Guild Wars 2

A bit of a bold statement but hear me out. Its been nearly 3 months since the announcement of the expansion and the only information given about “challenging group content” is pointing at an open world Wyvern boss. I find this fundamentally antithetical to what actually is “group content”. The open world is designed to allow anyone in the map to participate in fights. Now here’s the problem. Lets say the boss is easy and 50 people are participating. This leads to what is well known as “zerging” and is not interesting or engaging in any way.

So what if we add a bit more of a challenge? We’ll add more mechanics to the boss to make it more interesting and add accountability to the players. By the nature of the system this also becomes a problem. Lets say 15 of the 50 people are really dedicated, know their stuff, and want to get the boss down. Then the other 35 people are a mixed bag of not really invested, casual, apathetic to the situation. Its not reasonable to expect accountability from dozens of players that don’t have the same investment as you.

This is why there NEEDS to be actual group content. Content where small groups of friends can overcome a challenge. Content where GUILDS (its kinda in the name of the game) can form together to overcome a challenge.

TheDraco.3965:

A bit of a bold statement but hear me out. Its been nearly 3 months since the announcement of the expansion and the only information given about “challenging group content” is pointing at an open world Wyvern boss.

Actually, in one of the interviews Colin said that the Wyvern fight was just an example of a tough open world boss:

…the Wyvern is an example of just a tough boss in the open world. It’s not a mega boss, it’s not some super, crazy challenging group content that we want you to do. It’s just an example of what world bosses are going to start being like.

Source

I wish they would hurry up and reveal even a slight hint of what they mean. Because if fractals is the only thing we can hope for when it comes to proper instanced content then a lot of people are going to be disappointed.

Only things i care about are specialisations and the challenging content. Im getting restless with each blog explaining something unimportant or just detailing more of what we already know. :<

considering how much I lag and crash during massive open world content it makes it pretty darn challenging.

so yeah fully support.

spoj.9672:

I wish they would hurry up and reveal even a slight hint of what they mean. Because if fractals is the only thing we can hope for when it comes to proper instanced content then a lot of people are going to be disappointed.

Only things i care about are specialisations and the challenging content. Im getting restless with each blog explaining something unimportant or just detailing more of what we already know. :<

Honestly we might have to wait a while before we finally get info. If you think about it, Challenging group content in HoT would ideally be designed around a ton of additional changes, (Defiance, conditions, new stuff introduced with specializations) so it doesn’t make sense to release a blog post about it until all the other stuff has been finished up with.

So basically it’ll be one of the last blog info posts before launch :P

Yeah im aware it will probably be one of the last. That doesnt make me any less restless and disappointed though. :<

I disagree. Considering GW2´s average player skill, it is really challenging to manage any encounter with people not able to notice HUGE red circles. Marionette, Legendary Scarlett Knights, managing kill time in Scarlett plattform battle, you name it.

TheDaiBish.9735:

TheDraco.3965:

A bit of a bold statement but hear me out. Its been nearly 3 months since the announcement of the expansion and the only information given about “challenging group content” is pointing at an open world Wyvern boss.

Actually, in one of the interviews Colin said that the Wyvern fight was just an example of a tough open world boss:

…the Wyvern is an example of just a tough boss in the open world. It’s not a mega boss, it’s not some super, crazy challenging group content that we want you to do. It’s just an example of what world bosses are going to start being like.

Source

so based on the beta, new world bosses, will be lame.

in their defense though, most of the world bosses are lame now

Well some months back (around 6) they did hire people & one of the prerequisites was having experience designing raid content for an MMO.

I am hopeful that this means they will have instanced raids that are at least somewhat difficult.

I say this because open world is always one of 2 things

1: So easy even someone who is high out of their mind can complete it.
or
2: Difficult which causes everyone to whine & cry until it becomes like number 1.

Instanced raid content could allow the more hard core among the players to have difficult content & could provide intrusting stuff for a guild to do without being something that is mandatory to feel like you are progressing because all it really rewards is achievements (or a slightly a higher drop rate)

There is also the middle ground between open world and instanced, like the Marionette fight. Open World and instanced at the same time, it’s sad that the Breach and the Vinewrath weren’t similar to the Marionette

maddoctor.2738:

There is also the middle ground between open world and instanced, like the Marionette fight. Open World and instanced at the same time, it’s sad that the Breach and the Vinewrath weren’t similar to the Marionette

marrionette was really good imo

phys.7689:

maddoctor.2738:

There is also the middle ground between open world and instanced, like the Marionette fight. Open World and instanced at the same time, it’s sad that the Breach and the Vinewrath weren’t similar to the Marionette

marrionette was really good imo

A good encounter yes, but a harsh reminder for Anet that the average Skill of the Playerbase was low enough for them to fail an LFR Raid in WoW ( and this thing is called Tourist Mode for good Reason ).

I hope we see more good Encounters like Marionettes in HoT, who are fun, have good Mechanics and different Fail Mechanics than just a Timer where the Boss just kittens off without any Consequence

Walhalla.5473:

phys.7689:

maddoctor.2738:

There is also the middle ground between open world and instanced, like the Marionette fight. Open World and instanced at the same time, it’s sad that the Breach and the Vinewrath weren’t similar to the Marionette

marrionette was really good imo

A good encounter yes, but a harsh reminder for Anet that the average Skill of the Playerbase was low enough for them to fail an LFR Raid in WoW ( and this thing is called Tourist Mode for good Reason ).

I hope we see more good Encounters like Marionettes in HoT, who are fun, have good Mechanics and different Fail Mechanics than just a Timer where the Boss just kittens off without any Consequence

its ok to have bosses that people dont beat every time, unless they play well.

Marrionette was good because it wasnt just about coordination, it was about player skill. And yeah, lot of people werent at the midrange skill level.

Oh yeah, and it was pretty varied/adaptive. 5 different bosses, lane defense, sometimes doing multi bosses. Many different ways to play the same event.

pretty good reward structure as well

oh well, they havent matched it yet imo.

phys.7689:

Walhalla.5473:

phys.7689:

maddoctor.2738:

There is also the middle ground between open world and instanced, like the Marionette fight. Open World and instanced at the same time, it’s sad that the Breach and the Vinewrath weren’t similar to the Marionette

marrionette was really good imo

A good encounter yes, but a harsh reminder for Anet that the average Skill of the Playerbase was low enough for them to fail an LFR Raid in WoW ( and this thing is called Tourist Mode for good Reason ).

I hope we see more good Encounters like Marionettes in HoT, who are fun, have good Mechanics and different Fail Mechanics than just a Timer where the Boss just kittens off without any Consequence

its ok to have bosses that people dont beat every time, unless they play well.

Marrionette was good because it wasnt just about coordination, it was about player skill. And yeah, lot of people werent at the midrange skill level.

Oh yeah, and it was pretty varied/adaptive. 5 different bosses, lane defense, sometimes doing multi bosses. Many different ways to play the same event.

pretty good reward structure as well

oh well, they havent matched it yet imo.

They haven’t done anything similar to the marionette again because sadly the way it was designed it caused serious problems with the “average player”. The “average player” of GW2 doesn’t need much skill to play, because the open world can be zerged and be done while afk and pressing 1. So those who are trained to just do that will have a very hard time playing such an event.

For example, when some randoms are being thrown together on a platform without any idea of what to do because they turn off map chat or don’t read it, or haven’t read up the mechanics beforehand, or their build just isn’t good enough for the given encounter, then the entire thing fails.

Although the Marionette was a very good designed fight, maybe the best open world fight Arenanet ever designed, it had its own set of problems, namely the total lack of skill of the average GW2 player.

However, I DO believe part of the problem with the Marionette was the temporary nature of it. All players wanted the new achievements, the dailies and the new rewards. It’s really BAD to make hard/challenging content temporary. Maybe the next time they add challenging temporary content, they could have two versions, one easier TEMPORARY version during the initial release, then a harder PERMANENT version of the event later on after the release is done.

maddoctor.2738:

phys.7689:

Walhalla.5473:

phys.7689:

maddoctor.2738:

There is also the middle ground between open world and instanced, like the Marionette fight. Open World and instanced at the same time, it’s sad that the Breach and the Vinewrath weren’t similar to the Marionette

marrionette was really good imo

A good encounter yes, but a harsh reminder for Anet that the average Skill of the Playerbase was low enough for them to fail an LFR Raid in WoW ( and this thing is called Tourist Mode for good Reason ).

I hope we see more good Encounters like Marionettes in HoT, who are fun, have good Mechanics and different Fail Mechanics than just a Timer where the Boss just kittens off without any Consequence

its ok to have bosses that people dont beat every time, unless they play well.

Marrionette was good because it wasnt just about coordination, it was about player skill. And yeah, lot of people werent at the midrange skill level.

Oh yeah, and it was pretty varied/adaptive. 5 different bosses, lane defense, sometimes doing multi bosses. Many different ways to play the same event.

pretty good reward structure as well

oh well, they havent matched it yet imo.

They haven’t done anything similar to the marionette again because sadly the way it was designed it caused serious problems with the “average player”. The “average player” of GW2 doesn’t need much skill to play, because the open world can be zerged and be done while afk and pressing 1. So those who are trained to just do that will have a very hard time playing such an event.

For example, when some randoms are being thrown together on a platform without any idea of what to do because they turn off map chat or don’t read it, or haven’t read up the mechanics beforehand, or their build just isn’t good enough for the given encounter, then the entire thing fails.

Although the Marionette was a very good designed fight, maybe the best open world fight Arenanet ever designed, it had its own set of problems, namely the total lack of skill of the average GW2 player.

However, I DO believe part of the problem with the Marionette was the temporary nature of it. All players wanted the new achievements, the dailies and the new rewards. It’s really BAD to make hard/challenging content temporary. Maybe the next time they add challenging temporary content, they could have two versions, one easier TEMPORARY version during the initial release, then a harder PERMANENT version of the event later on after the release is done.

like i said, its ok to have events fail if players dont play well. They will learn eventually. I am fine with losing it sometimes when people dont play well enough.
The only way people will learn, is if the content actually fails them for not learning. If being sucky wins, people will continue to be sucky

it is true that its temporary nature made it tricky.

I still say its probably the best open world/group/boss content they have created thus far, in terms of actual engagement and entertainment.

maddoctor.2738:

phys.7689:

Walhalla.5473:

phys.7689:

maddoctor.2738:

There is also the middle ground between open world and instanced, like the Marionette fight. Open World and instanced at the same time, it’s sad that the Breach and the Vinewrath weren’t similar to the Marionette

marrionette was really good imo

A good encounter yes, but a harsh reminder for Anet that the average Skill of the Playerbase was low enough for them to fail an LFR Raid in WoW ( and this thing is called Tourist Mode for good Reason ).

I hope we see more good Encounters like Marionettes in HoT, who are fun, have good Mechanics and different Fail Mechanics than just a Timer where the Boss just kittens off without any Consequence

its ok to have bosses that people dont beat every time, unless they play well.

Marrionette was good because it wasnt just about coordination, it was about player skill. And yeah, lot of people werent at the midrange skill level.

Oh yeah, and it was pretty varied/adaptive. 5 different bosses, lane defense, sometimes doing multi bosses. Many different ways to play the same event.

pretty good reward structure as well

oh well, they havent matched it yet imo.

They haven’t done anything similar to the marionette again because sadly the way it was designed it caused serious problems with the “average player”. The “average player” of GW2 doesn’t need much skill to play, because the open world can be zerged and be done while afk and pressing 1. So those who are trained to just do that will have a very hard time playing such an event.

For example, when some randoms are being thrown together on a platform without any idea of what to do because they turn off map chat or don’t read it, or haven’t read up the mechanics beforehand, or their build just isn’t good enough for the given encounter, then the entire thing fails.

Although the Marionette was a very good designed fight, maybe the best open world fight Arenanet ever designed, it had its own set of problems, namely the total lack of skill of the average GW2 player.

However, I DO believe part of the problem with the Marionette was the temporary nature of it. All players wanted the new achievements, the dailies and the new rewards. It’s really BAD to make hard/challenging content temporary. Maybe the next time they add challenging temporary content, they could have two versions, one easier TEMPORARY version during the initial release, then a harder PERMANENT version of the event later on after the release is done.

I would say, the average Player Skill is the Reason why the Bosses in the LS Season 2 were designed the Way they are. A bit harder than the Things in the Open World an having Mechanics that Forces the Players to learn them even if some Mechanics are a bit too dominant. But Anet wants the Players to actually learn the Mechanics and not just AFK them to Death, they want to raise the Skill Level of the Average Players, to make Bosses like the Marionette possible again. ( The Vinewrath is a toned down Maionette, but also a really good Fight )

The Results: Complaining about Bosses being gimmicky or too hard with every Move oneshotting the Player ( even though this isn’t true ). I remember one Guy saying that he doesn’t want to deal with the Adds of a Boss and just DPS him down because just DPS something to Death is a good Fight and a fight needs nothing more. facepalm

Hope that Anet will give us some really good Fights in HoT. The Wyvern Fight looks interesting and I hope that the Fire he spreads will stay for the entire Fight as some sort of a Soft Enrage. ( which would be far better than just a Timer )

maddoctor.2738:

phys.7689:

Walhalla.5473:

phys.7689:

maddoctor.2738:

There is also the middle ground between open world and instanced, like the Marionette fight. Open World and instanced at the same time, it’s sad that the Breach and the Vinewrath weren’t similar to the Marionette

marrionette was really good imo

A good encounter yes, but a harsh reminder for Anet that the average Skill of the Playerbase was low enough for them to fail an LFR Raid in WoW ( and this thing is called Tourist Mode for good Reason ).

I hope we see more good Encounters like Marionettes in HoT, who are fun, have good Mechanics and different Fail Mechanics than just a Timer where the Boss just kittens off without any Consequence

its ok to have bosses that people dont beat every time, unless they play well.

Marrionette was good because it wasnt just about coordination, it was about player skill. And yeah, lot of people werent at the midrange skill level.

Oh yeah, and it was pretty varied/adaptive. 5 different bosses, lane defense, sometimes doing multi bosses. Many different ways to play the same event.

pretty good reward structure as well

oh well, they havent matched it yet imo.

They haven’t done anything similar to the marionette again because sadly the way it was designed it caused serious problems with the “average player”. The “average player” of GW2 doesn’t need much skill to play, because the open world can be zerged and be done while afk and pressing 1. So those who are trained to just do that will have a very hard time playing such an event.

For example, when some randoms are being thrown together on a platform without any idea of what to do because they turn off map chat or don’t read it, or haven’t read up the mechanics beforehand, or their build just isn’t good enough for the given encounter, then the entire thing fails.

Although the Marionette was a very good designed fight, maybe the best open world fight Arenanet ever designed, it had its own set of problems, namely the total lack of skill of the average GW2 player.

However, I DO believe part of the problem with the Marionette was the temporary nature of it. All players wanted the new achievements, the dailies and the new rewards. It’s really BAD to make hard/challenging content temporary. Maybe the next time they add challenging temporary content, they could have two versions, one easier TEMPORARY version during the initial release, then a harder PERMANENT version of the event later on after the release is done.

The marionette also had rampant population issues (a lot of the time, one or more platforms would only have a couple of people on it, and there’s kitten-all the rest can do to help them), and some stupid design decisions.

Hyper Cutter.9376:

maddoctor.2738:

phys.7689:

Walhalla.5473:

phys.7689:

maddoctor.2738:

There is also the middle ground between open world and instanced, like the Marionette fight. Open World and instanced at the same time, it’s sad that the Breach and the Vinewrath weren’t similar to the Marionette

marrionette was really good imo

A good encounter yes, but a harsh reminder for Anet that the average Skill of the Playerbase was low enough for them to fail an LFR Raid in WoW ( and this thing is called Tourist Mode for good Reason ).

I hope we see more good Encounters like Marionettes in HoT, who are fun, have good Mechanics and different Fail Mechanics than just a Timer where the Boss just kittens off without any Consequence

its ok to have bosses that people dont beat every time, unless they play well.

Marrionette was good because it wasnt just about coordination, it was about player skill. And yeah, lot of people werent at the midrange skill level.

Oh yeah, and it was pretty varied/adaptive. 5 different bosses, lane defense, sometimes doing multi bosses. Many different ways to play the same event.

pretty good reward structure as well

oh well, they havent matched it yet imo.

They haven’t done anything similar to the marionette again because sadly the way it was designed it caused serious problems with the “average player”. The “average player” of GW2 doesn’t need much skill to play, because the open world can be zerged and be done while afk and pressing 1. So those who are trained to just do that will have a very hard time playing such an event.

For example, when some randoms are being thrown together on a platform without any idea of what to do because they turn off map chat or don’t read it, or haven’t read up the mechanics beforehand, or their build just isn’t good enough for the given encounter, then the entire thing fails.

Although the Marionette was a very good designed fight, maybe the best open world fight Arenanet ever designed, it had its own set of problems, namely the total lack of skill of the average GW2 player.

However, I DO believe part of the problem with the Marionette was the temporary nature of it. All players wanted the new achievements, the dailies and the new rewards. It’s really BAD to make hard/challenging content temporary. Maybe the next time they add challenging temporary content, they could have two versions, one easier TEMPORARY version during the initial release, then a harder PERMANENT version of the event later on after the release is done.

The marionette also had rampant population issues (a lot of the time, one or more platforms would only have a couple of people on it, and there’s kitten-all the rest can do to help them), and some stupid design decisions.

they had a bug early on where people werent getting distributed properly, they fixed that before the event ended.
After that point, when you saw only two people on a platform, it was because the others died, or you only had like 10 people in a lane.

and really it was doable with like 3-4 people per platform, a lot of times felt easier when i only had a couple people with me.

its not like tequatl or wurm is any easier with a few people.

regardless of whatever, i would still say it was the most entertaining open world group content even with its flaws. What is better?

Funny thing I would prefer instanced proper content (dunges/fotm – with proper rewardS) that this open world stuff which scales badly due to players in nobads gear who have not got a clue what there skills do or have any ability beyond spamming ‘1’ for loot.

phys.7689:

so based on the beta, new world bosses, will be lame.

in their defense though, most of the world bosses are lame now

Except for the fact that they never claimed that it would be a world boss you mean?
They said it would be a boss in the open world, not that it would be a world boss.

I think at least some of the challenging content will come toward the end of the mastery lines. Things like this -

“You’ve become honored among the Exalted. You can now challenge their champion each day and unlock their finest treasures within the Forgotten City.”

I suspect we will see similar mechanics/encounters associated with the guild progression system they mentioned.

I do believe these things will be open world, but will be soft gated in ways that make sense and discourage zerging. At least that is my hope. I also hope people give them a chance and dont just go with the shortsighted “its not instance so it must suck” attitude.

And, it does look like fractals are in for some real love.

Blaeys.3102:

I think at least some of the challenging content will come toward the end of the mastery lines. Things like this -

“You’ve become honored among the Exalted. You can now challenge their champion each day and unlock their finest treasures within the Forgotten City.”

I suspect we will see similar mechanics/encounters associated with the guild progression system they mentioned.

I do believe these things will be open world, but will be soft gated in ways that make sense and discourage zerging. At least that is my hope. I also hope people give them a chance and dont just go with the shortsighted “its not instance so it must suck” attitude.

And, it does look like fractals are in for some real love.

Since access is unlocked individually, I’m expecting those mastery champion challenges to be more like Queen Gauntlet fights, where you face a somewhat complex enemy on your own.

Vargamonth.2047:

Blaeys.3102:

I think at least some of the challenging content will come toward the end of the mastery lines. Things like this -

“You’ve become honored among the Exalted. You can now challenge their champion each day and unlock their finest treasures within the Forgotten City.”

I suspect we will see similar mechanics/encounters associated with the guild progression system they mentioned.

I do believe these things will be open world, but will be soft gated in ways that make sense and discourage zerging. At least that is my hope. I also hope people give them a chance and dont just go with the shortsighted “its not instance so it must suck” attitude.

And, it does look like fractals are in for some real love.

Since access is unlocked individually, I’m expecting those mastery champion challenges to be more like Queen Gauntlet fights, where you face a somewhat complex enemy on your own.

Most likely. However, they’ve also mentioned that they plan to discuss guild progression at some point – and that it will be a major feature in HOT.

My hope is the guild progression looks a lot like the mastery system and includes difficult encounters that guilds can unlock similar to the example above.

A lot of speculation right now, but that really is all we can do at this point.

Some here suggested that the Marionette was decent, challenging open world content. Perhaps you guys can elaborate – what was good and challenging about it? I was either on break from GW2 at the time, or I just never bothered to do the event (I pretty much just WvW anyway), but having just watched a 22 minute video of the Marionette encounter, all I saw were people zerging down a never ending swarm of mobs, and occasionally port to a small platform. Sure, on the platform there were a few more red circles to dodge than a usual world boss event, but the whole thing struck me as a massive snore. 22 minutes of zerging down minions? What is fun and challenging about that? Requiring a modicum of organization – dispersing a horde of people into a few lanes – does not make an encounter fun and challenging. Am I missing something, or is this just a fundamental disagreement that zerging down mobs for 22 minutes is good, fun content?

there was nothing challenging about the marionette. its just so that people have never seen a good encounter before and thats why they have that impression.

Also, and maybe more important, people only had a few weeks to do it and it was bugged for part of that (leadign to weird distrubitions on platforms).

It’s essentially impossible to compare the difficulty level of Marionette to that of ongoing content that people have spend months if not years mastering and practicing.

~~~

About the reveals, I think they have a good reason to sit on that info. It’s very likely that the main groups that want it are going to dislike what they do conceptually, so giving them less time to work themselves up into a hate frenzy before they can actually play it is a pretty smart move.

xev.9476:

Some here suggested that the Marionette was decent, challenging open world content. Perhaps you guys can elaborate – what was good and challenging about it? I was either on break from GW2 at the time, or I just never bothered to do the event (I pretty much just WvW anyway), but having just watched a 22 minute video of the Marionette encounter, all I saw were people zerging down a never ending swarm of mobs, and occasionally port to a small platform. Sure, on the platform there were a few more red circles to dodge than a usual world boss event, but the whole thing struck me as a massive snore. 22 minutes of zerging down minions? What is fun and challenging about that? Requiring a modicum of organization – dispersing a horde of people into a few lanes – does not make an encounter fun and challenging. Am I missing something, or is this just a fundamental disagreement that zerging down mobs for 22 minutes is good, fun content?

not everyone is going to like everything, but its not as simple as zerging down content.
It isnt the most challenging fight in terms of a really small window for success, it was a better description is it was fairly engaging.

its probably the open world content that has the most possible variations, good unpredictability, high drama moments, encouraging reward structure, and your single contributions matter more.
the zerg portion is smaller (15-30 people) with the goal being defeating the enemies before they get to the goal line, rather than just killing, some do more dmg than others, different enemies in each lane, so you can see a real effect, or be part of a clutch defensive play.
then you have mini boss fights with different mechanics in each path, but you cant be 100% sure which boss you will get because people fail. doable by 2 people but scales well up to 10 people to still be similarly entertaining.

basically it all comes together really well to be entertaining, and personally engaging, moreso than teq/wurm, which is more about being a coordinated army, than personal play.

Its not the hardest thing in the game, but its probably one of the most entertaining/repeatable things in the open world.

of course your opinion may be different.

xev.9476:

Some here suggested that the Marionette was decent, challenging open world content. Perhaps you guys can elaborate – what was good and challenging about it? I was either on break from GW2 at the time, or I just never bothered to do the event (I pretty much just WvW anyway), but having just watched a 22 minute video of the Marionette encounter, all I saw were people zerging down a never ending swarm of mobs, and occasionally port to a small platform. Sure, on the platform there were a few more red circles to dodge than a usual world boss event, but the whole thing struck me as a massive snore. 22 minutes of zerging down minions? What is fun and challenging about that? Requiring a modicum of organization – dispersing a horde of people into a few lanes – does not make an encounter fun and challenging. Am I missing something, or is this just a fundamental disagreement that zerging down mobs for 22 minutes is good, fun content?

The huge difference between the Marionette fight and all the other boss fights is that it engaged nearly everyone involved. Unlike other encounters where players can start auto-attack, go afk, and win if the others play well, in the Marionette fight all players were challenged because it split the big player bob on the platforms. On those platforms you didn’t have 20 people to hide behind to kill the bosses, you had to play yourself.

I think the key in creating challenging content is to CHALLENGE EVERYONE. If the encounter needs a couple of players to do mechanics and kill certain mobs while the rest are auto-attacking then it’s a bad encounter. A good encounter is one that every player involved needs to play well to succeed, and it’s very hard to do in the open world where everyone can join (and leave) at any time, with variable skill levels.

The Marionette “worked” because it was a hybrid between instanced and open world. It had the open world afk part where players fought waves of mobs (with zero possibility of ever losing because it was super easy) and the platform fights which split the players well so smaller groups fought the bosses.

A good way forward with next encounters is to make World Bosses guild events like the guild challenge in Blazeridge. The guild that starts that challenge gets bazookas to destroy some crystals, everyone can join that guild and help with mobs, but they can’t use the bazookas.

So imagine if let’s say the Triple Trouble wurm was a guild event and to be more specific let’s look at Amber. Only guild members can be “eaten” by the Wurm to enter its belly, and in there they have to fight a powerful boss (instead of just attacking) in order to charge the spear.

In a similar way, if the Marionette was “recreated” as a guild mission, only guild members could join the platforms with pre-made groups, build in a way to defeat the bosses, while everyone else can join the lane defense.

Or at Tequatl, only guild members can use the Turrets. At certain times Tequatl will get his scale invulnerability buff and the only way to remove it, is from guild members (and only guild members) to enter the Vortex and defeat a group of bosses down there to remove the hardened scales.

Using this system, you stay in the open world, which is Anet’s goal, they hate instances. BUT you add challenging small group encounters into the mix.

I felt like the marionette made my contribution matter less, not more. I couldn’t even count the number of times my platform would kill our regulator only to then sit around twiddling our thumbs and watching another platform fail and negate our own contribution.

maddoctor.2738:

xev.9476:

Some here suggested that the Marionette was decent, challenging open world content. Perhaps you guys can elaborate – what was good and challenging about it? I was either on break from GW2 at the time, or I just never bothered to do the event (I pretty much just WvW anyway), but having just watched a 22 minute video of the Marionette encounter, all I saw were people zerging down a never ending swarm of mobs, and occasionally port to a small platform. Sure, on the platform there were a few more red circles to dodge than a usual world boss event, but the whole thing struck me as a massive snore. 22 minutes of zerging down minions? What is fun and challenging about that? Requiring a modicum of organization – dispersing a horde of people into a few lanes – does not make an encounter fun and challenging. Am I missing something, or is this just a fundamental disagreement that zerging down mobs for 22 minutes is good, fun content?

The huge difference between the Marionette fight and all the other boss fights is that it engaged nearly everyone involved. Unlike other encounters where players can start auto-attack, go afk, and win if the others play well, in the Marionette fight all players were challenged because it split the big player bob on the platforms. On those platforms you didn’t have 20 people to hide behind to kill the bosses, you had to play yourself.

I think the key in creating challenging content is to CHALLENGE EVERYONE. If the encounter needs a couple of players to do mechanics and kill certain mobs while the rest are auto-attacking then it’s a bad encounter. A good encounter is one that every player involved needs to play well to succeed, and it’s very hard to do in the open world where everyone can join (and leave) at any time, with variable skill levels.

The Marionette “worked” because it was a hybrid between instanced and open world. It had the open world afk part where players fought waves of mobs (with zero possibility of ever losing because it was super easy) and the platform fights which split the players well so smaller groups fought the bosses.

A good way forward with next encounters is to make World Bosses guild events like the guild challenge in Blazeridge. The guild that starts that challenge gets bazookas to destroy some crystals, everyone can join that guild and help with mobs, but they can’t use the bazookas.

So imagine if let’s say the Triple Trouble wurm was a guild event and to be more specific let’s look at Amber. Only guild members can be “eaten” by the Wurm to enter its belly, and in there they have to fight a powerful boss (instead of just attacking) in order to charge the spear.

In a similar way, if the Marionette was “recreated” as a guild mission, only guild members could join the platforms with pre-made groups, build in a way to defeat the bosses, while everyone else can join the lane defense.

Or at Tequatl, only guild members can use the Turrets. At certain times Tequatl will get his scale invulnerability buff and the only way to remove it, is from guild members (and only guild members) to enter the Vortex and defeat a group of bosses down there to remove the hardened scales.

Using this system, you stay in the open world, which is Anet’s goal, they hate instances. BUT you add challenging small group encounters into the mix.

actually if people afk zerged the mob killing, it would lead to less time to succeed, and possible failure.
you had to actually target specific monsters which did more damage to the wall. And use control effects/conditions (cc actually mattered) or else after a while the big dude would run for the wall.

Also, some monsters appeared in the back, and some paths had zerg screwing monsters that could kill/annoy/mess up zergs if they didnt deal with them properly, like aetherblades/toxic krait/ molten.

the zergs werent big enough usually to automatically win with no risk. There are times when just 2-3 people moving over to a lane made a large difference in how well they were able to defend the lane.

tldr, even the zerg portion was more engaging than your average zerg content.

Coldtart.4785:

I felt like the marionette made my contribution matter less, not more. I couldn’t even count the number of times my platform would kill our regulator only to then sit around twiddling our thumbs and watching another platform fail and negate our own contribution.

your contribution mattered more, but so did theirs.

Whether each player played well mattered more. The only way player contribution can matter more is if it actually matters if you fail or succeed, which means their failure matters, as well as your success.

Coldtart.4785:

I felt like the marionette made my contribution matter less, not more. I couldn’t even count the number of times my platform would kill our regulator only to then sit around twiddling our thumbs and watching another platform fail and negate our own contribution.

Yes. But that was also a good thing, the Marionette applied challenge to everyone (nearly) and not just a small group of people. If only one platform needed to succeed in order to progress then there wouldn’t be a point in that change, just keep it open world zerg, no need to split the groups on platforms.

That’s why as I said in my earlier post I think they should mix open world and instanced content. Allowing only pre-made teams (guild teams is the easiest way) to enter specific parts of an encounter, like the Marionette platforms, the inside of Amber Wurm and anything similar to those that they will create.

phys.7689:

tldr, even the zerg portion was more engaging than your average zerg content.

That’s true, compared to other parts of the game, the open portion of the Marionette was far better. However there is a limit to how challenging actual open world content can be where people can join in or leave at any time. At least the Marionette did a very good job at challenging as many people as possible, which isn’t happening anywhere else.

phys.7689:

Coldtart.4785:

I felt like the marionette made my contribution matter less, not more. I couldn’t even count the number of times my platform would kill our regulator only to then sit around twiddling our thumbs and watching another platform fail and negate our own contribution.

your contribution mattered more, but so did theirs.

Whether each player played well mattered more. The only way player contribution can matter more is if it actually matters if you fail or succeed, which means their failure matters, as well as your success.

Exactly. Contribution on the platforms mattered more, not less. A single player alive on a platform could manage to beat the final boss to break a chain and be regarded as a small hero. The way the encounter was designed it gave the opportunity for small teams or even individual players to shine in an open world setting, no other event in the entire game managed that.

However, it also caused frustration and lots of problems. I’ve been there when platforms failed and there was nothing you could do to help. That’s why those portions of the fights should be doable only by pre-made guild teams.

Mixing Open World and Instanced content is an excellent way to add more challenge to a game that the devs decided to be open world only.

You can see their experiments in fixing the ‘other platform loses’ issue with vinewrath, where it rotates down if you lose, but is on a timer.

That’s an interesting proof of concept at the very least.

“That’s why those portions of the fights should be doable only by pre-made guild teams.” is absolutely not going to happen for multiple reasons, let’s just get that out of our heads right now.

maddoctor.2738:

phys.7689:

tldr, even the zerg portion was more engaging than your average zerg content.

That’s true, compared to other parts of the game, the open portion of the Marionette was far better. However there is a limit to how challenging actual open world content can be where people can join in or leave at any time. At least the Marionette did a very good job at challenging as many people as possible, which isn’t happening anywhere else.

phys.7689:

Coldtart.4785:

I felt like the marionette made my contribution matter less, not more. I couldn’t even count the number of times my platform would kill our regulator only to then sit around twiddling our thumbs and watching another platform fail and negate our own contribution.

your contribution mattered more, but so did theirs.

Whether each player played well mattered more. The only way player contribution can matter more is if it actually matters if you fail or succeed, which means their failure matters, as well as your success.

Exactly. Contribution on the platforms mattered more, not less. A single player alive on a platform could manage to beat the final boss to break a chain and be regarded as a small hero. The way the encounter was designed it gave the opportunity for small teams or even individual players to shine in an open world setting, no other event in the entire game managed that.

However, it also caused frustration and lots of problems. I’ve been there when platforms failed and there was nothing you could do to help. That’s why those portions of the fights should be doable only by pre-made guild teams.

Mixing Open World and Instanced content is an excellent way to add more challenge to a game that the devs decided to be open world only.

pre made guild teams is a no go.
sometimes there arent even a lot of people from a guild on a map. And you are basically locking players out of the open world challenges.

keep in mind if you had enough premades to do the content, it wouldnt have failed anyhow.
24 skilled players in 3 lanes basically guranteed you would have 3-5 skilled people on every platform.

the real truth, is though everyone liked to blame some one else for marionette, the event was only lost due to A LOT of people sucking.

If the defense did its job well you would get 5 failures(i think), this means people failed 5 times. that means 20% of the people engaged are failing. 25/125 people sucking
If you couldnt get 5 failures, that means your zergs were failing at defense.

Everyone loved to blame that one team, but lets be honest, it wasnt one guy that caused a failure, it was a sizable portion of the map.

Contribution was more visible, but mattered less. The outcome was the same whether you killed your regulator in 30 seconds or 119 seconds. If even one platform failed, then my contribution was reduced to the same level as the losers even though I won.

Coldtart.4785:

Contribution was more visible, but mattered less. The outcome was the same whether you killed your regulator in 30 seconds or 119 seconds. If even one platform failed, then my contribution was reduced to the same level as the losers even though I won.

in other content it doesnt matter if you specifically live or die, or play well, or afk.

in marionette your play matters.
but also, the other players matter.

everyone has to play better in order to win, and if people suck, you will lose.

do you think michael jordan’s play contribution was zero if the guy off the bench missed the game winning shot?

Its still a team game, you cant win on your own, but how well you played actually has more to do with success or failure than other content.

but if you want to see it as contribution only matters if you succeed, the same can be said of any other open world content.

basically you are saying in order for them to make a good event, you have to win all the time.
I dont know if you can make events that dont suck if people are always going to win.

Windsagio.1340:

You can see their experiments in fixing the ‘other platform loses’ issue with vinewrath, where it rotates down if you lose, but is on a timer.

That’s an interesting proof of concept at the very least.

“That’s why those portions of the fights should be doable only by pre-made guild teams.” is absolutely not going to happen for multiple reasons, let’s just get that out of our heads right now.

Why isn’t it going to happen? Just how the Guild Challenge Blightwater Shatterstrike works and only allows guild members to use the bazookas, guilds could have a “Guild Boss” or similar mission that makes the World Bosses behave differently for them. Random players can still join in and play the fight as usual, but Guild Members will need to do something extra. I already posted examples of how to tweak current fights to work with this system.

Can you explain why this isn’t going to work? What are those “multiple reasons”?

phys.7689:

maddoctor.2738:

phys.7689:

tldr, even the zerg portion was more engaging than your average zerg content.

That’s true, compared to other parts of the game, the open portion of the Marionette was far better. However there is a limit to how challenging actual open world content can be where people can join in or leave at any time. At least the Marionette did a very good job at challenging as many people as possible, which isn’t happening anywhere else.

phys.7689:

Coldtart.4785:

I felt like the marionette made my contribution matter less, not more. I couldn’t even count the number of times my platform would kill our regulator only to then sit around twiddling our thumbs and watching another platform fail and negate our own contribution.

your contribution mattered more, but so did theirs.

Whether each player played well mattered more. The only way player contribution can matter more is if it actually matters if you fail or succeed, which means their failure matters, as well as your success.

Exactly. Contribution on the platforms mattered more, not less. A single player alive on a platform could manage to beat the final boss to break a chain and be regarded as a small hero. The way the encounter was designed it gave the opportunity for small teams or even individual players to shine in an open world setting, no other event in the entire game managed that.

However, it also caused frustration and lots of problems. I’ve been there when platforms failed and there was nothing you could do to help. That’s why those portions of the fights should be doable only by pre-made guild teams.

Mixing Open World and Instanced content is an excellent way to add more challenge to a game that the devs decided to be open world only.

pre made guild teams is a no go.
sometimes there arent even a lot of people from a guild on a map. And you are basically locking players out of the open world challenges.

I don’t see a problem if it works like a guild mission. Guilds will gather their members for missions and do the “Guild Boss” mission too. There should be enough people to do it, just like all other missions, randoms can join in anyway just like with all other missions, only a certain part of the mission will be locked for them. They aren’t missing anything

phys.7689:

Its still a team game, you cant win on your own, but how well you played actually has more to do with success or failure than other content.

In a team game, I cooperate with my team. In marionette, I sat around watching a completely unrelated team’s failure count as my own.

This talk about the marionette is a perfect example of the point I made in the original post. You cannot have meaningful group content in the open world if your success is dependent on people you cant even reasonably communicate with.

Think about this: The devs thought it was the right time to tell us about the expansion. I think it was a marketing decision be cause of declining interest in the general public and hence player base of the game.

Still being heavily in development they simply couldn’t tell us what ‘challenging group content’ exactly is since this part of the expansion was in a very early state. The idea behind it is to let it open to interpretation since they aren’t sure whether there will be any dungeons/raids or not. My assumption is supported by the fact that the game still lacks a release date.

Coldtart.4785:

phys.7689:

Its still a team game, you cant win on your own, but how well you played actually has more to do with success or failure than other content.

In a team game, I cooperate with my team. In marionette, I sat around watching a completely unrelated team’s failure count as my own.

Oh that was so much fun! Takes less than 30 seconds to solo your own platform. Then the high quality comedy show begins. Shame it was only funny the first time.

phys.7689:

If the defense did its job well you would get 5 failures(i think), this means people failed 5 times. that means 20% of the people engaged are failing. 25/125 people sucking

The math was a bit more complicated than that. Some of the platform bosses could have been failed due to a single person out of everyone on all platforms not doing what they should be doing. Which means, that you could very well fail it due to only as many as 4 of 5 people, with everyone else playing well.

phys.7689:

Everyone loved to blame that one team, but lets be honest, it wasnt one guy that caused a failure, it was a sizable portion of the map.

Sometimes. Sometimes, however, it really was due to few guys.

Thats not true. Every one of those platforms could be solo’d easily. The only awkward one was the one you have to hit from behind. But even that could be solo’d. The truth is entire groups failed because they had never done anything other than spam 1 and follow a zerg before that.

I just remembered the one where you lured it into the mines. Thats the only one you might have a point on. However the damage requirement to kill it was really low. So even when a total idiot was kiting it was still possible to succeed and carry the platform.

Coldtart.4785:

phys.7689:

Its still a team game, you cant win on your own, but how well you played actually has more to do with success or failure than other content.

In a team game, I cooperate with my team. In marionette, I sat around watching a completely unrelated team’s failure count as my own.

sometimes in a team game, you have to sit on the bench and hope other players can do their parts, they are still a part of your team.

they are the same people that defended the lane with you, and you could have been placed next to any of them.

regardless talking about all the ways it could fail, reminds me how many actual interesting moments, and how much personal skill and knowing your enemy mattered. as well as the variation.

you dont see that in other open world content unless no one is there.
best open world design imo.

TheDraco.3965:

This talk about the marionette is a perfect example of the point I made in the original post. You cannot have meaningful group content in the open world if your success is dependent on people you cant even reasonably communicate with.

It is possible if the content has multiple filter steps that would eliminate/kill the bad players and scale difficulty based on number of players. You would simply not revive them and you would do the event properly with those knowing what to do instead of 1 step where one fails and every one follows.

TheDraco.3965:

This talk about the marionette is a perfect example of the point I made in the original post. You cannot have meaningful group content in the open world if your success is dependent on people you cant even reasonably communicate with.

yes you can, you just are going to have to have people accept that they are a group, and that means if a enough people play poorly, they will lose.

i lost a lot of marrionettes, and i won some.
The difference was that people played better, thats a good reason to succeed imo.

people will not learn how to read chat/communicate/learn the game, if they never have to.

I played games where world bosses would wipe people who didnt play right, i dont know why thats such a crazy concept in this game.

phys.7689:

TheDraco.3965:

This talk about the marionette is a perfect example of the point I made in the original post. You cannot have meaningful group content in the open world if your success is dependent on people you cant even reasonably communicate with.

yes you can, you just are going to have to have people accept that they are a group, and that means if a enough people play poorly, they will lose.

i lost a lot of marrionettes, and i won some.
The difference was that people played better, thats a good reason to succeed imo.

people will not learn how to read chat/communicate/learn the game, if they never have to.

I played games where world bosses would wipe people who didnt play right, i dont know why thats such a crazy concept in this game.

You are outlining the problem here and propping it up like its a good thing. When you have an abundance of players who never have to communicate with you and you fail solely because of those people that’s BAD design.

When you have a small number of people that you can actually talk too, strategize, improve play with, where the victory is more within your control rather than blindly on random people that’s GOOD design.