What makes content hard?

What makes content hard?

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Posted by: DGraves.3720

DGraves.3720

I know I’ve heard general notions about content difficulty such as mechanics, etc. but these terms sound closer to “big word syndrome” than suggestions. Is difficulty based on what you as a player actually have trouble doing well or just stuff that seems harder even if it’s the same old thing with a few twists or what?

For me difficulty is related to adaptability. It is a balance between being able to do it all and do it all well enough to succeed; I think of it as the random path trial where you and your team have to solo your own individual pathways which are randomly assigned. You can’t go in with only defense or offense of one type; in terms of this game that might mean being randomly assigned an enemy immune to condition damage or physical damage. If you can’t do both you won’t win, obviously.

I am sure my thoughts on it are not the mainstream though and it’s from old games I’ve played and really enjoyed.

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Posted by: Conncept.7638

Conncept.7638

Well if HoT is the developers opinion on difficult content, apparently its just adding more HP and damage to everything and making it attack with no telegraphing whatsoever at a rate higher than you can dodge, forcing you to bring players to split aggro between to pretty much every fight.

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Posted by: Danikat.8537

Danikat.8537

There are lots of ways content can be made hard, ranging from simply increasing the health and damage of all the enemies to introducing elaborate new mechanics that require multiple attempts to figure out (meaning no UI or NPCs or anything telling you what to do) and precise timing to execute successfully.

And I’d be hesitant to suggest that one is better than the others or the ‘right’ way to make hard content because they all appeal to different people.

But the one I find most enjoyable is when it requires careful tactics to beat. My favourite kind of games are RPGs which are either turn based or need to be paused frequently in order to review the results of your actions and update your strategy. (A design I once saw described as ‘chess on steroids’, which I think sums it up nicely, except I never liked chess.)

The important element here is that you will generally have a huge range of options available to you but some will be better than others in a particular situation (and then completely useless in another). Frequently it requires some forward planning too because you won’t have all those options available at all times – you might have an AoE fire mage and a single-target/condition causing ice mage but you only have space for one in your party so you need to anticipate (based on the information given when you accepted the quest) which is most likely to be effective.

Within GW2 The Queen’s Gauntlet was a good example of this IMO. It had a range of enemies with different strengths and weaknesses and as a result it was highly unlikely you’d be able to get through the entire thing with the same build. You needed to use different skills, different consumables, maybe even different equipment, to win each round.

(For the record I’m not saying this is the type of difficult content I’m best at. I’ve had enough bloody practice that I should be but I frequently get stuck on a particular fight for quite a while. But it’s the kind I find most enjoyable to beat, especially when I was stuck and then I finally crack it.)

Danielle Aurorel, Dear Dragon We Got Your Cookies [Nom], Desolation (EU).

“Life’s a journey, not a destination.”

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

I’m not sure if I can quantify it, but it generally involves fighting multiple mobs, needing to go all out (or at least having very little room for mistakes) and at the end feeling exhilarated. Oddly, this seems to happen more for me in core maps (with enough mobs, with a plus for being lower level than the mobs), whereas in HoT, similar situations leave me feeling aggravated rather than exhilarated.

Take the Veteran Mushroom King (please). All it seems to do is launch, knock and pull. So, stability, as much as the character can manage. Lacking enough stability, just use a build with some sustain and put up with its spam until it’s dead.

Unfortunately, while I used to find outnumbered situations frequently in core, it’s been happening less with mega-server. The polar opposite is daily events in low-level zones where mobs don’t live long enough to attack. In HoT, though, I can find outnumbered situations fairly frequently but I find the mechanics of a lot of HoT mobs more annoying than challenging.

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Posted by: loseridoit.2756

loseridoit.2756

For me difficulty is related to adaptability. It is a balance between being able to do it all and do it all well enough to succeed; I think of it as the random path trial where you and your team have to solo your own individual pathways which are randomly assigned. You can’t go in with only defense or offense of one type; in terms of this game that might mean being randomly assigned an enemy immune to condition damage or physical damage. If you can’t do both you won’t win, obviously.

actually. difficulty can be define as a game where you have very limited options and you have to do a large array of task albeit predictable but has a high rate of failure.

I want interesting content. Content that make you want to play it again. For the most part, I really not care if the boss skills is effective jump, throw, and punch. If only anet just invest in ai already.

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Posted by: Serious.7083

Serious.7083

Hard isn’t the problem, it’s making stuff hard and interesting.

Then hard can vary according to profession and build. I found that on a ranger almost everything in HoT was reasonable. Some mordrem take a long time to kill. Then Smokescales were a pain, simply because they use their teleport attack and then hide in smoke. The problem being the ranger pet kept them there till it died.

On another toon I found the smokescales easy but pocket raptors were the problem – which had been easy on the ranger.

Then you have one of the frog mordrem, where you can keep missing attacks. This isn’t difficult, it’s just unfair.

I don’t really have problems with things being difficult, and don’t count HoT outside of the raid is difficult. I am probably not an average player though.

Difficult is things that tax you to the limit but you can do, it’s very personal. Exciting is when the foes do interesting and novel tactics rather than rely on timers, huge health bars and area environmental effects.

Same should go the other way though, if someone can tank a mob without any damage at all then their build is too powerful and needs to be examined.

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Posted by: Tumult.2578

Tumult.2578

Hard is not gating everything behind ridiculous requirements just to slow down advancement. Hard is not making people wait to play your game. Hard is not forcing people into content they don’t enjoy.

Hard is content that absorbs your interest and has enough difficulty to assure constant repeated success doesn’t happen.

An interesting mechanic in each encounter with simple effective scaling over gating and blocking works much better. This is where your middle ground is between the elite and the casual if you want to keep as many as possible of them both.

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Posted by: Manasa Devi.7958

Manasa Devi.7958

Hard for me is when I still need to make an honest effort, every time, even after I figured out exactly what it takes and what I need to do.

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Posted by: DreamyAbaddon.3265

DreamyAbaddon.3265

I true challenging content can be achieved in a party of 3 man instance, where all 3 players must coordinate Control while contributing in dealing Damage while Supporting each other while moving and dodging from incoming attacks.

Bosses and enemies are should NOT be imnuned to control effects and they should not have a LARGE Health pool that takes forever to chip. I feel the boss fights generally from Season 2 was the right direction to take bosses but they the bosses should not be immuned to knockbacks and such with a 3 man instance content I’m thinking of.

I think it’s best to be creative with bosses and be inspired from single player games like from Metriod prime boss fights or something.

When there are more people, it’s easier to mess up and be carried but when you got only 3 people in these challenging group content, these “Assaults” then you can’t mess up otherwise you all die. Team work becomes more essential than a 10 man raid because you have higher chance of failure when you don’t have a lot of people to back you up.

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Posted by: Beldin.5498

Beldin.5498

When people cry for “harder” content normally the following things happen :
- mobs get more HPs
- mobs make more damage, often one-shots
- mobs get more CCs so that you are often more often disabled / stunlocked then you could fight.

And that does not only happen in GW2 but in ALL MMOs. Personally i’m not a fan
of one-shots and lying on the floor until i’m dead, thats why i’m always against it
when people cry for “harder” content.

EVERY MMO is awesome until it is released then its unfinished. A month after release it just sucks.
Best MMOs are the ones that never make it. Therefore Stargate Online wins.

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Posted by: Aeolus.3615

Aeolus.3615

better A.I like mobs know wich target has less defense, mobs targetting players with low health or with more conditions, mobs evading, mobs clearing conditions etc.

1st April joke, when gw2 receives a “balance” update.

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Posted by: PaxTheGreatOne.9472

PaxTheGreatOne.9472

Hard is having enemies dodge all ranged attacks when you move into an area with your Scepter and Staff necro… Luckily reaper works. or others being in close combat.

23 lvl 80’s, 9 times map, 4ele, 4ncr, 3war, 3grd, 3rgr, 2thf, 2msm, 1eng, 1 rev.
Been There, Done That & Will do it again…except maybe world completion.

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Posted by: Asumita.2174

Asumita.2174

When people cry for “harder” content normally the following things happen :
- mobs get more HPs
- mobs make more damage, often one-shots
- mobs get more CCs so that you are often more often disabled / stunlocked then you could fight.

And that does not only happen in GW2 but in ALL MMOs. Personally i’m not a fan
of one-shots and lying on the floor until i’m dead, thats why i’m always against it
when people cry for “harder” content.

You gotta watch what you wish for lol.

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Posted by: Dyroth.5063

Dyroth.5063

When people cry for “harder” content normally the following things happen :
- mobs get more HPs
- mobs make more damage, often one-shots
- mobs get more CCs so that you are often more often disabled / stunlocked then you could fight.

And that does not only happen in GW2 but in ALL MMOs. Personally i’m not a fan
of one-shots and lying on the floor until i’m dead, thats why i’m always against it
when people cry for “harder” content.

I think one shots can be done right to make content harder without making it cheap. A one shot that just happens because the boss looked at you is bad, but if there is a mechanic to it that makes it avoidable or makes a counter for it is fun. If say you had to ensure a break bar was done every few mins or else the party would wipe, or hiding behind a shield to avoid a massive attack are one shots done more correctly.

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Posted by: Beldin.5498

Beldin.5498

When people cry for “harder” content normally the following things happen :
- mobs get more HPs
- mobs make more damage, often one-shots
- mobs get more CCs so that you are often more often disabled / stunlocked then you could fight.

And that does not only happen in GW2 but in ALL MMOs. Personally i’m not a fan
of one-shots and lying on the floor until i’m dead, thats why i’m always against it
when people cry for “harder” content.

I think one shots can be done right to make content harder without making it cheap. A one shot that just happens because the boss looked at you is bad, but if there is a mechanic to it that makes it avoidable or makes a counter for it is fun. If say you had to ensure a break bar was done every few mins or else the party would wipe, or hiding behind a shield to avoid a massive attack are one shots done more correctly.

One shots are never fun .. especially if you always make builds that re not totally
glascannons, and still are one shotted because mobs deal something like 100 times
more damage than what is possible as health on the most tanky build.

In my eyes at least one shots are just a cheap way of pseudo diffuculty to make
those people happy that never played diablo hardcore, and think a game is just
to easy if they don’t die at least 50 times a day.

EVERY MMO is awesome until it is released then its unfinished. A month after release it just sucks.
Best MMOs are the ones that never make it. Therefore Stargate Online wins.

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Posted by: Maximus Delion.8719

Maximus Delion.8719

First off, I don’t consider “difficult” to be a bad thing. Also, I don’t expect that my character should be a one-man army — if an encounter is intended for multiple players, not being able to solo it does not mean that it’s too difficult.

With that said, I consider content to be difficult for two reasons:

1. I have trouble finding a solution to the problem.
2. I know what the solution is, but I lack the skill to pull it off.

It can be a fine-line sometimes, but I’m generally okay with difficult content as long as I feel like I have a reasonable sporting chance to discover the right tactics and/or improve my playing skill to beat the challenge over time.

Where it becomes frustrating is when I feel like I’ve hit the limits of my physical and mental abilities, and I’m still no closer to a solution. If I can at least see some progress – however minor – I feel like there’s some hope. But when I find myself saying “this is getting boring, and I’m no better off than when I first started” – that’s when it crosses the line into frustrating.

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Posted by: echo.2053

echo.2053

When people cry for “harder” content normally the following things happen :
- mobs get more HPs
- mobs make more damage, often one-shots
- mobs get more CCs so that you are often more often disabled / stunlocked then you could fight.

And that does not only happen in GW2 but in ALL MMOs. Personally i’m not a fan
of one-shots and lying on the floor until i’m dead, thats why i’m always against it
when people cry for “harder” content.

I think one shots can be done right to make content harder without making it cheap. A one shot that just happens because the boss looked at you is bad, but if there is a mechanic to it that makes it avoidable or makes a counter for it is fun. If say you had to ensure a break bar was done every few mins or else the party would wipe, or hiding behind a shield to avoid a massive attack are one shots done more correctly.

One shots are never fun .. especially if you always make builds that re not totally
glascannons, and still are one shotted because mobs deal something like 100 times
more damage than what is possible as health on the most tanky build.

In my eyes at least one shots are just a cheap way of pseudo diffuculty to make
those people happy that never played diablo hardcore, and think a game is just
to easy if they don’t die at least 50 times a day.

Diablo hardcore was more about battleing potiental lag spikes. Thats a different issue but the difficulty was fun. I love one shots, think they are fun and funny. Don’t really understand how you guys can play 4-5+ hours everyday knowing no matter how many times you kitten up there is little to no chance of you dieing.

The sheer number of players remove any need to adapt.

You can blame telegraphs if you want but even if a giant message saying " dodge now" blinked on the screen 90% of the player population would still not dodge.

Bender the offender – Proud violator of 17 safe spaces –

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Posted by: Agemnon.4608

Agemnon.4608

Hard content only counts if it’s fair. For example the it’s all about time achievement isn’t fair but is the hardest LS 2 achieve whereas the dragon challenges at the end were (mostly) tough yet fair. Dark Souls is hard yet fair. It means a good player has a very credible chance at failure and indeed will fail until he fixes his mistakes and learns to tighten his accuracy in execution.

Those are signs of hard content, but what exactly is it? What differentiates hard content from regular content is the need to discern greater subtleties and tighten controls better. Let’s say it’s critical to interrupt a big move at a certain point, but a vastly inferior version of the move has a similar tell (maybe the big one is right handed and small one left handed or perhaps that’s not subtle enough, maybe the big one extends an index finger and the small one extends his pinkie, maybe the big one has a cherry hand glow and the small one a burgundy hand glow, etc.) and the subtlety would trigger one’s reflex to interrupt, but in the half second window they interrupt the wrong move and are defeated afterward. That would be an example of very tough yet fair.

In fighting games for example more subtle movements on the thumbstick enable you to execute moves far more accurately and if you overshoot you’ll jump forward or undershoot throw a fireball instead of doing a dragon punch (forward tapped too lightly).

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

The sheer number of players remove any need to adapt.

To get around that, you have to go where the people are not. That generally means going where the rewards aren’t. It’s still possible to get into an engaging fight, even in core. I got a condi necro into a fight with ~8 Sons of Svanir and ~4 griffons in DHC a couple of days ago. It reminded me of old times, before mega-server. Much rarer to find that opportunity now.

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Posted by: echo.2053

echo.2053

The sheer number of players remove any need to adapt.

To get around that, you have to go where the people are not. That generally means going where the rewards aren’t. It’s still possible to get into an engaging fight, even in core. I got a condi necro into a fight with ~8 Sons of Svanir and ~4 griffons in DHC a couple of days ago. It reminded me of old times, before mega-server. Much rarer to find that opportunity now.

1+1+1+1+1+1+1 – it’s good to hear from a similar mindset. Rewards are the same becuase they are univerisal but at a much slower pace. But you are 100% right its not so much about the reward as it is about the fight. Once you own everything you want, rewards generally become pointless, at least for me becuase I don’t want to be in that position where if something new is released I can instantly buy it.

Bender the offender – Proud violator of 17 safe spaces –

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Posted by: Teleniel.1809

Teleniel.1809

I think the biggest part of ‘challenge’ to me is needing to be able to adapt.
I would rather a fight did not have a “rage timer” and rather, if you were failing to adapt to a mechanic, the boss would auto-recover to near the end of the previous stage. And there were things in place to prevent you from powering through to skip mechanics. This would mean you /have/ to accomplish objectives.

That being said, ‘hard’ as I count it is killing packs of HOT enemies. They can HURT, I never find killing the VB treasure mushroom an easy thing to do alone.

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Posted by: Demented Sheep.1642

Demented Sheep.1642

A lot of things
People seem to scoff at more damage and health but (within reason) that is the bread and butter way to make things harder. More damage = less room for error, more health = you need to keep a good performance up longer or step up your DPS.

Short winds ups on attacks requiring fast reflexes to migrate it.

Enemies that are positioned in ways to exploit the environment which the player then has to find ways to overcome (the souls series is good at this).

Puzzles and “puzzle” mechanics (only works until the player figures it out so it’s not great for replayability but it can be fun while you do and memorable).

Lots of moving parts requiring coordination and skill syncing with a team.

Changing attack patterns so you have to adapt on the fly.

Dynamic enemies that use dodges, counters and punishments (obviously hard to pull off).

Forcing you to use counters (like stunbreaks, condi removal)

Multiple types of enemies in the same group.

I have mixed feeling about this but…you do have to make CC’s less effective somehow. Outright immune is a terrible way to handle it but if a team can effectually stun lock them then nothing else is going to make this fight hard.

Bad (IMO)ways to make things harder.

Too much health, especially if they aren’t hard to survive against. You end up having to quit to do other things or crushed by sheer boredom. Related to that, requiring a zerg to hit the DPS threshold. Zergs make hard to have satisfying hard content because of the sheer number of people. Teq was pretty awesome when it was first upgraded though, kudos to that. I didn’t think a fight with that many people could be that interesting.

A long “easy” phase followed by a sudden shift to one shotting (or near one shotting) in the late stages. I hate this, it makes the first phase frustrating and pointless.

Long runs to get back to where you were every time you mess up.

In games with random chance, having a very low chance to succeed on a lot of your tactics and abilities. Especially if just attacking is reliable but everything else is not

Immune to all damage until you meet a high cap. For example an enemy has armour that migrates 5000 damage per hit. If you aren’t doing more than that you are doing literately nothing and can not win.

Changing out the skills on your skillbar while having vague descriptions. or dumping you into a fight without giving you time to read them

Exploiting the faults in their own AI or targeting system. You don’t want to draw attention to these things! Like flooding a boss fight with minions making it hard to target them because your targeting is “will track an enemy in that general direction” or having you AI companions run into traps or one shots while you have no way to really control them.

Making enemies immune to core mechanic of a entire class. I remember some old forgotten realms having this issue. Hope you weren’t a thief because we are fighting undead again and they’re immune to crits, bleed and poison. Oh and this boss undead is also immune to CC!

Diceroll oneshots.

Very high damage and the only way to migrate that damage is kiteing in circles.

(edited by Demented Sheep.1642)

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Posted by: TheBravery.9615

TheBravery.9615

Your adversary makes the game hard, whether it’s in PvE or PvP or WvW

In PvP, facing off with a competent opponent is challenging and fun.
In WvW, facing off with a competent army with your army is challenging and fun

PvE however..

in PvE mobs just run at you and start attacking like some idiot. The AI is not intelligent at all, and PvE is made “hard” by cheap mechanics like high mob health pools or high mob damage output.

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Posted by: maddoctor.2738

maddoctor.2738

Hard content is content that requires thinking to succeed, more like a puzzle. When encounters are built in a way to challenge the player in terms of their build and way of thinking it gets even better. Always it’s the player that needs to adapt to the content and never the other way around, the player is the one that is supposed to find the solution to the “puzzle” and not ask for the content to be made around for their own playstyle.

As monsters go, lower hit point totals that allow bursting down, but cool defensive abilities is the way to go. Telegraphed high damaging attacks are also important, things both in defense and offence that players have to look out for, instead of semi-afking the fight. And in this regard HoT for example did a good job, all mobs have lower hit points than any core mob and highly telegraphed attacks, and some interesting defensive abilities.

As for group content, it’s all about adapting to the enemy composition to defeat them. Like playing the role of a coach, deciding which player to use at which position to counter the enemy composition.

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Posted by: Dayra.7405

Dayra.7405

Respawn time, the faster the minons come back the harder you have to work.

Ceterum censeo SFR esse delendam!