Showing Posts For Truhan.8912:
Breeding mistakes through poor controls is the exact opposite of good. Challenge should come from…you know…the game actually being challenging. Not having to fight past crappy controls.
That’s kinda my point: there should be a challenge. If you could automatically tab and it would always pick the optimal target in a rather inhumane manner, that turns killing monsters into a boring tab-attack-tab-attack cycle.
And my point is the challenge should come from enemies being challenging. If the game made you go backwards by pressing w, it wouldn’t be challenging. It would piss me off. This is pretty close to that level of annoyance.
I think it’s fine as it is.
Well, the default tab target is set to “Next Enemy”, which is kinda kitten Personally, I swapped that out for “Nearest Enemy”, which is actually much more useful.
The thing is, the tab target should be an aid, not an auto-aim. Your suggestion would be kinda like putting auto-aim into a first person shooter game. Because let’s be honest: the game is not supposed to pick your targets for you. That’d just be silly and make the game very dull.
A lot of the stuff that you suggest is actually already achieved by the Nearest Enemy targeting option. What it doesn’t do is ignore non-hostile monsters, nor target the weakest. Both of these things are actually good in my opinion. They breed mistakes and that’s what separates a game from a machine. Because let’s be honest, if you could just tab and it would automatically pick the best possible monster for you to target, it would get really, really boring really, really fast.
Breeding mistakes through poor controls is the exact opposite of good. Challenge should come from…you know…the game actually being challenging. Not having to fight past crappy controls. Though I had no idea that “target nearest enemy” is a completely different button from “target next enemy”. This is a great example of something that makes literally no sense whatsoever. At least have tab target be target nearest enemy than this wonky next enemy mess.
Wait, you liked Swtor Tab targeting? You must have been the only one :>. All you ever heard in chat was how bad it is.
Well it all comes down to preferences. Tab targeting in Swtor was one of the worst experiences i had myself. At least they offered option to Tab target people in your view from left to right. So that was actually useful (predictable). Original one never worked for me and i ended up using either focus target or tab from left to right.
Now there is a reason, why games offer you a lot of different targeting keys to bind. Everyone has their own preference. Such a huge priority list may work out for you, but 90% of the other people would cry about it.
To be honest, in GW2 i don’t even use Tab targeting 99% of the time. It has such a good support for assist fire, that in PvP or dungeons you end up using that most of the time anyways.
Also there is not many keys to bind, so you can easily bind couple of more keys for targeting, like target nearest enemy.
Well, it has been a while (over nine months), so maybe I’m getting a little grass-is-greener syndrome? I know I’ve never had problems like Guild Wars 2 is giving me, and Guild Wars 1’s tab targeting was pretty solid, as someone else pointed out. At the very least, I can probably count the number of times that tab targeting screwed up on me in World of Warcraft on all my fingers and toes, but I can only use the same number to count how many times Guild Wars 2’s tab target DOESN’T pick the “wrong” target. I understand that other people might have different ideas of what the “right” target is in the same situations, but it seems we’re coming to a consensus here. It’s unacceptable that tabbing targets non-hostile enemies while you’re already being attacked.
(edited by Truhan.8912)
Let me preface this by saying this is only my opinion. I’m not a developer. I have no intentions of ever becoming a game developer. I don’t know how easy or difficult this crap is to program. I sure as hell don’t know what others’ experience with the tab targeting system is, but I do know one thing. I am going to present my opinion as not only fact, but as the majority opinion as well. It is the American way.
That said, the tab targeting system is nothing short of awful. This is one of those “little things” that can really show polish when it’s good. Moreover, few will notice when this little feature is good, but it is very easy to tell when it is bad. And tab targeting in Guild Wars 2 is really bad. I’ve been spending the past [since the game was release] trying to put it to words. The only game I noticed that seemed to always pick the target I wanted when I tab targeted was Star Wars: The Old Republic, and I still can’t put my finger on WHY it worked so well. Meanwhile, Guild Wars 2 has the worst tab targeting of any MMO I’ve ever played (and I’ve played a LOT of free-to-play trash). Again, I have no idea how this feature actually works. But after putting a lot of thought into it, I think I might have a solution.
Basically, make tab targeting follow a sort of priority system.
1. Is an enemy attacking me? If yes, tab to it.
2. Is a potential target hostile or non-hostile (red or yellow)? If hostile, tab to it. If non-hostile, tab to it only if it’s attacking or there are no nearby hostile targets in front of me (1500 range seems about right). If a non-hostile enemy is auto-targeted by using an attack command, it should require pressing an attack key again before attacking.
3. Proximity.
a. Target the nearest enemy to me.
b. Target the enemy closest to the center of my screen.
4. If several attacking enemies are within close proximity (300 range or so), ignore the proximity priorities and target the weakest enemy.
The third priority is obviously going to cause confusion, so I’ll try to be as clear as possible. Basically, this priority will require lots of tweaking. It’s to make sure you attack a target you are facing and not random targets off to the side that you can’t even see. Along with accidentally targeting non-hostile enemies during events (in particular the Harpy event in the Plains of Ashford), this is the most common problem with tab targeting for me.
Now, before anyone gets on my case over nitpicking, let me clear the air. I am not saying Guild Wars 2 is a bad game. I am not directly insulting developers (though I did consider checking the credits to see who programmed tab targeting because I wanted to personally insult him or her, but took several weeks to “cool down”) and I am not claiming some major design philosophy is broken. All the same, this is not one of those “minor details” that I can name a million of that would make Guild Wars 2 a better game (like area looting and removing World vs World player kills from the monthly achievement); this directly hinders my gameplay experience unless I go back to MMO third grade and go back to cursor targeting, which itself is inefficient for completely different and can’t be “solved”. Tab targeting might not be a make or break for a game’s sale, but it sure as hell is a huge quality-of-life issue and I think Arenanet should look into remaking it from scratch at this point.
(edited by Truhan.8912)
The “holy trinity” was never, technically, gone. Arenanet state their intention to get rid of it, but people neglected the part where the new trinity is supposed to be control (keeping monsters debuffed with conditions and kited), support (providing boons), and damage (same old stuff). Healing power actually ends up being more of the tank/control role’s stat, particularly for classes like the Thief and Mesmer that can’t actually heal other classes.
Well, this time I tried that Caltrops/Dagger Storm/Spider Venom/Death Blossom strategy along with spending half my Kharma on new gear. This worked extremely well until my mentor stopped following me, despite not having died, after achieving the first objective. I am now almost certain ArenaNet has created some kind of special AI for allied NPCs. I am going to call this in-house AI “A-Hole AI.” Before anyone gets on my case, the A stands for ArenaNet and the Hole is representative of the intelligence of these NPCs. Congratulations, ArenaNet. You have broken me. And I didn’t even have to try a dungeon for you to achieve that. Guess I’m going to be grinding zones for the rest of my levels.
Otherwise, still a great, fun game.
Ho hum? I had thought the area you wanted me to go to was the east, as there was an opening from the east that was close to the first objective to search for survivors. I found the real shortcut you were talking about, thanks. The run still, unfortunately, ended in disaster. I couldn’t keep enough of the monsters on me and the mentor’s attack was ranged. He also happened to be standing in an area where THREE PATROLS showed up in addition to spawns from meeting the quest objective. The mentor died as I was trying to finish the last two mobs (though it was either him or my character at that point, and I’m too frustrated to take more repair costs at this point).
Make sure your gear is up-to-par with your current level. Being something like 72 with level 52 gear in a level 70 mission, for instance, would not exactly help you out much.
If you have trouble finding gear, you can always get white gear from weapon/armor NPC’s (although it’ll be kinda bad for what you could get from drops but it would definitely be better than low level armor), you could check Renown Heart NPC’s ( or karma merchants if you play in the final three areas of Orr. ), or you could even use the auction house.
If i recall the mission you are talking about correctly, the undead respawn fairly quickly. Best tactic is the old “cut-and-run” technique where you kill what is in your way and move on to the next wave avoiding the unnecessary groups. You’ll start having trouble with your current setup because you won’t be able to kill off every group before they respawn due to your lack of damage.’
You also state how dodge rolling is a “bad idea” as it can cause the enemies to reset. This is only half true. Enemies will follow you up to a set distance from where you aggro them. If you reach their pull limit and you dodge roll away or get too far, they stop chasing you. Try dodge rolling through your target and ending up behind them to avoid this ( if you didn’t know, you can dodge roll in each direction by pressing the move key + dodge key ).
I check Kharma vendors, but they rarely have things suited for my character (i.e., they have focii, torches, greatswords, and general crap most of the time). I always pick up anything I find that’s better when I can, but I’m also a penny pincher since I know Kharma is how you get endgame gear.
I get the cut-and-run strategy, but they respawn too fast for my terribly slow play. Again, my main issue isn’t so much I’m punished for being terrible more than it is that I was never punished for being so terrible before. I’ll probably try that Spider Venom/Dagger Storm/Leaping Death Blossom strategy at some point, though.
I understand they reset at certain distances, but these particular mobs seem to reset VERY easily. As in, they reset if I bring the first group TO the door. The one allied NPC I get doesn’t care and chases them down anyways, keeping us both in combat and effectively ending us. I know about the dodging with move + v, but it resets my target and (I’m sure you’ve probably noticed this by how dumb I am from my posts) I’m way too slow to retarget and finish off anything. It’s also a HUGE problem that the mentor dying is worse than a game over screen. At least with a game over screen, I KNOW I’m going to have to restart. When the mentor dies even once, I get punished for trying to progress through the quest, wasting my time and frustrating me more. I have no idea if this is a bug or intended, but I’m assuming it’s in some way intended. When other allied NPCs died on me, they did something similar, but this is the only time it’s become a game over scenario. Everyone’s tips have inspired me to try more, though, so I’m giving it a few extra shots before quitting entirely on the Personal Story. Again, thanks for the tips, they’re all GREATLY appreciated.
First of all, I recently had trouble with this quest too, but you are greatly overstating the difficulty in your post. The main trick is to be careful about pulling in the beginning! It is possible to pull only 2 or three enemies at a time but you have to be very careful. For the wave part you must try to keep the enemies on the ramp up and not let them reach the area above where the checkpoint is. The enemies wont actually attack you much during the wave part until you start attacking them, so let the npcs tank them for a little while if need be and then blow cooldowns and quickly burn them down (aoe is good at this part, but only if you can guarantee killing all of them fast otherwise they will quickly mob you). After the part where you fight the waves the quest becomes easy as you gain more and more npcs. The checkpoint being right on top of where the enemies camp at the wave part is pretty frustrating, however, and should be changed. With the checkpoint being where it currently is a wipe during that part of the instance basically means that you have to start over or be spawn camped forever.
It certainly isn’t possible to pull only one or two at a time for me. My character’s mentor uses an AOE attack as his auto attack. It’s not only common for him to pull four or more NPCs in the beginning, but he’s also VERY likely to pull ANOTHER four with his attack. The mobs all go for him first, of course, and he dies in about thirty seconds (I did a second run and counted). Also, I think you missed the part where the enemies respawn. I don’t have much DPS gear or stats. The entire place is respawned by the time I down the second or third pack.
A couple of other instances of incredulity that I forgot to mention but instantly came flooding back to my memory as soon as I started a second attempt:
-When my mentor dies, he resets. Completely. He quits following my character and just stays at the entrance to the ruins, effectively lowering the number of NPCs helping me in the beginning to one.
-Enemies reset at will. Using dodge skills and moving while fighting is an EXTREMELY bad idea as the enemies would run away, get their health set back to full, while I would be stuck at one third of my health. There’s no “skill” in this, I just had to stand and hope for the best while using all of my highest DPS abilities.
I would love to be able to try the wave part again, but the second I reconfirmed that enemies respawning was a feature of this quest in my second run, I immediately quit. There’s no way I’m going to do this Personal Story alone, I’m going to need help from fellow Blackgaters that don’t mind helping out an awful player. I can’t even imagine how bad I would be at dungeons, considering how hard I’m finding one of the “easy” parts of Guild Wars 2. Thanks a lot for the tips though, I definitely appreciate it.
I’ll be the first to admit I’m a pretty bad video game player. I’m CERTAINLY bad at Guild Wars 2. But I cannot imagine how one might complete the Personal Story quest Forging the Pact. I know people have beaten it (this is obvious since people have already been having major issues with level 70 and up Personal Stories), but it is absolutely impossible for me to complete on my Thief.
Let me start at the beginning. After talking to a bunch of people, my character’s mentor sets out to some ruins outside a fort to resue a research team. Aside from my character, there is only the mentor and a sword ’n board NPC. In my earliest attempts to get through the ruins, I tried slowly whittling down the Orr forces to progress. I quickly found out this was a mistake as each pull always brought AT LEAST FOUR enemies which would kill the mentor in seconds while the sword ’n board NPC did minimal damage and no “tanking” whatsoever (leaving all of the work up to me).
Well, no worries, right? Sure it takes forever, but I’ll EVENTUALLY get through this if I can play better, right? Well, no. My character takes mostly toughness/vitality/healing traits. His DPS is complete crap. And many would be amused by the utter horror that crossed my face when THE ENEMIES BEGAN RESPAWNING BEFORE I COULD EVEN CLEAR OUT TWO PULLS. Well, this sure made things interesting. So I did the only thing that was at all possible: I rushed to the research group and used stealth skills to drop aggro.
Little did I know that this is where the complete and utter frustration of difficulty would come in. I basically had to defend the researchers while waves of undead attacked me. Not any of the NPCs, ALL of them would attack ME. This was no small number either, it was easily ten at once. I suspect my stealthing skills didn’t properly reset the enemies I had been escaping from. Immediately upon my death, all of the researcher NPCs and the two NPCs initially escorting me were downed. Luckily, all the enemy NPCs went straight for the checkpoint where I would respawn. I was then forced to perform the incredibly cheesy tactic of dying and respawning in the same spot while whittling down the monsters. This took an hour and a half.
So after this, I’m given another major shock – I have to rescue MORE researchers. By now, I was ready to punch the next person to talk to me in real life out of the sheer frustration this has caused me. I hold back, swallow my soul or something and proceed to use the same tactic of stealthing and dodging to get to the second research team. I easily dispatch the one mob giving the team ire without taking any damage. This wasn’t because I was skilled or had incredible stats (indeed, ALL of my gear was broken from the earlier rescue of the first research team), but because the NPC group actually appeared somewhat capable for once. Unfortunately, after rescuing the team, they’re IMMEDIATELY warped to my dead mentor in the middle of endlessly respawning waves of enemies. I cannot resurrect a single NPC, the checkpoint is too far away for me to cheese kill the mobs this time, and my progress is very effectively stopped. This quest is two levels lower than my character.
My problem isn’t necessarily that I’m being punished for being an awful player that made awful choices in stats and trait spec. My problem is that ArenaNet seems to have utterly failed to grasp the concept of difficulty and a difficulty curve. The Personal Story before this one, Battle of Claw Island, is literally impossible to lose. I was barely on level for that particular Personal Story. The next quest, however, is impossible in spite of (or probably because of) me being two levels higher than the recommendation. I have no idea how the sidekicking system works in how it reverts stats to be appropriate for the level, but I suspect if I had done this quest on-level my character would be stronger. Maybe that’s just wishful thinking, though, as either way there is no way I could have been prepared for the ridiculous difficulty of this quest with a RAMPING DOWN of difficulty with the previous quest.
Anyways, if anyone knows any good tips or cheesy tricks I can use to get past Forging the Pact, I would be VERY grateful. ALL of my friends quit playing this game already, despite me finding it so very good. Obviously, I’m not going to “quit the game” over this, but it’s definitely sapped my will to continue the Personal Story I was finding myself so invested in.