Guild Wars 2

From the Ten Ton Hammer interview:

" Ten Ton Hammer: Where would you place the Wyvern, in terms of difficulty, compared to other world bosses already in the game?

Jon: That we don’t really known yet.

Kevin: He’s in a few different places in the expansion and what’s cool about that guy is that he gets exponentially harder the smaller the area he is in, because he cuts so much of the ground. There’s a few different difficulties with the same creature in different areas. We have him on some smaller platforms that are much more difficult to fight him on."

The last bolding is mine. It looks like we will fight the same world boss in more than one place, and it appears the major difference between fights won’t be changes to the boss itself, rather how big is the area it’s in.

This kind of “copy & paste” content is the kind of thing ArenaNet begain using heavily in the Silverwastes (the four fourtresses are basically big copy and pastes, with the same events). The fact one of the HoT battles they’re talking the most about has also been subjected to “copy & paste” is a really bad sign, IMO. It hints that there will be a lot of repeated content in the expansion.

Does someone else share a similar opinion?

I see it as more thematic than copy/paste. A lush biome should have more than one of each type of creature. Plus the wyverns aren’t end bosses, just hard world fights, and indications are that wyverns deeper in than this demo will be tougher for various reasons.

It’s like saying centaurs are copy-pasted because there’s more than one tribe of them, or the hylek, or the skritt. They are denizens of the world and will be encountered more than once in one’s life.

What makes you think the fights will be the same? There is plenty of games were you face the same enemy multiple times during the course of the story, yet it is quite different every time. What makes it so hard to believe that ArenaNet could do the same?

Not at all concerned. This technique is extremely common in mmo’s, poss to make workload easier for development teams. Having a World Boss appear in diff locations sounds pretty good to me anyway.

We also have other bosses – like that Mordrem and his corrupted pet thing. So there will be scope for more variety.

Not reading anything bad into this at all. The proof will be in the gameplay though. It’s shooting wildly in the dark at this point either way.

I think you might be assuming a few more things than needed. Silverwastes makes sense because, well, is there really supposed to be a difference between some rocky-walled base you’re trying to defend and another one? The key is to have the players spread out to capture all of them and hold them, which is more the purpose than what the fortresses “do”.

In terms of the world boss, I really don’t see a problem with it. Think of it like a rival that is choosing where you have to fight him. You don’t have to fight him, but if you go to him you better expect him to expect you. And why shouldn’t he try to find a better location to fight you? Things don’t always have to get new skills or just deal more damage. The terrain does accomplish this anyway, indirectly.

Edit: Even if they’re different Wyvern, my point still stands; this seems to be the dominating creature in the region, so it would make more sense to have different combat zones than just different abilities.

Yeah, like how Skyrim had all those nearly-identical dragons you had to fight over and over… what a bunch of lazy good-for-nothing developers am I right? Good developers would have completely unique content throughout the entire game and nothing would be the same as anything else. /s

This is the kind of dumb stuff that people need to stop thinking about. Don’t you have something more important on your mind than whether or not HoT will meet whatever arbitrary expectations you’ve set? Surely you’ve done this dance enough times to know that it never ends well. And sitting around speculating and thinking about it will only make you even more disappointed when it doesn’t match up with your progressively less realistic expectations.

I promise if you just stop thinking about this and play the game, you’ll have a lot more peace of mind when the expansion hits, because when you expect nothing but what has been confirmed, it’s hard to be disappointed.

Old news. They have been talking about meeting up with the Wyvern(s) in different places (and different difficulties) for some time. Just like meeting different Giants here and there…or Trolls…or any other monster you might find in different places with different levels of difficulty in the game.

Seems to have worked so far….

They also go on to say some much more interesting things about the fight. About positioning and the less static nature of the boss VS the “set piece” ones like Shatterer.

That’s much more important since it’s a big jump for them in the game and sets the example for future bosses and hopefully reworks

A certain amount of repetition and familiarity is desirable to most if not all human beings. It’s why people buy pets or get married. It’s why people look for a good neighborhood to settle down in. It’s why people listen to the same song over and over, why they keep the same painting hung up on their walls.

Test.8734:

From the Ten Ton Hammer interview:

" Ten Ton Hammer: Where would you place the Wyvern, in terms of difficulty, compared to other world bosses already in the game?

Jon: That we don’t really known yet.

Kevin: He’s in a few different places in the expansion and what’s cool about that guy is that he gets exponentially harder the smaller the area he is in, because he cuts so much of the ground. There’s a few different difficulties with the same creature in different areas. We have him on some smaller platforms that are much more difficult to fight him on."

The last bolding is mine. It looks like we will fight the same world boss in more than one place, and it appears the major difference between fights won’t be changes to the boss itself, rather how big is the area it’s in.

This kind of “copy & paste” content is the kind of thing ArenaNet begain using heavily in the Silverwastes (the four fourtresses are basically big copy and pastes, with the same events). The fact one of the HoT battles they’re talking the most about has also been subjected to “copy & paste” is a really bad sign, IMO. It hints that there will be a lot of repeated content in the expansion.

Does someone else share a similar opinion?

It’s pretty obvious a lot of things are copy paste. For example the Rev attack animations and the druid staff attack animations are copies of existing animations. The only thing different are the effects of those attacks and even then they look to be minor alterations of existing game effects pieced together.

Didn’t we fight the Shadow of the Dragon three times? They were all different fights.

The HoT trailer showed a Wyvern in a dark cave, that fight is going to be nothing like the easy Wyvern in the demo. They also in a blogpost talked about us helping the pale reavers and the further we went the more at risk we would be of an ambush by Wyverns.

I don’t get it. I fought risen in Calendon Forest but in no way did that compare with the risen I fought in the cursed shore.

I fought spiders all across tyria, but none of them prepared me for garguntula.

If every single thing you faced needed to have a different skin, we’d never get an expansion.

Vayne.8563:

I fought spiders all across tyria, but none of them prepared me for garguntula.

What if we replaced EVERY spider in the game with Malrona! Now THAT should be April Fools this year.

Vayne.8563:

I fought risen in Calendon Forest but in no way did that compare with the risen I fought in the cursed shore.

Yeah, because they had different levels, were different risen, had different skills…

Vayne.8563:

I fought spiders all across tyria, but none of them prepared me for garguntula.

Yeah, because Gargantula is an unique boss and the other spiders aren’t…

Vayne.8563:

If every single thing you faced needed to have a different skin, we’d never get an expansion.

Yeah, because no one is talking about more than skins…

Vayne.8563:

I don’t get it.

Indeed.

It’s not a matter of fighting a default and a stronger version of one enemy. Or fighting enemies with different abilities. Rather, what ArenaNet is implying they have done with the Wyvern is to use “same creature” (per their own words) in multiple places, with the single difference being the size of the area said creature is in.

That sounds a bit lazy.

Test.8734:

It’s not a matter of fighting a default and a stronger version of one enemy. Or fighting enemies with different abilities. Rather, what ArenaNet is implying they have done with the Wyvern is to use “same creature” (per their own words) in multiple places, with the single difference being the size of the area said creature is in.

That sounds a bit lazy.

I’d say it depends.

If the Wyvern is supposed to be unique boss then yes, it’s edging on the side of lazy.

However, if the Wyvern is simply a new species spread throughout the new are, that has been designed with better mechanics and AI in mind and isn’t intended to be a unique boss, or if the boss fight is part of an event chain – where you chase the boss through the jungle – then I’d say it’s a pretty normal practice.

Just because one enemy is used in multiple areas “As per ArenaNet words” doesn’t mean that that sets the standard for all the other content.

This logic is so faulty it makes my brain hurt.