Guild Wars 2

After trying countless builds and playstyles and 180+ hours spent on my Necro, I’m rerolling too.

Currently, necromancer is a class you can’t play the way you want. Necro has only a few viable builds and I don’t have the choice to change my role. Once there is more versatility, I might pick it up again.

Boss 2 (Final)

The whole ship will be plagued, thus Zhaitan becomes just a silhouette in green mist. As the fight progresses, the mist disappears and the sun starts rising. (Dawn is just a heartbeat away)

There will be no risen in this phase, the bosses will be corrupted images of the mentors. When those are dead, corrupted Destiny’s Edge members show up.

Once even those are defeated, players free their minds of the Zhaitan’s corruption. The main weapon doesn’t have enough power to fire, so players have to get power cells from the second floor of the ship, fighting through poisoned crew of the ship, while being bombarded and the ship getting slowly destroyed. Once all five cores are in place, the weapon fires and the party defeats Zhaitan.

I would like to see everyone’s opinion on my design. I don’t mind negative feedback as long as it is constructive (also, it is almost impossible to offend me).

Thanks for your time on this topic

Boss 1 (3)
Each player takes control of one cannon and the mini-dragon fight begins. If the players are skilled enough and use their shield at the right time, no risen will get aboard.

Cannon abilities

• Shoot – No need to explain that
• Charged Shot – More powerful version of ability no.1, with a cast time
• Plasma Harpoon – Roots the foe in place for a few moments – immobilize your dragon.
• Shield – Shield for blocking the plague blasts that spawn the risen
• Pulse Field – Creates a bubble around the cannon preventing the user from being harmed for a short time

If a player fails to use the shield against the plague blast, his/her cannon will break and engineers will run to repair it. This makes the player more aware he screwed up. Other players are also infomed by HP bars of the engineers popping up.

So, what is the purpose of the big cannon, when not using the normal cannons results in the risen getting onboard? Well, it is significantly more powerful. Also, it has a different set of abilities.

Super-Cannon abilities

• Left – Turn the cannon left
• Plasma Beam – Chargeable shot, very powerful
• Right – Turn the cannon right
• Electric Overload – Releases a massive electric burst, killing all of the risen aboard, rendering the cannon disfunctional for fifteen seconds/long period of time.
• Pulse Field – Creates a bubble around the cannon preventing the user from being harmed for a short time

Once the first dragon is defeated, it destroys the big cannon, so players have the option to make the fight less intense, but lose the option to wipe all risen, or get through the higher pressure, but make the fight shorter.

Phase 3

Death of the second dragon initiates a cutscene where it crashes into the ship. Players either jump to the other ship (which is currently VERY buggy) or are beamed out, or jump off with asuran jetpacks and actually will have to maneuver their way on the other ship. (I like the third idea.)

Boss 1 (4)
Once on the ship, Zhaitan makes his appearance. A massive hologram with a progress bar to charge the main weapon will appear above the controls of the ship. (The game introduces itself as very visual, so why not do something like this?) and so begins the final fight. Each shot with the main weapon takes a quarter of the dragon’s health.

In the meantime, players will have to defend the cannon. After the first main weapon blast, the amount of risen will ramp up to the point where it is actually impossible to fight. All players should be downed approximately at the same time. Once downed, get the invulnerable buff to not die completely. This is to make the situation look totally hopeless. At this moment, a group of the Pact’s elite appear and blast down all of the risen with experimental weapons. Each player gets one of these and the actual fight begins.

Experimental Pact Rifles

• Energy Bolt – Strikes 3 targets in front of the player with a powerful electric shock. Inflicts burning.
• Magnetic Repulsion – Knocks back all foes and immobilizes them for 3 seconds.
• Deadly Radiation – Corrupts the essence of the Risen, dealing massive damage and inflicting vulnerability.
• Ammo Dump – Dumps the used liquid ammo on the ground. Any burning foe in the AoE will set it on fire, dealing damage to everything within it (even players) It will also burn the field out.
• Spark of Life – Makes the player invulnerable for 3 seconds. Used to evade Death Fields.

Throughout the fight, Zhaitan will also be a threat, creating huge Death Fields (About one quarter of the ship), which will kill players very quickly and spawn the risen.

Once Zhaitan is injured enough, cinematic where it grabs onto the tower plays and the last phase begins. Zojja will announce she can calibrate the main weapon to charge up the atmosphere and strike Zhaitan down with a massive lightning bolt. After that, Zhaitan will drop a huge plague bomb onto the ship, poisoning everyone onboard. (Players will drop their experimental weapons.)

There isn’t a really good way to make a fight with an enemy as big as Zhaitan, so… why not make Zhaitan even bigger if we don’t go face-to-face!

Hello!

English is not my first language, so please excuse my grammar.

First off, I’d like to congratulate ANet, because they have managed to do what I thought was impossible – they made a game which made me jump ship and go try something else than WoW. Despite the game being flawed in many areas (as every game is), it is still really fun to play. But there is one thing that REALLY let me down, and that would be the Zhaitan encounter. As many others, I don’t really think it is well designed. I could just rant about it, but I decided to try to re-design it myself.

In it’s current state, the fight has 4 phases, but all of them feel the same. You zerg a massive number of risen, you shoot cannons which are weird to operate. As far as boss mechanics go, every other dungeon felt more original and rewarding to do, and not only because it could actually reset, giving the players an option to fail.

I aim to make the fight more interesting and fun, not incredibly hard.

So, this is my take on Arah:

After speaking to Destiny’s Edge, you go off to kill three bosses for power cores, but in it’s current form, these bosses are just random mobs with no particularly interesting mechanics. I’ll quote Yahtzee’s Zero Punctuation: „A boss fight shouldn’t be just a more powerful version of a common enemy; it should be a final exam. A summary of everything we’ve learned up until this point.“

With that said – every part of the encounter should push the player’s abilities to the limit – it’s the FINAL BOSS!

Phase 1
Players need to get 2 power cores to take off.

Boss 1

Shrouded Eye of Zhaitan

Boss mechanics

• Invulnerable to player attacks
• Shoots a thin beam the quickly spreads in a 90° cone (gives enough time to dodge out)
• Shoots projectiles – like one of the current bosses in Arah, but not so many of them
  Environment
  1 big eye turret in the room, conveniently placed so that players can see it the whole time. Will periodically target one player (it should be really graphically apparent, who is targeted) and if he doesn’t dodge out of the way, it instantly downs him. When a player „hides“ behind the Shrouded Eye of Zhaitan, the turret will shoot it, thus making it vulnerable to player attacks for a brief period of time. While the eye is vulnerable, the turret will keep on shooting, so players can use that for bonus damage to the Eye.

Boss 2
There will be FIVE buttons to open the door to the other core to involve the whole party.

Pre-boss event – Repairing the second core
The risen have damaged the second core and repairing it might take some time and resources. Players take control of Charrcopters (helicopters) and have to fight their way in the air to the supply depot and avoid Orrian turrets on the ground. Once enough recources (boxes) are gathered, a massive Mouth of Zhaitan makes all of the players crash at one place and the second boss fight begins.

Mouth of Zhaitan
Boss mechanics

• Same as the current mouth, but you face it much sooner, obviously

Phase 2
After the players defeat the mouth, it lures a massive amount of risen and so Logan is left behind and the Air phase begins. To prevent the visual bugs where not only Logan stays behind, but you also see other NPC’s running around, there can be a flash of light (Asgard.. err… Asura beaming technology, anyone?)

On the ship, there are 5 + 1 Cannons. The big cannon will have stronger offensive abilities, but will be also harder to operate.

I think that many will agree if I say that the current cannons are just too bland and boring to use. You also feel totally not in control of the situation, which is fine, but here it just doesn’t feel right. Also, please make the dragons easily targettable or unnecessary to target at all – spamming tab and furiously clicking while trying not to get killed by undead is NOT FUN.

Boss 2 (Final)

The whole ship will be plagued, thus Zhaitan becomes just a silhouette in green mist. As the fight progresses, the mist disappears and the sun starts rising. (Dawn is just a heartbeat away)

There will be no risen in this phase, the bosses will be corrupted images of the mentors. When those are dead, corrupted Destiny’s Edge members show up.

Once even those are defeated, players free their minds of the Zhaitan’s corruption. The main weapon doesn’t have enough power to fire, so players have to get power cells from the second floor of the ship, fighting through poisoned crew of the ship, while being bombarded and the ship getting slowly destroyed. Once all five cores are in place, the weapon fires and the party defeats Zhaitan.

I would like to see everyone’s opinion on my design. I don’t mind negative feedback as long as it is constructive (also, it is almost impossible to offend me).

P.S.: I don’t want to make the fight harder. The instance is currently boring and kind of disappointing for me. Especially the last part, where you just spam “2” for way too long.

The changes I propose are to make the dungeon unique, fun and a memorable experience. Or at least that’s what I think it would be…

Thanks for your time on this topic

Boss 1 (3)
Each player takes control of one cannon and the mini-dragon fight begins. If the players are skilled enough and use their shield at the right time, no risen will get aboard.

Cannon abilities

• Shoot – No need to explain that
• Charged Shot – More powerful version of ability no.1, with a cast time
• Plasma Harpoon – Roots the foe in place for a few moments – immobilize your dragon.
• Shield – Shield for blocking the plague blasts that spawn the risen
• Pulse Field – Creates a bubble around the cannon preventing the user from being harmed for a short time

If a player fails to use the shield against the plague blast, his/her cannon will break and engineers will run to repair it. This makes the player more aware he screwed up. Other players are also infomed by HP bars of the engineers popping up.

So, what is the purpose of the big cannon, when not using the normal cannons results in the risen getting onboard? Well, it is significantly more powerful. Also, it has a different set of abilities.

Super-Cannon abilities

• Left – Turn the cannon left
• Plasma Beam – Chargeable shot, very powerful
• Right – Turn the cannon right
• Electric Overload – Releases a massive electric burst, killing all of the risen aboard, rendering the cannon disfunctional for fifteen seconds/long period of time.
• Pulse Field – Creates a bubble around the cannon preventing the user from being harmed for a short time

Once the first dragon is defeated, it destroys the big cannon, so players have the option to make the fight less intense, but lose the option to wipe all risen, or get through the higher pressure, but make the fight shorter.

Phase 3

Death of the second dragon initiates a cutscene where it crashes into the ship. Players either jump to the other ship (which is currently VERY buggy) or are beamed out, or jump off with asuran jetpacks and actually will have to maneuver their way on the other ship. (I like the third idea.)

Boss 1 (4)
Once on the ship, Zhaitan makes his appearance. A massive hologram with a progress bar to charge the main weapon will appear above the controls of the ship. (The game introduces itself as very visual, so why not do something like this?) and so begins the final fight. Each shot with the main weapon takes a quarter of the dragon’s health.

In the meantime, players will have to defend the cannon. After the first main weapon blast, the amount of risen will ramp up to the point where it is actually impossible to fight. All players should be downed approximately at the same time. Once downed, get the invulnerable buff to not die completely. This is to make the situation look totally hopeless. At this moment, a group of the Pact’s elite appear and blast down all of the risen with experimental weapons. Each player gets one of these and the actual fight begins.

Experimental Pact Rifles

• Energy Bolt – Strikes 3 targets in front of the player with a powerful electric shock. Inflicts burning.
• Magnetic Repulsion – Knocks back all foes and immobilizes them for 3 seconds.
• Deadly Radiation – Corrupts the essence of the Risen, dealing massive damage and inflicting vulnerability.
• Ammo Dump – Dumps the used liquid ammo on the ground. Any burning foe in the AoE will set it on fire, dealing damage to everything within it (even players) It will also burn the field out.
• Spark of Life – Makes the player invulnerable for 3 seconds. Used to evade Death Fields.

Throughout the fight, Zhaitan will also be a threat, creating huge Death Fields (About one quarter of the ship), which will kill players very quickly and spawn the risen.

Once Zhaitan is injured enough, cinematic where it grabs onto the tower plays and the last phase begins. Zojja will announce she can calibrate the main weapon to charge up the atmosphere and strike Zhaitan down with a massive lightning bolt. After that, Zhaitan will drop a huge plague bomb onto the ship, poisoning everyone onboard. (Players will drop their experimental weapons.)

There isn’t a really good way to make a fight with an enemy as big as Zhaitan, so… why not make Zhaitan even bigger if we don’t go face-to-face!

So, my first topic was closed for writing in the wrong section. This is also the wrong section, but A) people are using this section for this kind of stuff anyway and B) there is currently nowhere else to post this, so here I go again.

Hello, my name is Robin, and I’m 17 and I’d like to become a game designer one day. English is not my first language, so please excuse my grammar.

First off, I’d like to congratulate ANet, because they have managed to do what I thought was impossible – they made a game which made me jump ship and go try something else than WoW. Despite the game being flawed in many areas (as every game is), it is still really fun to play. But there is one thing that REALLY let me down, and that would be the Zhaitan encounter. As many others, I don’t really think it is well designed. I could just rant about it, but I decided to try to re-design it myself.

In it’s current state, the fight has 4 phases, but all of them feel the same. You zerg a massive number of risen, you shoot cannons which are weird to operate. As far as boss mechanics go, every other dungeon felt more original and rewarding to do, and not only because it could actually reset, giving the players an option to fail.

So, this is my take on Arah:

After speaking to Destiny’s Edge, you go off to kill three bosses for power cores, but in it’s current form, these bosses are just random mobs with no particularly interesting mechanics. I’ll quote Yahtzee’s Zero Punctuation: „A boss fight shouldn’t be just a more powerful version of a common enemy; it should be a final exam. A summary of everything we’ve learned up until this point.“

With that said – every part of the encounter should push the player’s abilities to the limit – it’s the FINAL BOSS!

Phase 1
Players need to get 2 power cores to take off.

Boss 1

Shrouded Eye of Zhaitan

Boss mechanics

• Invulnerable to player attacks
• Shoots a thin beam the quickly spreads in a 90° cone (gives enough time to dodge out)
• Shoots projectiles – like one of the current bosses in Arah, but not so many of them
  Environment
  1 big eye turret in the room, conveniently placed so that players can see it the whole time. Will periodically target one player (it should be really graphically apparent, who is targeted) and if he doesn’t dodge out of the way, it instantly downs him. When a player „hides“ behind the Shrouded Eye of Zhaitan, the turret will shoot it, thus making it vulnerable to player attacks for a brief period of time. While the eye is vulnerable, the turret will keep on shooting, so players can use that for bonus damage to the Eye.

Boss 2
There will be FIVE buttons to open the door to the other core to involve the whole party.

Pre-boss event – Repairing the second core
The risen have damaged the second core and repairing it might take some time and resources. Players take control of Charrcopters (helicopters) and have to fight their way in the air to the supply depot and avoid Orrian turrets on the ground. Once enough recources (boxes) are gathered, a massive Mouth of Zhaitan makes all of the players crash at one place and the second boss fight begins.

Mouth of Zhaitan
Boss mechanics

• Same as the current mouth, but you face it much sooner, obviously

Phase 2
After the players defeat the mouth, it lures a massive amount of risen and so Logan is left behind and the Air phase begins. To prevent the visual bugs where not only Logan stays behind, but you also see other NPC’s running around, there can be a flash of light (Asgard.. err… Asura beaming technology, anyone?)

On the ship, there are 5 + 1 Cannons. The big cannon will have stronger offensive abilities, but will be also harder to operate.

I think that many will agree if I say that the current cannons are just too bland and boring to use. You also feel totally not in control of the situation, which is fine, but here it just doesn’t feel right. Also, please make the dragons easily targettable or unnecessary to target at all – spamming tab and furiously clicking while trying not to get killed by undead is NOT FUN.

I don’t want them to make the fight harder. I don’t know if you’ve done the instance, but it is boring and kind of disappointing. Especially the last part, where you just spam “2” for way too long.

The changes I propose are to make the dungeon unique, fun and a memorable experience. Or at least that’s what I think it would be…

Once Zhaitan is injured enough, cinematic where it grabs onto the tower plays and the last phase begins. Zojja will announce she can calibrate the main weapon to charge up the atmosphere and strike Zhaitan down with a massive lightning bolt. After that, Zhaitan will drop a huge plague bomb onto the ship, poisoning everyone onboard. (Players will drop their experimental weapons.)

There isn’t a really good way to make a fight with an enemy as big as Zhaitan, so… why not make Zhaitan even bigger if we don’t go face-to-face!

Boss 2 (Final)

The whole ship will be plagued, thus Zhaitan becomes just a silhouette in green mist. As the fight progresses, the mist disappears and the sun starts rising. (Dawn is just a heartbeat away)

There will be no risen in this phase, the bosses will be corrupted images of the mentors. When those are dead, corrupted Destiny’s Edge members show up.

Once even those are defeated, players free their minds of the Zhaitan’s corruption (and find out, that the actual Destiny’s Edge members are still alive). The main weapon doesn’t have enough power to fire, so players have to get power cells from the second floor of the ship, fighting through poisoned crew of the ship, while being bombarded and the ship getting slowly destroyed. Once all five cores are in place, the weapon fires and the party defeats Zhaitan.

I would like to see everyone’s opinion on my design. I don’t mind negative feedback as long as it is constructive (also, it is almost impossible to offend me).

Thanks for your time on this topic

Boss 1 (3)
Each player takes control of one cannon and the mini-dragon fight begins. If the players are skilled enough and use their shield at the right time, no risen will get aboard.

Cannon abilities

• Shoot – No need to explain that
• Charged Shot – More powerful version of ability no.1, with a cast time
• Plasma Harpoon – Roots the foe in place for a few moments – immobilize your dragon.
• Shield – Shield for blocking the plague blasts that spawn the risen
• Pulse Field – Creates a bubble around the cannon preventing the user from being harmed for a short time

If a player fails to use the shield against the plague blast, his/her cannon will break and engineers will run to repair it. This makes the player more aware he screwed up. Other players are also infomed by HP bars of the engineers popping up.

So, what is the purpose of the big cannon, when not using the normal cannons results in the risen getting onboard? Well, it is significantly more powerful. Also, it has a different set of abilities.

Super-Cannon abilities

• Left – Turn the cannon left
• Plasma Beam – Chargeable shot, very powerful
• Right – Turn the cannon right
• Electric Overload – Releases a massive electric burst, killing all of the risen aboard, rendering the cannon disfunctional for fifteen seconds/long period of time.
• Pulse Field – Creates a bubble around the cannon preventing the user from being harmed for a short time

Once the first dragon is defeated, it destroys the big cannon, so players have the option to make the fight less intense, but lose the option to wipe all risen, or get through the higher pressure, but make the fight shorter.

Phase 3

Death of the second dragon initiates a cutscene where it crashes into the ship. Players either jump to the other ship (which is currently VERY buggy) or are beamed out, or jump off with asuran jetpacks and actually will have to maneuver their way on the other ship. (I like the third idea.)

Boss 1 (4)
Once on the ship, Zhaitan makes his appearance. A massive hologram with a progress bar to charge the main weapon will appear above the controls of the ship. (The game introduces itself as very visual, so why not do something like this?) and so begins the final fight. Each shot with the main weapon takes a quarter of the dragon’s health.

In the meantime, players will have to defend the cannon. After the first main weapon blast, the amount of risen will ramp up to the point where it is actually impossible to fight. All players should be downed approximately at the same time. Once downed, get the invulnerable buff to not die completely. This is to make the situation look totally hopeless. At this moment, a group of the Pact’s elite appear and blast down all of the risen with experimental weapons. Each player gets one of these and the actual fight begins.

Experimental Pact Rifles

• Energy Bolt – Strikes 3 targets in front of the player with a powerful electric shock. Inflicts burning.
• Magnetic Repulsion – Knocks back all foes and immobilizes them for 3 seconds.
• Deadly Radiation – Corrupts the essence of the Risen, dealing massive damage and inflicting vulnerability.
• Ammo Dump – Dumps the used liquid ammo on the ground. Any burning foe in the AoE will set it on fire, dealing damage to everything within it (even players) It will also burn the field out.
• Spark of Life – Makes the player invulnerable for 3 seconds. Used to evade Death Fields.

Throughout the fight, Zhaitan will also be a threat, creating huge Death Fields (About one quarter of the ship), which will kill players very quickly and spawn the risen.

I didn’t find any suitable category for this, so I’m posting it here.

Hello, my name is Robin, I’m 17 and I’d like to become a game designer one day. English is not my first language, so please excuse my grammar.

First, I’d like to congratulate ANet, because they have managed to do what I thought was impossible – they made a game which made me jump ship and go try something else than WoW. Despite the game being flawed in many areas (as every game is), it is still really fun to play. But there is one thing that REALLY let me down, and that would be the Zhaitan encounter. As many others, I don’t really think it is well designed. I could just rant about it, but I decided to try to re-design it myself.

In it’s current state, the fight has 4 phases, but all of them feel the same. You zerg a massive number of risen, you shoot cannons which are weird to operate. As far as boss mechanics go, every other dungeon felt more original and rewarding to do, and not only because it could actually reset, giving the players an option to fail.

So, this is my take on Arah:

After speaking to Destiny’s Edge, you go off to kill three bosses for power cores, but in it’s current form, these bosses are just random mobs with no particularly interesting mechanics. I’ll quote Yahtzee’s Zero Punctuation: „A boss fight shouldn’t be just a more powerful version of a common enemy; it should be a final exam. A summary of everything we’ve learned up until this point.“

With that said – every part of the encounter should push the player’s abilities to the limit – it’s the FINAL BOSS!

Phase 1
Players need to get 2 power cores to take off.

Boss 1

Shrouded Eye of Zhaitan

Boss mechanics

• Invulnerable to player attacks
• Shoots a thin beam the quickly spreads in a 90° cone (gives enough time to dodge out)
• Shoots projectiles – like one of the current bosses in Arah, but not so many of them
  Environment
  1 big eye turret in the room, conveniently placed so that players can see it the whole time. Will periodically target one player (it should be really graphically apparent, who is targeted) and if he doesn’t dodge out of the way, it instantly downs him. When a player „hides“ behind the Shrouded Eye of Zhaitan, the turret will shoot it, thus making it vulnerable to player attacks for a brief period of time. While the eye is vulnerable, the turret will keep on shooting, so players can use that for bonus damage to the Eye.

Boss 2
There will be FIVE buttons to open the door to the other core to involve the whole party.

Pre-boss event – Repairing the second core
The risen have damaged the second core and repairing it might take some time and resources. Players take control of Charrcopters (helicopters) and have to fight their way in the air to the supply depot and avoid Orrian turrets on the ground. Once enough recources (boxes) are gathered, a massive Mouth of Zhaitan makes all of the players crash at one place and the second boss fight begins.

Mouth of Zhaitan
Boss mechanics

• Same as the current mouth, but you face it much sooner, obviously

Phase 2
After the players defeat the mouth, it lures a massive amount of risen and so Logan is left behind and the Air phase begins. To prevent the visual bugs where not only Logan stays behind, but you also see other NPC’s running around, there can be a flash of light (Asgard.. err… Asura beaming technology, anyone?)

On the ship, there are 5 + 1 Cannons. The big cannon will have stronger offensive abilities, but will be also harder to operate.

I think that many will agree if I say that the current cannons are just too bland and boring to use. You also feel totally not in control of the situation, which is fine, but here it just doesn’t feel right. Also, please make the dragons easily targettable or unnecessary to target at all – spamming tab and furiously clicking while trying not to get killed by undead is NOT FUN.