Firstly, I understand some like the dungeons the way they are. I would also like to say I realize the dungeons are not meant to be easy and ran through. What I want to discuss in this post is how the difficulty in the dungeons is not a really a difficulty in the traditional sense, but a a lack of information given to the player.
We all know most monsters have their abilities posted right under their names, I am not talking about that kind of information, I am talking about what the player can see and hear.
If you look at games like WoW, Rift, and Tera you will notice a few things about boss monsters, they are large. What would be normal humans are twice as tall as players of the same race, why is that? Designers do this so you, the player, can see the motions of the monsters and interpret what to do in response. Something like this is really important for an action MMO, much like Tera and Guild Wars 2. There are a few examples of this in the game already, the final boss of both Sorrows Embrace and Crucible of Eternity. These fights allow the players to see the something is about to happen and react to it. But there are a majority of fights that this fails to happen.
In the fight before the final boss of Crucible of Eternity you have an Asura of normal Asura size (I am guessing) who has the ability to one shot you. It is a charge up ability and can easily be avoided. The only problem is you cannot see who he is aiming at with all the spell effects going on. Now, this happens to be a major problem for melee, not so much range with quick fingers, but the point remains, there is a lack of information given to the player (this case being the melee player.) Another issue with combat is the red circles you have on the ground.
The red circles are a great mechanic, in theory. They allow you to tell what effects/spells are hostile (the red ones) or friendly (most of the other ones.) The major problem with these are the tile sets. Most often than not you will fight a monster on a tile set that bleeds over into the effect making the red circle hard, if not impossible to see. I will say, this might not be a problem for everyone, but I am colorblind, so it makes it exceptionally difficult for me to detect these effects.
Okay, now the bosses are bigger, the red circles are clearly visible now the players are walking through these dungeons with ease, that is bad! Not really, the problem with the current system is: punishing a player for lack of information is of bad design, players dying because they failed to dodge a clearly visible effect is good, because that is a issue on their side which can be worked at with practice.
I do not blame the designer for players dying on bosses like the Norns in HoTW, or the Robot boss in Sorrow’s Embrace, these fights are perfectly designed (and dare I say could be tuned up a tad.) They follow the basics of a great fight:
- Clearly visible actions.
- Movement to keep the battle feeling action oriented.
- Punishing a player for making a wrong decision.
Now for a bit of a disclaimer: I realize some of you have zero problem with the current system, you are above the average MMO player and that is good. Having a community like that to give tips and tricks is what keeps a lot of games alive. But, a lot of people are struggling, and that is not good for the community. I am not saying make these games easy mode, I am saying give the player more information so that they can improve themselves.
