players would be willing to pay for a challenge. Besides helping cover the cost of coding thatd keep the economy from crashing too much from the rewards, which would likewise have to be worth the cost (and guaranteed rewards, not just rng)

And so people dont rage too much you could put in an alternate gold sink to pay for it (even though gems are directly related to gold so a gem cost is a gold sink, people never seem to get that). Perhaps 125 ectos which is 40g (or 250/80g) which would double as a way to keep the ecto prices from going down from all the rares/exotics that drop. Im sure people would still rage, but again, programmers need to eat too.

Biggest downside i can see is if the rewards are THAT much better, then even if it is super hard people will still figure out how to farm it and every other “farm” in game will die (not exactly a bad thing, but still an issue). Some combination of daily lockouts and new skins + account bound rewards like the op suggested would help fix that (though for the people who want this and hate paying for anything ever, new skins = more development costs/time = less incentive for the devs to release it for free)

That or just save it for this mysterious expansion that may or may not be coming out sometime in the next 1-8 years.

Yeah, I’m all for this. Player input ( regarding how much input is required with scaling difficulties ) and reward output ( based on the magnitude of player input ) need some serious work. Current reward systems are just about across the board poor.

This proposal is a good start for that.

Haven’t read it yet, but I’m already certain this will never happen, because hard mode is something that will only ever be touched by a small percentage of players, so it’s not really worth Anet’s time to bother making something so complex just to please a few people and have the vast majority of players not even see it.

GW1 had a lot of things that GW2 will never have for this reason. Many people on the forums here claim Anet is out of touch with what the players want; on the contrary, they take much consideration about what the players will want as a whole, and if something that will take a lot of time to implement is only going to be experienced by under 10% of the players (this is common for endgame content), they’re not going to think twice about it.

it will not happen because its too much work (anet said so in terms of dungeon updates) and has nothing to do with the gem sore , havnt read all tbh not sure if there isnt a gem store connection.

No its a bad ideal because most ppl want a “hard mode” just for better drops and GW2 is NOT that type of game.

i would like this addition.

I could see them implementing it slowly over the coarse of several months instead of all at once though. (ex. next update they add HM versions of Queensdale and Metrica, then the update after they add Caledon and Brisban)

EDIT: Also they do have the technology to run multiple instances of zones. They do it with dungeons/PS/LS episodes and the have done it with GW1 (maybe even had several times more than what would likely be needed for HM in GW2)

Gobble, that’s actually an asset to the entire suggestion. Megaservers already instance shards on a virtual level, so the technology to maintain a separate instance for HM already exists.

I’d like to see some devs’s opinion about map instances and if it would be hard to implement in maps like queensdale or fireheart rise for example. That being said, I’d love to see a hard mode for maps like metrica province with their past mechanics (fixing golems and etcs with a timer for example).

As amazing as that would be **drools
I would rather see them spending that time and expanding the map into new territory which will be made for 80’s only such as the silverwastes (which is a tough cookie of a map). The more zones they start adding the more difficult they can make them.
Droknar’s Forge, Crystal Desert, Ring of Fire, Underworld, Fissure of Woe, Northern Shiverpeaks and the list for that can go on and on. and on. and on and on. For the size of the map they started gw2 out with(what you can see in the world map) is pretty large but, what we’re actually allowed to play is rather small in comparison. Hard-mode hadn’t come out until all their zones had been released not mid way. Now I do enjoy the idea of having hard mode. turning vets into champions and champions into bosses; I think there is more to be done with the un-explored map before we start adding more content to already existing maps.

Sizer.5632:

Id also suggest a gem store item to pay for it to cover the costs (as much as people hate paying for something that can give them hundreds of hours of entertainment, programmers need to eat too). Make it 400 (or 800) gems to access it a month

I consider myself a serious gamer and having to spend any amount of gems per month or year simply to be allowed to play content would NEVER happen. I already invest $100’s when I can for the stuff they have in the gem store. Being stuck to a chain like that just to be allowed to get increased rewards would make me quit instantly as I’d personally feel back-stabbed. I wish people would get off this subscription kick and just go out and buy some gems if they want to give them money so badly. spend some money on bank tabs and extra bag slots and a few outfits and a royal terrace pass. there’s no need for a sub; there’s already stuff to purchase and you’ll fine you’ll be spending just as much if not more had they had a sub to begin with.

Originally the story mode dungeon was considered a normal mode dungeon and the explorable paths the hard mode version of that dungeon. For some players (newbies mostly) this is still true (I’ll count myself as one of them since I don’t play dungeons a lot and find even the first ones quite difficult with a group of newbies).

Most players know those paths inside out though, they’ve learned some effective strategies how to overcome those paths and so these dungeons aren’t considered challenging anymore.

Anet has all the metrics, it seems that not many people played dungeons so there is no need for them to create new ones.

But they did anyway. They created the Aetherpath, a dungeon which was considerably harder than all the other paths. Not long after it’s release they stated in an interview, that they won’t repeat a release like this in the future. Why? I have no idea, probably because even though it was considered hard, not enough players played it. (I guess because people didn’t get the OP loot they expected). So no dungeons in the near future…?!

…well this doesn’t seem to be true 100% since they opened a CDI about raids not long ago. It seems that they want to create hard dungeons for bigger-than 5 man groups.

I don’t have much time to read (currently) all of it, but I would love HM to be in this game.

I believe it would take quite a significant amount of time to update the mobs in every section of the map to HM foes (they don’t have to create new maps for HM shards, but still that’s quite a lot of mobs).

For now I would be happy with HM dungeons, there’s plenty of foes that are on your way and might be easier to program those for team support between them. The ghosts found on AC use GW1-like skills, which already make some of them work as a team.

Now apply that to every dungeon xD

I would be fine with them adding a “hard mode,” but ONLY if there is no additional rewards attached to it. There can be zero-point achievements, and there can be titles attached to hard mode completions, but there should not be any bonus MF, any unique drops, any reward unlocks, or unique reward tracks. You should receive no better or additional loot for playing content on hard mode than you would on default.

If you wouldn’t want hard mode without having bonus candy for playing it, then there should not be a hard mode, full stop.

Karma train exist because loots and exp are shared.

Ohoni.6057:

I would be fine with them adding a “hard mode,” but ONLY if there is no additional rewards attached to it. There can be zero-point achievements, and there can be titles attached to hard mode completions, but there should not be any bonus MF, any unique drops, any reward unlocks, or unique reward tracks. You should receive no better or additional loot for playing content on hard mode than you would on default.

If you wouldn’t want hard mode without having bonus candy for playing it, then there should not be a hard mode, full stop.

You’re aware that’s impossible, if they add HM without any additional rewards or skins everyone would rage about it. It’s happened before, probably would happen again.

Now what if they give an additional 30 dungeon tokens for completing a HM path? Or an extra rare item for killing a world boss in HM? (Not sure if the proposal counts Teq or Triple Trouble, since they’re already “hard” enough).

Those are not unique rewards, just an incentive to do HM runs.

well that will certainly remove zergs from NM maps, they only care for loot and XP anyway and i don’t care as long as i have fun and not be interrupted by zergs all the time. (tho, it’s allot less common then before)

TaCktiX.6729:

{snip entire 6 part post}

Equip only “white” (i.e. non-magical/improved) armor and weapons and use no or only basic sigils or runes. Do not use consumables. Do not equip trinkets or back item. Set traits to 0/0/0/0/0 or if you insist on having traits then 1/1/1/1/1 (or 1/1/4/4/4 if you’re too scared).

Head to Orr. Don’t follow any zergs.

Hard Mode: ON

Peace.

You’re aware that’s impossible, if they add HM without any additional rewards or skins everyone would rage about it. It’s happened before, probably would happen again.

It would cause significantly less rage than if they did add hard mode with a bunch of cool unique rewards that were locked out from normal mode players.

Again, if hard mode won’t work unless it offers cool bonus candy, then no hard mode for you.

I would love that. Granted it would have to be instanced to limit only 5 people to complete a map. Could open the door for some cool Solo VQ records as well. It would be pretty pointless to open world train this. More 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1 and dead people who wouldn’t WP.

I think the only place hard mode would be appropriate is in dungeons.

Monster AI would defiantly need to be improved. Things would need to be added such as kiting and avoiding AoE.

It could even go as far as to cut endurance (dodge) regeneration in half.

A Hard Mode would be nice, but the comparison to GW1 is apples and oranges.

GW1’s classes are vastly different than GW2’s. For one, GW2 doesn’t have a traditional trinity.

Secondly, the AI in GW2 would need to be reworked.

I just don’t see Anet doing it.

yeaaa …the fun of a HM super fast champ. Mordrem Teragriff…

Some people have the weirdest fetish…

There are a few reasons why this is not a thing and why I believe this will never be a thing they will implement.
It seems that this decision could have been taken and implemented already if they had wanted it this way.

I too have suggested a hard mode for PVE for a long time until I realized it isn’t feasible.

Why you ask?

1)People like Ohoni pointed out above would be upset if they were forced to leave their comfort zone for the rewards/items they wanted.

There’s a reason it doesn’t take any skill to get a legendary weapon in this game. Invest enough time and you’ll eventually get it.

Or even better – buy it off the TP. You’ll certainly be doing a lot of buying on the TP even if you decide to make it yourself.

With the most prestigious item in game being so easy to obtain ( skill-wise) you can clearly see that they’re trying to cater to a hypercasual player base.

These players would be outraged ( and most of them are outraged even now) that others are doing content faster / getting more or better rewards than they are.

Imagine if the good players would be getting even more loot while the average and below average flooded the forums with tears.

2)It would segregate the player base even more.

If every build being able to complete content still leads to meta-oriented people pushing non-meta players out of runs ( and for good and valid reasons) imagine the kind of situation this mode would create.

The meta-people would create a new specific meta for each area but this wouldn’t bring about an increase in build diversity. Rather the opposite.
The ideal classes for certain situations would be asked for with specific builds and anything else would be pushed aside.

More difficult content would not make people more lax in regard to what is suboptimal.