Guild Wars 2

FORUM PROBLEM ~ IF YOU’RE ONLY SEEING THIS POST, THEN GO TO THE ADDRESS BAR AND REPLACE

/page/2#post344192

with::

/page/1

THE PROBLEM

In Guild Wars 2.. With all the particle effects and “busy work” revolving around combat ~ it is often hard to see and easy to over look what’s actually what’s going on, on the battle field and IF a mob *(that’s NOT a dragon) is telegraphing an “uber skill”.

This one of the reasons, I would guess.. as to why people are having a hard time with dungeons.. **IE: They spam and spam their abilities like they would in any other MMO.. and cannot see what the mob/boss is doing.. before they get “one shot”.

Honestly, This is a problem for DE’s and even WvWvW…

**Can’t count the times we’ve finished a big boss battle in the world.. only for the dust to clear and see dozens of lifeless bodies on the ground, from players that died during the fight *(couldn’t see their “icon” due to all the “pretty lights”).

Personally, I think the only legit fix to this would be in raising cool downs “adjusting” particle radius and/or making the mobs/bosses/dragons more than just HP tanks that hit hard.

IE: We killed the shatter dragon last night in under 5 mins, because all you had to do was “spam”.

If he was more like the Ice Dragon *(keep forgetting it’s name) then we would have adds to deal with and small objectives that “protect” the dragon ~ that we’ll have to destroy, before continuing to fight.

Don’t get me wrong.. the telegraphing and combat mechanics in GW2 are NOT horrible.. I mean, they could’ve done much worse..

**IE: As bad as TSW, where you see a glowing pattern on the ground 0.2 seconds before it connects/lands on your face. *(you couldn’t of dodged.. even if you want too.. but I guess that’s why they stuck to the “Trinity” ~ so it wouldn’t matter anyways, as the TANK was the one taking the dmg).

At least GW2 is thought out.. and more than a gimmick.. but at the same time, it’s faaaar from perfect.

THE SETUP

IF dragons truly do absorb magic, I can understand why DE’s get harder *(more people there = more magic “sources” to pull from).

Operating off that conclusion *(supporting a game mechanic) ~ why are there NOT mobs/spells during DE’s that PREVENT spamming?

Think about it…

Imagine that events being harder NOT because the mobs had stupid amounts HP or hit just hit harder.. but because they actually required coordination via the players to take out specific objectives during the fights? *(strategy/tactics).

Note: I would also recommend that GW2 take the League of Legends approach to “skills” and make them either “Physical” dmg or “Spell” based.

THE SUGGESTION #1 ~ “Special abilities” on mobs to prevent “spamming”.

1. Ranged Shields:
Source:: Shamans / Caster Mobs

Description::
Reflects ranged attacks, as long as the shamans/casters are still alive.

Counter::
Send Melee attackers in to deal with them.

~~~~~~~~

2. Dragons Might
Source:: Buff/Boon from a “Relic” on the battle field or Dragon Boss “shouting” at his minions.

Description::
Minions absorb spells cast on/around them, instead of taking dmg.

Counter::
Either “reverse” the artifacts powers *(like a Necro does to Boons) or Destroy it with Physical attacks.

~~~~~~~~

3. Tech Vs.
Source:: Technology via armor or generators that is on/around mobs.

Description::
The technology protects them from EVERYTHING but a certain element/spell type, due to a natural weakness to it

IE: Mob “hides” in a “metal dome” ~ occasionally firing off pot shots and/or debuffing the players.

Counter::
Each type of armor has an inherent “flaw” you need to figure out and exploit to kill the mob using it. ~ IE: Mob in “Metal dome” means you “super heat’em” via fire spells to burn out all the oxygen he has.. thus causing him to “leave” his protection for a short period of time and/or kill him outright.

#Keep in mind that NOT everyone is an elementalist or Melee bruiser.. thus, ANet would have to put in “guns/weapons/pickups” that can be used in place of your current weapon set. ~ IE: Flamethrowers during the ice dragon fight.

The ideal “goal” of these mechanics, is to force players to STOP FREAK’N SPAMING!? ~ IE: make events less about “dmg” and more about fun.

THE SUGGESTION #2 ~ Dynamic events via multiple locations.

Ever “miss” a fun event cause you were on the other side of the map?
What about the fact that EVERY DE usually plays out the same? IE: Dragon always lose, due to player population in that region all focusing on that ONE event.

~ What IF some events happened at the same time in different parts of the map, that affected each other?

~ What IF not only was it one “uber” event at the conclusion of the quest chain.. but ALSO the build up events to it?

Say the Shatter Dragon Spawned..

His “event” would kick off when a player jumps on a cannon and shoots the Dragon outta the sky (is the only way to get him to land so players could attack him, while he regained his strength after “crashing” ~ before flying off again).

Now, while that event was going on.. another event kicks off via a “siege” of corrupted mobs somewhere else on the map *(note: as long as you’re around ANY of these interconnected events, you can see ALL of them on your Mini-map).

The “siege” is an attempt by the mobs to knock out the “power source” to your cannons that kept shooting down the Shatter Dragon.

From there, the players will be presented with a new set of “outcomes”…

1. Mobs fail the siege:: They’ll now start setting up a “ritual / warp gate” to bring in a “backup” army to assist them and the dragon.

2. Mobs succeed ~ thus causing the shatter dragon to start “charging his lazor”. *(breath attack of corruption) and you’ll now have to take back the “power source” of your cannons, before the dragon finishes “charging”.

Again, depending on how the event is going.. you’ll be presented with a new set of outcomes…

1A. IF you succeeded in stopping the ritual/warp gate from bringing the army, the shatter dragon’s next “crash” will cause him to lose his wings and be “stuck” on the ground for a final battle with players.

1B. IF you failed at stopping the ritual/warp gate ~ mobs will flood that “area” and make a “beeline” straight for all the players/cannons. While a new event pops up on the map where another ritual is “starting” *(this will happen several times, causing the zone to be “over run” with corruption mobs)

Because of this, the players will inevitably lose the event against the dragon, as the ONLY way to dmg him now, is by knocking him outta the sky and “picking away” at his HP bars.. again and again..

2A. IF you succeed in taking back the “power source” before the dragon finishes.. you can start knocking him to the ground again, thus causing the Mobs to try the siege again.

2B. IF you failed in taking back the “power source”.. the Shatter Dragon will “Nuke” the cannon area, turning ALL the players into corrupt versions of themselves (IE: players either “die” or for fun, they’re put in a state of living death, where they cannot control their character and they run around for like 2-5 mins, attacking players via a “set path/destination” ~ or until “killed” by other players ~ which ever is shorter).

From there, the shatter dragon would just keep charging his “nuke” every 20-30 mins or so, and hit a “set location” on the map.

His “goal” is to torment the players on the map (IE: Annoy the players into attacking him).

Now, lets add in ‘player skill’ ~
The cannons serve a dual purpose.. in that not only can they knock the Shatter dragon out of the sky, but they can also stun him (once he’s on the ground).

Keep in mind that, every time the Shatter dragon crashes… pieces of him get “chunk’d off”. (his armor/wings/ect).

Each one of “those” are an HP bar and related to how other DE’s spawn/end.

So if players are skilled enough, they can focus down the Shatter Dragon by use of the cannons alone (keep in mind, that the cannons dmg normal players too.. so they can’t be used on the Shatter dragon while he’s on the ground fighting players… without you ALSO killing those players)

This gives ANet an opportunity to spawn “loot chests” via the “effort” put into the event.

So if the Shatter dragon was killed by cannons alone.. you’ll get a nice and small little chest at the end.. BUT if the entire map worked together to kill him (IE: the hard way) then players will be rewarded with a “Splendid Chest” via mail (since not ALL the players were at the shatter dragon when he died.) or some other “safe method” to guarantee loots for participating.

THE SUGGESTION #3 ~ HARDER!?

Ya know how I made reference to the Shatter dragon “annoying players” into attacking him based on his “event” being up?

Well, lets take that a step further and try to help players experience more of the content in GW2.

~ Basically talking about how easy it is for the “zerg” of players to keep every zone “safe” ~ what if events naturally got harder *(as if there were more players present, than there actually was) simply BECAUSE players kept “winning”?

IE: Centaurs get more and more desperate to take that trading post, thus the event gets harder.. even though, the same number of people keep showing up. ~ Thus, the world changes AND we’ll get to see “new” DE’s because we’re NOT winning all the freak’n time.

THE CONCLUSION

lol… sorry for the long read.. but right now, the combat “spam” in GW2 makes the world boring.. due to low player “importance” (IE: that boss doesn’t care that I’m there.. cause he’ll just respawn 10 mins later and we’ll just kill’em again).

If YOU (ANet) would like ta chat bout this suggestion or simply want clarification on some stuff.. reply back, hit me up in game.. or just drop by my youtube channel (user = Requiemsvoid).

At the end of the day tho, this is just my “2 cents” on how to improve GW2, hope it was worth the read.

Like I said on my dungeon topic ~ SINCE we don’t have any “official” way to know how well our idea is received.. (no ability to “vote”).

If you support this idea, simply copy and post::
“+1 ~ I agree and would like to see this in game”

This will keep the topic bumped IF it’s popular AND it’ll show ANet that it’s at least worth looking at.

Thank you for your support!

The problem with “+1” would be that there would be 70posts only saying +1. Which would take up to much space.

Also one thing that is very important to have in mind is; that just because 150people on the forum says something is “bad” it doesn’t actually mean it’s bad.

For instance, lets say that 150people come to the forum and say “Dungeons are to hard” It seems like that the majority of people think it’s to hard and it should probably be nerfed.

However there might be 350people who think they are just fine.

But people don’t come to this forums to say what they like, they come here to say what they dislike.

As I said it’s important to keep that in mind.

“+1 ~ I agree and would like to see this in game”

hmm, seems my above comment utilizing that “saying” is rather small and to the point.. IE: doesn’t take up much space at all :P

EDIT:: Keep in mind that I’m using this “saying” due to 2 reasons.

1. It’s far to easy to lose good ideas, because no one wants to take the time to write a response or show support ~ thus these ideas get buried on page #115 ~ via all the troll/spam topics. IE: this game will fail unless ANet start merging servers, GW2 needs mounts, where are the raids?, ect…

2. There’s NO voting system in place to highlight good ideas to the devs and the GW2 community to look at/vote on.

#work with what ya go

A very nice read, thank you! I completely agree with you that I’d love to see more strategy concerning mobs, bosses and these really big events. This starts in very small details in mob mechanics, but definitely work into the big things you mention.

I also really like your suggestion of having interlinked world events in one map, where you will have to split the player base to accomplish anything and the idea of some events scaling in difficulty after successive player wins. I would welcome this challenge

Definitely would like for the dragon fights to be much longer, more strategic, and more involving.

Great suggestions, thanks!

Have to agree with Komuflage that a flood of +1s isn’t necessarily the best way. Good suggestions will get noticed by ArenaNet, I wouldn’t worry about that.

The dragon fights were extremely disappointing to me with the exception of the Claw of Jormag. This one dragon actually had semi-unique mechanics, moved, did things that were deadly, and felt like a fun encounter.

Tquatl is just boring and i dont feel like i have to do anything to win against him. I want the dragons to be DRAGONS… take off fly around, feel powerful. Here are my suggestions for Tquatl the Sunless:

1) Every 10-15% life take off into the air and do a few bombing runs that do heavy damage in a line on the beach and leave a poisonous trail that spawns Rotting Spewers (those immobile fish things). The spewers spawn a LOT of bloated creepers. Players have to destroy the “Rotting Spewers” before the dragon will land and if they take too long he will do another bombing run, but wont spawn more spewers, just more poison.

2) Bone Walls grant him regeneration for each one that is up and grow more sections if they are not destroyed.

3) Tail sweep / claw sweep to deal heavy damage and knock back enemies at his sides and back. Must be largely telegraphed.

4) Each player that dies(defeated) give Tquatl power, causing his next breath to deal 10% more damage and increasing the power of his minions by 5%

5) Creates areas of acid rain that if stood in ramp up damage from low to very high after a few seconds.

Now for the Shatterer… this is the most disappointing fight because it is just plain easy and boring. Here are my thoughts on making this better.

1) Shatterer sends out largely telegraphed lines (8-12) of crystals that after 2-3 seconds explode, causing vulnerability and spawning a few branded minions if a crystal explosion hits someone. This must be happening often

2) The Shatterer is immune to all damage when he summons those crystals that heal him, the healing is increased, but he continues to fight. While the crystal is up he gains retaliation.

3) Instead of freezing 1-2 people in a crystal he does it to more people and the crystals attract branded minions to attack.

4) The shatterer flies into the air (which he already does), while he is there he lays down showers of aoe in a wave shooting from him outwards and the mighty beating of his wings cripples all players in the area. l2 dodge

5) The shatterer’s breath now applies confusion, additionally a few of the people hit are teleported inside of a crystal where they must fight mobs and do a jumping puzzle to escape and get back into the fight. The jumping puzzle is easy and the mobs are not impossible to defeat. Should take around 30 seconds.

6) Stage 2: The shatterer is at 30% health and grows desperate, massively increasing the spawn rate of branded minions and skill usage. (essentially he gains quickness to be simple) and will begin to do a telegraphed wide aoe knockdown / knockback with his wings every 10 seconds before shooting out crystal bombs like a mortar that explode on impact and create burning fields that do not go away until he is dead.

7) Stage 2: The shatterer takes off into the air at 5%, covering himself with his wings, becoming immune to damage and summoning a large crystal that fires chain lightning at enemies, the lightning applies confusion. The lightning is telegraphed, you are told you are marked by it, and if the first person dodges or blocks it it will not chain. Additionally this crystal spews weaker minions that must be aoe’d down or will over run you. Destroy the crystal to bring the dragon down.

These fights are made doable out in the world by telegraphing and alert messages, not by stupid mechanics and dull fighting

Eivene.9127:

A very nice read, thank you! I completely agree with you that I’d love to see more strategy concerning mobs, bosses and these really big events. This starts in very small details in mob mechanics, but definitely work into the big things you mention.

I also really like your suggestion of having interlinked world events in one map, where you will have to split the player base to accomplish anything and the idea of some events scaling in difficulty after successive player wins. I would welcome this challenge

Definitely would like for the dragon fights to be much longer, more strategic, and more involving.

Great suggestions, thanks!

Have to agree with Komuflage that a flood of +1s isn’t necessarily the best way. Good suggestions will get noticed by ArenaNet, I wouldn’t worry about that.

Thanks

Curious.. is there anything you would add to this idea?
Spells, abilities, mob arch types, ect.. for increasing the challenge and “fun factor” of DE’s, Dungeons and Combat in general?

I just want to add a little general thing:

Whatever will hopefully be implemented to make all the events (no matter if one of the smaller or bigger ones) more interestening and challenging, especially when more players are participating, they should keep in mind that single target attacks of any encounter should be replaced through something that matters to every player. When there are 10+ people around and an encounter (especially if there is just one of them) just does damage to one player, all the other players get the feeling to be in a no-brainer event, because they take no damage whatsoever… That single person that has aggro and takes damage of those single target attacks, that will probably have to work a little bit, but that isn’t just anothe to involve all the players.

I stood 15 minutes at the foot of the Shatterer without taking any damage at all. And I didn’t move or dodge at all, just spammed my DPS skills!
And that’s just one single example, most events are getting no-brainers because of (at least that is my thought) encounters that don’t hurt all the players from time to time, just a small group in the hole fight, if at all!

zomg TL; DR too long

i am guessing your bashing that the events are easy and are not worthy of the game taking to long, and dont reply saying “L2R, or read first” i am not going to.

I actually agree with that fact, but the problem is that Anet took out the trinity system, so no more tanks or healers, its based on skill, so the dragon, boss, or event boss is not going to focus one person, he is just going to aoe the whole area around him, killing everything in its path, so the question would be

1 how many adds
2 power of direct attack
3 power of AOE attack

if the scale was high he would be tough, if the scale was medium it medium, and low would be low,

and depends ont he boss also, for some bosses you ingore the adds, and kill him, for others you have to kill the adds before attacking him

and so on

Sir Richter Belmont.3258:

zomg TL; DR too long

i am guessing your bashing that the events are easy and are not worthy of the game taking to long, and dont reply saying “L2R, or read first” i am not going to.

No offense.. but since you didn’t read what I wrote.. you don’t know that this has nothing to do with the “trinity” or even “how hard” bosses hit.

It’s focusing on making the encounters MORE than just “spamfests” ~ which is what they currently are and WHY they suck/aren’t fun/ect…

Not only that, but they’re also centralized into only ever being in “one location” at a time.. thus the “zerg” of players can wipe all the events without any real effort.

IE: As you said, one person holds “agro” ~ others just zerg the boss and being that the ONLY reason he’s hard is due to his HP/DMG (no tactics/brain required) ~ other players just spam till he falls.

If anything, this is IDENTICAL to the problem associated with the “holy trinity” in that it just isn’t fun/rewarding. (meaning this shows that the Trinity was NOT removed from GW2 during these events).

The suggestions I listed make it so players have to split up.. and use their heads in order to “win”.

Beyond that, I also talk about making the level of scaling increase.. the longer an event stays “safe”. (IE: Centaurs NEVER capture the outpost, thus they get more and more desperate, thus the event gets harder.. despite the same number of players always there to defend).

This pushes the world into always changing and always being something “new”.

Anywho.. based on what you said, you’ll still likely NOT read my OP ~ but you’re welcome to suggest new and/or different ways to make the world feel more alive… lol, but then again, who’s to say I didnt already talk about what you had in mind?

Anywho.. based on what you said, you’ll still likely NOT read my OP ~ but you’re welcome to suggest new and/or different ways to make the world feel more alive… lol, but then again, who’s to say I didnt already talk about what you had in mind?Guess you might wanna read the OP anyways

What’s needed is a self-deelvel system, in which you can decrease your own level on purpose.

That way you can make things harder for you, without making them harder for others.

MithranArkanere.8957:

What’s needed is a self-deelvel system, in which you can decrease your own level on purpose.

That way you can make things harder for you, without making them harder for others.

While I wouldn’t oppose the idea.. unfortunately regardless of your level, mobs are still just HP punching bags.. and there’s no real tactics in beating events/mobs/bosses/ect.

#spam ftw

The problem with massive events is that pople tend to do the same, even if you give them multiple options.

Put something required to beat the boss, like shooting a cannon, and you may get things like a bunch of griefers hogging the cannon, and not using it.
Ad complex sequences required to beat the boss, like defeating enemies in certain order, and you will still get people mindlessly attacking.
I’ve seen a guy attacking a Determined creature for 15 minutes. >_<.

Overcomplicating things is never a good idea for massive fights, as even if you may make it interesting for many people, it may become impossible for others, and overall it won’t work.

That’s why a difficulty adjustment that is more on the side of the player than on the side of the monster works better for massive events.

Now, when it comes to non-personal instances and dungeons, there you can put the good stuff.

Maybe there should be some kind of partial mini-instances, smaller than dungeons, big enough for a decent boss fight, and people can enter in smaller groups. Like organizing themselves in squads, or joining several parties or something, for example a rift opening after capturing a God shrine.
Save the chaos, serging and marabuntas for massive world battles, and the complex, better rewarded and harder stuff stuff for instances.

MithranArkanere.8957:

Save the chaos, serging and marabuntas for massive world battles, and the complex, better rewarded and harder stuff stuff for instances.

Hmm.. other than "griefing" via limited world objects like the cannons ~ I can’t really back up "dumbing down" the world.. just because there are more people in it.

IE: people are upset because the world is too easy and unless there’s a chest at the end, they don’t care about DE’s. (they’re all the same).

So why not incorporate fun and interesting battles/events to keep people entertained and actually wanting to come back for a chance at the "loot"?

Besides, a simple fix for the cannons is to put in a "burn out" timer via covering a player in "flamable" debuffs for each shot he takes and or has posession of the cannon ~ thus he wont be able to "hog" the cannon for a set period of time.

Not to mention, the dragons can periodically "nuke" / "fear" that location ~ allowing new players to grab the cannons.

Regardless, you can also put in other weapons..

lol, there are many ways to "fix" the griefing problem.. so I just can’t get behind the idea of only having "the good content" in dungeons :P

It’s not ‘dumbing down’ as much as ‘adjusting to mass mind’. Anyone that has ever studied social behavior will tell you how it changes depending on number of people. The crowd is dumb.

You can’t imagine how many times I’ve tried explaining to people that events do not happen exactly ever X time, but depending in previous events and other factors.
But even if a single individual listens, the mass won’t. Because the mass is composed by many people. Some that have heard of it, some that just ignore it, some that hear of it and won’t believe it…

If we make an analogy with ‘objectives’ being glasses, and fulling them putting a ping pong ball inside of each, glass:
In the end, massive events will be like a room filled with mousetraps with ping pong balls in them. Some ping pong balls will end up in the glasses, each glass may end up with an ping pong ball, but it won’t be as much as a collective effort as a trial and error on the spot, with people mindlessly running around, ad maybe one or two players actually trying to give order to chaos.
And separate instances of less people would be like actually having someone aiming for the glass.

Note that with ‘separate instances’ for extra battles I don’t mean just 5 people like in dungeons. But something more like squads, or guilds, or 5 parties banding together. All informed by others and with a more or less accurate idea of what they are supposed to do, or at least who are they supposed to follow and obey.
It’s like taking a huge boss battle, making it harder not by rising numbers, but by adding more complex mechanics, and instancing it.

MithranArkanere.8957:

Agent J: Why the big secret? People are smart. They can handle it.
Agent K: A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it

lol, ya.. I can agree with that.

Two things to consider tho…
1. Commanders cost 100 gold and SHOULD represen some form of leadership.. (IE: GW2 hopefully has plans ta utilize this “title”).
2. Instances are always frowned upon.. especially in todays MMO’s.

So, if all the good content was “locked away”.. people would look at GW2 like it was nothing more than an instanced based MMO, thus throwing away all the work ANet have done to build a “living world”.

Again, while I’m not against your ideas.. I just don’t like limiting the world.. for no other reason that there are “more people being in it”.

gw2 is an instance based mmo… every zone is an instance and the mists and every pvp and every dungeon zone is an instance

it is not an open world as much as they or anyone else would like to think

@Rump Buffalo

Hmm, not so much.. while I COULD say that GW2’s “overflow servers” are forms of instances.. as well as your story missions.

At the same time, a REAL instanced based game is like vindictus or c9.
Where you have a hub city and people go from there into map zones that only a select few people can enter *(must be part of your party).

Same goes for Diablo 3 and Path of Exile

lol, GW2 is more open world than you give it credit for.

I agree with quite a bit of this. I haven’t fought the “little” dragons yet but every other big boss fight has been this way. The more people there are, the less difficult it is. In that same way though going solo against these big bosses may as well be suicide.

Although events scale they start off too hard, and don’t scale very well.

Although the big bosses should have minions, stop making them spawn in if there aren’t enough players. I tried to fight a Centaur boss by myself as no other players were around. I spent several minutes trying to kill off the minion centaurs before getting to the boss. Several more minutes of fighting the boss, the centaurs respawned. With no mechanic to stop reinforcements from appearing and the event unable to scale respawns I quickly found myself drastically out numbered.

The bigger they are the harder they fall. This is a concept often seen in strategy/tactical games. The big powerful unit is a magnet for attacks. In a small scale things are easy to balance, but as numbers increase the multitude of small weak units are a diverse set of targets equal to a large amount of damage. So it doesn’t matter how hard the big boss hits. So he kills a few people here and there. No big deal. If he’s so powerful he can actually kill 50 players, people will exclaim he’s too powerful and quit trying to fight him.

So not only do the boss fights need to involve more unique mechanics, and scaling henchmen mobs, but a clearer threat. What happens if we can’t stop this boss? Slightly more permanent outcomes would be nice.

For Example:
The Priory is building a giant anti-dragon weapon. During a month of play time dynamic events lead up to its construction. Supply caravans being protected, the construction site being protected and etc. The more of these events that succeed the faster the weapon is completed. Once completed you need to lure one of the “little” dragons to it. The weapon is the only thing capable of bringing down such a large boss so baiting it to follow the players is more strategic. Make it mad, lure it with magic to consume, something like that. An event like this would gather attention as you move the large boss across the map. The big gun fires automatically, but smaller guns keep the dragon grounded, and unable to spam the area with massive AOE. The dragons goal is to destroy the weapon. Kill it before it can destroy the gun. Put a time constraint on too, adding to the difficulty scale. Story fluff for the time limit? Dragon is just gathering enough magic power to wipe everything in the area out.

This is the kind of event chain, and boss fight I was expecting to see in the game.

The logical extension of this scenario is to make an MMORPG that is actually an MMORTS with players instead of units. Then players wouldn’t be following a scripted event—even an event with a complex script, but rather making decisions that drive the action, building a world and investing in the world. Then the threat becomes exactly what it would be in the real world—the possibility that if we the players fail, part of the world we built will be destroyed. That is a real threat. Anything else is just a plot device.

One ability that probably wouldn’t help the dragon fights that don’t have adds, but might help with the zergs elsewhere that I thought of was this:

Too… Much… Power… “BOOM!”:
Trigger: I go from 100% health to 0% health in less than a second.
Effect:
2000 range PBAoE, no target limit:
Allies:
3 secs Retaliation
3 secs Aegis
3 secs Regeneration
Enemies:
5 stacks Confusion
Blind
Knockdown

Give it an animation that looks like a small nuke going off and give it to everything, then sit back and watch the zergs dissapear.

ButlerianHeretic.3251:

The logical extension of this scenario is to make an MMORPG that is actually an MMORTS with players instead of units. Then players wouldn’t be following a scripted event—even an event with a complex script, but rather making decisions that drive the action, building a world and investing in the world. Then the threat becomes exactly what it would be in the real world—the possibility that if we the players fail, part of the world we built will be destroyed. That is a real threat. Anything else is just a plot device.

Ironically, a game like that already exists.. lol it’s called Wakfu.

Though personally, I’m NOT a fan of the game.. it does operate a lot like what your description.

Agreed! ANet should have a look through this.

I sorely dislike the whole, mobs have insane health and do one/two shot kills. Some events definitely lack finesse. While this can be considered difficult, it certainly is a far cry from being interesting.

I’d say a lot of fights (dungeons included) should get a once over check. It’s neither fun nor engaging when a foe takes ten minutes to go down due to humongous health bars, while shooting you with unavoidable bolts that downs you in two seconds.
No, what if some bosses do mass weakness when fights grow very large, or throw periodic barriers of protection that absorbs damage, instead of just one shotting people into oblivion. And these are tame examples, deeper mechanics would do a lot of fights some good.

I definitely believe that there are more interesting and engaging ways to involve players in event fights, especially larger battles, and I also believe that there are better ways to scale these fights. I think making fights challenging should be viewed more along the lines of what occurs around you and making the fights intricate. Add mechanics to fights as they scale, and make them tricky. Give an event boss a zany mechanic when the fight is large, and not a mass insta-kill shot.

On a second note, I love how DEs “impact” the world, but they don’t really seem to to “interact” with the world.

For instance, centaurs keep attacking one keep, over and over. If they win they occupy it, great, but before that 1’000+ centaurs died during the 25 steps where they kept throwing themselves at the keep. That’s okay, I guess, albeit a little nonsensical.
Let me put it this way, let’s say the centaurs failed to take the keep 5 times in a row. This will cause a new event to start, one where they try something else. This might cause a pre-event where you need to reinforce the keep. Afterwards the centaurs attack from the mountain’s next to the keep, dropping boulders to wear its defenses down. Now you need to stop this attack, else if you fail it will result in a heavy assault against the battered keep.

All I’m saying is, the world becomes bland over time. Mix things up a bit. Make events harder if players keep succeeding at one, as per my example, start a new more challenging event in such a case.

@Azjenco

I’d support that.. where events that keep failing get harder.. BUT the mobs don’t just increase in HP/DMG/Population.. but also in tactics.

IE: your bolder scenario.

Hmm, then again.. I’d also support a “population event” where if you keep defending from centaurs.. eventually they dwendle in population and they Hylek or Bandit take over their territory.. thus event scale now via the new “threat”.

From there, you could prolly incorporate mob population/territory, viewable on the map or from certain NPC’s.

Using this, the players could influence dungeons too.. (not all of them, but some) where the dungeon “theme” changed, depending on which “Race” had control over it.

This would change the encounters.. as well as the drops (cosmetics) from the dungeons.

While this would be a pain to actually add to the game, I would more than support this type of revamp to the DE/Dungeon systems

Would you?

What’s wrong with these forums?… everytime I click on certain topics, I get forwarded to pg2.. when there isn’t a page 2 to go to. o.O

I agree with pretty much everything in the post. These are all things I’ve been thinking hard about recently. The issue I see that are most prominent is that the current state of PvE is essentially just people grinding events or dungeons for an item at the end of it, instead of playing the game because the world is interesting.

You have mentioned many things that I feel would improve the world and make it more life-like, including the changes to the epic DE’s in that it’s much less of a zerg fest, and more of an area-wide coordinated warzone. I always feel that when it comes to events on that scale, it shouldn’t just be 100 people spamming at the big dragon. What should be happening, is that a gigantic area becomes filled with many different objectives. That way it splits people up and make the event feel even more strategic and larger.

And I also agree, that although DE’s currently affect the world, they aren’t very “realistic”. A good example is the two camps at the 2 ends of the tunnel in Cursed Shore; those camps are constantly being attacked by risen, and even though that makes sure things are always happening, it has also become a place where people just sit and farm the DEs as they reset. In that way, the world is never allowed to change because the camps never fall. So there should be a ramping up of events where the odds eventually become stacked heavily against the players.

For example, if Cursed Shore has been held by the Pact for too long, there should be a dramatic change event where every camp on the map is simultaneously attacked.

Or, specifically for one camp, maybe a Dragon would come out and destroy the entire camp, killing some anonymous NPCs and scattering the rest in different directions. The players would have to choose a direction to follow and protect the NPCs, who will then formulate plans to retake the area.

I guess my point is that there needs to be an increase in how events really shape an area. The world should be constantly changing, and if the players are not allowing the change, then the game itself should fight back and force a change, that way the players are always facing a new challenge.

Shadowflare.2759:

I agree with pretty much everything in the post. These are all things I’ve been thinking hard about recently. The issue I see that are most prominent is that the current state of PvE is essentially just people grinding events or dungeons for an item at the end of it, instead of playing the game because the world is interesting.

You have mentioned many things that I feel would improve the world and make it more life-like, including the changes to the epic DE’s in that it’s much less of a zerg fest, and more of an area-wide coordinated warzone. I always feel that when it comes to events on that scale, it shouldn’t just be 100 people spamming at the big dragon. What should be happening, is that a gigantic area becomes filled with many different objectives. That way it splits people up and make the event feel even more strategic and larger.

And I also agree, that although DE’s currently affect the world, they aren’t very “realistic”. A good example is the two camps at the 2 ends of the tunnel in Cursed Shore; those camps are constantly being attacked by risen, and even though that makes sure things are always happening, it has also become a place where people just sit and farm the DEs as they reset. In that way, the world is never allowed to change because the camps never fall. So there should be a ramping up of events where the odds eventually become stacked heavily against the players.

For example, if Cursed Shore has been held by the Pact for too long, there should be a dramatic change event where every camp on the map is simultaneously attacked.

Or, specifically for one camp, maybe a Dragon would come out and destroy the entire camp, killing some anonymous NPCs and scattering the rest in different directions. The players would have to choose a direction to follow and protect the NPCs, who will then formulate plans to retake the area.

I guess my point is that there needs to be an increase in how events really shape an area. The world should be constantly changing, and if the players are not allowing the change, then the game itself should fight back and force a change, that way the players are always facing a new challenge.

lol, thanks

A few posts above yours.. I replied to Azjenco and talked a bit more indepth at how mobs could not only “fight back”… but also change the world via mob “population”.

Have any thoughts on that?

+1 ~ I agree and would like to see this in game

“+1 ~ I agree and would like to see this in game”

And I agree with most of your cool suggestions but:

Now, lets add in ‘player skill’ ~
The cannons serve a dual purpose.. in that not only can they knock the Shatter dragon out of the sky, but they can also stun him (once he’s on the ground).

Keep in mind that, every time the Shatter dragon crashes… pieces of him get “chunk’d off”. (his armor/wings/ect).

Each one of “those” are an HP bar and related to how other DE’s spawn/end.

So if players are skilled enough, they can focus down the Shatter Dragon by use of the cannons alone (keep in mind, that the cannons dmg normal players too.. so they can’t be used on the Shatter dragon while he’s on the ground fighting players… without you ALSO killing those players)

This gives ANet an opportunity to spawn “loot chests” via the “effort” put into the event.

So if the Shatter dragon was killed by cannons alone.. you’ll get a nice and small little chest at the end.. BUT if the entire map worked together to kill him (IE: the hard way) then players will be rewarded with a “Splendid Chest” via mail (since not ALL the players were at the shatter dragon when he died.) or some other “safe method” to guarantee loots for participating.

[/quote]
IMHO it’s very bad idea to even consider the cannons, which could kill other players. Of course, it’d be very useful in making the events harder & making the coordination the requirement, but I’d be very sceptical if some people wouldn’t just use them to ‘accidentally’ kill event participants. And reporting it would be fishy ‘cause – as you remarked – killing dragons without killing others should require some skills, so it’d be hard to differ calculated friendly fire from accitental killing.

And I’m generally of opinion that while cooperations should be rewarding, with many people doing events it’d be very bad idea to punish for someone’s else mistakes. Person A doesn’t coordinates? Fine, he can go down in flames – but making others lose could be incredibly frustrating.

“+1 ~ I agree and would like to see this in game”

And I agree with most of your cool suggestions but:

Now, lets add in ‘player skill’ ~
The cannons serve a dual purpose.. in that not only can they knock the Shatter dragon out of the sky, but they can also stun him (once he’s on the ground).

Keep in mind that, every time the Shatter dragon crashes… pieces of him get “chunk’d off”. (his armor/wings/ect).

Each one of “those” are an HP bar and related to how other DE’s spawn/end.

So if players are skilled enough, they can focus down the Shatter Dragon by use of the cannons alone (keep in mind, that the cannons dmg normal players too.. so they can’t be used on the Shatter dragon while he’s on the ground fighting players… without you ALSO killing those players)

This gives ANet an opportunity to spawn “loot chests” via the “effort” put into the event.

So if the Shatter dragon was killed by cannons alone.. you’ll get a nice and small little chest at the end.. BUT if the entire map worked together to kill him (IE: the hard way) then players will be rewarded with a “Splendid Chest” via mail (since not ALL the players were at the shatter dragon when he died.) or some other “safe method” to guarantee loots for participating.

IMHO it’s very bad idea to even consider the cannons, which could kill other players. Of course, it’d be very useful in making the events harder & making the coordination the requirement, but I’d be very sceptical if some people wouldn’t just use them to ‘accidentally’ kill event participants. And reporting it would be fishy ‘cause – as you remarked – killing dragons without killing others should require some skills, so it’d be hard to differ calculated friendly fire from accitental killing.

And I’m generally of opinion that while cooperations should be rewarding, with many people doing events it’d be very bad idea to punish for someone’s else mistakes. Person A doesn’t coordinates? Fine, he can go down in flames – but making others lose could be incredibly frustrating.

Exactly, I can’t see having weapons that damage other players in open world PvE going over too well. However, this does sound like an excellent idea for a group dungeon encounter! Friendly fire would certainly turn up the difficulty XD

+1 to harder events. I did half of an event by myself and that felt good. I had to kite like crazy heal and time everything right. I’d like to feel more accomplished with event where there are people.

@Latorn & Velg
Hmm, point taken.

Though, ANet could put in antigreif “fail-safes” to avoid the problem
#Much like the “burnout” timer mentioned earlier in the discussion

I have to say that after playing a few dungeons both story and explorable mode, they too suffer from the same problem.

Big boss fights should be more than ‘omg its over 9000’ hp mobs that can one-shot you they should require more thought put into it and some of the sugestions made above have that potential.

For that, you have my vote.

On a side note, the cannons killing players would give rise to a lot of grieving i think, so i’m against that.

I agree, but things should be done in a more gradual manner.

Just add in some area denial mechanics to dragon/large DEs and try to see the result.

(to be fair, plague carriers are very, very good area denials. Too bad people just rez those bots…)

Shadow of Time.3126:

I have to say that after playing a few dungeons both story and explorable mode, they too suffer from the same problem.

Big boss fights should be more than ‘omg its over 9000’ hp mobs that can one-shot you they should require more thought put into it and some of the sugestions made above have that potential.

For that, you have my vote.

On a side note, the cannons killing players would give rise to a lot of grieving i think, so i’m against that.

Ya, the cannons are proving ta be a bit of an overzealous approach to providing more “unique” play.

lol ~ though, I did address them in the post above yours.

Bascially, the devs can add in some way to control or reign in people that wanna “grief” others.

With that said tho, I can see them not adding in the cannons.. if for no other reason than a lack of “sufficient” control methods.

Agree with ya, AlexanderFaust.

Did the Shatterer a few days ago, spamfest with no skill involved whatsoever, it seemed. Would very much like to see more tactics needed for world bosses, and your suggestions seems the right kind of medicine to make it all more fun.

Zakh.1568:

Agree with ya, AlexanderFaust.

Did the Shatterer a few days ago, spamfest with no skill involved whatsoever, it seemed. Would very much like to see more tactics needed for world bosses, and your suggestions seems the right kind of medicine to make it all more fun.

lol, thx

I’m curious.. based off what I’ve suggested ~ is there anything specific you’d like ta add to the event?.. or DE’s in general?

IE: any “problems” I might’ve over looked.

Honestly I have been puzzled about these “design decisions” for the dragons/DEs as well. Take Blightghast or The Shatterer, compare it to other dragons I know from other games. As GW1 is not really comparable as all was instanced there and happens in a “contained” environment, the only other fantasy MMORPG I have played alot was WoW (let the flame fest begin!) and boy did WoW have dragons! You respected those dragons for their complicated mechanics at least.
Sure there is aggro and things were less open world in WoW, yet the boss fights are where WoW shines imho. Not everything can be reused in the DEs, but some stuff can.

Start with the way GW2 is built. No healers, no tanks, everyone should function on their own, yet DE require a group dynamic to happen. So a DE should be a group effort, but everyone needs to learn the boss tactics to survive.
I.E. A shield that reflects you 20 times attack damage on ranged when the dragon shines in bright red; or get a debuff that will cause damage when you stand still; or when the dragon is airborne only ranged does damage, on the ground only melee does;…..

I agree with an earlier post (at least for DEs). I do not want to die for someone else’s failures, but I would like to have (instanced) events for larger groups where you get punished for those.
Therefore the DE can only be changed in a way that everyone gets punished for their own failures, well, and by adding some phase-like character to the event.

That said, I agree with most things said here. What I want to add is, complexity in fights can also be achieved by adding phases to the fight where the dragon does something else than its 3 standard attacks over and over again until it dies. Zerging an enemy in 10 minutes feels not even remotely like wiping on a raid boss for 5 weeks (like I did in WoW) and then finally taking it down. I don’t think it needs to be THAT epic and rewarding, but even Diablo in D3 was more challenging (and could be done in melee without dying <gasp>).

mayu.8231:

Honestly I have been puzzled about these “design decisions” for the dragons/DEs as well. Take Blightghast or The Shatterer, compare it to other dragons I know from other games. As GW1 is not really comparable as all was instanced there and happens in a “contained” environment, the only other fantasy MMORPG I have played alot was WoW (let the flame fest begin!) and boy did WoW have dragons! You respected those dragons for their complicated mechanics at least.
Sure there is aggro and things were less open world in WoW, yet the boss fights are where WoW shines imho. Not everything can be reused in the DEs, but some stuff can.

Start with the way GW2 is built. No healers, no tanks, everyone should function on their own, yet DE require a group dynamic to happen. So a DE should be a group effort, but everyone needs to learn the boss tactics to survive.
I.E. A shield that reflects you 20 times attack damage on ranged when the dragon shines in bright red; or get a debuff that will cause damage when you stand still; or when the dragon is airborne only ranged does damage, on the ground only melee does;…..

I agree with an earlier post (at least for DEs). I do not want to die for someone else’s failures, but I would like to have (instanced) events for larger groups where you get punished for those.
Therefore the DE can only be changed in a way that everyone gets punished for their own failures, well, and by adding some phase-like character to the event.

That said, I agree with most things said here. What I want to add is, complexity in fights can also be achieved by adding phases to the fight where the dragon does something else than its 3 standard attacks over and over again until it dies. Zerging an enemy in 10 minutes feels not even remotely like wiping on a raid boss for 5 weeks (like I did in WoW) and then finally taking it down. I don’t think it needs to be THAT epic and rewarding, but even Diablo in D3 was more challenging (and could be done in melee without dying <gasp>).

lol, I’ve never played diablo 3.. but I understand what ya mean.

It’s funny how people automatically assume you’re talking about Gear.. when you say something isn’t “rewarding”.

Basically, like so many other people that’ve posted here ~ you’re after that “thrill” as a reward via a hard fight that’s thought out and “punishes” players for trying to mindlessly attack.

I guess the real question is, whether or not ANet shares our point of view for “challenge” (IE: Risk/Reward)?

AlexanderFaust.4518:

Zakh.1568:

Agree with ya, AlexanderFaust.

Did the Shatterer a few days ago, spamfest with no skill involved whatsoever, it seemed. Would very much like to see more tactics needed for world bosses, and your suggestions seems the right kind of medicine to make it all more fun.

lol, thx

I’m curious.. based off what I’ve suggested ~ is there anything specific you’d like ta add to the event?.. or DE’s in general?

IE: any “problems” I might’ve over looked.

Well, agreed on most things, especially the DE at multiple locations, that could be something to make players all over the map engaged, thus more fun for more people.

Can’t point to any “problems”, but like others have pointed out, making cannons damage players could be a source of grief.
But not necessarily.
Dunno how easy it could be handled, but imagine someone damaging other players with a cannon. That action could flag them as an enemy to every other player on the map for a few minutes, thus making themselves a target for attacks by everyone else. No idea if it’s even possible.

I would like to see a bit more “phases” (yes, I’ve played wow and are used to them, and no, I don’t play wow any more). Not because phases are the answer to everything good, but it brings a bit more variety to the fight, (like Mayu said) not just a few skills going through an endless cycle and the boss/mob standing still at a set location until it dies.
Of course, phases isn’t all that much variety really. It shouldn’t necessarily be a phase shift when the boss is at 30/60% HP or some other number. Phase shifts could happen a bit more irregular.
I would also like to see a bit more random actions from bosses. They should/could have a variety of skills and actions to “choose from”. It would make the fight a lil bit more random, and players would have to pay attention and react to the action of the boss.

An example of a random action from the dragon boss fight you described: Cannons close (that players can use when the dragon is down) may be targeted by the dragon, cus the dragon sees the cannons as the biggest potential threath to his health in the sky. If the dragon attacks the cannon, let’s say he charges towards the cannon and tries to stomp it physically, players in or around the cannon would better get away from the cannon asap, or be stomped flat on the ground. Just a suggestion, not necessarily a good one.

And yes, agree with Mayu about dying cus of someone else’s failure, and what is rewarding and not. Gear is just gear, it all gets obsolete eventually. The feeling of achieving something or making a difference is far better.

Keep up the good work, AlexanderFaust.

Probably the biggest thing for map bosses right now is getting the scaling right. The boss needs to ramp up in difficulty(damage dealt, health, toughness, frequency of attacks, combos, etc.) as more and more people join in on the fight. I am assuming this would be tracked by how many active players are in a specific area during the event. Also you can’t make defeating the boss overly-complicated due to the nature of most people fighting won’t be in direct communication with each other(not in a group or guild). So it will effectively be a giant PUG. Telegraphing attacks will probably be the biggest point during the ramp up so that players will be able to ‘dodge’, as that is the primary means of negating damage in game. Should fighting the boss be challenging, yes. Should it be impossible, no.

Kristof Bowen.7345:

Probably the biggest thing for map bosses right now is getting the scaling right. The boss needs to ramp up in difficulty(damage dealt, health, toughness, frequency of attacks, combos, etc.) as more and more people join in on the fight. I am assuming this would be tracked by how many active players are in a specific area during the event. Also you can’t make defeating the boss overly-complicated due to the nature of most people fighting won’t be in direct communication with each other(not in a group or guild). So it will effectively be a giant PUG. Telegraphing attacks will probably be the biggest point during the ramp up so that players will be able to ‘dodge’, as that is the primary means of negating damage in game. Should fighting the boss be challenging, yes. Should it be impossible, no.

All too true … but this doesn’t mean they have to make world bosses static, boring spamfests with no brain capacity necessary. I know, some people just jump in and spam whatever skill is ready, but not all, I think … I hope.

I spoke a little about how to fix the communication in combat here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Ability-Graphics/first#post376298

Many games enable users to turn off spell graphics because it helps from a machine performance standpoint and it makes it easier to see what is actually going on in combat. I don’t particularly know much about the dragon fights or the other topics the original poster talked about but I agree with the idea of limiting the “noise” on the screen to enable us to make better decisions during fights.

@Zakh
Thanks for the critique and support

I made a topic in general discussion you maybe interested in::
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Rewarding-Gear-Treadmill

@Quells
I actually talk about that very same idea in my intro to this thread.

If anything.. it’s prolly the easiest “fix” the devs can implement, while they work on other “things”.

However, it is kind of a bandaid.. and combat in general would still need to be look at.