Guild Wars 2

Here is my challenge to ANet for the next “Living Story” release.

Design content that doesn’t rely on AoE. That’s right, no poison, fire, fumes, electric floors, etc.

Can you do it?

The reason I came up with this challenge is because I want to see if you can design challenging, and interesting content, without having to resort to draining players of life everywhere they step.

Don’t get me wrong, AoE is a cool addition to the game, but wit he recent Teq/boss update, and the new dungeon, it seems more and more your solution to “difficult” content is to just make everything a red floor circle.

So, do you accept this challenge?

No because otherwise the zerg dps mentality they had going since day 1 would be null. And since everything in this game is tailored for zerg dps… you would just end up with a whack-a-mole temporary farm.

There is also the one shot kill mentality they have.

Personally I think this game is headed in the wrong direction. They have been listening to the minority of people instead.

The “zerg” game-play is FAR more fun than what they have been adding the past few months.

This isn’t the game they pumped for so long before it came out.

The aoe’s do not bother me, it keeps people from just standing there. Which is good. I do not want to just sit there and WoW spam a raid boss.

BUT

The one-shot mechanic is complete BS. “Oh, you missed your dodge roll? HaHa!! You have to be rez’d, but you cant because your in an aoe spam!”
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^GW2 version of challenging, 1-hit mechanic sucks.

Ex: Arah has this, there is one add that if you just run past, they will one shot you from a distance.

ANet policy regarding content is do this and you will be fine, do it some other way and you will have a bad time. I get the boss mechanics thing they are trying to pull but for me it takes the fun out of fights since I have to follow a protocol. That “zerg” that you always bring into discussion is the product of game world being as it is and now they are trying to fix it by implementing all kinds of stuff that doesn’t go well with a lot of people which look for a fun fight and not a hard or full of fubar mechanics that need a ton coordination. As for the dungeons, I stopped doing them some time ago since I hate skipping content or using all kinds of glitches and exploits. I get the idea and I agree with it but since you skip parts then the dungeon has a poor design which is uninteresting and then why do it in the first place?

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

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A few simple bosses:

Perma-retaliation boss

Damage (not condition) immunity boss.

Damage and condition immunity boss. Can only be damaged via CC-ing into certain spots. Has no kite ability and will walk away from all these places. Immune to fear.

Immune to all-non-crit damage. Crits do 20% damage. Boss is not a HP sponge

30-second timer boss. Boss resets HP every 30 seconds. 600k health pool (20k dps for a party is actually pretty easy to achieve, by the way)

The exception to the AoEs rule, but still interesting:
Endurance boss. Endure a boss for a whole 2 minutes. He’s immune to damage. Does large scale AoEs, single target DPS, conditions and CC. Decent length/sized telegraphs. Gives a use for non-DPS spec gear. At least 1 party member must survive. Additional 50% endurance regen. Stacks with other buffs. Achievement for all party members to survive. Personal achievement for not going down.

Reflection/Block Boss:
Boss will only take damage from reflects and melee range blocks. Each reflect/melee range block does 5% damage. Single target projectiles. Deals 10k damage. 3k dps per second 200 range AoE ring. Must be within ring for block to take effect.

Ranged only boss:
Boss has a 600 range AoE ring. Stepping inside the ring results in a 3k DPS effect. Lasts 3 seconds on application. Boss has mid-high HP pool. Conditions do double damage.

Just a couple simple ideas that anet could use. Most are reasonably pug-friendly and anti-zerk.

Its time they add some turbo speed enemies.

Sounds like the current trend, need to go ranged, all stack over here..

I believe this is where another game did it better.

I cant state the company or encounter, but I can discribe it.

Heavy Melee grabs main boss who has sword and shield and heavy armor.
Another melee grabs a sub category boss and runs him around (always explodes into a ring of fire on death (not to hard to kill, veteran like). A ranger veteran launches snare traps, a snipershot that can nearly 1 shot a person if not interupted, this archer would randomly pick a target saying, “if you move, you die”, for a short duration. It would also shoot oil fields.

The big boss on phase 1 is immune unless caught on fire, you did this by running him in oil, and having veteran flame guy explode in it, youd then beat him down, still juggling other two, at 66%, his shield would bring.

Next phase would be the same except now boss is more punishing with its damage.
Beat down to 33%, and his armor would become damaged and hed become vulnerable. And youd beat him all the way down til death.

Note: both his 2 minions were instant respawn when killed (2-3sec respawn delay)

This was a great fight, it wasnt a dps race, you had jobs each member had to perform to succeed.

In Caledon Forest there is a Rizen Hylek boss (attacks Morgan’s Spiral).

This boss has a special immunity to poison. If you poison him he gains a regen buff.

WHY isn’t this mechanic used more often? Especially in late game?
Bosses that react to specific tactics?

I certainly don’t want to see conditions punished and made even more useless. But as was said, this like damage immune bosses, or other effects. Bosses that react to player buffs.

You use might? So does he.
You hit him with an aoe, he hits back with an aoe.
He has an immunity to poison, make him take extra damage while burning.

And for that matter, why not have conditions have special reactions?
Make fire creatures/bosses immune to burning, but take double damage while chilled (or do half as much damage).

A handful of things in the game have immunities. Dredge to blindness some embers to burning (but not all or even half).
This should be a lot more common, and even heal the fire creatures when burned. Or ice creatures when chilled. (Seriously, how do you “chill” a minion of Jormag?)

This would/could be a massive scale change to the entire meta that would add real challenge and thought to almost every encounter in the game. Without having to be cheap.

Flat out immunities are lame, but couple that with an equivalent weakness and it would be a lot of fun. Without having to rely on OHKO mechanics and making conditions useless on bosses.

(Seriously, does 25 stacks of vulnerability make teq die %25 faster? Or do the chilled CD increase, poison heal efficacy reduction or stun effects do anything to bosses at all anymore?)

mexay.3902:

A few simple bosses:

Perma-retaliation boss

Exists. Last boss in HotW P1, or that golem in CoE. Sure, you’re able to kill their totems to remove the buffs, but they respawn pretty quick, so close enough.

Damage and condition immunity boss. Can only be damaged via CC-ing into certain spots. Has no kite ability and will walk away from all these places. Immune to fear.

Seems unlikely to happen. While all classes have access to CC, not all have access to CC that is good at moving mobs into specific places.

30-second timer boss. Boss resets HP every 30 seconds. 600k health pool (20k dps for a party is actually pretty easy to achieve, by the way)

Close enough to Dwayna in Arah P4.

The exception to the AoEs rule, but still interesting:
Endurance boss. Endure a boss for a whole 2 minutes. He’s immune to damage. Does large scale AoEs, single target DPS, conditions and CC. Decent length/sized telegraphs. Gives a use for non-DPS spec gear. At least 1 party member must survive. Additional 50% endurance regen. Stacks with other buffs. Achievement for all party members to survive. Personal achievement for not going down.

The ‘avoid all the cannon shots’ phase on the last boss in Aetherblade Retreat was a lesser version of this. People hated it.

Reflection/Block Boss:
Boss will only take damage from reflects and melee range blocks. Each reflect/melee range block does 5% damage. Single target projectiles. Deals 10k damage. 3k dps per second 200 range AoE ring. Must be within ring for block to take effect.

Again, considerably more favourable to some classes than others. Necros would be entirely useless. Unless there’s some sort of boss-specific way to get a reflect, in which case, it exists with the final boss in Arah P1.

Ranged only boss:
Boss has a 600 range AoE ring. Stepping inside the ring results in a 3k DPS effect. Lasts 3 seconds on application. Boss has mid-high HP pool. Conditions do double damage.

Plenty of bosses have, at least temporary, effects that make it impossible to melee them.