Guild Wars 2

Carighan.6758:

The NPCs reliably rezz you in the last fight, too, making it about impossible to wipe.

Not sure what you’re talking about, the rocks hit me and they NPCs did nothing. I had to bandage myself out of the downed state.

Why not make bosses and mobs hard and completing stupid story once would give stupid ascended jewelery and ach points?

Morsus.5106:

Carighan.6758:

The NPCs reliably rezz you in the last fight, too, making it about impossible to wipe.

Not sure what you’re talking about, the rocks hit me and they NPCs did nothing. I had to bandage myself out of the downed state.

Given the date of their post and the date of yours, I think you’re talking about different bosses.

“It was easy for me, therefore it should be easy for everyone else.”

-_-

Really, though, I just found them tedious, as I explained here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/s2/Living-Story-Bosses-Feedback/first (and I’ve held that opinion since dragon’s reach, which is where I started seriously following the living story stuff)

But I’m also an experienced gamer with decent reflexes and reaction time. And I used to do raids with one-shot mechanics, where you either dodge or you’re dead, and your only chance of coming back that attempt is from a limited amount of battle-rezzes from one of your teammates.

So for me, these fights are like watered down, extremely forgiving, raid bosses. I’ve done much, much worse. I feel for those who just want a breezy fight though. The fights are a breeze to me, for the most part – they just take way longer than they feel like they should.

Labjax.2465:

“It was easy for me, therefore it should be easy for everyone else.”

-_-

Really, though, I just found them tedious, as I explained here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/s2/Living-Story-Bosses-Feedback/first (and I’ve held that opinion since dragon’s reach, which is where I started seriously following the living story stuff)

But I’m also an experienced gamer with decent reflexes and reaction time. And I used to do raids with one-shot mechanics, where you either dodge or you’re dead, and your only chance of coming back that attempt is from a limited amount of battle-rezzes from one of your teammates.

So for me, these fights are like watered down, extremely forgiving, raid bosses. I’ve done much, much worse. I feel for those who just want a breezy fight though. The fights are a breeze to me, for the most part – they just take way longer than they feel like they should.

I can’t honestly imagine the majority of players lacking the skill to beat these bosses. It might be hard for some, but they get through it. Threads like this represent a minority of either exceptionally low-skilled players or simply cryhards. Now I’m not calling anyone a cryhard right now, but you know they exist and they post frequently. Don’t forget that most GW2 players never even come to these forums. They are too busy playing the game.

Anyway, my point is that the game difficulty should be designed to fit the bell curve of player skill. The majority lie in the middle, while the minority occupy the outlying sides. If you tune the game down to the lowest common denominator, you only end up ruining the experience for everyone but the 1 guy on the very edge of the bell curve.

I really wonder, what the..? You don’t even need to learn the mechanics of the boss. It’s so super simple, he just runs around and you have to kite. Just don’t stand in rec cirtles and use ranged weapons – makes it a lot easier.

Those people should play Dark Souls lol.

ProtoGunner.4953:

I really wonder, what the..? You don’t even need to learn the mechanics of the boss. It’s so super simple, he just runs around and you have to kite. Just don’t stand in rec cirtles and use ranged weapons – makes it a lot easier.

Those people should play Dark Souls lol.

I only “need” to quote your post to say I think your signature is awesome!

For the story instance of this boss, the Master of Lightning will even res you, so just make sure you stick close to him if you’re in danger of being downed

On my first playthrough, I found the Teragriff boss to be by far the most difficult living story boss yet.

But that’s because I went into it very poorly spec’d on my engineer – pistol/shield and a bomb/nade zerk build. So I couldn’t use bombs, nor could I land any grenades. Pistol was basically zilch for damage.

I ran it again for achievements later with a rifle respec, and it was easy breezy.

Point is: If you’re having difficulty, try different things before you come to the forums and gripe that you got your rear handed to you on the first try.

Xenon.4537:

Why can’t people just learn from their mistakes and try again? When you fall off a bike, you get back up and try again. You don’t throw the bike away and complain. This attitude of giving up and throwing a temper tantrum is going to turn this entire industry into Farmville and Call of Duty clones.

If all you want to do is be hand-held through a story while you passively take in the scenery, why not watch a movie instead?

Yes, this also annoys me, a lot. People always go “I can’t do this, what is wrong with it?”. Because obviously yes, it couldn’t be that you have to learn / improve / pay attention.

mXz.4512:

I don’t see how anyone can complain that anything with this update is too hard. It’s not. Learn the mechanics, be patient and for one of the fights, hope rng is on your side. Aside from that.. the only thing anyone might complain about is being impatient, or lazy.

Please don’t give anet anymore reasons to dumb down the content.

Speak for yourself. I am physically handicapped. So it is not that easy. It takes constration to do the events. For some people it might be easy.

Maybe Arenanet should remove any actual gameplay from the game so people unable to play game can play the game without having to play.

Countess Aire.9410:

mXz.4512:

I don’t see how anyone can complain that anything with this update is too hard. It’s not. Learn the mechanics, be patient and for one of the fights, hope rng is on your side. Aside from that.. the only thing anyone might complain about is being impatient, or lazy.

Please don’t give anet anymore reasons to dumb down the content.

Speak for yourself. I am physically handicapped. So it is not that easy. It takes constration to do the events. For some people it might be easy.

I’m sorry but you cannot balance something for general release based on the most handicapped person who plays your franchise or you won’t have a game anymore. If someone has a genuine handicap and cannot complete something at the set difficulty they can still get friends to help.

Please keep the difficulty to at least the current level but leave the option for groups to play it for anyone who cannot solo it.

Coulter.2315:

I’m sorry but you cannot balance something for general release based on the most handicapped person who plays your franchise or you won’t have a game anymore. If someone has a genuine handicap and cannot complete something at the set difficulty they can still get friends to help.

Please keep the difficulty to at least the current level but leave the option for groups to play it for anyone who cannot solo it.

They could program in different difficulty levels for people like him. It’s not all or nothing.

Labjax.2465:

Coulter.2315:

I’m sorry but you cannot balance something for general release based on the most handicapped person who plays your franchise or you won’t have a game anymore. If someone has a genuine handicap and cannot complete something at the set difficulty they can still get friends to help.

Please keep the difficulty to at least the current level but leave the option for groups to play it for anyone who cannot solo it.

They could program in different difficulty levels for people like him. It’s not all or nothing.

Do you genuinely believe the game we have now needs to devote resources to creating different versions of the content we get or are you just playing devil’s advocate? How many levels would you like? Rewards/Achieves in each difficulty? Forced to progress Easy→Medium→Hard or not? If the easiest difficulty is still too hard for the above poster do you want an even easier version made?

Or stick as is without the spreading thin of resources and just suggest anyone having difficulties can get a group of friends to help them?

The content we get needs to stay engaging for the majority of the playerbase, we cannot allow a few people who claim its too hard for whatever reason to dilute it when they have the option of doing it as a group to lessen the difficulty.

Countess Aire.9410:

mXz.4512:

I don’t see how anyone can complain that anything with this update is too hard. It’s not. Learn the mechanics, be patient and for one of the fights, hope rng is on your side. Aside from that.. the only thing anyone might complain about is being impatient, or lazy.

Please don’t give anet anymore reasons to dumb down the content.

Speak for yourself. I am physically handicapped. So it is not that easy. It takes constration to do the events. For some people it might be easy.

When I posted this, it was in reference to getting the shoulders and all the achieves involved. Those were particularly easy to do, it was all about learning the mechanics of each fight. All it took was repetition to do, and you even had challenge motes to reset and try again if you missed the concept or what have you.

Now I’m not afraid to admit with this current episode (getting the gloves) I too even had difficulty and sought help from a group just to complete the achievements. As a long time player, the way these fights were composed caused some frustration. So being handicapped or not was irrelevant.

Coulter.2315:

Do you genuinely believe the game we have now needs to devote resources to creating different versions of the content we get or are you just playing devil’s advocate? How many levels would you like? Rewards/Achieves in each difficulty? Forced to progress Easy->Medium->Hard or not? If the easiest difficulty is still too hard for the above poster do you want an even easier version made?

Or stick as is without the spreading thin of resources and just suggest anyone having difficulties can get a group of friends to help them?

The content we get needs to stay engaging for the majority of the playerbase, we cannot allow a few people who claim its too hard for whatever reason to dilute it when they have the option of doing it as a group to lessen the difficulty.

I’m just saying, it could be done in some way. It’s possible to compromise in this world, rather than thinking there’s an “us vs. them” lobbying war to be fought.

You can’t serve anyone. It’s not possilbe. Imagine you had to make the game for people who are blind… It’s not possible. For non-handicapped players who think it’s too hard: learn the moves, try different approaches.

It really hurts me that the ‘Nintendo’-generation is getting old and all the younger players only know FarmVille, Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed. Games usually had challenge, it was hard. Half of my old Nintendo games (back in 80ies/90ies) couldn’t be finished or only by super skilled players. Sure that is not the goal, but let us have at least some challenge. For me – even the ‘Challenge Mode’ Teragriff was super easy.

Oh, I really am excited about the release of ‘Bloodborne’ on PS4 next year :-)

Getting one shot by a boss or constantly stunlocked doesn’t make it challenging, just frustrating and tedious.

Labjax.2465:

Coulter.2315:

Do you genuinely believe the game we have now needs to devote resources to creating different versions of the content we get or are you just playing devil’s advocate? How many levels would you like? Rewards/Achieves in each difficulty? Forced to progress Easy->Medium->Hard or not? If the easiest difficulty is still too hard for the above poster do you want an even easier version made?

Or stick as is without the spreading thin of resources and just suggest anyone having difficulties can get a group of friends to help them?

The content we get needs to stay engaging for the majority of the playerbase, we cannot allow a few people who claim its too hard for whatever reason to dilute it when they have the option of doing it as a group to lessen the difficulty.

I’m just saying, it could be done in some way. It’s possible to compromise in this world, rather than thinking there’s an “us vs. them” lobbying war to be fought.

The problem is a lot of people are putting up threads complaining about difficulty and so there is lobbying going on. I’m putting up posts to ask for the difficulty to remain engaging and worth playing while pointing out there is a group option for anyone who finds it too hard to solo.

In anything where resources are limited you will find these sorts of debates.

I interpret overtuned as meaning the fights focus too much on puzzle mechanics. Which is true. I dont believe the op was referring to difficulty at all. Kind of embarrassing that everyone assumed that. Then again i guess its the OP’s fault for not clarifying.

The first fight was a good balance of puzzle and standard combat. After that it became a series of puzzles to do percentage damage. Which is really dull. It means my character, class and skills are completely irrelevant to the fight. I wouldnt be playing an MMORPG if i wanted pure puzzles with no impact from character choice.

At what point did mmo players go from organizing 200 man think-tanks on corporate vent servers, to trying something once, quitting, then going onto the game’s forum and complaining that a free win wasn’t handed out.

I could understand if you’re a quadriplegic, but certainly at some point you must ask yourself if your concerns should impair the experience of others.

Judge Banks.9018:

At what point did mmo players go from organizing 200 man think-tanks on corporate vent servers, to trying something once, quitting, then going onto the game’s forum and complaining that a free win wasn’t handed out.

I could understand if you’re a quadriplegic, but certainly at some point you must ask yourself if your concerns should impair the experience of others.

At the point that we’re talking about a story mission tuned for the single player to be able to complete and not hardcore raiding?

The problem is, when you funnel all these resources into making a story that is supposed to sell on its storytelling power more than its gameplay, you’re shooting yourself in the foot if its too hard to complete for some of your players.

I get that people want challenges, no doubt about it. One of my complaints is the length of fights – certainly not the challenge level.

But it’s sort of like pouring resources into making a really awesome TV series and then forcing people to play a reflex-based mini-game to be able to watch. Sure, your story is cool, but if some of your players struggle just to be able to watch it, then what was the point?

There are other ways to provide challenge without mixing it into your flagship story releases. Frankly, I find the living story intriguing enough myself, but I don’t really play it for the content. I play it to see how the story plays out.

Anyway, I know some people will say I’m being silly – that if you want a story without effort, you should go read a book or watch a movie. And maybe the people who have disabilities (or just aren’t very good) would be better off doing that, but it doesn’t change the fact that some of them are players and their opinions are just as valid as anyone else’s.

As for whether Anet will do anything about it, that’s for them to decide. They probably plan a lot of these releases months before we see them. It could be months before the feedback is even possible to take into account without revamping development tracks midway. So those who are worried about lobbying can probably take a knee. I doubt Anet is going to do anything drastic with their flagship content based on a few threads.

Labjax.2465:

But it’s sort of like pouring resources into making a really awesome TV series and then forcing people to play a reflex-based mini-game to be able to watch. Sure, your story is cool, but if some of your players struggle just to be able to watch it, then what was the point?

Except we are now talking about a GAME. Not a TV show.

Labjax.2465:

Judge Banks.9018:

At what point did mmo players go from organizing 200 man think-tanks on corporate vent servers, to trying something once, quitting, then going onto the game’s forum and complaining that a free win wasn’t handed out.

I could understand if you’re a quadriplegic, but certainly at some point you must ask yourself if your concerns should impair the experience of others.

At the point that we’re talking about a story mission tuned for the single player to be able to complete and not hardcore raiding?

The problem is, when you funnel all these resources into making a story that is supposed to sell on its storytelling power more than its gameplay, you’re shooting yourself in the foot if its too hard to complete for some of your players.

I get that people want challenges, no doubt about it. One of my complaints is the length of fights – certainly not the challenge level.

But it’s sort of like pouring resources into making a really awesome TV series and then forcing people to play a reflex-based mini-game to be able to watch. Sure, your story is cool, but if some of your players struggle just to be able to watch it, then what was the point?

There are other ways to provide challenge without mixing it into your flagship story releases. Frankly, I find the living story intriguing enough myself, but I don’t really play it for the content. I play it to see how the story plays out.

Anyway, I know some people will say I’m being silly – that if you want a story without effort, you should go read a book or watch a movie. And maybe the people who have disabilities (or just aren’t very good) would be better off doing that, but it doesn’t change the fact that some of them are players and their opinions are just as valid as anyone else’s.

As for whether Anet will do anything about it, that’s for them to decide. They probably plan a lot of these releases months before we see them. It could be months before the feedback is even possible to take into account without revamping development tracks midway. So those who are worried about lobbying can probably take a knee. I doubt Anet is going to do anything drastic with their flagship content based on a few threads.

Well if you could just point us to the Gameplay content that isn’t Living Story related we’ll be on our way. Oh wait… Thats why it needs to be able to satisfy both types of people.

Labjax.2465:

At the point that we’re talking about a story mission tuned for the single player to be able to complete and not hardcore raiding?

Who said endgame single player content had to be tuned for the lowest common denominator? If someone isn’t capable of soloing it, they can group up and get carried through it like many have to cheat their way through the achievements. The game has always been like this, both in the open world (not everything is meant to be zerg content) and in the personal story.

ArenaNet simply has higher standards. This is an action game after all and you’re expected to be able to dodge and avoid attacks. Take the teragriff and troll boss for example. Every single attack of theirs is avoidable. This is why full offensive specs tend to be the standard in single player style action games, just like Dark Souls.

If someone who isn’t capable of soloing still wants to try, then wear nomads gear and go full defensive spec like this. Then they’ll probably complain about there being a lack of challenge and how it takes too long, resulting in a tedious repetition of the same mechanics. If they’re still not capable however, nerfing the game down that low would ruin it for everyone else. They may as well offer an infantile mode as seen in the SAB.

Personally, I have a casual friend who is not capable of playing through about half of the game due to its difficulty. She’s currently facerolling her way through WoW’s new expansion.

Judge Banks.9018:

At what point did mmo players go from organizing 200 man think-tanks on corporate vent servers, to trying something once, quitting, then going onto the game’s forum and complaining that a free win wasn’t handed out.

When they got older, and didn’t have time (or patience) anymore to organize several weeks long think-tank just to pass a 10 minutes long story content, i guess?

All I hear from you guys responses is “blah blah blah, it’s a game, standards, blah blah blah.” Which is exactly what I expected and I addressed that if you’d actually read the whole post. There is so much fear in what some of you say, it actually makes me a little sad. It’s like you believe that if you don’t consistently put down the players who struggle, then Anet will reduce the game to the complexity of Pong. As if a few people posting on the forums is what defines Anet’s stance on difficulty.

Well if you could just point us to the Gameplay content that isn’t Living Story related we’ll be on our way. Oh wait… Thats why it needs to be able to satisfy both types of people.

Silverwastes bro. Silverwastes. Unless you want to get me on a technicality about it technically being introduced as part of the living story, despite its replayable content not really being tied to the instances themselves.

Anyway, we don’t even disagree on your main point. I want it to be able to satisfy everybody. I’m stupidly idealistic like that.

Labjax.2465:

Well if you could just point us to the Gameplay content that isn’t Living Story related we’ll be on our way. Oh wait… Thats why it needs to be able to satisfy both types of people.

Silverwastes bro. Silverwastes. Unless you want to get me on a technicality about it technically being introduced as part of the living story, despite its replayable content not really being tied to the instances themselves.

Anyway, we don’t even disagree on your main point. I want it to be able to satisfy everybody. I’m stupidly idealistic like that.

You think that the Silverwastes is more challenging, engaging and better designed than the boss fights of the Instances? I’m asking for nonfaceroll content remember thats been our entire discussion – its like you just saw any content, pointed at it and tried to score a political point without thinking

Coulter.2315:

You think that the Silverwastes is more challenging, engaging and better designed than the boss fights of the Instances?

As someone who has solo’d the troll (amber), teragriffs (indigo) and thrasher (blue) of the breach, the troll (amber) is more interesting and challenging than the living story troll and the living story teragriff is far more interesting than all of them. The breaches are actually rather easy to solo. The troll (amber) is the only one that really requires movement/dodging.

Overall, in terms of challenging content, I’d say Silverwastes (small group) > living story > Silverwastes (zerg). Doing a fort defense with only 1-3 other random people for example can be a lot more fun than doing it with 10+ and the breaches are completed much faster if everyone knows how to play and is a DPS spec.

Healix.5819:

Coulter.2315:

You think that the Silverwastes is more challenging, engaging and better designed than the boss fights of the Instances?

As someone who has solo’d the troll (amber), teragriffs (indigo) and thrasher (blue) of the breach, the troll (amber) is more interesting and challenging than the living story troll and the living story teragriff is far more interesting than all of them. The breaches are actually rather easy to solo. The troll (amber) is the only one that really requires movement/dodging.

Overall, in terms of challenging content, I’d say Silverwastes (small group) > living story > Silverwastes (zerg). Doing a fort defense with only 1-3 other random people for example can be a lot more fun than doing it with 10+ and the breaches are completed much faster if everyone knows how to play and is a DPS spec.

You’ve been able to get onto empty maps for SW? I wanted to do that and get my achieves. Because it was frustrating having zergs of people screw up gold and silver after i solo’d the first 20%.

spoj.9672:

You’ve been able to get onto empty maps for SW?

Not empty, just very few people, about enough to hold a single fort compared to a zerged map. I’ve found that a few people (1-3) will usually show up, especially if I capture/defend one of the forts. Occasionally, a zerg will just swarm in from nowhere and the map will complete 5/5 even though previously only a single fort was held the entire time.

Within the last 2-3 hours for example, I’ve done the teragriffs with less than 5 people about 4 times and about another 4 with the zerg. My best run was with two others (thief, ele) where the teragriff just melted by about 80% in a single bubble, taking roughly 2 minutes total.

I just guest between servers after I’m done to do it all over again. I’ve been lucky and hitting maps with > 50% progress, so it doesn’t take long. The lower pop servers tend to share a map whereas the higher pop servers like BG and JQ usually have their own.

Even with the zerg. I see about a 70% 5/5 success ratio (I have 10 keys and 15 extracted teragriff parts). I always do indigo now since it used to always fail and even with the zerg, I rarely see it fail now.

I don’t mind difficult bosses, but someone at arenanet has gone way overboard on all this aoe crap making the game frustrating to the point of going to another mmo.

ProtoGunner.4953:

Those people should play Dark Souls lol.

I wish everyone would play and appreciate Dark Souls from an academic perspective; both players and devs.

ARENA NET STAFF PLEASE DON’T NERF DIFFICULTY BECAUSE OF THIS THREAD.

Gosh….please. I find the new season is very satisfying so far, with interesting story and interesting gameplay mechanics.

I don’t know but if you position yourself right and know when to dodge you shouldn’t be stunlocked all the time… I think one thing is that you should use ranged tactics, it’s much more safe. You always can change your traits and go for ranged, you know…

The big fights in the current LS, especially the last update, are boring and frustrating. The boss mechanics are unique and not clearly telegraphed, the NPCs are bugged at best and lying trolls at worst, and every instance I was in left a bad taste in my mouth.

As a non-dungeon PvE player, I thought the story was what I was supposed to be playing. Instead, the designers seem to have gotten confused and tried to make dungeon encounters. As dungeon bosses, these are probably fine. As PvE story instances, they’re terrible and frustrating. Maybe ANet needs to put the designers of the latest LS onto the dungeon team and get people who can design better PvE encounters on board?

Morsus.5106:

Carighan.6758:

The NPCs reliably rezz you in the last fight, too, making it about impossible to wipe.

Not sure what you’re talking about, the rocks hit me and they NPCs did nothing. I had to bandage myself out of the downed state.

I’ve had NPC bugs in many LS instances. There were a few memorable occassions in the latest LS update, where 1+ NPC just stood around for the entire battle.

The NPCs also give really bad directions. Unless you’ve played through that and seen what morons the NPC AI produces it’s very confusing and frustrating. I mean, it’s frustrating after realizing it too, when it’s clear that the NPCs are totally unreliable in this latest season, but at least it doesn’t make the player feel like a failure, it’s just another terrible escort mission.

Earlier seasons did better at not bugging out, I thought, and that makes a big difference.

Gilosean.3805:

boring and frustrating

I love that “boring” and “tedious” has become code for “too hard for me and I refuse to change build or tactics.”

Seriously take a look around the threads complaining about difficulty this euphemism has run rampant.

I find it amusing that everyone assumes that boring and tedious means difficult. I guarantee most people calling it boring and tedious mean boring and tedious. I think its kind of insulting to assume otherwise.

spoj.9672:

I find it amusing that everyone assumes that boring and tedious means difficult. I guarantee most people calling it boring and tedious mean boring and tedious. I think its kind of insulting to assume otherwise.

Because if they meant “boring” these threads would be about increasing the difficulty…

This thread reminds me of DarksydePhil from and the amazing “This is how you DON’T play [game]” series.

Notice how Phil loves to use the phrase “F** this I’m bored” as an excuse for his failure at the game. For some reason, at some point, people like Phil redefined “too hard” as “boring” because they want to avoid facing the fact that they didn’t beat the boss on the first try.

Xenon.4537:

ProtoGunner.4953:

Those people should play Dark Souls lol.

I wish everyone would play and appreciate Dark Souls from an academic perspective; both players and devs.

They don’t even need to play that. Play some Nintendo and SNES games, those were back when games were actually difficult and challenged you. I still have problems with a lot of them to this day. Battletoads. T_T

Coulter.2315:

spoj.9672:

I find it amusing that everyone assumes that boring and tedious means difficult. I guarantee most people calling it boring and tedious mean boring and tedious. I think its kind of insulting to assume otherwise.

Because if they meant “boring” these threads would be about increasing the difficulty…

Thats a very narrowminded opinion. I found all the Living Story fights very easy but I only found some of them boring. Some that I found easy, i actually found very fun (Mordrem Leyleecher and mordrem dragon). However I dont think most of them should be more difficult. Difficulty doesnt determine the fun for me and Im sure its the same for many others. Obviously it can be a factor but a well designed fight can be both fun and easy at the same time. The content is basically personal story stuff designed for solo. Its not meant to be incredibly challenging as its meant to be available to everyone.

Ill go into specifics again about what I think the OP meant. Because its what I felt aswell. I already explained this earlier. But it seems noone paid any attention and continued to slander the OP’s skill instead of considering that he might actually have a point.

The fights in the Hidden Arcana instance were overtuned as puzzles. The first boss was good. It had a good mix of puzzle mechanics and regular combat mechanics (a DPS phase). After this it went down hill. The remaining fights were a series of pure puzzles to do percentage damage to each boss. Your characters build and utilities no longer mattered and the fights became boring once you understood the puzzle. The way I would of done this differently is to give DPS phases like the first boss.

Basically the fights became overtuned and too puzzle focused and as a result became unenjoyable. However they were still easy. The facet of strength was the only exception for me. It was both mechanically interesting and fun despite its low difficulty. The other fights didnt feel like I was fighting a boss, they felt like i was doing a silly puzzle. There was complete disconnect from the boss fight.

spoj.9672:

Ill go into specifics again about what I think the OP meant.

Did you read his second post? If you look further into his history, he’s a casual player and has had similar complaints about dungeon difficulty. His last bit pretty much sums it up:

shaktiboi.5194:

Mainline content (aka, the living story, which is the only new content being developed ever again by Anet), should be tuned for casual players. Not for hardcore dungeon twitch players. It’s that simple, IMO.

Personally, I’d rather see GW2 continue further in this direction than devolve into every other MMO and design solo play for the lowest skill group. If it’s too hard, simply implement a casual mode where damage is reduced by 90% and all rewards are removed.

spoj.9672:

Coulter.2315:

spoj.9672:

I find it amusing that everyone assumes that boring and tedious means difficult. I guarantee most people calling it boring and tedious mean boring and tedious. I think its kind of insulting to assume otherwise.

Because if they meant “boring” these threads would be about increasing the difficulty…

Thats a very narrowminded opinion. I found all the Living Story fights very easy but I only found some of them boring. Some that I found easy, i actually found very fun (Mordrem Leyleecher and mordrem dragon). However I dont think most of them should be more difficult. Difficulty doesnt determine the fun for me and Im sure its the same for many others. Obviously it can be a factor but a well designed fight can be both fun and easy at the same time. The content is basically personal story stuff designed for solo. Its not meant to be incredibly challenging as its meant to be available to everyone.

Ill go into specifics again about what I think the OP meant. Because its what I felt aswell. I already explained this earlier. But it seems noone paid any attention and continued to slander the OP’s skill instead of considering that he might actually have a point.

The fights in the Hidden Arcana instance were overtuned as puzzles. The first boss was good. It had a good mix of puzzle mechanics and regular combat mechanics (a DPS phase). After this it went down hill. The remaining fights were a series of pure puzzles to do percentage damage to each boss. Your characters build and utilities no longer mattered and the fights became boring once you understood the puzzle. The way I would of done this differently is to give DPS phases like the first boss.

Basically the fights became overtuned and too puzzle focused and as a result became unenjoyable. However they were still easy. The facet of strength was the only exception for me. It was both mechanically interesting and fun despite its low difficulty. The other fights didnt feel like I was fighting a boss, they felt like i was doing a silly puzzle. There was complete disconnect from the boss fight.

Could you define what you mean by “overtuned” cause in my previous experience it has been “the boss requires too much dps, hps or apm” making it too hard because mechanicly player characters have trouble keeping up with the requirements (examples include w/e WoW boss you like which was unkillable before a nerf).

If the fights are puzzles and as you say do not require any specific gear/build how can they be overtuned? They have no dps, hps or apm requirements that are pushed beyond players abilities/gear.

Or when you say “overtuned” do you mean “i dont like puzzles”? If you don’t like puzzles thats fine – don’t call it “overtuned” though because it literally cannot be that.

As for above I was saying “boring = not engaging to the point of not paying attention” <- this definition does not apply to the recent bosses. (which is a good thing) I do not believe that the “tedious” users mean the same as I do.

The fights in the Hidden Arcana instance were overtuned as puzzles.

I dont dislike puzzles. But if im fighting a boss i want it to actually feel like a fight. Not a puzzle. Mixing puzzle elements with combat makes for good fights. But it didnt feel like a mix for these bosses. The exception was the facet of strength (first boss).

@Healix
If so then i missed that. Jumping on someone for a valid opinion is a bit unfair, especially when people could actually discuss what he disliked about it instead of just slandering him. The OP’s opening post doesnt mention difficulty and it brings up something that i agree with. Id expect people to discuss things reasonably without making assumptions. They were already assuming difficulty before he made a second comment.

And actually he doesnt mention difficulty as such. He says he felt forced into twitch based combat and dungeon mechanics. So his complaints are in a slightly different direction to mine. But again its not really to do with difficulty although that definately can be considered as a factor in his complaints. From what i understand of his second post its more to do with that he felt forced into playing a certain way. Which is a fair opinion and has nothing to do with difficulty.