Guild Wars 2

No to the average player of which i am one, most have cleared HOT so they have defeated much worse than frogs.

example, just been wandering in tangled depth and met that group of mobs at the entrance at the bottom of the great tree that used to destroy and annoy me. Now i use health steal food, use a condy build with heavy defense in stone and simply circle and pick them off one by one and aoe the little guys. circling, hitting mobs with any dmg spell on cooldown and using my defensive skills when they are up – that’s it not a difficult or highly skilled gameplay and they die fast and easily. just a couple learns from previous encounters and a willingness to learn (16k hp ele, practically no toughness)

Djinn.9245:

vesica tempestas.1563:

i didnt say the same level, and it could take 5 minutes to learn an attack pattern to kill the frog, it could take an hour, it doesn’t really matter, my point was that it will be more rewarding than killing a bunny rabbit.

To you.

I’m not so sure killing a bunny rabbit would make me feel heroic, but that’s just me.

Djinn.9245:

vesica tempestas.1563:

i didnt say the same level, and it could take 5 minutes to learn an attack pattern to kill the frog, it could take an hour, it doesn’t really matter, my point was that it will be more rewarding than killing a bunny rabbit.

To you.

If all it takes for someone to feel rewarded is defeating harmless ambient creatures that do not fight back, and who are automatically killed with any attack….

Good news, there are lots of them.

Zenith.7301:

zealex.9410:

Zenith.7301:

LouWolfskin.3492:

Zenith.7301:

LouWolfskin.3492:

HoT enemies are not hard, you just have to learn mechanics.

Threads like this are the reason we need a better core game -.-

Don’t exaggerate. Some enemies like veteran frogs can wreck some classes.

Making it through the karka infested tunnels during map exploration can be a pain in the kitten as well.

And Balthazar’s HP is pretty much impossible to solo for most people.

Problem isn’t the enemies themselves, but the event and mob density scaling when a map is completely abandoned and a player has to sift through instant respawn times of veteran mobs by himself.

These are ultimately maps designed for groups of people, not solo players like the vanilla maps.

So? We have stuff that you can’t do solo in core tyria as well.
Thing is, HoT was marketed as group content, and people are surprised it’s harder for solo how?
A lot of the stuff, not everything, is still possible to do and for the rest you can ask in mapchat or your guild for help.
The best way to enjoy the content though is: Play with a friend.
Because at the core of it this is an MMO “massive multiplayer online” you see one thing there? Multiplayer, it’s a key word.

Addendum: A lot of it is learning mechanics, mechanics that the core game should teach you but doesn’t.

HoT maps were never marketed as group content any more so than core Tyria was, don’t make crap up. They even nerfed mobs in beta because they were even worse than they are now.

“Play with a friend”. That’s a wonderful way to limit your customer base. That’s what Wildstar did " Hey, you want to raid or do these quetes out in the world? Get 20 or 40 people to do them."

See where that got them.

The problem is when you create content that requires population density, that content breaks apart when there is no longer population density. Look at most of the core Tyria maps, look at Dry Top when there aren’t organized guilds running them. They are ghost towns. The gameplay slows to a crawl.

The whole reason they revamped fractals was precisely because they wanted to make content more accessible, with less investment into long sessions with a group. Even the GW2 raids are super short compared to the ones in WoW, FFXIV, or Wildstar.

doing the whole first raid isnt shorter than doing the emerald nightmare in wow

Yeah, I’d love to see your mythic emerald nightmare clear in 45 minutes within the first 2 weeks of the release.

Emerald Nightmare is widely considered a joke raid with improper difficulty curves by most mythic raiders anyways.

compairing the first raid with mythic raiding in wow is stupid. Mythic raiding in wow is for hardccore players while raids in gw2 are argueably more easy compairing the two just doesnt work.

Djinn.9245:

vesica tempestas.1563:

i didnt say the same level, and it could take 5 minutes to learn an attack pattern to kill the frog, it could take an hour, it doesn’t really matter, my point was that it will be more rewarding than killing a bunny rabbit.

To you.

Best troll EU.

Ashen.2907:

Djinn.9245:

vesica tempestas.1563:

i didnt say the same level, and it could take 5 minutes to learn an attack pattern to kill the frog, it could take an hour, it doesn’t really matter, my point was that it will be more rewarding than killing a bunny rabbit.

To you.

If all it takes for someone to feel rewarded is defeating harmless ambient creatures that do not fight back, and who are automatically killed with any attack….

Good news, there are lots of them.

<sigh>, I didn’t think I need to address the straw man. If there is an area that actually has “bunny rabbit” mobs that attack you, I don’t know of it. So I ignored the “bunny rabbit”, sorry for those who are obviously too literal. This is what I was responding to:

vesica tempestas.1563:

i didnt say the same level, and it could take 5 minutes to learn an attack pattern to kill the frog, it could take an hour, it doesn’t really matter, my point was that it will be more rewarding

Again, in your opinion.

Yes i did not literally mean ‘bunny rabbit’ – go for inconsequential mob with no challenge if it must be precise.

There is theory to consider:

‘In designing a popular game, it would be beneficial to have a model of the ideal player. The designer could use this player profile to design just the right amount of difficulty and emotional impact into their game. No player would become bored with easy challenges or overburdened by difficult ones. All players could be fairly compensated for taking risks by a well-calculated reward structure. Everyone who played the game would receive the same optimal experience and level of entertainment. Unfortunately for the designer, it is unlikely that such an ideal player model exists.’

https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/2012/625476/ [Dynamic Difficulty Balancing for Cautious Players and Risk Takers]

the question i would ask is : how do you balance across the a player base of wide skills and experience?

1 – All zones have minimal challenge
2- all zones are highly difficult
3- a small proportion of all the zones in the game world are more challenging to some.

3 is HOT and is clearly the fairest option..

Imagine HOT players complained that all zones should be the same difficulty as HOT, exact same unrealistic demand, other end of the spectrum.

Djinn.9245:

Ashen.2907:

Djinn.9245:

vesica tempestas.1563:

i didnt say the same level, and it could take 5 minutes to learn an attack pattern to kill the frog, it could take an hour, it doesn’t really matter, my point was that it will be more rewarding than killing a bunny rabbit.

To you.

If all it takes for someone to feel rewarded is defeating harmless ambient creatures that do not fight back, and who are automatically killed with any attack….

Good news, there are lots of them.

<sigh>, I didn’t think I need to address the straw man. If there is an area that actually has “bunny rabbit” mobs that attack you, I don’t know of it. So I ignored the “bunny rabbit”, sorry for those who are obviously too literal. This is what I was responding to:

vesica tempestas.1563:

i didnt say the same level, and it could take 5 minutes to learn an attack pattern to kill the frog, it could take an hour, it doesn’t really matter, my point was that it will be more rewarding

Again, in your opinion.

Most of what’s said about HoT is in someone’s opinion. I’ve seen a few opinions that say HoT is too hard, a few opinions that say it isn’t too hard, and some opinions that say it’s too hard at first but then it wasn’t too hard after I figured it out.

Everyone has a different threshold on what’s too hard.

Likewise, everyone has something different that makes them feel heroic. When I know I’m overpowered for a zone and I romp through it indiscrimantly killing everything with us while I’m in no danger that doesn’t (and has never) made me feel heroic. Just the opposite.

I don’t see heroes as guys laying waste to weak stuff. I see heroes as people who try really challenging things and overcome them.

I know superman could probably be the hell out of me, but I’m really hoping he goes after Lex Luger. If Superman did beat the hell out of me, it wouldn’t make him heroic.

This is, of course, just my opinion.

We’ve had more than a few people post on this forum that they don’t like downleveling because they want to be able to go back to previous zones and one shot things. In almost every one of those threads, the biggest percentage of responses are in favor of downleveling. People don’t want to one shot stuff.

So it’s a threshold. Core tyria is just too easy to make me feel heroic. Even Orr.

vesica tempestas.1563:

Vayne.8563:

Daddicus.6128:

Vayne.8563:

You’re assuming people see your question, which is a terrible assumption. I’m not always reading mapchat if I’m in voice with my guild for example. Or people are helping other people, or fighting and don’t have the time to answer that question. Doesn’t make them unhelpful.

At any rate, I see plenty of questions in map chat replied to. If someone else replies than I don’t have to, but I would if no one else replied.

I compared it to the same scenario in core Tyria.

I chat more in core Tyria than I do in HoT because I can hit 1 in core Tyria, and autoattack everything to death, without worrying about having to move.

I sure wouldn’t try that in most places in HoT. Yes, HOT makes you pay more attention to the game.

Core Tyria, you can type, do your taxes and eat lunch while playing. That’s definitely more engaging content.

that’s very interesting , you say one thing, but actually the meaning is quite the opposite, i.e your problem is that Tyria is easy enough that you have low engagement such that you can also do your tax, have lunch etc etc and you want the whole game to be like this. In other words you want the whole game to have a low engagement level, interesting requirement for a game is it not.

verb (used with object), engaged, engaging.
1.
to occupy the attention or efforts of (a person or persons):

I’m going to do something I don’t get to do often: defend Vayne. I think Vayne is actually saying the same thing you are. I suspect s/he is trying to refute my point, but failed, because I said the same thing both of you did.

My bottom line is that HoT an unfriendly place to play. And, that is partially caused by your and Vayne’s points: the difficulty of the mobs. (You can’t reply if you’re in combat.) But, the cause (harder combat) doesn’t help the effect (less help). It merely partially answers why.

vesica tempestas.1563:

…
2- all zones are highly difficult
3- a small proportion of all the zones in the game world are more challenging to some.

3 is HOT and is clearly the fairest option..

No, HoT is clearly number 2, or this whole discussion would be moot.

Most of HoT map are scaled to be play with a group not solo.

VB have a serious problem where meta event are deserted because how hard to reach them within 30 second from WP and Enemies are very tough for new players.

All those Old HoT and the aging LS3 map might gonna need better tool to organize Public play or we are going to see a lot of dead map.

Just did Ordinance chain solo its is super tedious that you have to wait for NPC and enemy wave to come to you and each wave will give a very tanky mobs that you have to use all your skill to overcome it while some of them can oneshot you (Murders Frogs Aka Itzel) it Literally take over 15 minute to finish a tower defense solo which by then you are probably bored and call it a day.

Also Mega server is super inefficient at managing players population. It keep closing despite there a progress on the map . Resulting in players precept that the map is dead.

Daddicus.6128:

vesica tempestas.1563:

…
2- all zones are highly difficult
3- a small proportion of all the zones in the game world are more challenging to some.

3 is HOT and is clearly the fairest option..

No, HoT is clearly number 2, or this whole discussion would be moot.

ye exactly, so option 3 as HOT was not a standalone game it was an expansion to a mmorpg, this meant:

- Mastery system that made all 32 zones and dungeons and fractals significantly easier

- New Specializations that made all 32 zones significantly easier

- Gliding that made travel in all 32 zones significantly easier with the ability to glide across swathes of mobs you previously had to plow through (consider orr for a start)

- More ascended gear and easier to access that made 32 zones easier.

- A new Profession that could be played through all 32 zones.

- 4 new zones added to the existing 28 zones, 3 of which which was aimed at a higher level of difficulty, e.g the new orr or maguuma that had been downgraded by the above.

28 zones for easy going gameplay 3 zones for harder gameplay and 1 that requires organisation in LFG..

vesica tempestas.1563:

There is theory to consider:

‘In designing a popular game, it would be beneficial to have a model of the ideal player. The designer could use this player profile to design just the right amount of difficulty and emotional impact into their game. No player would become bored with easy challenges or overburdened by difficult ones. All players could be fairly compensated for taking risks by a well-calculated reward structure. Everyone who played the game would receive the same optimal experience and level of entertainment. Unfortunately for the designer, it is unlikely that such an ideal player model exists.’

https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijcgt/2012/625476/ [Dynamic Difficulty Balancing for Cautious Players and Risk Takers]

the question i would ask is : how do you balance across the a player base of wide skills and experience?

1 – All zones have minimal challenge
2- all zones are highly difficult
3- a small proportion of all the zones in the game world are more challenging to some.

3 is HOT and is clearly the fairest option..

Imagine HOT players complained that all zones should be the same difficulty as HOT, exact same unrealistic demand, other end of the spectrum.

I actually agree with this theory. However, most MMOs deal with players who want more challenge by separating that challenge into an area that doesn’t gate any player away from the story of the MMO. In most MMOs, those are Raids. In core Tyria this SEPARATE, more challenging content used to be Dungeons.

Instead, Anet has put Boss and other very challenging fights right in their Story episodes (Personal and Living World) so that just experiencing those parts of the Story becomes impossible for some players.

And Anet changed their MMO so that it is difficult for many players to fully experience the more basic story of the game inherent in the Open World by adding an entire expansion that is very challenging (for some).

This is what I object to. I love the story of GW2 but I don’t understand why Anet chose to keep me from participating in it this way.

Being able to downskill the solo story elements I think is reasonable for the reasons you give (i totally disagree with story being locked behind raids for the same reasons)

there definitely was an increase in difficulty, but I handled it thanks to the necromancer’s only saving grace ( and after a while you get used to some of the attack patterns)

Djinn.9245:

This is what I object to. I love the story of GW2 but I don’t understand why Anet chose to keep me from participating in it this way.

I didn’t even know about it until this thread, but the LS3 stuff did seem a bit disjointed. I had no idea that they were using excluded content.