Showing Posts For Yawns.5849:
I think the lack of any sort of dedicated healing mechanic hampers a lot of potential strategy in boss fights. That and no way to truly control aggro. Besides, dying VERY fast to 1 or 2 hits is the cheap way out in any boss fight since boss fights were created. Any BADLY designed boss in any game you can imagine invariably comes down to those “cheap” deaths. The fun bosses are those you remember “outplaying”. There is little strategy when you know you’re going to get killed regardless of what you do. That’s what makes it frustrating and not fun.
I don’t think its a lack of tanking or healing, but rather a lack of knowing how the aggro works because it hasn’t been explained to us. In WoW, it was really easy to understand why you would die as a DPS in an instance, it was either because you DPS’d too hard and pulled aggro or the tank wasn’t holding threat properly. We aren’t given any feedback yet about aggro and how it works, as well as what causes a boss to suddenly switch to a ranged DPS across the room and obliterate them for seemingly no reason. This can quickly get frustrating because there is simply no counter play. I’ve had boss encounters where a certain player was picked out and chased around the entire fight for seemingly no reason, the other player’s on the team were going balls to the wall DPS and CC, but no one could pull off. Not to mention, without a dedicated healer or tank its pretty hard to protect a teammate that pull aggro on a boss. They only have the option of kiting or most likely getting killed.
The strategy for dungeons that I’ve seen work well so far is one of everyone does a little bit of everything. Every builds some toughness and vitality, everyone builds some kind of support, and everyone does damage. It seems to be the safest way to go so that you can juggle aggro at any given time and anyone can take it without getting destroyed, but I think this is kind of boring, and doesn’t really require a lot of strategy.
Exactly. A great example of this is the final boss of CoE, the giant golem has attacks that are broadcasted clearly and visual clues in the environment that are easily picked up. Namely the walls that block his heat vision, my group was able to pick up the mechanics to him and down him in one try without any deaths. He is difficult until you know the trick, but still provides enough challenge for a story mode dungeon and it really feels rewarding once you figure it out and have room to experiment with more efficient ways to fight him. Such as picking up the rocks on the floor dropped by the slugs.
That is a well written, thoughtful post, but still I see a major problem with it. “Why should they be denied their play style choices for a certain boss? A player should be able to play how they want, and the dungeons and bosses should still be accessible to them if they can play well”. Because it is part of the challenges for players in GW2, you really have to adapt to all kinds of situations and the game gives you all the tools for it. Why shouldn´t a warrior be forced to go ranged when the situation dictates it? Games deny play style choices all the time, a warrior does not cast fire balls even if his player thinks it would be cool if he did, you cannot oneshoot bosses even if a player would like to, a character cannot fly to a vista and bypass the whole mad jumping part. I know these are very simplified examples, but I hope you get what I am trying to say. I can see how people have been made to stick with a single narrow playstyle by years of MMORPG development – or lack thereof – but personally I like this fresh “he brings a knife, you bring a gun” approach in GW2.
PS: But I agree with you that the dungeon encounters need some tuning.
I do agree that players should have to adapt and make choices, however I also feel like having options should be there as well. Currently with a lot of dungeon encounters its either go ranged, or die very quickly. Ranged doesn’t really have that problem, they are always in a safer place, and generally less likely to be turned on and instantly dropped by something that isn’t properly communicated to them. Especially in large scale Dynamic Events where a champion boss can suddenly turn on you and down you without any kind of warning at all. I didn’t mean to mislead in my original post. Players should have to make choices depending on the encounter, but currently there isn’t enough information for them to make educated decisions to properly respond. Majorly in part to the visual clutter and lack of feedback. A slider to turn down the visual effects could help a lot.
Also, good to see the GW2 community can have a good discussion.
Spoilers about CoE boss skills ahead.
I’ve been reading the forums lately and read a lot about the current issues with the dungeons as well as the argument of GW2 needing a holy trinity vs remaining as is. I feel like the issue might not lie with a lack of a trinity system, but instead having boss fights that don’t seem to be designed around GW2’s combat and grouping system.
I think this is best illustrated by Kuda in CoE, but more specifically his golems that he summons with the persistent AoE poison aura that is extremely hazardous to anyone that wants to melee. If the philosophy of “bring the player, not the class” is to be followed, something like this can’t really exist without a really tanky melee player or some dedicated healing. You COULD weave in and out of melee, but doing so would be much more dangerous than just staying away from the boss. The obvious solution is to fight at ranged, but what if you want to play melee? Many people roll warriors, guardians and thieves because they want to play at melee. Why should they be denied their play style choices for a certain boss? A player should be able to play how they want, and the dungeons and bosses should still be accessible to them if they can play well. Glass cannon specs should be perfectly viable, assuming the player can properly dodge and avoid damage.
A lot of the mechanics for this are in place already, such as projectiles that are not homing, so can be sidestepped instead of having to waste a dodge. Stuff like this is great when it is properly telegraphed so the player can react accordingly. What if the golems would create a targeting reticule over the player that they are about to shoot at? This way the player would be able to easily determine where the boss is attacking even through the mass amount of particle effects that are common in group fights. The small red circle on the ground is constantly getting lost, especially in melee range. There needs to be better visual communication between the enemies and the players, so they know when they are being targeted and can act accordingly.
A great example of a boss that seems to be designed largely around the GW2 style of combat is the giant colossus boss found in Orr. He is large and easy to see, even during a huge zurg of players. His attacks, mainly the stomp, is telegraphed extremely well, so that good players can dodge and avoid his damage. He also makes a loud and consistent noise before doing so. This is a another great way for a boss to telegraph his attacks through the visual noise. Now, not all bosses need to be quite this slow and lumbering, but its just an example of a boss that I feel was done right.
Uh…so I guess I ranted on for a while. Forgive me if I jumped around from topic to topic too much.
TLDR: It might not be the combat design that is bad, but the bosses and dungeons. Also, more visual clarity is needed for players to feel like they can respond correctly.
I’ve been having a lot of success with doing damage/support in dungeons. Just taking elixer gun for the AoE heals can help keep a group up a lot longer.