Guild Wars 2

VodCom.6924:

It featured a HUGE drawback however : the boss could miserably fail because 5 weak players can get grouped on the same platform and make an entire lane fail their platform phase. And trust me failing an entire megaboss/your lane because of 5-10 weak players and bad luck is an infuriating experience.

I’d say split players into 20 or 30 groups, so you can afford a few groups failing as long as the rest is doing their job well.

Shivan.9438:

VodCom.6924:

Ideas for shatterer revamp:
1) Remove mortars. Make sure the large charr turrets can only be manned and repaired by NPCs.

2) The charr turrets should spawn one minute before the start of the shatterer (THEY are the so called “vigil siege weapons”). These turrets remove invulnerability buff (same as tequatl except that players aren’t manning turrets).

3) Have bigger waves of mobs attacking the charr turrets and the NPC that repair them => this forces us to have defence teams.

4) During the current “crital phase”, have cristals heal the shatterer quickly, forcing the players to rapidly destroy them (timer related challenge). Each destroyed cristal gives the remaining ones a 25% damage reduction buff (i.e, you have to kill the cristals at the same time).

You have to be careful with making coordination changes in world boss fights. Zerging a boss is common and a LOT of players are used to doing it. The Crown Pavilion changes tore up the community because they couldn’t just zerg around and win, and all they really did was eliminate the farming of trash mobs and make sure all the bosses had to be downed at the same time.

Imagine what would happen if some of the changes suggested in this thread were implemented?

A simple fix could be to display the health of all the cristals simultaneously in the UI. (Which was something lacking in the pavillion).
Then have some npc shout all day that you have to kill all cristals together.

I get your point though, as soon as we ask players to split up, the world boss turns into a megaboss (because ppl mindlessly zerg at regular world bosses).

Just a sudden out of the blue idea: I can imagine a mechanism, where we have to kill branded adds to use their branded shards to protect ourselves from a special dragon attack and while reflecting that attack, damage the Shatterer too. It can be a special phase at each 25% maybe.

Perhaps. It would need to be done carefully though. For one thing, you shouldn’t have to kill the adds yourself to find a crystal. It sounds good in theory, but in practice a few AoEers would take out all the mobs before some players could get at them. If there are 50 players there then at least 60+ mobs would need to spawn, and then each that dies would drop a crystal which anyone could pick up, whether they killed that mob or not. But done right it’s a fine mechanic.

And that’s it. These 5 changes are enough to make this dragon more interesting. You teach players to :
- coordinate kills (cristals)
- split up (defending turrets)
- protect and revive key NPCs (defence teams)

Yeah, that’s basically the way those sorts of things should work. I would add that they would need better UI mechanics (though still using tools I believe they already have) to show on the map/mini-map which turrets are under attack, which are down, and ideally show their damage bars along the side, so that any player on the map can see which turrets need more help, without requiring scouts yelling out from each.

5) Add a breath attack to the dragon to eliminate the safe spots.

I think the best way to do this would be to have him flap his wings and then “crystal waves” shoot out from the sides, similar to Claw’s avalanches, damaging/petrifying anyone who’s standing to either side of him.

Ideally though, if they make the sides too dangerous to stand in, they might offer better tells for some of his attacks. I’ve never actually tried to ride the battle out in front of him, but it doesn’t look very survivable.

You have to be careful with making coordination changes in world boss fights. Zerging a boss is common and a LOT of players are used to doing it.

True, but players catch on eventually to most of it. The Crown Pavilion fiasco could have been solved with better UI. If they had all six bosses’ health bars visible to ALL players in the map, it could probably have been done by pugs without map chat. It was only that it was a bit complicated to coordinate all six bosses that it required outside help.

I do think that if they overhaul the bosses, they need to make a big announcement about it, and maybe give the “elites” some time to learn the new mechanics for themselves, but once the new mechanics become more or less common knowledge, they should give an official guide to them on the site, for people that don’t really pay attention to the community.

Maybe they could also have a mechanic where if you click on a world boss’s event tag on the side, it can call up a journal entry on the boss, which provides basic fight details that are too complex to display in the active UI. There are all sorts of tricks to various current bosses that you’d never know unless you stumbled onto them or read about it elsewhere.

I think ranked rewards where best way to make events with gradients of difficulty with reward. Or having bosses with guild start settings with difficulties bosses. But people will always complain when they are not able to get best rewards.

Yes. “hard mode” versions/conditions should never give better rewards than “normal mode” versions of them. They can offer more rewards, like two rares instead of three, or a 10% chance of getting a super rare reward instead of 5%, but anything you can get through the hard mode you should have a reasonable chance of getting through the normal mode, because some people want that stuff but aren’t good enough to do the hard mode version, and better that they do the mode they are suited for a few more times to get the loot they want, than for them to bang their head against the wall on the harder version and not enjoy themselves.

Someone mentioned World Boss fights and the lack of their mobility causing a state of boredom (Cluster here, safely, etc.). I have to agree.

Even though the Svarnir Dome event boss is very low level, and not overly cool graphically, he does move around causing peeps to move around, his major attacks are well telegraphed to be avoided, etc.

Having a near constant down state does not make a boss challenging and definetly not fun. Cheesy mechanics meant to exploit a near permanent down state are…….cheesy. Making fights hard and challenging without being boring or cheesy requires a LOT of work, I understand that, but let’s make that the goal.

Siege Weapons are like having Avatars or Heros come in to help. Why can’t world boss events be completed with the skills the game has for the classes? It cheapens the accomplishment to have to be the master of the trebuchet in order to achieve success.

VodCom.6924:

Ohoni.6057:

I don’t like Siege weapons the way Teq does it, where there are six weapons that have a massive impact on the battle. It’s too much responsibility in too few hands on a 150 player event. I suggested this way back when Teq was first overhauled, but I would prefer to have NPCs on the turrets.

Same opinion here.

Ideas for shatterer revamp:
1) Remove mortars. Make sure the large charr turrets can only be manned and repaired by NPCs.

2) The charr turrets should spawn one minute before the start of the shatterer (THEY are the so called “vigil siege weapons”). These turrets remove invulnerability buff (same as tequatl except that players aren’t manning turrets).

3) Have bigger waves of mobs attacking the charr turrets and the NPC that repair them => this forces us to have defence teams.

4) During the current “crital phase”, have cristals heal the shatterer quickly, forcing the players to rapidly destroy them (timer related challenge). Each destroyed cristal gives the remaining ones a 25% damage reduction buff (i.e, you have to kill the cristals at the same time).

5) Add a breath attack to the dragon to eliminate the safe spots.

And that’s it. These 5 changes are enough to make this dragon more interesting. You teach players to :
- coordinate kills (cristals)
- split up (defending turrets)
- protect and revive key NPCs (defence teams)

I really like this!

Maybe instead of having to coordinate the crystals, mobs could spawn that heal the crystals too, so players have to play tower defense to keep the mobs away from the crystals while they’re destroyed? That way someone who specializes in CC will be helpful in both parts of the field (use Elite mobs but no Champs to minimize farming and problems with Defiance.)

what all those encounter need is some reflex test

even teq is most of the time standing one spot

why not do more of those orange circle thing the LS dragon was not that bad.

I would like the shatterer shatterd some stone rain down and we all need run and doge

or he even turn around and we need run with him or his tail will not kill but punsh us 20 meter away

i like the idea that every dragon train different skills of players

shatterer is a agility trainer for run and doge

while jormag the master of condition is

I also would be ok with a dragon which you can tank

Balsa.3951:

I also would be ok with a dragon which you can tank

Not hating on your idea, but tanking a dragon is silly. Look at what a dragon can do and somehow a lone mortal being is supposed to withstand claw attacks, breath weapon attacks from a being 100 times it’s size and strength along with a battery of magic attacks?

That’s like stopping a tank with a can of tuna. I believe it was Thackery that said entire nations couldn’t stop a dragon. Inb4 “but a 5 man dungeon party can”

I know it’s silly too and I don’t think it should be done that way. Teq, Shatterer and Claw are Lt’s of of the dragons themselves and it takes a big group to down them so how can 5 bring down the bigger one? Just.. silly.

Tequatl is not hard gameplay. The gameplay is just following rote keyboard rotations; a problem with many MMOs.

The difficulty is in logistics. It all falls on the few that recruit and organize the run.

If we want to make The Shatterer more fun, we should really look at the gameplay. Throw in some randomness to his attacks, so we are not just stacking and DPS.

And those who say TQ is not a ghost town. Not now. It pretty much was for a long time, except for one guild that did it primarily. It is much better now that we have megaservers.

Balsa.3951:

what all those encounter need is some reflex test

even teq is most of the time standing one spot

The last person who told me “you can do tequatl by standing at one spot” got killed after two minutes, didn’t do the defences and ultimately missed all the rewards.

Personally I think it’s the job of the living story instances to test you reflexes, and not a 150 person megaboss that makes you computer lag.

I honestly think that Shatterer, pre april feature patch, was just about right. He usually took about 10 minutes to kill, and you did have to actually try. I don’t think he needs to be super difficult, but perhaps a bit harder, as he used to be.

I’d rather not see Shatterer be Tequilafied. If people ant more challenging things, the by all means build it for them. I don’t like taking things away from those of us who enjoy them. Now, could it be more engaging without taking it to that level? Sure. Just please don’t take it to Teq / Triple levels.

VodCom.6924:

The last megaboss who required active use of individual skill was the giant marionette. IMO that megaboss was awesome, requiring little organization and lots of individual skill.

It featured a HUGE drawback however : the boss could miserably fail because 5 weak players can get grouped on the same platform and make an entire lane fail their platform phase. And trust me failing an entire megaboss/your lane because of 5-10 weak players and bad luck is an infuriating experience.

This is why I am in favor of bosses that require organization rather than skill : if you fail the boss, it’s also your fault for you could have done more to set up the teams.

Seeing hordes of players afking at tequatl on the bumper is stressing and infuriating because your are basically forcing others to do the lower work of getting teams ready.

Trust me, I got more than my fill of other people failing the Marionette for me. However, from the point I was trying to make I would file that more under organization, in the sense of being penalized by other people outside your control . You can do more to try and set up teams, but you have no power over whether anyone listens or their performance at the task.

The individual skill I suggested is in regards to a boss like the Shatterer and how you approach them. I enjoyed fighting the Marionette more than most bosses because it felt like I was doing something; I could pile torment on fleeing clockworks or chase them with movement skills in the effort to keep them from the portal. Every enemy I killed reduced the strain on my lane. When I once used Signet of Undeath to revive 3 downed players on my platform, I felt like I made a difference.

In my opinion the problem with that boss was not the use of individual skill, but the mechanics that made victory and sudden failure so tenuous. For example, the ability to help adjacent platforms after your clearing your own would have been great. More skilled players could compensate for less skilled ones instead being crippled by a “weakest link” effect. Or instead of stage-based damage the boss could have had a health bar that was reduced by how many platforms were successful, instead of the whole thing being blasted by an underpopulated lane leaving a platform to be managed by 2 people. There are many other ways it could have gone.

Similar concepts could be applied to the Shatterer, and the way it plays out. The individual skill>organization I seek is in the way you fight the boss that makes it fun, the things that made the Marionette awesome, in your words. The mechanics I seek are ones that still make the player base’s performance as a whole what brings victory or loss.

I personally love the teq/triple level of difficulty. I love the teamwork and the organization that goes on. The only thing is spamming into a map that is organized, it would be great if we could spawn guild maps or have a commander create a map for their squad to join in on.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

On the topic of using siege weapons as a role mechanic in these fights, is that something we want to see more of? I often worry that siege weapons can be just as boring as standing in the safe corner pressing the same attack. Do you feel that they can also cause some contention between players?

It depends on how it’s done. The solution at Tequatl is really good in my opinion (the turrets are vital and you need extra people to operate and defend them, in the battery phases it’s all about defending, not about attacking).

At the opposing side, the mechanics at Claw of Jormag are awful. In the first phase, defending the cannons is nearly impossible, since the mobs spawn directly on top of the NPCs operating the cannons. And in the second phase there seems to be a huge portion of players who think the best tactic is to attack the Boss directly and to ignore the golems. Last night we were there with a small group from my guild defending the golems, while the majority of the rest (including so called commanders) was either killing mobs or attacking the Boss. And when the event finally succeeded (and the Behemoth already had been slayn a long time ago) the mapchat was flooded with “good job all”, “thanks for the lead!” and other stuff that freaked me out.

tl;dr: I like siege weapons. But they have to force the players to split up and bring an immediate effect that is apreciated by all players participating in the event. Also, being AFK in the attack range of a meta boss should always kill you (which means: PLEASE also remove the safe spots from Golem Mark II)

Suggestion #1 for future “raid” like bosses – make them instanced.

It’s a misconception that making bosses instanced somehow makes them less accessible. It’s the opposite.
Currently I have to plan few days in advance and spend around an hour just preparing.
If Tequatl and Wutm events would have been instanced, they would be played much more than they are now.

The name Shatterer gives me an idea of the dragon that, when destroyed, shatters and creates more creatures. I’d love to see something like this: Shatterer(the default one) gets killed, it spawns 2 smaller versions of himself. Those are more mobile. Also other Branded mobs can be killed near the shatterer(-lings) to cause extra damage. When one of the second-born Shatterers die, he spawns another 2 mini shatterers. And maybe there could be fourth iteration so there are 15 shatterers in total. In addition to that- if one in the pair of shatterlings isn’t killed in time(few mins, decreases with each iteration), the pair merges again into the previous bigger version. Hope you understand, my english isn’t that good.

Summary: Killing the first Shatterer creates two shatterlings. If neither of those is killed within, say, 5 minutes, they merge back into the Shatterer. If they are killed, each one again creates two smaller shatterlings. And the same applies. They just have less hp, require less effort to kill and the time before they reassemble is shorter.
The smaller the shatterling is, the more mobile it is.
When all shatterlings are destroyed, the event is done.
After the event, we could see the remains reassemble and fly away(not really necessary)

There’s been some interesting things mentioned in the thread. I like the idea of the Shatterer bombarding players from the air - after all, each one spends a good time flying about overhead; seeing what it can unleash from above sounds great. I also like the idea of the beastie having mobility over the ground, so it’s not a total piñata. I don’t even mind the idea of siege weapons, but I think they’re best left in the hands of the Vigil and players could perhaps use that pre to collect fun things to use as ammo (NOT cows). I usually like my illusions to perch on the Shatterer’s nose, but I’d not object to a devourer fastened on up there. A version of the cattlepult could be fun. But not with cows.

Above all, it shouldn’t require too much co-ordination between players, and it shouldn’t outstrip the level appropriate traits available (not so many for the level 50 character these days). I hate the orange circles, to be honest (orange angers me), but they can be seen, so if there’s AoEs and whatnot, that works. And since we see them a lot in boss fights these days, they should be somewhat familiar to newer players and old alike. I don’t know how much of an issue they’d be with the purple haze in the area, but I should think that could be tweaked if necessary - the orange colour, not the purple haze. But use mechanics familiar to the average level 50, encourage a gentle learning curve, and don’t have it so the event can fail if some players have either a bad day, different skills or senior moments.

As an aside, regarding Tequatl: I miss the old lazy bones version. I don’t hate the current incarnation, however, but I would’ve had him retreat/play extra dead after the initial lazy bout, and have him "escape" to a cove just south of Sparkfly (possibly behind that hill he first jumps on), where those so inclined could go after him, perhaps using the launch pads currently in situ on the beach. It’s not a blocked off raid instance, it’s just a little further out, having the same sort of event as it is now, just tweaked to make sense. With suitable rewards for each event, natch. And he can still fail, and have an effect on the coastline if it was thought acceptable. This wouldn’t necessarily cure the waiting time to get in, however, and I’m too tired to contemplate that now.

Some very good ideas in this thread. I do think that the Shattere should be bumped to something like The Claw of Jurmag; not the same mechanics of course, but something more engaging than it is now.

Nope. We’ve seen where harder went with Tequatl, now the boss spawns for his window and almost never gets challenged. Shatterer’s current level of difficulting is just fine.

i’m not against revisions, but i think tequatl was too much of a change
you may not get a standing ovation for smaller revisions, but ultimately the players will thank you. . .

you wunna talk about world boss changes? remove the storage crate from golem mark 2.. try it, just for a couple of days.. i implore you to do so, and then we will see if arena net is up to the challenge of more complicated boss revisions…

to stay on topic, nuke the shatter afk spot.. i don’t mind what mechanic you use or if it is even lore related.. just nuke that spot. . . .

also, i suggested an idea for a new world boss event a few months ago and it received absolutely no feedback whatsoever

The Shatterer does not need to be as hard like Triple Trouble, but it definitely has to be on Tequatl’s level. (Yes, TT is harder than Teq).

And for that matter, the Claw of Jormag too. The rest of the world bosses can have some fun mechanics to them but not requiring to be as difficult as Tequatle, but not too easy either.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Thread explosion! Thanks for all the (rapid) responses. There seems to be a fairly consistent feeling that yes, these fights can be more engaging without becoming as difficult as the jungle wurm.

I like some of the ideas being presented, feel free to keep the discussion going. It’s also helpful to hear not only what’s working but why it’s working for you.

On the topic of using siege weapons as a role mechanic in these fights, is that something we want to see more of? I often worry that siege weapons can be just as boring as standing in the safe corner pressing the same attack. Do you feel that they can also cause some contention between players?

Yeah I can see your point with siege. I have to pull teeth to get people to drive siege with tequatl.

I think it could be tied to NPCs. I’ve used an similar concept with a few of my suggested changes for SB a long time ago.

For The Shatterer it can work like this.

1. NPCs drive the siege and fire them. However players must protect them. Basically take the tequatl mechanics of having protectors and just take out the turret driver. People like guarding a lot more than driving.

2. If you have some special condition that can’t be cured by condi cleanse and needs a special item, think about equipment boxes. Like they have some special version of an elixir gun that you need to spray on players to cure them.

3. Vehicles. I think people would enjoy interacting with vehicles more. Perhaps have a Zepplin do circles around the fight while raining down fire with their onboard cannons and players must go up to it and guard the NPCs firing them from branded griffons and other flying monsters attacking it. Maybe have “anti air” drive-able siege that can be used but is not required.

4. Siege similar to Marionette. PEOPLE LOVED THESE. I think putting in siege whose objective is to kill big groups of enemies makes people want to use them more. In these the siege golems were always filled and the front line ACs usually had one person driving them to. So if you do siege like that make sure their objective is to hold bag large groups

5. Optional Objectives. Theres objectives don’t have to be required to win, but do make the fight easier. In tequatl the turrets are pretty much required because of the time limit. One mistake and its over. First design the fight with a timer and that it can be doable without any secondary objectives. Then add in secondary objectives that make it easier/quicker/negate certain mechanics of the fight. Maybe have a group of Ebon Vanguard warriors assist in the fight and they “distract/hold back” enemy npcs that are spawned so they dont attack players and you acquired them by escorting a supply caravan from the south that arrives at the boss about half way through the fight. Mabye have some group like the Priory channeling some ancient spell that lowers the defenses of the boss and incorporate search/retrieve or some objective other than protection against waves of enemies into it. So basically design a boss to be completed without secondary objectives, but put in some that make a fight easier if done. It gives players something else to do in a fight aside from frontline attack and they get the same benefits. Of course this also means that if something is too easy to do then you’d have too many people trying to complete it. There’s a couple of ways to circumvent this, make more actions/attention required to do them. Similar to how tequatl is now. Frontline attacks you don’t have to do as much than someone whose guardian a turret or driving one. Another option is to make which secondary events based on RNG and don’t start till a few minutes after the boss pops. This makes it harder to wait for it since it may not appear and they become invested in the frontline spot.

Oh no. I can tell you right now that I’m against it. If you read by previous posts in this thread, you would see my reasoning., One of them may have been directed at you.

The way I would have fixed the Marionette would be to just make the platform phases “best 3 out of 5,” so if three stages succeeded and two wiped, you would still cut that string and move on to the next tier.

Last night we were there with a small group from my guild defending the golems, while the majority of the rest (including so called commanders) was either killing mobs or attacking the Boss. And when the event finally succeeded (and the Behemoth already had been slayn a long time ago) the mapchat was flooded with “good job all”, “thanks for the lead!” and other stuff that freaked me out.

That was a problem caused by an update a while back in which they added champs with bags to the enemies near the top. This leads to players farming those mobs instead of working on Claw at all. If you make a method by which players can make a little short term gain rather than helping to complete the event, they will take the short term gain. That’s a lesson to ANet, never put champ bags into a situation where failure is possible.

I’m not sure how it would be done exactly but I think it would be cool to see that banishment mechanic from the shiro tagachi fight at the end of factions in GW2, if it can’t be made to fit with this boss than with another. Something like that could help break up the monotony of a world boss where you are just standing there with the rest of the zerg firing attacks at it without making it too difficult.

Anet said, Tequatl was buffed because Zhaitan was killed. If Shatterer is buffed, then he’ll have to become 2x as strong when Kralkattorrik is killed some years later.

Ixillius.5768:

Have you been to Tequatl lately? I wouldn’t ever use the term Ghost Town for sparkfly when Tequatl arrives.

That place has more tags than some zones have players.

Nick.6972:

Suggestion #1 for future “raid” like bosses – make them instanced.

It’s a misconception that making bosses instanced somehow makes them less accessible. It’s the opposite.
Currently I have to plan few days in advance and spend around an hour just preparing.
If Tequatl and Wutm events would have been instanced, they would be played much more than they are now.

Yeah I agree. And preferably tuned for a reasonably sized group. I don’t know what that is, but I’ll wager 10 to 40. Taco is now played all the time though. Wurm is wurm, It certainly requires coordination, knowledge of play, and eyesight. But I dunno, it just doesn’t feel as satisfying to me as some encounters in other games. Plant dragon was cool. Not hard, but I suppose of the right difficulty for the open world.

Definitely liked marionette though. That’s the ‘raidiest’ I’ve ever seen the game. Some standard gw2 Zerg mixed with entertaining small group play. You ran the risk of being dealt a terrible group that ruined it for all, but I liked it. The open world is wonderful. It really is. But a boss out there…well I’m just not sure how one could match up to one behind a swirling portal.

Felkes.2759:

Nope. We’ve seen where harder went with Tequatl, now the boss spawns for his window and almost never gets challenged. Shatterer’s current level of difficulting is just fine.

I don’t understand, I do Tequatl daily for a week now at 2:00am and we were sucessful every time. The only problem I see with these big battles: you have to be on the map for a while before the fight begins.

an idea for an interesting shatterer-attack:

• the crystals spawn normally
• the dragon does a HUGE breath-attack which kills everyone instantly except the players that stand in the shadow/behind the crystals.

This means: if you destroy the crystal too fast, you will have nothing to protect you and you will die.

play the game, not the UI?
A small note: I’ve seen a few indicators that Anet tends to use the UI more and more, I don’t think this is a good idea. Wasn’t the philosophy: play the game, not the UI?

example solution: Shatterer
Things need to be adressed better in the gameplay imho. For example the crystals at the shatterer: have them go through many polygon-model phases so that players can easily see how those crystals get wrecked. They could even change colour if they are nearly crushed.

Most important for this: the effects really shouldn’t be in the way by now. I’m sure you are working ambitiously on this, but I feel the gameplay comes dangerously close to “play the UI”. The moa-boss in Drytop was awesome but effects made it difficult to see the tell in order to interrupt at the right time. I’d call it a priority one problem imho, since it’s relevant for all new boss battles and revamps.

Edit:

normalizing effects
what if you do the same to the effects you did with the sPvP enemy-models? Turn them down to a really simple projectile model for example. You can only see your groups effects normally and all the other effects from hundreds of other players get a new simple animation.

• ranged normalized animations would only be visible directly at the player, but get invisible when they move away from him
• flashy effects will be blended out, keep them only for your group (or your squad, see suggestion below)
• melee normalized animations will lose all effects, you can’t see your character when you’re stacked with others, effects don’t matter anyway. Normalized melee-attacks look like autoattacks.

OR
having commander squads effect how much effects you see
you can only see your squads effects. Which would make it usefull to have more commanders since you can only effectively use combos when you can see the effects clearly. Commanders could set limits to their squadsize (or would have a limit naturally which they can expand as they like).

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Thread explosion! Thanks for all the (rapid) responses. There seems to be a fairly consistent feeling that yes, these fights can be more engaging without becoming as difficult as the jungle wurm.

I like some of the ideas being presented, feel free to keep the discussion going. It’s also helpful to hear not only what’s working but why it’s working for you.

On the topic of using siege weapons as a role mechanic in these fights, is that something we want to see more of? I often worry that siege weapons can be just as boring as standing in the safe corner pressing the same attack. Do you feel that they can also cause some contention between players?

Siege weapons are key part – they should be used against dragons like they are in battle against Zaithan. They are well done in Tequatl fight, not hard to operate and most of all not boring at all due to phases that Tequatl is divided to – first you buff allies and debuff Tequatl, then you have generator/cannon defending phase where you can go to have a little fight with mobs and lastly you can go back to siege weapon and give haste to allies and get a few shots on him from turret while Teq is stunned or join them and beat him a little bit.

Operating turrets while fighting teq is as important kitten called burn-phase and if someone finds them really boring you can always go to melee spots which in 95% are showed by commanders presence (to commanders i give my thanks)

As for “causing some contention between players” lets not lie almost everything can cause it no matter what and there is not much that can be done about this… All we can do is to add person that is raging and calling names to blocked list and/or reporting him for insulting. People were, are and will be raging,whining and fighting each other.

ONE problem that i find while fighting Teqatl is when commanders say before the fight start “when you die use waypoint and come back – no ressing” which i understand, waste of time ressurecting dead players instead of putting 100% of damage AND still people lie dead waiting to be ressurected which causes rage most of the time (yup even i sometimes cant stand it and write them to “use the bloody WP”

I have a solution to this – during boss event (in this case TEQ) can you make something working like anti-AFK in WvW with the exception that instead of disconnect it will be forcefuly ressurecting people in certian location of them map – some waypoint that is 100% of the time unceontested ?
This would prevent main reason that causes people to rage doring Teq.

When you’ll ever plan to make rest of dragons similar to Teq – please take this solution into account.

Orpheal.8263:

New Achievements based on my Shatterer Redesign including the Existing Boss achievement for the Boss Achievement Tab together with Rewards:

The Shatterer – 50AP
Complete 10 Shatterer Achievements – Title – The Chaos Breaker

Shattered – 10AP
Break 5 Players out of the Crystal Coffin while Phase 1 of the Shatterer is active

I love Chaos – 1 AP/9AP
Stand longer than 1/10 Minutes in total in the Chaos Storms of the Shatterer without getting downed.

Phantom Bane – 10 AP
Survive the Phantom Snake Form Phase of the Shatterer without dieing to one of its Soul Rush Attacks
Crystal Slayer – 5/5/5/5/5 AP
Kill more than 100,250,500,750,1000 Branded Shard/Crystal Mininos of the Shatterer while the Event is active

Catch me If You Can – 15 AP
Defeat the Shatterer without getting ever once crystalized by the Shatterer’s Crystalizer or Crystal Dust Attack

Chaos Binder – 5 AP
Fire off the Spear of Archemorus to finish the Battle either or to bind the Chaos Wyvern to the ground with it.

Fourth Dimension – 5 AP
Get sucked into a Black Hole grab a Treasure Chest, while you are falling and survive the fall by collecting also enough Chaos Energy to let another Black Hole appear before you crash into the ground and die.

Shocking Good Jumper – 10AP
Avoid 10x Damage from the Crystal Towers through Jumping over the Shock Waves form their Lightning Area of Effect Attacks

Slaughter in the Dragon Brand – 15AP
Defeat the Shatterer

Shining Resonance – 5AP
Let the Shatterer reach in his Crystal Dust Phase the maximum amount of Buff Stacks he can get. He will use then his his special Breath Attack – Shining Resonance
Dodge this Attack and get this Achievement.

Nicely done, i like them.

Frediosz.2718:

ONE problem that i find while fighting Teqatl is when commanders say before the fight start “when you die use waypoint and come back – no ressing” which i understand, waste of time ressurecting dead players instead of putting 100% of damage AND still people lie dead waiting to be ressurected which causes rage most of the time (yup even i sometimes cant stand it and write them to “use the bloody WP”

I have a solution to this – during boss event (in this case TEQ) can you make something working like anti-AFK in WvW with the exception that instead of disconnect it will be forcefuly ressurecting people in certian location of them map – some waypoint that is 100% of the time unceontested ?
This would prevent main reason that causes people to rage doring Teq.

I too think that this is a problem, it turns players against players, making them angry about others. I think this should be adressed in a meaningful way which doesn’t forcefully hurt one player by auto-spawning him at a waypoint.

I never liked waypointing during battles anyway, they disabled it in dungeons which was a nice step imho. But what happens when you disable waypointing during those large boss-battles? People get angry because they have lost control about the situation, since newbies tend to die a lot. How could this be adressed?

Medic-npcs. (only visible to the defeated player to avoid fps issues)
(small idea about this: defeated symbol changes color to yellow when player is ressed, green when 5 players ress him)

• when you die a medic npc will come to ress you. It will be a slow process but takes about the time it lasts for the player to run back into the battle from the nearest uncontested waypoint.
• those medic-npcs are invulnerable and can’t be killed by mobs.
• downed players will still get regeneration and heal buffs from outside sources so ressing will go a little bit faster.

another note:
And what if downed players lose health slower?

I have a solution to this – during boss event (in this case TEQ) can you make something working like anti-AFK in WvW with the exception that instead of disconnect it will be forcefuly ressurecting people in certian location of them map – some waypoint that is 100% of the time unceontested ?
This would prevent main reason that causes people to rage doring Teq.

I definitely agree with this. Until they make in-combat rezzing as fast as raising a downed player, defeated players MUST WP as quickly as possible at all times. It would be better for the community if the developers made this mandatory rather than leaving it up to player altruism. I say this as someone not unaccustomed to needing to waypoint myself.

New Achievements based on my Shatterer Redesign including the Existing Boss achievement for the Boss Achievement Tab together with Rewards:

I will leave an important note about giving achievements to massive events:

Never reward failure. That is, don’t give achievements that require the group to screw up, like “let the timer nearly run out,” or “let the bar go all the way up. when you could prevent it early.” If you do want to have a “let him charge his big attack” move, the reward needs to be more than just an achievement for those that don’t have it, it needs to be something repeatable and worthwhile that everyone gets. I mean, if you want to have a “let him charge his big attack but beat him anyways” challenge, then the reward for that needs to be more than an achievement, it needs to be like a bonus chest at the end.

Otherwise you end up with most of the players trying to do things as efficiently as possible, and some other selfish jerks trying to get their achievements by trolling the event and creating bad states, and that’s just toxic to the community. Everybody should be working towards the same goals. and achievement hunting should never get in the way of event clearing.

In regards to siege, I think it’s good and interesting when the siege is immersed in the mechanics, like Tequatl’s turrets. If siege can be broken, repaired, built, perhaps mobilized, it doesn’t feel like “oh and by the way siege”.

I think there are definitely ways to make it interesting during fights like these, and moreover, these giant bosses give the feeling that there should be siege. Just allow more interaction than shooting a bomb every 3 seconds.

Side note: my friend and I were talking about a bundle item that should be used for SB akin to a Proton Pack/ gun(Ghostbusters).

Speaking of Taidha Covington, this world boss’ bug is always exploited, voluntary and involuntary, so that we can all call Taidha Covington: “Pacifist Taidha” or “Queen of Pacifism”.

This is mostly because Taidha Covington’s bug will prevent her from executing skills and event related triggers, like the teleporation phases.

I wonder if fix for Taidha comes someday, ANet only fixed the dying issue, while left this “Pacifism” bug untouched…

Random thought:
I wonder what ANet’s gonna do with the concept of “Bosses that are immune to Cripple, Chill and Immobilize”, since they did make most bosses of Dry Top immune to these conditions.

On one thought, making world bosses immune to Immobilize could fix alot of problems, but this is just a small thing and small piece of opinion of mine…

Well, tbh Teq is already too easy especially with the recent bug/nerf to poison fields from fingers. It would only make sense if other dragon lieutenants would be as powerful as Teq. Some people, no doubt, would complain at start about loosing one of their easy events where they could autopilot, but eventually they will get over it just same as it happened with Teq, no one whines about it anymore. I feel like GW2 somewhat lack events like Teq, Wurm pretty much requires TS and in that matter truly hardcore while Teq is not at all. I guess if AN would decide to buff CoJ and kitten is same fashion as Teq they could even separate their spawns through out week, like one day we fight Shatterer, another Teq, next CoJ etc. there might be even some sort of a story for that, like heralds making announcements, trying to recruit ppl in major cities etc.

PS. Dunno why Shatterer gets kittened by censor. oO

1000/10 I’d like a rework on Shatterer LIKE with Tequatl.
(I meant, at least SAME difficult).

I do Tequatl every day. It is really challenging, I love that battle. But fighting a dead dragon in a swamp will not be ever like THE SHATTERER in Blazeridge Steppes (I love the violet effect in that map: always spent some time watching the sky waiting for my mates for Guild Missions).

In the end it is a f****g dragon, not a little elemental o wurm.
Next steps: Shatterer then JORMAG.
In that case: faster battle, harder mode, better rewards.

If we’re looking for a creative rearrangement of either of these fights, and more player experience, I would first suggest map-wide notification of “impending arrival of doom” and the option of a “show me” button to direct you to the dragon’s arrival.

Secondly, perhaps there could be not only the main event (as is or modified) but also additional events, that INCREASE the reward levels for a time. For example, there could be a point during the battle where a notification of the arrival of Lieutenant Sandy BeachComber to the northwest with an Iron Legion Reverberator; if there are players who escort him to the fight, he’ll set up the device which increases magic find by 15% for all those in the area.

Meanwhile you could have mini-claws that appear in three or four surrounding spots and if you were to kill these, you get additional kill time before the dragon leaves. Or you get super explody crystal bundles out of these kills that can damage the dragon in bursts.. Or maybe they represent spawn points for MINI-dragon-chests (containing additional dragony loots)

And to the east, here comes a band of Ebonhawke Soldiers – Stop the separatist ambush before the troops get slaughtered and not only are there NPCs to repair cannons on site (which can now be disabled if not attended to) but they can cast a new spell – their presence can increase player precision by 100!

Also… think “now with authentic battle damage!” (Have the dragon SHOW damage as the fight progresses. So we SEE it, not just on the progress bar.

INVOLVE the MAP more. EXTEND the battle.

Just my 85copper ideas.

I like phasing a chunk of players to make the fight more difficult… like TA story when we are transformed into Sylvan Hounds by one of the bosses. We have to fight our way back. So, let’s say we become “half-corrupted” giving us the ability to strike from inside, while intensifying the regular “outside” battle… the better we are striking it from inside, the easy it becomes for people outside. Bring some level of coordination to that.

Our character models could have branded crystals attached to them when we enter this “half-corrupted” state, like the event from the GW2’s early betas (you guys remember? some people were corrupted and fought others who weren’t).

I personally love the Mordreem Leecher and the Modrem Hounds who spread retaliation around, it could make AoEing more dangerous to the players.

The Shatterer is a majestic strong champion and deserves the best fight IMO. It is meant to be kitten mechanic-wise! I really hope you guys add up to it. fingers crossed

Ohoni.6057:

I think ranked rewards where best way to make events with gradients of difficulty with reward. Or having bosses with guild start settings with difficulties bosses. But people will always complain when they are not able to get best rewards.

Yes. “hard mode” versions/conditions should never give better rewards than “normal mode” versions of them. They can offer more rewards, like two rares instead of three, or a 10% chance of getting a super rare reward instead of 5%, but anything you can get through the hard mode you should have a reasonable chance of getting through the normal mode, because some people want that stuff but aren’t good enough to do the hard mode version, and better that they do the mode they are suited for a few more times to get the loot they want, than for them to bang their head against the wall on the harder version and not enjoy themselves.

Sorry but no.Hard mode and nomal mode are everythink else but not equals.If anyone decides to do hard mode then he must receive appropriate spoils of the war.Hard mode must have better rewards.

Second Post :P
Something to fill in those 40 minutes of setup time before Teq. And this is fun because it has players dividing up to compete against each other en masse to benefit themselves – Free the Sylvari/Charr/Asura/Human/Norn captives so they can join the fight. ONLY one racial group can be freed for the battle! Doing so seals the other four groups off behind impenetrable barriers. The race that frees their captives gets a bonus during the fight:

“Song of the Sylvari” All Sylvari are at minimum 25% movement for the duration.
Might of the Norn All Norn have 10% weapon skill recharge rate reduction
Blessing of Dwayna All Humans have 40% faster healing skill recharge
Unity in Battle All Charr deal +10% damage with skill slot 1
*Supercharged Intellect" All asuran Elites recharge 5% faster.

Though I’m no programmer and this may be seriously tricky to implement. Maybe someone will get creative ideas off the post anyways.

*Either divide these pursuits by race or profession. I chose race, else you’re going to get theme of everyone showing up as elementalist (for example) – while race is more likely to bring out a variety of professions since there is no standard race+profession combo.

These boons really aren’t intended to give a SERIOUS bonus to any player, just enough of a teaser to encourage people to DO something and GAIN something different.

- Also: Achievement: Defeated Tequatl as a Sylvari!

A Perfect Solecism.3756:

Second Post :P
Something to fill in those 40 minutes of setup time before Teq. And this is fun because it has players dividing up to compete against each other en masse to benefit themselves – Free the Sylvari/Charr/Asura/Human/Norn captives so they can join the fight. ONLY one racial group can be freed for the battle! Doing so seals the other four groups off behind impenetrable barriers. The race that frees their captives gets a bonus during the fight:

“Song of the Sylvari” All Sylvari are at minimum 25% movement for the duration.
Might of the Norn All Norn have 10% weapon skill recharge rate reduction
Blessing of Dwayna All Humans have 40% faster healing skill recharge
Unity in Battle All Charr deal +10% damage with skill slot 1
*Supercharged Intellect" All asuran Elites recharge 5% faster.

Though I’m no programmer and this may be seriously tricky to implement. Maybe someone will get creative ideas off the post anyways.

*Either divide these pursuits by race or profession. I chose race, else you’re going to get theme of everyone showing up as elementalist (for example) – while race is more likely to bring out a variety of professions since there is no standard race+profession combo.

I think affecting the skills directly in such a way doesn’t quite “fit” the battle, but there’s something cool out of it… 3 orders – 3 buffs.
Vigil’s Might: +3%/6%/10% direct damage against the branded, 5% chance to gain 5sec fury upon being hit by branded;
Whisper’s Technique: +3%/6%/10% defense against the branded attacks, 5% chance to gain 5sec protection upon being hit by branded;
Priory’s Wisdom: +3%/6%/10% damage-over-time against the branded, 5% chance to gain 5sec retaliation upon being hit by branded.

The first bonus depends on the stack (max 3), the second only comes into play if you have all 3 stacks. Stacking 3x should be hard, and challenging, and maybe something “off-battle” to spread the focus and avoid spamming the dragon but becoming more necessary as the fight scales.

@Edit
Numbers are only examples, it needs balancing, but the idea is there. :P

I would like all bosses be around Marionette in difficultly, not too hard but not too easy.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Do you guys think that there’s a middle ground between ultra hard and easy?

For example, I think we could clean up some of the issues with the Shatterer and just make it a more engaging experience. So rather than spending the entire fight hiding under his right paw he could, say, turn his head and attack that area? :] It doesn’t have to be hard, just a little more involved.

We tried to put in a few changes here and there when we added the new world boss timers. Reactions varied.

Hey Anthony!

I do believe that for such events, the first thing you should always do is the same thing done with Tequatl – split people and give entire team multiple tasks. Every player should feel like he’s helping and necessary to achieve victory. For our “starter” dragon, which is Shatterer I believe it should be the primary idea. Teach people the responsibility and make them feel important.

Tequatl is fine as it as. However, the “end” champion, which is Claw, should pose grea5er challange than Tequatl since it’s already in 80 area and that should be the test “What we have learned leveling 1-80” with multiple mechanics player are already familiar with happening around the dragon + new ones coming from fighting dragon itself.

As for Shatterer, there was a very good thread like a year or so ago (shortly after Teq’s patch) about it’s rework. It had many great ideas with illustrations, icons etc. I will search for it later and edit this post with that.

Thanks!

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Do you guys think that there’s a middle ground between ultra hard and easy?

For example, I think we could clean up some of the issues with the Shatterer and just make it a more engaging experience. So rather than spending the entire fight hiding under his right paw he could, say, turn his head and attack that area? :] It doesn’t have to be hard, just a little more involved.

We tried to put in a few changes here and there when we added the new world boss timers. Reactions varied.

There is NOTHING ultra hard in GW2, especially world meta events.
Increasing the level of involvement should have been done 2 years ago, but yet we still have to hit toes for loot.
Please tell me why a large dragon minion doesn’t move around? Does he have a deathwish and lands on the ground infront of a giant zerg because he is unhappy with his long distance plan and wants to end it all?
At least teq will fly off and move a little bit. I won’t even do shatterer anymore since it is beyond boring and I couldn’t care about 2 blues, a green and some grumblecakes anyways

Every one of the “big” world events should have difficulty on par with Tequatl or Evolved Jungle Wurm. Where’s the challenge in stacking on one spot and pressing 12341234 then loot chest as it is in the majority of the remaining world bosses?

I’m not sure how I feel about The Shatterer getting a difficulty buff.

On one hand, the fight is incredibly boring (despite being very artistically impressive), requiring virtually zero attention or player skill. Fixing this would be great.

On the other hand, pretty much all world boss fights are fairly boring. They don’t require high levels of player skill; wurm requires the most player skill, and really that’s mostly just understanding the mechanics and how to play your class (very basic stuff), in addition to being able to hop on voice chat, communicate/follow directions, and show up practically an hour before the event due to organizational challenges. They don’t require all that much attention, but they do require enough attention you can’t AFK them for the most part—you have to be present, and be bored (worst offender: Mark II Golem… seriously, I love how I have to actually hit “1” over and over again because autoattack doesn’t work properly from the box, and how I have to constantly retarget it due to my target being lost).

So what’s the problem? Well, I’m a big fan of hard content, that’s hard because it requires high levels of both attention and player skill. Unfortunately, I can’t do that content and obtain Dragonite Ore at a fast and reliable pace. As it is, if I want Dragonite Ore at a fast and reliable pace, I have to do world bosses, which I’d rather not do because they’re simply not challenging in a player skill aspect, and thus quite boring for me. Which is to say, being able to AFK them to do something engaging and still get the reward is better than having to pay attention and be bored out of my mind because there is zero real challenge.

I suppose what I’m saying is, do whatever you want to World Bosses, but add in some method of quickly and reliably obtaining Dragonite Ore that’s not going to fall into the “low player skill but you have to pay attention” category. Preferably, you know, one that falls into the actual challenge category… But I guess I’d be simultaneously happy and disappointed at a full-AFK method, because at least that’d allow me to do more engaging stuff while obtaining my Dragonite Ore.

Pandaman.4758:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Telemin.7380:

As much as I want harder content, I do not want it at the expense of other content. If I had a say, id say for a new hard boss and leave this one as is.

This. We do not want Shatterer to become a ghost town like what happened with Tequatl.

Tequatl’s only a ghost town if you arrive five minutes before the show. Show up around 40 minutes to an hour before and you’ll land in a map that’s organizing.

lol
are you serious?

Murashin.8295:

1000/10 I’d like a rework on Shatterer LIKE with Tequatl.
(I meant, at least SAME difficult).

I do Tequatl every day. It is really challenging, I love that battle. But fighting a dead dragon in a swamp will not be ever like THE SHATTERER in Blazeridge Steppes (I love the violet effect in that map: always spent some time watching the sky waiting for my mates for Guild Missions).

In the end it is a f****g dragon, not a little elemental o wurm.
Next steps: Shatterer then JORMAG.
In that case: faster battle, harder mode, better rewards.

And most important .. much longer wait time ..

My idea .. make them so that they needed to be killed in 3 different zone similtaneous
and need 500 people at least .. wait time should be at least 5 hours.