Guild Wars 2

Taken from the PoI.

PvE gameplay doesn’t currently provide the kind of challenge which would make swapping to a strong support kit like revenant’s staff and the Ventari legend valuable, so the development teams want to address that with elite specializations, revenant, and unrevealed challenging content.

We’re finally getting challenging content!

what rock have you been hiding under its been confirmed since the they told us we were getting a expansion.

They just haven’t explained what kind of challenging content we’re getting. So its kind of an empty statement. We haven’t heard them say “dungeons” or “raids”.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

They just haven’t explained what kind of challenging content we’re getting. So its kind of an empty statement. We haven’t heard them say “dungeons” or “raids”.

Open world bosses with a trilion hit points than can 1-shot everyone no matter their gear/build, with their main attack which they do once every 20 seconds that has a huge tell only if you are half alseep you can miss.

Judging by experience (fractals/sw/teq/tt) “challenging group content” means “triple hit points than normal content”. Of course I can be wrong, at least I hope I am.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

They just haven’t explained what kind of challenging content we’re getting. So its kind of an empty statement. We haven’t heard them say “dungeons” or “raids”.

If they’re going to encourage support roles, I’m guessing the content will be guild related. That way they can force any requirements and they won’t have to care about the problems with random players and LFG complaints (can’t complain about your own guild kicking you, requiring ascended, etc).

Assuming it’s guild content, it’ll likely be instanced and considering ArenaNet’s past stance on guilds, be tuned for 10+ players. It could be open world content, but then it would likely either be just another Tequatl (tuned for a zerg) or get exploited/griefed by zergs (tuned for small groups).

However, if they go this route, I suspect they’ll release a single Tequatl in a box style encounter and that’s it. I doubt it’d be popular enough to warrant further development.

Well… The only way to make heal bot valuable (since this is basically what ventari’s legend is) will be to introduce an area degen around boss.

Healing power being what it is, there is no way that a player can “heal” it’s party since boss/silver mobs attack are OH KO mechanisms.

Tanking abilities being what they are, ther will never be “tank” since ther is no way to hold aggro nor to survive OH KO repeatidly if fights goes on.

Thus lead us to the pathetic reality that the PvE game is easier when playing full dps builds and that I highly doubt that they can achieve this promise to make resilient builds and healing bots valuable.

NB.: For me there could be a way, but I’m not sure it would be a “challenging” content for a long time since it would become pretty easy with practice.
It would be really simple in fact. They just need to make boss immune to all attack except some ambiant siege weapon that the player will have to defends against mobs waves while being harrassed by boss abilities (which would be more likely CC or degen aoe).

I hope this challenging content also applies to open world PvE too.

Since majority of open world PvE foes can’t deal damage or pretty much incapable of doing anything at all than die under “full berserker DPS”.

Hopefully, they update all maps, except starter maps, to contain foes that are not possible to kill with just “full berserker DPS” and just “spam 111111 and rely on passive defense”. This is a problem in vanilla maps, which makes critical game mechanics useless. (for me, this flaw has rusted my ability to dodge and now I’m trying to relearn them…)

Like the foes in Southsun Cove, Dry Top and Silverwastes, you can fight 1vs1 and win, as long as you use active defenses, dodging and attack them with more than just “spam 1111”.

Atleast I’ve heard that ANet plans to do so with HoT coming out.

FrostSpectre.4198:

I hope this challenging content also applies to open world PvE too.

Since majority of open world PvE foes can’t deal damage or pretty much incapable of doing anything at all than die under “full berserker DPS”.

Hopefully, they update all maps, except starter maps, to contain foes that are not possible to kill with just “full berserker DPS” and just “spam 111111 and rely on passive defense”. This is a problem in vanilla maps, which makes critical game mechanics useless. (for me, this flaw has rusted my ability to dodge and now I’m trying to relearn them…)

Like the foes in Southsun Cove, Dry Top and Silverwastes, you can fight 1vs1 and win, as long as you use active defenses, dodging and attack them with more than just “spam 1111”.

Atleast I’ve heard that ANet plans to do so with HoT coming out.

So you dont want them possible to defeat with berserker gear that use active defence.
Then turn around and dont want them to be defeated by tough vitiality players that rely on passive defence.

So who exactly are going to defeat these new monsters?

Hi FrostSpectre.
As an uncoordinated, klutz type of person who enjoys this game very much, I hope with all my heart Anet does not update open world Vanilla maps to make mobs difficult and challenging. Dying everytime I turn around would not be my idea of fun

I know you are probably a young whippersnapper elite player..but think of those of us old enough to be your sainted granny. Sainted Grannys play this game too..and spend more than we should in the Gem Store

I for my part would be happy with solo modes for all existing dungeons (exp modes) – similar to how they changed Arah story mode by removing parts where more than one player have to “flip a switch, or pull a lever”. Add to that selectable difficulty and scaling/different rewards, and you for sure have some happy customers.

Ofc adding some new dungeons and open world events wouldn’t hurt either.

But I don’t think they should make open world maps overly difficult. We already know this would result in lots of rage on the forums by all those driven out of their comfort zone with such a sudden change. Everyone should be able to chose whether he/she wants to be confronted with difficult content, so instances of any kind, be it dungeons or different modes in the living story episodes, would be a better way to implement that.

All he said was “challenging content.” That is enormously vague, so don’t get too excited yet, because it could mean anything.

Randulf.7614:

Vayne.8563:

Bubi.7942:

I thought challenging content was already out: defeating white knights on the forum.

You’d need a better weapon, more health and at least 2 elite specializations. Keep trying though. lol

Don’t worry Vayne, remember..white “knights” get exclusive access to mounts

Gah another mount reference.

Kill it! Kill it with fire!

They keep mentioning it… but they never actually seem to get there.

I don’t have high hopes until I actually see it in action. We were told in 2012 that new legendary weapons were coming… That’s about as high as my expectations get at the moment.

I keep hoping for a massive information dump, but it doesn’t seem to ever be coming.

we still dont even know all the specializations yet…
(Dragon Slayer for Warrior. Calling it now)

Julischka Bean.7491:

Hi FrostSpectre.
As an uncoordinated, klutz type of person who enjoys this game very much, I hope with all my heart Anet does not update open world Vanilla maps to make mobs difficult and challenging. Dying everytime I turn around would not be my idea of fun

I know you are probably a young whippersnapper elite player..but think of those of us old enough to be your sainted granny. Sainted Grannys play this game too..and spend more than we should in the Gem Store

I would argue the opposite, but with one caveat. Open world PvE, and now pretty much all of solo content, are insultingly easy to beat.

A lot of it has to do with GW2’s leveling system being at odds with its own class build mechanics. Traits are force multipliers…. huge ones if you understand how they interrelate. This is one reason the difficulty scale raises so sharply in certain areas of the game; Orr especially.

Under the original system, you didn’t get traits until level 30, and gained trait points slowly (in tiny increments) every level until 80. As a result, difficulty spikes were targeted at points where you unlocked major traits, which significantly increased your combat power. At the points where they unlocked a new trait tier, there was also another sharp rise in the type of skills Mobs were allowed to use.

The problem with Leveling in general, and even more blatantly obvious with NPE, is that the game NEVER reinforced the concept of effect combinations at any of the lower levels. Up until around lvl 50, players were basically playing a game of attrition….. and given the mob’s attack power scaling, it became clear Power as a stat was invaluable to surviving. You rotate skills for spike damage, and use soft control conditions at face value.

If the leveling process (from unlocks to mob scaling) emphasized this better, and adding more weight to defense as a stat in fine tuning, you can enpower players with build comprehension, and enable defensive strategies as a counter balance to raw damage output. The goal of every “balanced” guardian and warrior is to bolster defenses, without sacrificing so much power that you are no longer able to kill things.

But the concept of a balanced build fails because offensive power scales better then defense. I’m starting to suspect the real reason for this was the idea that high level mobs would always encounter tanky builds…. so they were given offensive power to threaten them. But due to sheer density of mobs in lvl 80 areas, any effort to make 1v1 mobs challenging only results in overwhelming players when faced in groups. ………. *And thats EXACTLY what happened with Silverwastes and the Mordrem. *

The content all around needs to be more challenging. But none of that works unless Players are given proper tools for, and educated on, how to utilize the intricate build system as the massive advantage it is.

Dadnir.5038:

Well… The only way to make heal bot valuable (since this is basically what ventari’s legend is) will be to introduce an area degen around boss.

Healing power being what it is, there is no way that a player can “heal” it’s party since boss/silver mobs attack are OH KO mechanisms.

Tanking abilities being what they are, ther will never be “tank” since ther is no way to hold aggro nor to survive OH KO repeatidly if fights goes on.

You are wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ubRKdpDfU8

They do level 50 with 3 people in 30min and one of them is full clerics. Healing Power in the right hand can be good. Not as good a DPS/Support build since Support is better and don’t limit your dps, but still. People believe falsely that one person in healing gear will make the run take 3 hours.

Not being optimal doesn’t mean that it’s useless or even not efficient.

skowcia.8257:

Indeed it was revealed already.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRpF1Qguf9k

I remember that, took me like 20 minutes… kitten Karka.

Thaddeus.4891:

Dadnir.5038:

Well… The only way to make heal bot valuable (since this is basically what ventari’s legend is) will be to introduce an area degen around boss.

Healing power being what it is, there is no way that a player can “heal” it’s party since boss/silver mobs attack are OH KO mechanisms.

Tanking abilities being what they are, ther will never be “tank” since ther is no way to hold aggro nor to survive OH KO repeatidly if fights goes on.

You are wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ubRKdpDfU8

They do level 50 with 3 people in 30min and one of them is full clerics. Healing Power in the right hand can be good. Not as good a DPS/Support build since Support is better and don’t limit your dps, but still. People believe falsely that one person in healing gear will make the run take 3 hours.

Not being optimal doesn’t mean that it’s useless or even not efficient.

I saw nothing in this video proving that they need healing power at all. 90% of the support is done by clever block and reflect of the guardian. In fact fact I can do the exact same thing in knight armor set.

Don’t get me wrong I’ve never said that support is bad, I’ve said that healing power is useless as a support mean and will stay useless until they tweek numbers and scalling in a way that it become meaningfull. The only issue here is that Anet won’t do it because this will result in a feared imbalance in sPvP.

Healing Power isn’t needed. Active Defense Support is better than Healing.

But my point, is that healing power is still a pretty good way to go. People look at a cleric guy and laugh out loud, kick and insult him in a pug group without any requirement in the lfg, and 5sec latter they down and rally 8 times.

The point was, they did a fractal 50 with 3 peoples and 1 cleric guardian in 30min. 3 good zerkers can do it in 20-25min. But most pugs of 5 will do it in 45-60min. But people still hate on anything that isn’t meta. Yes it’s optimal, but the vast majority of people playing meta ain’t optimal either. They don’t do the right rotation, don’t have the right buffs, down and rally, use FGS old stacking tactics, etc. But they still judge builds and profession like they are the anti-christ.

Dadnir.5038:

Thaddeus.4891:

Dadnir.5038:

Well… The only way to make heal bot valuable (since this is basically what ventari’s legend is) will be to introduce an area degen around boss.

Healing power being what it is, there is no way that a player can “heal” it’s party since boss/silver mobs attack are OH KO mechanisms.

Tanking abilities being what they are, ther will never be “tank” since ther is no way to hold aggro nor to survive OH KO repeatidly if fights goes on.

You are wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ubRKdpDfU8

They do level 50 with 3 people in 30min and one of them is full clerics. Healing Power in the right hand can be good. Not as good a DPS/Support build since Support is better and don’t limit your dps, but still. People believe falsely that one person in healing gear will make the run take 3 hours.

Not being optimal doesn’t mean that it’s useless or even not efficient.

I saw nothing in this video proving that they need healing power at all. 90% of the support is done by clever block and reflect of the guardian. In fact fact I can do the exact same thing in knight armor set.

Don’t get me wrong I’ve never said that support is bad, I’ve said that healing power is useless as a support mean and will stay useless until they tweek numbers and scalling in a way that it become meaningfull. The only issue here is that Anet won’t do it because this will result in a feared imbalance in sPvP.

Pretty much this. The gameplay isn’t changed in the slightest.

If I build a character to support and deck him out in Cleric gear, it should affect how I approach and play the content. Right now I’m just playing a slower version of a DPS built character.

EverythingXen.1835:

Dadnir.5038:

Thaddeus.4891:

Dadnir.5038:

Well… The only way to make heal bot valuable (since this is basically what ventari’s legend is) will be to introduce an area degen around boss.

Healing power being what it is, there is no way that a player can “heal” it’s party since boss/silver mobs attack are OH KO mechanisms.

Tanking abilities being what they are, ther will never be “tank” since ther is no way to hold aggro nor to survive OH KO repeatidly if fights goes on.

You are wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ubRKdpDfU8

They do level 50 with 3 people in 30min and one of them is full clerics. Healing Power in the right hand can be good. Not as good a DPS/Support build since Support is better and don’t limit your dps, but still. People believe falsely that one person in healing gear will make the run take 3 hours.

Not being optimal doesn’t mean that it’s useless or even not efficient.

I saw nothing in this video proving that they need healing power at all. 90% of the support is done by clever block and reflect of the guardian. In fact fact I can do the exact same thing in knight armor set.

Don’t get me wrong I’ve never said that support is bad, I’ve said that healing power is useless as a support mean and will stay useless until they tweek numbers and scalling in a way that it become meaningfull. The only issue here is that Anet won’t do it because this will result in a feared imbalance in sPvP.

Pretty much this. The gameplay isn’t changed in the slightest.

If I build a character to support and deck him out in Cleric gear, it should affect how I approach and play the content. Right now I’m just playing a slower version of a DPS built character.

Why would you expect otherwise? Stats exist to only enhance what you said out to do, not to define it. In theory, zerker gear in dungeons should only be wore by people who are skill in active defense, while unskill players shouly on vitality, toughness and healing power.

Unfortunately, thanks to poor scaling and extremely old content with bad mechanics content every noob can get away with wearing zerker.

PlatinumMember.5274:

EverythingXen.1835:

Dadnir.5038:

Thaddeus.4891:

Dadnir.5038:

Well… The only way to make heal bot valuable (since this is basically what ventari’s legend is) will be to introduce an area degen around boss.

Healing power being what it is, there is no way that a player can “heal” it’s party since boss/silver mobs attack are OH KO mechanisms.

Tanking abilities being what they are, ther will never be “tank” since ther is no way to hold aggro nor to survive OH KO repeatidly if fights goes on.

You are wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ubRKdpDfU8

They do level 50 with 3 people in 30min and one of them is full clerics. Healing Power in the right hand can be good. Not as good a DPS/Support build since Support is better and don’t limit your dps, but still. People believe falsely that one person in healing gear will make the run take 3 hours.

Not being optimal doesn’t mean that it’s useless or even not efficient.

I saw nothing in this video proving that they need healing power at all. 90% of the support is done by clever block and reflect of the guardian. In fact fact I can do the exact same thing in knight armor set.

Don’t get me wrong I’ve never said that support is bad, I’ve said that healing power is useless as a support mean and will stay useless until they tweek numbers and scalling in a way that it become meaningfull. The only issue here is that Anet won’t do it because this will result in a feared imbalance in sPvP.

Pretty much this. The gameplay isn’t changed in the slightest.

If I build a character to support and deck him out in Cleric gear, it should affect how I approach and play the content. Right now I’m just playing a slower version of a DPS built character.

Why would you expect otherwise? Stats exist to only enhance what you said out to do, not to define it. In theory, zerker gear in dungeons should only be wore by people who are skill in active defense, while unskill players shouly on vitality, toughness and healing power.

Unfortunately, thanks to poor scaling and extremely old content with bad mechanics content every noob can get away with wearing zerker.

Except stats are the basis of any build being minimally viable at tasks which do scale by them. The only place this isn’t true is in support builds, as boons and flat conditions have their minimum viable built-in. Nomads in a DPS role is not viable. Its not “lack of enhancement”, it is straight up not viable.

You’re ignore the part of the equation in Zerks meta, where an all DD play style is essentially enabled by the low threshold needed to incorporate support into any build. So much so, that every meta build does it through either traits or utilities with almost no conflict to their DPS aspect. The game fully expects us to do this.

Linken.6345:

So you dont want them possible to defeat with berserker gear that use active defence.
Then turn around and dont want them to be defeated by tough vitiality players that rely on passive defence.

So who exactly are going to defeat these new monsters?

Ah, I wasn’t talking about Dungeon difficulty for open world.
Just that there has to be foes that don’t just attack you few times for 1k-5k damage total and drop dead when you “spam 11111 or 2222” without dodging or using some other active defense ability.

Take Mordrem Husks as example:
Have heavy armor, which mitigates alot of direct dmg, reducing berserker DPS builds effectiviness, but you can still chop them into bits, it just takes longer, and the husk will deliver some what hard hitting attacks, encouraging you to dodge or use active defense ability to survive.

And now Risen Abomination as example:
Has high health but low armor. You can simply go near it, walk around it’s Charge attack and spam 1 to kill it, no need for active defenses or dodging. Since the abomination has long windup times with it’s attacks, you take most likely 1-3 hits before it drops dead in few seconds.

FrostSpectre.4198:

Hopefully, they update all maps, except starter maps, to contain foes that are not possible to kill with just “full berserker DPS” and just “spam 111111 and rely on passive defense”. This is a problem in vanilla maps, which makes critical game mechanics useless. (for me, this flaw has rusted my ability to dodge and now I’m trying to relearn them…)

I refer you to this quote, from the start of the thread:

PvE gameplay doesn’t currently provide the kind of challenge which would make swapping to a strong support kit like revenant’s staff and the Ventari legend valuable, so the development teams want to address that with elite specializations, revenant, and unrevealed challenging content.

It sounds as if they’ve decided to press forward with using the elite specs and the new class to give us the tools to face their “challenging” content. If they were to make such changes to older maps, it would become a very painful example of “pay to have a chance to win”.

Once they release the Great and Terrible Triple Jungle Snake with HoT we will have our challenge.

Wait…we already have one of those.

maddoctor.2738:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

They just haven’t explained what kind of challenging content we’re getting. So its kind of an empty statement. We haven’t heard them say “dungeons” or “raids”.

Open world bosses with a trilion hit points than can 1-shot everyone no matter their gear/build, with their main attack which they do once every 20 seconds that has a huge tell only if you are half alseep you can miss.

Judging by experience (fractals/sw/teq/tt) “challenging group content” means “triple hit points than normal content”. Of course I can be wrong, at least I hope I am.

the thing is thet if challenging mobs dont have enough health zerkers can overcome the mechanic by killing them before it becomes challenging

Vizardlorde.8243:

maddoctor.2738:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

They just haven’t explained what kind of challenging content we’re getting. So its kind of an empty statement. We haven’t heard them say “dungeons” or “raids”.

Open world bosses with a trilion hit points than can 1-shot everyone no matter their gear/build, with their main attack which they do once every 20 seconds that has a huge tell only if you are half alseep you can miss.

Judging by experience (fractals/sw/teq/tt) “challenging group content” means “triple hit points than normal content”. Of course I can be wrong, at least I hope I am.

the thing is thet if challenging mobs dont have enough health zerkers can overcome the mechanic by killing them before it becomes challenging

Players don’t have enough health either yet they provide a challenge in PVP. If Challenging mobs can block, heal, CC and interact with each other then they can be challenging without the need for high health.

As an example, imagine a veteran centaur in a random PvE event instead of getting more and more hit points they could get more skills including even specializations (traits). That way they can be more challenging and fun to fight, without the need to create new mechanics, just use player skills. For example let’s imagine a few centaur mobs:

The Centaur Warrior could be an Axe/Shield Stance specialist. Full Axe / Shield skill set, with Axe auto chain, stun, block, including Eviscerate adrenaline skill plus Defiant Stance healing, Berserker, Balanced and Endure Pain stances for defense.

On the other hand, a Centaur Sniper could be a rifle/shout specialist with full rifle skillset (including Killshot), To the Limit! healing skill (to also power up Killshot), For Great Justice and On My Mark as DPS boosts for the entire Centaur group and Fear Me (together with Rifle Butt) for defensive support

A Centaur Commander could be using Sword/Warhorn with Banner support, including Warbanner to rez allies.

A Centaur Lancer could be a tanky Mace/Sword (off sword) Signet Warrior

A Centaur Shaman could be an Earth Elementalist with a Staff and Cantrips.

And so on and so on. Mobs do not need more hit points, especially when they come in groups. They need better and more complex skillbars. They need to use skills already available to players, there is no need to give them unique mob mechanics there are loads of skills in the game, that if used on mobs they can make them much much better.

Sounds like fun, will they work on the old content to be “challenging” or are they giving up them?

I would hope for how much effort they put into those encounters they would try to keep them relevant and not shove us into the new world with a blind eye of the past.

As long as the challenge does not mean it is challenging to organize…
I wouldn’t hold my breath though.

maddoctor.2738:

Open world bosses with a trilion hit points than can 1-shot everyone no matter their gear/build, with their main attack which they do once every 20 seconds that has a huge tell only if you are half alseep you can miss.

Judging by experience (fractals/sw/teq/tt) “challenging group content” means “triple hit points than normal content”. Of course I can be wrong, at least I hope I am.

A perfect summary of GW2. And certainly what GW2 will only be.