Guild Wars 2

tl;dr

yes or no thanks.

You totally read that :p

That being said, as I said, I don’t care if toughness is better or not.

I do find the current dungeon play boring, and think mixing up the encounters will help.

I also am endlessly stuck on how absurdly nasty and combative you guys are (I can’t imagine what it would be like in a more lightly moderated forum than this one).

edit: I feel a thread lock coming on, it usually does at this point.

Leo G.4501:

Jerus.4350:

Yeah I mean once you’re out, you’re out. No picking up a player who’s out, they’re just stuck there till the end, if the group finishes they’ll get the bonus chest rewards but that’s it for them.

Maybe downed = out is too much, but dead = out for sure.

Honestly IMO the reason Zerk has become what it is, is because people would rather fail, die, run back, than take a little extra bit of defense to ensure they don’t kill themselves when they screw up. Taking away that option and I would bet money people take something like a pillar guard at the very least.

Woops, I mistakenly deleted this part of the post. I meant to say something.

Yeah, it might be a bit much but who knows? What do others think?

Me thinking out loud, if people are so finicky to reset fractals until they get what they want, I don’t see why players wouldn’t just jump ship and reset the instance if someone died too far from the end boss (and “too far” could vary from player to player). I mean, dungeons aren’t very long so it wouldn’t be that tough.

It could certainly be a part of a hardmode but I don’t think it’d stand on its own as a hardmode. There’d likely have to be other features to it.

As for the last part, you might be right and I definitely feel that it’s part of the problem. It’s one of the reasons I don’t like when people WP back during events, because it’s already pretty hax to just “respawn”. It should require resources to keep your numbers up…it’s one of the factors that could make things challenging and require people to play more carefully! Basically, if you’re with me, you’re not dying on me! I’ll rub you till you’re raw! You’re going to help me kill whatever I’m trying to kill!

The point is time. If you’re going to jump out and reset, that’s fine, but doing so is going to take a good amount of time longer. Suddenly bringing along a clerics guard might not be to shabby, sure you’ll lose a good chunk of your damage, but you gain a lot of support through various options.

People might bring along 2 sets of gear as an option for tougher parts where they feel it would help them.

Point being, that a failure in a zerk run would extend the time enough that consistency matters.

Now me and my old buds did full zerk composition, but we did PS war, Hammer guard and often even a mesmer for the extra defensive stuff. Hammer guard is like giving everyone knights gear, and having all the defensive tools it’s kitten hard to die, we knicknamed it our “braindead meta” because we could literally waltz through dungeons without a concern, but still full zerk.

So, it wouldn’t necessarily get rid of zerk (though we did have people die here and there at times), but it would change things up to more benefit the more defensive play because it’d bring consistency and that would matter.

Of course you could still go with full zerk, just if you screw up it’s starting all over.

Windsagio.1340:

You totally read that :p

That being said, as I said, I don’t care if toughness is better or not.

I do find the current dungeon play boring, and think mixing up the encounters will help.

I also am endlessly stuck on how absurdly nasty and combative you guys are (I can’t imagine what it would be like in a more lightly moderated forum than this one).

edit: I feel a thread lock coming on, it usually does at this point.

Sitting here and insulting people doesn’t really help the your cause, nor does calling for a thread lock.

@Jerus, your idea is really interesting, It’d be fascinating as a test to see if people would actually play hardmode or not, beyond the challenge-seeking crowd.

Presuming the rewards were enough greater to justify the risk, how would you suggest dealing with the risk of increased toxicity? I can definitely see a scenario where someone screws up and dies and everyone gets really mad at them and freaks out over it for the ‘wasted time’.

Jerus.4350:

Windsagio.1340:

You totally read that :p

That being said, as I said, I don’t care if toughness is better or not.

I do find the current dungeon play boring, and think mixing up the encounters will help.

I also am endlessly stuck on how absurdly nasty and combative you guys are (I can’t imagine what it would be like in a more lightly moderated forum than this one).

edit: I feel a thread lock coming on, it usually does at this point.

Sitting here and insulting people doesn’t really help the your cause, nor does calling for a thread lock.

Not calling for a thread lock, I’m enjoying the convo (mostly), but I am starting to expect one.

On the other point, I’ve said that to others this thread, but its’ hard. People are relentlessly nasty and insulting, and it’s key to why these discussions get so heated and doctrinaire.

NikeEU.7690:

Any content so challenging that skilled organized groups have to switch to tanky gear would be so challenging pugs or bad players would have no chance of completing it.

Quoted for the unadulterated truth of the statement.

Windsagio.1340:

@Jerus, your idea is really interesting, It’d be fascinating as a test to see if people would actually play hardmode or not, beyond the challenge-seeking crowd.

Presuming the rewards were enough greater to justify the risk, how would you suggest dealing with the risk of increased toxicity? I can definitely see a scenario where someone screws up and dies and everyone gets really mad at them and freaks out over it for the ‘wasted time’.

You simply sit there while people calm the kitten down and get back to it or reform the group whatever becomes the status quo. Fractals are much tougher and can easily run over an hour with screw ups. However, like most dungeons fractals are soloable, meaning I doubt most groups would simply stop after one death, the guy could leave and do whatever, but the rest of the group could easily keep trudging along in most dungeons. Eventually an ethical system will emerge on how people deal with it, and like now most people will do it and if they fail /shrug well we tried.

Maybe some people stop doing them because the extra risk is too much for them, that’s fine, regular dungeons will be there.

As for rewards I think doubling the current bonus chest would easily do the trick. Though they might not like the idea of more cash flow, so maybe it’d be like 2 heavy crafting bags, or 1 and some champ chests /shrug.

Anyone who can play consistently through a dungeon should feel safe to do the hardmode alternative. There are some dungeons where most of my PUG runs don’t ahve anyone dying, maybe right at the end. Other dungeons yeah, people die a lot, that’s what would make it interesting. Some dungeons people would typically run the hard mode, others they wouldn’t but they’d be there with enough incentive to be worthwhile.

What would be more interesting is a hardmode fractal, only on 50’s. Get it and you get a second chest with another chance at the same loot table as the normal bonus (weapons/tonic) and maybe add a chance at fractal box where you get to choose the weapon.

Leo G.4501:

spoj.9672:

Leo G.4501:

Jerus.4350:

The only situation where more dps becomes a much easier tactic is in content that can literally be blown up (looking at you AC/CM) For content like Lupi, not so much. Don’t believe me, take a look at this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qc-h49HeqU
Seems you can still have a decent kill time and make it so you don’t have to avoid everything.

Well, reflect is OP, after all.

Reflect damage had very little contribution to that time. :P

It was a contributing factor. Was it the only contributing factor? Of course not, but it helps alot.

It helps a lot usually. In that video it didnt. Most of that phase 2 burst was from unloading AOE during the reflect. The reflect damage itself was pretty insignificant.

Jerus.4350:

Windsagio.1340:

@Jerus, your idea is really interesting, It’d be fascinating as a test to see if people would actually play hardmode or not, beyond the challenge-seeking crowd.

Presuming the rewards were enough greater to justify the risk, how would you suggest dealing with the risk of increased toxicity? I can definitely see a scenario where someone screws up and dies and everyone gets really mad at them and freaks out over it for the ‘wasted time’.

You simply sit there while people calm the kitten down and get back to it or reform the group whatever becomes the status quo. Fractals are much tougher and can easily run over an hour with screw ups. However, like most dungeons fractals are soloable, meaning I doubt most groups would simply stop after one death, the guy could leave and do whatever, but the rest of the group could easily keep trudging along in most dungeons. Eventually an ethical system will emerge on how people deal with it, and like now most people will do it and if they fail /shrug well we tried.

<snip>

I still remember my very first try to run Arah p1 back when the game was still fresh and nobody had a clue about anything basically (I was playing Condi Necro at that time =P). It was one of the most engaging and fun experiences I ever had with random people on the internet.

We died a lot of course, like A LOT, but we managed to all gather on some obscure ts-server and tried our best to make something happen. After ~3 hours of struggling and getting wiped at Lupi we decided to call it quits, but nobody raged or hurled insults at the others (we were kinda sad we didn´t managed to complete the dungeon though :,().

So no, I don´t think harder content automatically breeds bad behavior. It´s all about the people you play with after all.

in the ‘toxicity’ question, I’m not worried about the difficulty, but rather what you might call the “LoL effect”.

If it’s carryable it might be fine (hell do a reward split to encourage people to keep going. The fact that it favors successful solos only makes it better to me), but it’s easy (as in lol) for the “YOU MADE US LOSE YOU SUCK!!!!!” to become a serious problem.

spoj.9672:

Leo G.4501:

spoj.9672:

Leo G.4501:

Jerus.4350:

The only situation where more dps becomes a much easier tactic is in content that can literally be blown up (looking at you AC/CM) For content like Lupi, not so much. Don’t believe me, take a look at this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qc-h49HeqU
Seems you can still have a decent kill time and make it so you don’t have to avoid everything.

Well, reflect is OP, after all.

Reflect damage had very little contribution to that time. :P

It was a contributing factor. Was it the only contributing factor? Of course not, but it helps alot.

It helps a lot usually. In that video it didnt. Most of that phase 2 burst was from unloading AOE during the reflect. The reflect damage itself was pretty insignificant.

Ah, so you parced the fight? Well done. Can I see the spreadsheet and combat logs?

Jerus.4350:

The point is time. If you’re going to jump out and reset, that’s fine, but doing so is going to take a good amount of time longer. Suddenly bringing along a clerics guard might not be to shabby, sure you’ll lose a good chunk of your damage, but you gain a lot of support through various options.

Certainly. But that’s the argument people bring up with the soft-trinity idea. In a soft-trinity, such as my fav MMO CoH, there are defined roles but none are really “required”. You can bring whatever is available and just adjust fire as you play depending what guns you got…but people roll out the argument “But people will take longer to get groups together and hold spots waiting for a ‘healer’ or a ‘tank’”. I say it’s no different from people waiting to form full zerk groups and pinging gear but meh.

I personally wouldn’t try to take the easy way out…but like I said, I think it might not be enough to qualify as a hardmode on its own. I mean, granted the crying was deafening, people eventually adjusted to “no rez rushing” dungeons. Hah, man I hated when people did that and still do dislike how people angrily point fingers and insults at people that don’t rez rush open world events. Not saying you shouldn’t WP at open world events, but it shouldn’t be the baseline. No encounter should have rez rushing as the baseline! I don’t care if the event fails lol that isn’t how the game should be.

Jerus.4350:

So, it wouldn’t necessarily get rid of zerk (though we did have people die here and there at times), but it would change things up to more benefit the more defensive play because it’d bring consistency and that would matter.

Of course you could still go with full zerk, just if you screw up it’s starting all over.

Again, I agree but still feel the idea would need more…like more random occurrences in the dungeon. More ‘wtf!?’ moments that aren’t quite simple to plan for.

I think people who want things to be harder are missing the point. They want things to be more difficult so that the zerk meta does not some into play. I think that basically, just let the standard meta be your guide.

cletiscake.9173:

b) Not stacking in corners is simply not feasible. Because there is no reliable aggro mechanic, and no reliable way to “tank” damage (due to limited blocks and dodges), fighting mobs becomes a chaotic mess. We’ve all been part of those fights where everyone is everywhere, no co-ordination, different mobs attacking different players, players getting downed all over the place. Combat is a mess unless you stack neatly in a corner and nuke everything. This isn’t the players’ fault for exploiting. From what it looks like to me, it seems as though there is no design intent when it comes to Dungeons. The players simply came up with the best system to combat an otherwise very disorderly and chaotic mess. I don’t know what Anet’s original design intent was, but I don’t think they intended for us to “not” stack in corners. It’s too chaotic if you don’t. This is why people ask for the Trinity back. Because at least there is order to the chaos with a Trinity.

I can not agree with anything more. The complete lack of a decent aggro mechanic leads to a chaotic mess. I don’t believe a Trinity is particularly necessary, but complete lack of an aggro mechanic has led to the current decline in the pve part of this game. I have never participated in ANY pve dungeon content online that is as poor as GW2 dungeons.

GW2 – The ACTION MMO that you stack and burst down mobs, so much fun! pew pew

Relentliss.2170:

cletiscake.9173:

b) Not stacking in corners is simply not feasible. Because there is no reliable aggro mechanic, and no reliable way to “tank” damage (due to limited blocks and dodges), fighting mobs becomes a chaotic mess. We’ve all been part of those fights where everyone is everywhere, no co-ordination, different mobs attacking different players, players getting downed all over the place. Combat is a mess unless you stack neatly in a corner and nuke everything. This isn’t the players’ fault for exploiting. From what it looks like to me, it seems as though there is no design intent when it comes to Dungeons. The players simply came up with the best system to combat an otherwise very disorderly and chaotic mess. I don’t know what Anet’s original design intent was, but I don’t think they intended for us to “not” stack in corners. It’s too chaotic if you don’t. This is why people ask for the Trinity back. Because at least there is order to the chaos with a Trinity.

I can not agree with anything more. The complete lack of a decent aggro mechanic leads to a chaotic mess. I don’t believe a Trinity is particularly necessary, but complete lack of an aggro mechanic has led to the current decline in the pve part of this game. I have never participated in ANY pve dungeon content online that is as poor as GW2 dungeons.

Aggro is not 100%, but it’s a lot more reliable than most people think.

The problem is that nobody knows and nobody bothers.

Wind, there will absolutely be what you’re worried about. I don’t think past the level we already see though. And with what would likely be many initial failures, people will pretty quickly form a “rules of engagement” I think. Where at least most people will have an understanding of what to expect and not get angry if someone slips up because it’s par for the course.

Just like most PUG groups don’t get mad at an initial failure of lupi, or doesn’t rage when you wipe on some of the harder fractals. It’s jsut normal. It’s not unless you have one guy doing dumb stuff to sabotage the run (bubbling everyone).

And Leo, they could always do the “random mossman” thing, taking out COE suddenly mossman pops up…

I just know I think back to my old games. I rarely ran our groups in “meta” we did a lot of interesting things to get more damage but we always left a few safety nets in tact for a more consistent gameplay. Why? because we were facing raids that could take up to 30 mins done perfectly, fail it and you start over. (actually had one raid that was 1.5 hours perfectly done ) So I think that’d be a great reason to motivate players to look at alternate more consistent game play, while leaving those that want the challenge that avenue to prove they can do things perfectly.

eh, to the point of the thread
they probably cant make more builds viable by changinng encounters, they can probably make a dif meta, but it will still be an optimal set.

looking at the most probable future, and how set in their ways both sides are, most likely they will just increase unavoidable dmg , add some survival checks, dps checks, and specialist checks and call it a day.

top players will either bring a gear swap, or make some build swaps. Overall not much will change in terms of diversity, but i think most people have accepted the status quo, and those who havent, will eventually.

Well.. too much posts to catch up with, so I’ll just pop in again without reading what has been said since, risking that this might already have been said:

There seems to be a popular misconception of people surviving in zerker because they are highly skilled. Most are surviving because the encounters are so predictable, slow, and easy.

No on is arguing about (at least from what I read) about highly skilled players shouldn’t survive with zerker stats. It’s more about everyone and their mother can survive in zerker (again, back to my old posts, not talking about solo/speedruns).

90% (made up number) of the players shouldn’t be able to complete the supposed to be hardest content in the game waering full glass armor. If they are able to, something is definetly broken.

Leo G.4501:

Ah, so you parced the fight? Well done. Can I see the spreadsheet and combat logs?

He lost about 10% of his entire health, a major contribution indeed.

Bubi.7942:

Well.. too much posts to catch up with, so I’ll just pop in again without reading what has been said since, risking that this might already have been said:

Yes it has been said about a hundred times by now (not only in this thread, but also in many of the countless threads before), but that doesn´t make it necessarily true.

Bubi.7942:

There seems to be a popular misconception of people surviving in zerker because they are highly skilled. Most are surviving because the encounters are so predictable, slow, and easy.

It IS a misconception if you ask me. AC Spider Queen? I still see unskilled players getting shrekt by it regularly if they are not carried by Ice Bow #5. Same holds true for Kholer, there are A LOT of people out there that have no idea when to dodge his spinning attack.
And these are relatively easy encounters, lets not even talk about certain fractal bosses or Arah
Edit: So, if anything, I´d say unskilled players are often able to survive most encounters when they shouldn´t because they get carried by competent players and not because the encounters are too easy.

Bubi.7942:

No on is arguing about (at least from what I read) about highly skilled players shouldn’t survive with zerker stats. It’s more about everyone and their mother can survive in zerker (again, back to my old posts, not talking about solo/speedruns).

Sadly, sometimes people do argue exactly that, basically they want glassy stats being removed from the game entirely (see this abomination of a thread e.g.).

Bubi.7942:

90% (made up number) of the players shouldn’t be able to complete the supposed to be hardest content in the game waering full glass armor. If they are able to, something is definetly broken.

That is an opinion, not a fact =) I would leave it to anet to make such decisions.

Valento.9852:

GW2 – The ACTION MMO that you stack and burst down mobs, so much fun! pew pew

GW2 – The ACTION MMO that you have one player in tanky gear and one player sits back and spams support skills on the team.

That sounds a lot better to you?

Bubi.7942:

90% (made up number) of the players shouldn’t be able to complete the supposed to be hardest content in the game waering full glass armor. If they are able to, something is definetly broken.

The dungeons are 3 years old dude. How bad do you think people are if they can’t learn how to do a dungeon in 3 years? I don’t have a super high opinion of the quality of the average player but I still acknowledge that in 3 years of trying its possible for even bad players who click their endurance bar to dodge to learn dungeons. Especially when the dungeon community is kind enough to share their builds, team comps and tactics with the greater community as educational resources.

Bubi.7942:

No on is arguing about (at least from what I read) about highly skilled players shouldn’t survive with zerker stats. It’s more about everyone and their mother can survive in zerker (again, back to my old posts, not talking about solo/speedruns).

90% (made up number) of the players shouldn’t be able to complete the supposed to be hardest content in the game waering full glass armor. If they are able to, something is definetly broken.

Well it was the case 1 or 2 years ago. But after almost 3 years, everybody know the content by heart, so it’s easier for everybody to survive. It’s not that the content is so easy, but with time people just get used to it and perform better.

And still, if for regular dungeon most ppl play full zerker and meta build, it’s not really the case for the hardest content in the game. How many people bring a range weapon in fractal 50? How many people have a tankier gear or defensive trait there? How many people do Arah on a regular basis? Arah is the most profitable dungeon and still people avoid it because it’s harder. A large portion of the community play zerker, but they can’t really play it everywhere.

In the end, most of us agree with you. We need harder content so it’s difficult to play full zerker. I want to need protection, weakness, vigor, sigil of endurance, etc. I want content that push us to use every single bit of support we can.

@Nike, Thad:

Yes, learning them plays the biggest role, but there are several types of learning methods.

You likely agree, that an expert dungeon runner, can carry any 4 PuGs if the PuGs listen to him/her. Now why is that? It’s because the encounters are not inherently hard, the mechanics can be easily explained and after you observed the boss once (or heck, you don’t even need to observe the boss, just copy the expert dungeon runner), you got it for the rest of your life. Without really learning the encounter.

I could compare this to “Zerg rush” in the original Starcraft (if you played that). It was a legit, good tactic, but 90% of the zerg rushers never bothered to learn anything beyond that. They did the zerg rush perfectly, like a machine, and when it failed cause you countered it they just plugged out their internet cable (no punishments for DC back then). It’s kinda the same here with dungeon.

Not sure who suggested above more randomness in encounters to test the “real skill” of the players (someone even joked with Random Mossman). And that’s great, that’s exactly what is needed in my oppinion. Less scripted, less predictable fights. Experience still matters, but it would boil down to skill.

And I don’t mean completely random. A good example would be, that currently exists in game, is the Centaur boss (Windmane something) from LS2 in solo mode.

Windsagio.1340:

You totally read that :p

That being said, as I said, I don’t care if toughness is better or not.

I do find the current dungeon play boring, and think mixing up the encounters will help.

I also am endlessly stuck on how absurdly nasty and combative you guys are (I can’t imagine what it would be like in a more lightly moderated forum than this one).

edit: I feel a thread lock coming on, it usually does at this point.

an interesting observation considering I just browsed a few pages here and the one participant who really stands out when it comes to being antagonizing, rude or condescending is you. Hierophant´s perspective I guess, after all, you are in it for the greater good, right?

Bubi on that we are on the same page. Most if not all of us want more challenging content. More Lupi, Liadri, Mai Trin, etc. Less CoF path 1, AC final boss, etc.

Where we disagree is when people talk about gear diversity for the sake of gear diversity because they want Knight or Soldier gear to be more than just WvW or training wheel gear.

Bubi.7942:

Not sure who suggested above more randomness in encounters to test the “real skill” of the players (someone even joked with Random Mossman). And that’s great, that’s exactly what is needed in my oppinion. Less scripted, less predictable fights. Experience still matters, but it would boil down to skill.

Randomness is not good PvE design.

PvE is essentially a puzzle. Each encounter asks a question. A boss with all projectile attacks is asking “did you bring adequate projectile defenses?” A boss with powerful, but easily telegraphed melee attacks is asking if you can dodge properly, or can stay out of range properly.

There are a couple of ways that an encounter can be badly designed. One is the boss simply asks no question. The boss literally sits there and does nothing threatening and all you do it hit it until it dies. The second is the question is too easy to answer. “Can you dodge an easily telegraphed attack once every 15 seconds with no other threat?” Ummm, yeah we can do that. ZZZZZ. The third is the boss is asking a question for which there is no adequate answer. Maybe the attacks aren’t adequately telegraphed. Maybe he has an attack that cannot be blocked or dodged or prevented in any way. Maybe the boss just goes into stealth and randomly downs a person. Either way, after the fight you realize there is really no way to improve it, the next fight will be just as random and meaningless because there is no answer. Cheap mechanics are not good.

What would be a good boss design? Easy: asking lot’s of questions, all very different in nature. “Did you bring good dps?” “did you bring a water field to heal up?” “did you bring a way to strip defiant stacks to interrupt a key attack?” “did you bring a stunbreaker?” “did you bring projectile defense?” “did your team position themselves intelligently where they needed to be each phase?” “did you avoid standing in red circles?” “did you dodge the telegraphed attacks?” A really challenging boss could ask many or all of these questions plus a bunch others too. The key, however, is the second time you fight the boss you will have made progress to knowing the questions you’re being asked and bringing answers. This is how raid progression works outside of gear. Each boss pull you learn the questions the boss is asking better, and bringing improved answers until it dies.

I’ve compared it to a dance. A good boss fight is like learning a very challenging choreography. A bad boss fight is being asked to dance with no music.

Well randomness is good when use properly.

Let say the boss have 5 type of attack, you want some randomness in the order in which the boss will use his 5 attacks so you can’t predict which attack he will do next.

Random AoE pattern, but still telegraphed will force you to not only react to the presence of the AoE, but also in which direction you need to do it.

Yeah I agree with everything Nike said, except that randomness isn’t good. It jsut depends on how you define that randomness.

Having Lupi randomly decide on which attack he will do is good. No one wants “kick at 5s, grub at 10s, locust at 15, kick at 20…” But, if he just randomly got different skills, like suddenly his roar was a fear instead of locust, well, wtf man? Though that’s pretty silly and any attempt to make content like that is usually futile anyways as people will just learn the options and be prepared for them all quite quickly.

NikeEU.7690:

Bubi.7942:

Not sure who suggested above more randomness in encounters to test the “real skill” of the players (someone even joked with Random Mossman). And that’s great, that’s exactly what is needed in my oppinion. Less scripted, less predictable fights. Experience still matters, but it would boil down to skill.

Randomness is not good PvE design.

PvE is essentially a puzzle. Each encounter asks a question. A boss with all projectile attacks is asking “did you bring adequate projectile defenses?” A boss with powerful, but easily telegraphed melee attacks is asking if you can dodge properly, or can stay out of range properly.

There are a couple of ways that an encounter can be badly designed. One is the boss simply asks no question. The boss literally sits there and does nothing threatening and all you do it hit it until it dies. The second is the question is too easy to answer. “Can you dodge an easily telegraphed attack once every 15 seconds with no other threat?” Ummm, yeah we can do that. ZZZZZ. The third is the boss is asking a question for which there is no adequate answer. Maybe the attacks aren’t adequately telegraphed. Maybe he has an attack that cannot be blocked or dodged or prevented in any way. Maybe the boss just goes into stealth and randomly downs a person. Either way, after the fight you realize there is really no way to improve it, the next fight will be just as random and meaningless because there is no answer. Cheap mechanics are not good.

What would be a good boss design? Easy: asking lot’s of questions, all very different in nature. “Did you bring good dps?” “did you bring a water field to heal up?” “did you bring a way to strip defiant stacks to interrupt a key attack?” “did you bring a stunbreaker?” “did you bring projectile defense?” “did your team position themselves intelligently where they needed to be each phase?” “did you avoid standing in red circles?” “did you dodge the telegraphed attacks?” A really challenging boss could ask many or all of these questions plus a bunch others too. The key, however, is the second time you fight the boss you will have made progress to knowing the questions you’re being asked and bringing answers. This is how raid progression works outside of gear. Each boss pull you learn the questions the boss is asking better, and bringing improved answers until it dies.

I’ve compared it to a dance. A good boss fight is like learning a very challenging choreography. A bad boss fight is being asked to dance with no music.

I was going to completely insult this design style,
but then i figured there is something nice about learning the piano, or doing a dance.

however, the depth isnt there, this type of content will get old fast, the easier it is the faster it gets old.

The key to lasting, and really challenging content is not being completely predictable. for AI, that means a certain amount of randomness.
They can have both types.

Thaddeus.4891:

Well randomness is good when use properly.

Let say the boss have 5 type of attack, you want some randomness in the order in which the boss will use his 5 attacks so you can’t predict which attack he will do next.

Random AoE pattern, but still telegraphed will force you to not only react to the presence of the AoE, but also in which direction you need to do it.

take the randomness outside of just an attack, and more to a tactic, then you ll get some really interesting fights. The other factor would be, randomness, but within possible tactics that make sense for the situation.
That would be really fun.

The key to lasting, and really challenging content is not being completely predictable. for AI, that means a certain amount of randomness.

A boss with a number of different skills it uses both in melee and at ranged which are clearly choreographed and aren’t always used at set periods.

i.e. Lupicus

that’s good design.

and yes, we want more of it.

the problem with dungeons is old content, not all of the boring rehashed garbage people bring up all the time (hurrrdurrrr the zerkhurrrr meta needs to go check my original ideas hurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr).

I also am endlessly stuck on how absurdly nasty and combative you guys are (I can’t imagine what it would be like in a more lightly moderated forum than this one).

yeah, you tend to get hostile when clueless fools are always trying to argue about concepts that they don’t understand. the amount of times people refer to “zerker builds” when the gear stat combination has absolutely nothing to do with the build is enough to make my eye twitch furiously.

I’ve gotta be with the few aboce here;

The fixed timed phases and the fixed health phases models lead to easily repeatable and easily farmable fights… and boring fights

reactive fights, where the enemy chooses randomly (say with a weighted random) from their skills is much more interesting, because you have to be awake and the fight changes.

They’re harder to farm and difficulty is uneven, but it’s better than playing to a timer.

NikeEU.7690:

Bubi.7942:

Not sure who suggested above more randomness in encounters to test the “real skill” of the players (someone even joked with Random Mossman). And that’s great, that’s exactly what is needed in my oppinion. Less scripted, less predictable fights. Experience still matters, but it would boil down to skill.

Randomness is not good PvE design.

PvE is essentially a puzzle. Each encounter asks a question. A boss with all projectile attacks is asking “did you bring adequate projectile defenses?” A boss with powerful, but easily telegraphed melee attacks is asking if you can dodge properly, or can stay out of range properly.

That’s a rather bold statement and a some what ill suited analogy if you ask me.

I think you come at positions like this with the wrong state of mind. Just as easily as you can make an absolute statement (such as “randomness is bad pve game design”) someone like me can reply with the true statement “no, you’re wrong”. Because randomness is often used in many aspects of games. Why make an absolute statement like that? If doesn’t really Garner discussion, just disagreement. Why not start with just points about what randomness could mess up? But don’t stop there, mention how one can possibly solve such problems and their related sacrifices to the game?

Puzzles often have aspects of randomness to them as well (a jigsaw puzzle is pretty much that, tetris is as well) so not a good example. As far as learning a dance, it’s similar to playing music. It’s loosely scripted but the advance dancers insert their own style, mods or licks into their performance so things seem less scripted. It’s called improvisation. So also not a great analogy.

The idea of randomness added to certain content really depends on you. There are many ways one could alter dungeons with that idea in mind, even to the point you’d be perfectly happy with. Rather than saying how is bad, why not talk about how you’d like it to be implemented?

Attacking the analogy rather the point is a classic example of bad debate style.

When I say "random is bad’ I’m not saying random as in what RNG is lupicus going to give me. Sometime lupicus will auto attack you 5 times in a row in phase 3. Other times he rises up off the ground 4 times in row. That’s not what I mean by random.

What I mean by random is that instead of lupicus having his normal 4 phase 3 moves this time you encounter him he has 4 other moves. And the next time he has 4 other moves. Or next time you do arah Lupicus isn;t even there its some other boss with other random mechanics. aka Chaos.

Another example of the sort of awful “random good AI” fight people who don’t understand game design want. Get a level 35 character or 5. Go into AC explorable and fight kohler with blue quality gear and no traits. Kohler leaps around and dodges and evades and spams fast auto attacks that cannot all be dodged. This is basically EXACTLY the sort of fight you are all describing.

Unfortunately it’s terrible. PvE mobs (or bosses) evading your attacks is not fun gameplay. It feels like a cheap mechanic, and it is. Designing a boss who gets invuln frames unless you prevent it by doing x,y,z mechanics… thats different. But a lot of people who fancy themselves game designers appear to believe that replicating PVP fights is the epitome of game design for PvE, and it certainly isn’t.

To bring it back to the choreography analogy, I agree that changing the order to dance steps to be random is fine design. But changing the fox trot to the cha-cha from one iteration to another is bad. If we disagree over the semantic term “random” I’ll use a less debatable term, chaos. Chaos is not good PvE design.

good “randomness” in pve is the wildstar elemental pairs in DS for example.
you have to fight 3 elemental pairs to get to avatus, 1 pair → 2 bosses. and each week after ID reset the combination of each pair changes.

like this:
pyrobane is in each fight, the second boss is a different one. the whole fight is completely different.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLa_D-zqKIs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT0tsCgIJbU

100% agree Nike, thanks for the clarification.

NoTrigger.8396:

good “randomness” in pve is the wildstar elemental pairs in DS for example.
you have to fight 3 elemental pairs to get to avatus, 1 pair -> 2 bosses. and each week after ID reset the combination of each pair changes.

like this:
pyrobane is in each fight, the second boss is a different one. the whole fight is completely different.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLa_D-zqKIs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT0tsCgIJbU

Personally I see that as annoying RNG, in that I hate that fractals don’t let me choose stuff because some fights I love, some I hate. Having my enjoyment be determined by the RNG is lame as far as I’m concerned.

why is it rng? its just like 3 new boss pairs each week after ID reset. its good because you have more bosses to progress on and instead of fighting the same boss each week there is variety.

NoTrigger.8396:

why is it rng? its just like 3 new boss pairs each week after ID reset. its good because you have more bosses to progress on and instead of fighting the same boss each week there is variety.

Because I rather just have the option to fight them all or whatever.

Like if they had the different bosses locked up and you chose 2 to fight, could even have a “natural” hard mode of releasing all of them at once.

I just hate getting denied fights I like because of forced variety.

NikeEU.7690:

Another example of the sort of awful “random good AI” fight people who don’t understand game design want. Get a level 35 character or 5. Go into AC explorable and fight kohler with blue quality gear and no traits. Kohler leaps around and dodges and evades and spams fast auto attacks that cannot all be dodged. This is basically EXACTLY the sort of fight you are all describing.

Except of course, that no one is saying this. Like really, read the posts above, no one.

Everyone else seemed to get the point. In fact:

NikeEU.7690:

What I mean by random is that instead of lupicus having his normal 4 phase 3 moves this time you encounter him he has 4 other moves. And the next time he has 4 other moves. Or next time you do arah Lupicus isn;t even there its some other boss with other random mechanics. aka Chaos.

… seems like you get the point as well.

Are we just arguing now for the sake of arguing?

Jerus.4350:

NoTrigger.8396:

good “randomness” in pve is the wildstar elemental pairs in DS for example.
you have to fight 3 elemental pairs to get to avatus, 1 pair -> 2 bosses. and each week after ID reset the combination of each pair changes.

like this:
pyrobane is in each fight, the second boss is a different one. the whole fight is completely different.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLa_D-zqKIs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT0tsCgIJbU

Personally I see that as annoying RNG, in that I hate that fractals don’t let me choose stuff because some fights I love, some I hate. Having my enjoyment be determined by the RNG is lame as far as I’m concerned.

The fractal thing is kind of tricky, because, as we see from swamp rolling, people would decide the set of four that is the quickest and never do any others, and it would become an orthodoxy.

As it is I can’t think of the last time I did underwater.

Whole boss replacements would be interesting actually, if probably trying.

The simple optimum for this:

The best encounters are where you know what can happen more than what will happen

Windsagio.1340:

Jerus.4350:

NoTrigger.8396:

good “randomness” in pve is the wildstar elemental pairs in DS for example.
you have to fight 3 elemental pairs to get to avatus, 1 pair -> 2 bosses. and each week after ID reset the combination of each pair changes.

like this:
pyrobane is in each fight, the second boss is a different one. the whole fight is completely different.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLa_D-zqKIs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT0tsCgIJbU

Personally I see that as annoying RNG, in that I hate that fractals don’t let me choose stuff because some fights I love, some I hate. Having my enjoyment be determined by the RNG is lame as far as I’m concerned.

The fractal thing is kind of tricky, because, as we see from swamp rolling, people would decide the set of four that is the quickest and never do any others, and it would become an orthodoxy.

As it is I can’t think of the last time I did underwater.

Not if they give proper incentive to do them all. I’d elaborate on how but there’s literally dozens of threads within the last few months that have dozens of different suggestions that would work.

I’d love if a fractal tour was doing all the individual fractals on lvl 50 instead of doing a fractal 20/30/40/50 or whatever.

Most people in here are cynical about the designers, I’m cynical about the players :p

Except for the ‘grand tour’ idea, which I like (except it makes for a a looooooong run), I’m sticking with the idea that even if you balance things out, the players will come to some conclusion for the accepted orthodoxy and stick with it.

NikeEU.7690:

Attacking the analogy rather the point is a classic example of bad debate style.

Well, I’d say making absolute statements isn’t a good style either but I’m not attacking you for it. Just saying.

NikeEU.7690:

When I say "random is bad’ I’m not saying random as in what RNG is lupicus going to give me. Sometime lupicus will auto attack you 5 times in a row in phase 3. Other times he rises up off the ground 4 times in row. That’s not what I mean by random.

What I mean by random is that instead of lupicus having his normal 4 phase 3 moves this time you encounter him he has 4 other moves. And the next time he has 4 other moves. Or next time you do arah Lupicus isn;t even there its some other boss with other random mechanics. aka Chaos.

Controlled chaos is what we have though. It’s almost what defines GW2 and likely the only aspect of the combat I enjoy. Every fight isn’t quite the same as timing is a big factor which changes with context.

NikeEU.7690:

Another example of the sort of awful “random good AI” fight people who don’t understand game design want.

Wow, so likely 80% of people don’t even know what they like yet you claim you do know what they want and don’t want? Have you surveyed everyone or even the majority? What tests did you run to come to such a conclusion?

NikeEU.7690:

Get a level 35 character or 5. Go into AC explorable and fight kohler with blue quality gear and no traits. Kohler leaps around and dodges and evades and spams fast auto attacks that cannot all be dodged. This is basically EXACTLY the sort of fight you are all describing.

Unfortunately it’s terrible. PvE mobs (or bosses) evading your attacks is not fun gameplay. It feels like a cheap mechanic, and it is. Designing a boss who gets invuln frames unless you prevent it by doing x,y,z mechanics… thats different. But a lot of people who fancy themselves game designers appear to believe that replicating PVP fights is the epitome of game design for PvE, and it certainly isn’t.

Kind of a tangent there…

I don’t see a problem with such. It’s not like the boss randomly dodging affects much. Honestly, it’s inconsequential to discuss. Every boss should have their ‘thing’. Unless it’s some sort of unfair mechanic like “everytime the boss dodges, someone goes down”, it’s not disruptive just unique. Trying to pin a specific formula to provide to every boss’ ‘thing’ isn’t going to happen though. Also, who suggested replicating PvP in PvE is the epitome of game design?

NikeEU.7690:

To bring it back to the choreography analogy, I agree that changing the order to dance steps to be random is fine design. But changing the fox trot to the cha-cha from one iteration to another is bad. If we disagree over the semantic term “random” I’ll use a less debatable term, chaos. Chaos is not good PvE design.

Holding myself from commenting about the analogy, yeah, I can agree. Bad-connotative Randomness is bad. Good-connotative Randomness is good. Making a distinction between the two is important though. You said having a boss with multiple types of moves that he might or might not use for a specific encounter is chaos. It’s honestly no different from what the player has access to and I don’t see it as chaos just variation. And I think it’d work well to add variety to dungeons without making whole new sets of dungeons. Chaos, to me, would be bosses appearing in places they shouldn’t or not appearing at all.

Jerus.4350:

Because I rather just have the option to fight them all or whatever.

Heh, well we are talking hard-mode here. For something to be difficult, usually some sort of variable once somewhat in your control has to be taken away. I mean, if we were talking about some kind of “skill” like playing the piano or dancing, difficulty comes with playing something you aren’t used to playing. It’s not playing the same thing with your eyes closed or playing it faster…that might be fun, but not particularly challenging if you know the piece inside and out.

And the reason I enjoy fractals is because the order is somewhat random. What I don’t like about fractals is when people try to cheat the game into getting the “proper” fractals instead of just playing with the hand they are dealt.

It’s really just different strokes for different folks. I can agree it might not be someone’s cup of tea, but to try and say it’s no one’s cup of tea is shortsighted.

If you look at that whole post I even note that they coudl do a harder version with all bosses at once

There are some things I really enjoy. Locking it behind me winning the roll of the dice… well kitten that. And, that’s why I still hope when they add new challenging content it comes int he form of a dungeon rather than a fractal. It’s purely because of the RNG nature of fractals, words can’t describe my hatred for RNG based “fun”. “roll a 1 and you get to do what you wanted to have fun with, roll a 2,3,4,5,or 6 and you don’t, muahahahah”.