Guild Wars 2

One thing that plagues Guild Wars 2 dungeons is mechanical gimmicks. When something is designed to be artificially harder, even though it makes little sense.

The reason why this is important because ArenaNet has designed it right (See Molten Bosses) and designed it terribly wrong (See Captain Mai Trin)

When I read the article, it boasts about pushing players to it’s limits which is cool but it says nothing about actually difficulty.

In fact, ArenaNet has difficulty wrong. In the article, it states that it wants to force players to think outside the box and bring things to handle the content coming.

WRONG.
WRONG.
SO WRONG.

First things first, how do you design difficulty? Designing difficulty is very easy actually, making something harder is NOT based on numbers or mechanics but rather allowing the player to make mistakes.

—hoW ToO miSTAkE—

Mistakes in its core, is difficulty.

The more mistakes a player can make, the easier the content.
The less mistakes a player can make, the harder the content.

So when you have 5 zerker warriors face tanking the boss, it’s not entirely that the boss isn’t doing enough damage, but rather the warriors are not getting punished for making mistakes. They can get hit and keep going.

There are two kind of mistakes.

• Unable to stop the problem (like getting hit)
• Unable to fix the problem (like no conditions removal)

This is VERY important. What I am afraid of is; there will be a boss with 5,000 toughness and the best way to defeat it is to spam conditions. See, that is NOT difficulty, that is a gimmick. Instead of challenging players ability to handle problems, they are given a problem to solve, thus in its core removing active combat.

If you want bosses to push players to their limits, you must give the bosses problems that THEY create. Allowing players to react to them. That is by far the biggest issue with Guild Wars 2 combat is that there is only ONE best reaction, raw damage. Enemies offer absolutely no points of weakness, no reward to punish the ENEMIES mistakes. You can make condition users feel more helpful not by giving a major boss 5,000 toughness but give the boss the chance to gain a super shield of sorts. You have a chance to stop the shield and everyone is rewarded but if you fail, gains a bunch of toughness until its shield breaks.

—How NOT to create a gimmick—

This is ultimately what separates gimmicks from bosses is the rules you set for the fight and giving the players an option to react.

Alphard, Serpent of the Waves and Captain Mai Trin are a perfect examples of terribly designed bosses in their own unique way. Alphard is immune to conditions, for no reason. Has a super attack that annihilates everything but can be stopped by a wall. Captain Mai Trin would be unstoppable but Horris, instead of being supportive with powerful AoE attacks, flat out gives you the ability to defeat the immortal captain.

Okay, so, those are gimmicky because they are badly designed?
WRONG.
WRONG.
WR-okay, yes, but lets examine deeper.

They are challenging, yet, they do not punish mistakes.

This is a prime example of bigger numbers does not equal bigger challenge. A party success is based on how well they can avoid 1 attack. For every problem they give, there is only ONE solution. Only one answer. You can punish players for not responding properly but when you reduce the right answer to only 1 thing, it feels simple and boring.

ArenaNet raid designers, I cannot stress enough how vital it is to understand challenge and your article is hinting that you might not fully understand it. The Molten bosses were amazing but Mai Trin was 99 steps backwards.

I can go on and on about designing bosses ideas, but there is a very good chance this long article will be read by no one. Lets hope the importance is at least understood.

While you are right that the Mai Trin fight is based around a gimmick, I’m not so sure that makes it bad. I kind of like that fight to be honest (which I know makes me a weirdo). I actually think that gimmicks can make the fight interesting and unique (Thaumanova Anomaly or Dredge Powersuit, e.g.). Gimmicks can certainly be overdone, but they aren’t all bad.

As for the Molten Bosses, I’m honestly not sure what you see in it. It isn’t a particularly interesting fight to me.

I agree with your definition of challenging, very very very much do. However, I think gimmicks are not necessarily a bad thing, and Mai trin is a wonderful fight. The cannon phase can be a bit wonky but overall it’s one of my favorite fights in the game. I think they did a great job. It makes you use all of your tools and focuses a lot on positioning. It’s a great example of how Gimmicks can be good and still provide challenges.

Game needs more randomness, if something is mechanically the same, it becomes easy. Thats why pvp is considered “harder”

I miss the old mmos open dungeons that were random and felt new everytime you went there.(but know thats not so easy(atm) with the limitations graphically it would cause)

The Mai fight has a gimmick, but the gimmick phase isn’t the difficult part of the fight, and I don’t think that it was the intention of that part to be difficult.

The difficult part of the fight is the ground AoE phase. I think the shield phase is just there for novelty.

Misguided.5139:

While you are right that the Mai Trin fight is based around a gimmick, I’m not so sure that makes it bad. I kind of like that fight to be honest (which I know makes me a weirdo). I actually think that gimmicks can make the fight interesting and unique (Thaumanova Anomaly or Dredge Powersuit, e.g.). Gimmicks can certainly be overdone, but they aren’t all bad.

As for the Molten Bosses, I’m honestly not sure what you see in it. It isn’t a particularly interesting fight to me.

Mai Trin fight is handled all wrong. Mainly because it provides a massive problem (Mai Trin is immortal) and only a single solution. There is absolutely no reason to harm Horris and honestly Horris and Mai Trin don’t act like a team.

Horris doesn’t buff, shield or even interact with Mai at all. Mai’s immortal shield isn’t some gadget or ability Horris is using, it’s just an immortal shield.

That is why it’s gimmicky, it exists not for challenge but because it’s to easy without it. Forcing players to take damage before engaging with Mai Trin. Instead of having players fight both boss while they work together and play against their advantages.

Gimmicks are what separate unique encounters from mundane ones IMO. Even the molten bosses were only challenging due to their gimmicks, which largely consisted of jumping over shockwaves and the old GW2 standard of avoiding ground AoEs.

You list Mai trin as a badly designed fight. I disagree. That fight requires skills to complete. you need quick thinking and aoe dodging skills for the cannon phase, and group cooperation for the dps phase to successfully kite her through the lightning fields.

Both examples use a gimmick. Both examples punish your mistakes and require team coordination. They’re both well designed fights.

Gimmicks are what define bosses and make them different from one another, and to a larger extend different than run of the mill combat. Gimmicks are the mechanics that are unique to that particular boss that you need to learn and recognize in order to be successful.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Misguided.5139:

While you are right that the Mai Trin fight is based around a gimmick, I’m not so sure that makes it bad. I kind of like that fight to be honest (which I know makes me a weirdo). I actually think that gimmicks can make the fight interesting and unique (Thaumanova Anomaly or Dredge Powersuit, e.g.). Gimmicks can certainly be overdone, but they aren’t all bad.

As for the Molten Bosses, I’m honestly not sure what you see in it. It isn’t a particularly interesting fight to me.

Mai Trin fight is handled all wrong. Mainly because it provides a massive problem (Mai Trin is immortal) and only a single solution. There is absolutely no reason to harm Horris and honestly Horris and Mai Trin don’t act like a team.

Horris doesn’t buff, shield or even interact with Mai at all. Mai’s immortal shield isn’t some gadget or ability Horris is using, it’s just an immortal shield.

That is why it’s gimmicky, it exists not for challenge but because it’s to easy without it. Forcing players to take damage before engaging with Mai Trin. Instead of having players fight both boss while they work together and play against their advantages.

When it was dungeon you had to beat them both. Mai Trin had the same mechanics. Horrik had the same attacks but would frenzy when she was defeated increasing attack speed and damage. They just simplified the fight when they made it a fractal. Which saddened me a bit the first time I did it. Still one of my favorite fights.

Sidenote: If you didn’t know she revives him if you go for Horrik first.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Misguided.5139:

While you are right that the Mai Trin fight is based around a gimmick, I’m not so sure that makes it bad. I kind of like that fight to be honest (which I know makes me a weirdo). I actually think that gimmicks can make the fight interesting and unique (Thaumanova Anomaly or Dredge Powersuit, e.g.). Gimmicks can certainly be overdone, but they aren’t all bad.

As for the Molten Bosses, I’m honestly not sure what you see in it. It isn’t a particularly interesting fight to me.

Mai Trin fight is handled all wrong. Mainly because it provides a massive problem (Mai Trin is immortal) and only a single solution. There is absolutely no reason to harm Horris and honestly Horris and Mai Trin don’t act like a team.

Horris doesn’t buff, shield or even interact with Mai at all. Mai’s immortal shield isn’t some gadget or ability Horris is using, it’s just an immortal shield.

That is why it’s gimmicky, it exists not for challenge but because it’s to easy without it. Forcing players to take damage before engaging with Mai Trin. Instead of having players fight both boss while they work together and play against their advantages.

Kinda sounds like you have a lore problem with the mechanic more than anything.

If say the shield was generated by Horrik but it overheats requiring electrical discharge to clear it every so often and that discharge channeled out his rocket launcher would you dislike it then?

Same mechanic.

Gimmicks are required to keep boss fights fresh – otherwise you’re just dpsing the boss avoiding its attacks until it dies (I’m not saying there isn’t a place for this fight just not EVERY fight). Having some little extra thing to do to make the boss vulnerable or prevent it wiping the group needs more team play (Mesmer focus pulling Mai into the discharge after the thief dropped here defiance stacks) because theres this extra thing you need to play around besides “just don’t die and keep hurting it.”

Weird. I like Mai Trin. Maybe because you also know why you died? Maybe because I find her easy?

Also did Molten Bosses yesterday and it was no real fun. Maybe because I had lag or something that made it hard for me to dodge the waves.

Stopped reading OP at Mai Trin. That fight is awesome.

Dahkeus.8243:

Stopped reading OP at Mai Trin. That fight is awesome.

It’s so boring. Lure Mai Trin to blue sparkle field 2-3 times then destroy her 25% health.
Rinse, repeat.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Dahkeus.8243:

Stopped reading OP at Mai Trin. That fight is awesome.

It’s so boring. Lure Mai Trin to blue sparkle field 2-3 times then destroy her 25% health.
Rinse, repeat.

Well IMO it’s a simple and balanced mechanic and yet still challenging for some.

It’s clear that this fight shouldn’t be labled as “THE BEST FIGHT” but with more “gimmicks” it could be VERY interesting.

Phase One:
-Horrik is the same but can be attacked (again) and only has Cannon Blast (again).
-Mai Trin is the same (cannot be attacked) but has a new Poison Aoe skill which she throws after a 5 second ‘targeting’ delay at the location of a random player (the targeted player has a sign above his head when targeted so he can move to set the position of the aoe). The Poison Aoes will last for ever and deal damage if stepped on. However there can’t be more than 10, a new one will remove the oldest.

After Horrik loses 24% HP he will rage and you enter Phase Two.

Phase Two:
-Horrik can’t be damaged and charges/attacks a random player. If Horrik enters a Poison Aoe he will stop the rage after a 10 second delay. Additionally he removes each Poison Aoe he stepped on but also gains an attack/cast speed buff for each Poison Aoe he removed for the next phase.

After the rage ends you enter Phase Three.

Phase Three:

-Horrik also starts to cast Electric Blast now too (works just like right now)
-Mai Trin stops placing poison aoes and can be attacked if hit by Electric Blast (also just like right now)

When Mai Trin loses 25% HP you enter Artillery Barrage Phase.

Artillery Barrage Phase:

-Still the same however the not remove poison aoes will still be there!

After the Artillery Barrage Phase you enter Phase One again.

Notes:

(Horrik can’t die and will stay alive with ~4% till Mai Trin dies)

If you understood that congratulation! What do you think? Better? Worse? Or still the same?

The important thing here would be that you place the Poison Aoes right and remove the right ones so you have enough place to dodge the Artillery Barrage Phase. Also the Artillery Barrage Phase would need to be nerfed slightly so it’s not impossible.

I mean it sounds like a good fight and all, but the complexity meter of it is inconsistant with dungeon bosses and fractal midbosses.

Like, I like the idea of that fight, it just seems wrong to attach it to mai trin in her current position as a fractal midboss, if that makes sense. Something that mechanically complex seems more end boss level, or raid midboss level.

Also, I don’t like the idea of nerfing the cannon phase. The cannon phase is what’struly unique and special about the fight. Its “central gimmick” if you will. I’d rather see the cannon phase extended in some way, perhaps in stead having the players fight horrik during that phase in stead of the rage/poison thing.

Expect raids to be full of gimmicks. We’re going to do them anyway.

A good level is one where you can be successful even if you didn’t know it already by using your knowledge and skill of the game and its mechanics. For example there should never be hazards or attacks which bypass combat mechanics such as evade or invulnerability. On the other hand there could be hazards that bypass blocks or reflects in certain preferably rare situations but this should always be foreseeable. It is bad design if the player must “just know” if one attack is magically unblockable and one isn’t. Level bosses should not have absolute immunity over certain game mechanics like boon stealing, conditions or crowd control but rather be balanced reasonably with combat mechanics that can be countered for example with defiant (can be removed), stability (which can be removed or interrupted), cleanses (that can be interrupted) or heals/invulnerability skills (that can be interrupted). A better AI and higher diversity of bosses active abilities should be the factors that make a boss more challenging rather than his superior health, damage, immunities or in the worst case gimmicks.

I hate Mai trin but only because there is nothing you can do, no chalklenge you can do to stop the barrages early. Imho during artillery phase there should be some way (like having all 5 people standing on specific tiles/interact with things at the same time while being under fire) to cut that one short.

Also the Thaumonova fight is really fun somehow X)

Sounds to me like gimmicks are things you find hard and can’t beat and challenges are things you have overcome and defeated so they must be designed better.

Unique mechanics make fights memorable and require good positioning and team work are some of the best mechanics (mai fight).

Running around randomly, completely ignoring your team mates, and just dps’ing the boss the whole time is fine once and a while but it is not really unique or challenging (molten bosses).

Good fights make use of both mechanics plus more.

PopeUrban.2578:

Also, I don’t like the idea of nerfing the cannon phase. The cannon phase is what’struly unique and special about the fight. Its “central gimmick” if you will. I’d rather see the cannon phase extended in some way, perhaps in stead having the players fight horrik during that phase in stead of the rage/poison thing.

Well in my case your arena would already be filled with some aoes. Not sure how much harder it would be.

The thing is this game is casual friendly.

I dont’ think Anet want people to be kittened that they wiped over and over again.

If Anet want to make dungeon hard they already can do so. Just have horrak shoot cannon the entire fight while people have to try luring mai trin to lightning. Or have molten duo both start at phase two.

I do pug and occasionally people keep wiping at molten duo. Or almost everyone is downed in Mai trin. The average player is not all elite pros. I suppose I’m part of the problem as I’m one of the person dead too sometimes.

laokoko.7403:

The thing is this game is casual friendly.

I dont’ think Anet want people to be kittened that they wiped over and over again.

If Anet want to make dungeon hard they already can do so. Just have horrak shoot cannon the entire fight while people have to try luring mai trin to lightning. Or have molten duo both start at phase two.

I do pug and occasionally people keep wiping at molten duo. Or almost everyone is downed in Mai trin. The average player is not all elite pros. I suppose I’m part of the problem as I’m one of the person dead too sometimes.

That’s why a “hard mode” for each dungeon/raid is a good idea. Players who don’t give a kitten about a challenge can just take the story mode and have it easy, while others who want a challenge can get a more difficult mode (like some of the living story achievement fights) and get bonus rewards for it. They advertise HoT raiding as “challenging content” as a whole, but from their current content there’s nothing that comes even close to challenging so everyone is understandably sceptical. Challenging content = something you need an organized group with voicecom to complete, not something you can manage with pugs even after a few wipes.

Burn.5401:

laokoko.7403:

The thing is this game is casual friendly.

I dont’ think Anet want people to be kittened that they wiped over and over again.

If Anet want to make dungeon hard they already can do so. Just have horrak shoot cannon the entire fight while people have to try luring mai trin to lightning. Or have molten duo both start at phase two.

I do pug and occasionally people keep wiping at molten duo. Or almost everyone is downed in Mai trin. The average player is not all elite pros. I suppose I’m part of the problem as I’m one of the person dead too sometimes.

That’s why a “hard mode” for each dungeon/raid is a good idea. Players who don’t give a kitten about a challenge can just take the story mode and have it easy, while others who want a challenge can get a more difficult mode (like some of the living story achievement fights) and get bonus rewards for it. They advertise HoT raiding as “challenging content” as a whole, but from their current content there’s nothing that comes even close to challenging so everyone is understandably sceptical. Challenging content = something you need an organized group with voicecom to complete, not something you can manage with pugs even after a few wipes.

everyone will be demanding to get better rewards. Eventhough besides the first week of learning phase, they’ll face roll the content anyway with their premade group.

i would absolutely hope for fractal 100 is something like almost impossible to do though. It’s up to Anet if they actually want to make hard content that very few people can do.