Guild Wars 2

So, I’ve just had a random thought. I call them “PvE Counter Mechanics”, and it is aimed to stress fights against bosses so proper positioning/dodging are required in order to keep alive.

Right now, being knocked down, launched, stunned, dazzed, etc has no other punishment than the effect itself, and while some effects (such as stun) are strong per se, most of the times players don’t really care about them, as they’ll be shielded by protection, reflecting skills, massive healing, etc. This creates a problem of making content too easy, and making the game laughable, because I can go “oh well, I’m being launched. whatever, let me use this stunbreaker, oh it’s on cd, whatever they are throwing lots of boons at me, I may even go 11111111”.

See, this is bad. Really bad. This game is action-based, positioning should be crucial. If people don’t care about taking CC’s then the content will look a shame. What if that boss (and only specific bosses meant to be difficult) had an unremovable effect called “Weakening Control”, that applies an unremovable effect in the affected players whenever they take control, and such effect increases damage taken for like 30sec? Going down/being defeated would be more frequent throughout that encounter. The tactics against that boss would include an additional requirement: movement, and while this is basics, people ignore correct movement/dodging because making use of them is mostly unnecessary.

Now, we can expand these counter mechanics. This will cascade across the game adding a “learn-to-player” factor (not a friendly name, but it sums up the idea) to every major hard content. Some ideas:

• Weakening Control: Counter. Applies Muscle Twist to players whenever they take control effects (knockdown, knockback, launch, sink, float, pull, stun, dazze).
  • Muscle Twist (10s): Unremovable. Takes 15% more damage from direct incoming attacks.
• Sickening Presence: Counter. Applies Sick Blood to players whenever they take damage-dealing conditions (poison, bleeding, confusion, torment).
  • Sick Blood (10s): Unremovable. Takes 15% more damage from conditions.
• Grasping Earth: Counter. Applies Rooted to players whenever they take slowing conditions (crippled, chilled, immobilize). (HoT-inspired!)
  • Rooted (10s): Unremovable. Takes 10% more damage from direct incoming attacks. Rooted every 4 seconds.
• Unstable Mists: Counter. Applies Temporal Disturbance to players whenever they are pulled, knocked back, or launched.
  • Temporal Disturbance (15s): Unremovable. Takes 5% more damage from direct incoming attacks. Becomes vulnerable to displacing vortices every 5 seconds.
  • PS.: Displacing vortices are vortices that pull players much like mesmers’ Temporal Curtain. (HoT-inspired!)

Let me know what you think!

PS.: All durations and effects can be tweaked so they’re not too overpowered.

Are you talking about open world pinatas or dungeons?

I think part of the problem there is most of the “control” that’s given to mobs is mostly of the KD/stun/daze variety, and they get those attacks fairly quickly. Boons like stability or stunbreakers are on cooldowns that are too long to deal with it effectively.

Though, I am generally in favor of having unique buffs/debuffs during a fight to add flavor and make the fight more interesting.

I’m more in favor of making damage be the penalty over loss of control or efficacy. Constant stuns and knockbacks can get severely frustrating and annoying, even if the durations are small.

You must be talking about open-world encounters, because if you try to stand around pressing 1111 in a dungeon, you’re gonna have a bad time.

With open world encounters, there’s pretty much no way to make them challenging without making them too challenging, so I really don’t see a point in trying when they already serve their purpose well enough.

I’m talking about zerker meta, and stacking behavior. I wish these things could be severely KILLED from PvE instances.

Stacking should be dead after fgs nerf. PuGs don’t know why they stacked in the first place so no wonder they don’t know they should stop now.

I am really trying to see your post seriously but when you say that dungeons are “111111” in corner the last decent pixel of my soul dies. Plz if you want to be taken seriously don’t spread misinformation.

Now, to the point. We all want dungeons to be better. And by “we” I mean serious dungeoneers enjoying cooperative hard content. While your ideas can be considered good or bad I’ll say in more general manner.

Dungeons aren’t as easy as you describe them. They are old therefore people know how to do them efficiently. We’ve learned them for almost 3 years, there’s no challenge in matching same puzzle pieces 500th time in a row. This is why you (we?) can consider them easy. But they aren’t. Take a week old player to AC, he will be blown to pieces having no idea what killed him. A little exageration but you know what I mean.

I would love to see some improvements to dungeons and especially NEW DUNGEONS. Your ideas look quite similar to what we have now in fractals – the instabilities, the additional effects making paths harder. This is an idea to consider if we want the same in normal dungeons. Personally, I don’t mind.

Now about your examples. I hate unremovable effects. This annoys more than challenges and cripples game machanics like boon striping or condi cleansing. Reflects, buffs, condis, etc are there to be used. I hated when they made Malrona’s projectiles unblockable. It’s annoying because it makes some skills useless. Why not to make them reflect for less damage or reflect only 50% of them? Your mesmer or guardian won’t fell useless with theirs feedback and WoW but you still need to dodge to avoid dps.

I made an idea once that some bosses should be e.g. condi immune or condi fragile. E.g. Legendary Husk at CoE P2 should be very fragile to burning but immune to poison and heavy armored against normal damage. Flame legion charrs in CoF should be almost immune to burning but fragile to chill. Those are only examples from my head but I think those little changes when you know you should use special tactics, skills or fight in certain terms can make those bosses more interesting than just punishing players with random conditions.

Many.8419:

Stacking should be dead after fgs nerf. PuGs don’t know why they stacked in the first place so no wonder they don’t know they should stop now.

I am really trying to see your post seriously but when you say that dungeons are “111111” in corner the last decent pixel of my soul dies. Plz if you want to be taken seriously don’t spread misinformation.

Now, to the point. We all want dungeons to be better. And by “we” I mean serious dungeoneers enjoying cooperative hard content. While your ideas can be considered good or bad I’ll say in more general manner.

Dungeons aren’t as easy as you describe them. They are old therefore people know how to do them efficiently. We’ve learned them for almost 3 years, there’s no challenge in matching same puzzle pieces 500th time in a row. This is why you (we?) can consider them easy. But they aren’t. Take a week old player to AC, he will be blown to pieces having no idea what killed him. A little exageration but you know what I mean.

I would love to see some improvements to dungeons and especially NEW DUNGEONS. Your ideas look quite similar to what we have now in fractals – the instabilities, the additional effects making paths harder. This is an idea to consider if we want the same in normal dungeons. Personally, I don’t mind.

Now about your examples. I hate unremovable effects. This annoys more than challenges and cripples game machanics like boon striping or condi cleansing. Reflects, buffs, condis, etc are there to be used. I hated when they made Malrona’s projectiles unblockable. It’s annoying because it makes some skills useless. Why not to make them reflect for less damage or reflect only 50% of them? Your mesmer or guardian won’t fell useless with theirs feedback and WoW but you still need to dodge to avoid dps.

I made an idea once that some bosses should be e.g. condi immune or condi fragile. E.g. Legendary Husk at CoE P2 should be very fragile to burning but immune to poison and heavy armored against normal damage. Flame legion charrs in CoF should be almost immune to burning but fragile to chill. Those are only examples from my head but I think those little changes when you know you should use special tactics, skills or fight in certain terms can make those bosses more interesting than just punishing players with random conditions.

I wholeheartedly agree on “11111”. I exaggerated because I confess I ’m quite disappointed after all these 2 years, I apologize for that.

Now, about the mechanics. When you have unremovable effects you can provide fixed mechanics that are handled by effects, it is useful because you have a way to visually track that boss’ mechanics instead of going blind (cough cough like many MMOs cough cough). Since that effects represents a mechanic, and mechanics obviously cannot be removed, we make it unremovable with a clear description of what’s going on (or maybe a shady one to make players guess? heh).

The idea behind these mechanics (remember effects= mechanics) is that they are a counter against dodge-lazy or idling players. I intend forcing players to move around or they’ll have a hard time, it is specially notable if a boss summon minions. I pictured a case in that players would play lazy and get debuffs, making handling these minions something harder. I thought some boss much like Troll from Mordrem Vinewrath. Not in a sense of knocking people back constantly, but about their damage and how worse it could become having those debuffs that increase incoming damage.

You could sure play zerker, but you’d be a skilled zerker who knows how to dodge, or at least who doesn’t stand still on a corner with others while the party smash damage+Ice Storm burst. I want to spread players on most occasions, effectively reducing stacking behavior.

Some cool mechanics I should note:
Fractals – Archdiviner: He randomly throw someone in a jail, temporarily “disabling” them.
Sorrow’s Embrace p1 three-golem fight: There’s a golem with anti-stacking ability – a constant PBAoE lightning spike placed on a random player that forces others to spread away from that player. It’s not so effective because people burst it so fast it doesn’t get to a point of making a difference.
TA Story boss that turns players into sylvari hounds: This is some sort of disable much like Archdiviner, but they’re “phased out” of combat and must kill a hound to return to their true form and be able to hit the boss.

I am all for new dungeon mechanics, some random some predictable and I agree with you totally such things like you describe can be an improvement to the feeling of the gameplay. I think we have a little different approach to it but in general we agree with each other.

I’d like to see both strong points and weak points for bosses. Because I don’t feel how subject alpha is different to kohler. They are just big models with aoe deathly attacks you need to avoid. With varying the mechanics, weak and strong points of bosses we can make them feel unique. Now only Lupicus feels like a challenge.

And you know… I still can’t understand how Earth Elementals can bleed

Many.8419:

I am all for new dungeon mechanics, some random some predictable and I agree with you totally such things like you describe can be an improvement to the feeling of the gameplay. I think we have a little different approach to it but in general we agree with each other.

I’d like to see both strong points and weak points for bosses. Because I don’t feel how subject alpha is different to kohler. They are just big models with aoe deathly attacks you need to avoid. With varying the mechanics, weak and strong points of bosses we can make them feel unique. Now only Lupicus feels like a challenge.

And you know… I still can’t understand how Earth Elementals can bleed

Pointy rocks hurt, man!

Another awesome mechanics found in Volcano Fractal is the last boss’. If you stand still you are burned. That’s another way to make people move. Actually I like the heat of that fight, to make it harder there could be a couple of different effects at each 25% HP loss. But that’s just a random thought, I like the way it is as of now.

Moar opinions???

Valento.9852:

I’m talking about zerker meta, and stacking behavior. I wish these things could be severely KILLED from PvE instances.

They already are…..

And this idea does nothing but prolong the fights. Doing so only incentivizes people from even doing said content as its not worth the time for the reward you get out of it. Not only does it prolong fights, it places and erroneous burden onto melee players in that most of the attacks in the game that mobs have and control players with have a shorter cooldown than any stunbreaker/stab.

So unless you want to go back 1 1/2 years to the old fractal meta of rotating aegis on guardians i’d rethink this whole concept.