Guild Wars 2

Monkey Fritz.9052:

RvLeshrac.2673:

Duncanmix.5238:

I think most of whine comes from younger generation that didn’t get to experience this type of game. Obviously there are few of older guys too, but I think you guys got carried by the moment.
For me W2 is by far better then W1. W1 was just too, you could run it in about 10 minutes. After day or two of W1 everyone was just farming it multiple times with alts, and super adventure box became super farming box.
W2 reminds me on old school games and really brings up those memories.

Stop saying this crap. It does not. With the exception of some of the worst games of the era, no classic platformer, not even Pitfall, required pixel-edge-of-platform attacking and pixel-perfect jumping.

One of the alligators in SAB requires that you stand almost entirely off the level geometry in order to hit it, and there are several spots where you must stand in locations that are covered by rapids in order to make a jump, with no indication that these are actually safe.

I agree with this post.

In spite of peoples random attempts at remembering their childhood, I still play ‘old school’ games quite regularly. And the artificially inflated difficulty mechanics and pixel perfect requirements only exist in the absolute worst of them.

You had to learn what to do, and then you did it. That is “old school hard.”

It didn’t fail 4 out of 5 tries because the whip wouldn’t catch the hit box just right. You didn’t have to stand in mid air so the sling shot would hit the next turtle instead of repeatedly hitting the one you are already standing on. Falling in the water either killed you, or it didn’t. There was no random ‘will it send you half way back and then let you jump out? Or will it trap you in one spot while devouring your soul?’

W1 was a fun, colorful lighthearted and challenging homage. W2 could be but isn’t.
W2 suffers from the “Lets make it as hard as we remember those games being when we were five and sucked at playing video games.”

Sure, when I first played on my neighbors Snes, super mario world was hard and unforgiving. And when I tried to play Zelda on my best friends 64 and he had to help me through all the tough spots, it was sooo challenging.
But now they are just simple little games that, at most, take an hour or two to get used to them again. Then suddenly “This part was hard before? Took me like two seconds!”

Thank you. Thank you x 100. I cut my teeth in the 70’s and 80’s on the first arcade games and my Colecovision – I remember those games as either unforgiving quarter dumps or endless levels with no goals. I was a teenager when I got my NES, all these games that are being name dropped – Ninja Gaiden, Megaman 2, Metroid, Super Mario Brothers, Legend of Zelda… I played them then and I still revisit them from time to time. I didn’t beat them all but I put a good number underneath my belt. Same with SNES and right on up to PS3 today – I’ve had almost 40 years of being a “girl gamer”.

So this is why I keep asking “what game are you playing?” because I was actually there, when these games were new, and I’m going to say that games that required pixel perfect jumping, had poor design and had poor control or angle mechanics didn’t get played or remembered. Don’t believe me? How often to you hear the “classic NES game” Athena mentioned? Did anyone play Action 52 until the AVGN tackled it? What about Jeckyl and Hyde? I’m sure you’ve all played Milon’s Secret Castle, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Friday the 13th, yes? Nah, it’s always Zelda, Metroid, Mario, Megaman and Castlevania because those were the well designed games that toed the line between fun and frustrating. They got it right despite having their own flaws.

From what I’m hearing and seeing, World 2 isn’t this. I guess if some 20-somethings want some artificial experience of “Nintendo Hard”, then they got it.

Randulf.7614:

Josh Foreman.8250:

Aerlen.5326:

Seriously, what versions of these games are you playing?

We all have a broad range of experience with Atari – current games. I cut my teeth on NES Zelda, Metroid, Mega Man, Ninja Gaiden et all. When I reference one of these games I’m not saying “SAB is exactly like this game in every way.” SAB is a homage to ERA of games, not a single game or genre. SAB is LIKE Metroid in a couple ways. Like Ninja Gaiden in a couple ways, like Mega Man in a couple ways. We have items in shops you have to buy to progress like Zelda, we have instant kill spikes and pits like Mega Man and Ninja Gaiden. You can point to all the classic games that do things differently and say “See, that’s how you SHOULD do it.” The we we DID do it is based on the unique chemistry of our team and what we liked in old games and what we wanted to experience. Your milage may vary.

Bad josh…you made me spend money on my wii u for above mentioned games!!

Ps original metroid and zelda werent that bad…but feel free to never take battletoads as your inspiration for world 3 or 4

I think it’s a wee bit too late for that, I’ve heard “Battletoads” hard all evening in the SAB map chat :p

stof.9341:

Aerlen.5326:

I totally do NOT get the whining about Tribulation Mode. I mean, look at the name alone. Does that suggest moderately difficult to you?

Seriously, I thought this was what the hardcore gamers wanted – hard, challenging, unfair content that makes them work and use their skills.

Well the biggest issue I have with it is that it’s completely insane playing it without the infinite continue coin or without farming normal continue coins beforehand.

P2W or “preparing to have fun” seems to be the only two choices here :/

It probably is. I won’t touch it myself because I know it’s way beyond my abilities but I’m guessing the idea was to be a time sink full of trial and error trolling gameplay like IWTBTG and I suspect it’s no coincidence that an item showed up in the gem shop to make it easier…

Pyroatheist.9031:

While there are obviously still some hitbox and lag issues remaining in some spots of World 2, the complaining from all of you people is absolutely disproportionate to that.

Tribulation mode is designed to be absurdly hard, unfair in every way, and challenging to get through.

Josh Foreman should be feeding on the tears of you whiners, and reveling in the satisfaction of a job well done!

I totally do NOT get the whining about Tribulation Mode. I mean, look at the name alone. Does that suggest moderately difficult to you?

Seriously, I thought this was what the hardcore gamers wanted – hard, challenging, unfair content that makes them work and use their skills.

Faevius.9862:

raahk.2786:

Faevius.9862:

I’m in love with the difficulty. It brings me back to the old times of gaming where you actually had to put in time to overcome a level. Skill has become a factor again. World 2 Zone 3 now. With a little bit of determination, I believe all of you can do it on infantile mode. Don’t change a thing!

I hate people like you. Stop referencing the old times of gaming that you probably didn’t even have a part of. If you did, you would recognize bad game design when you saw instead of mocking people that get destroyed by overly long, pointless game mechanics coupled with trial-and-error gameplay.

I simply gave my input, didn’t ask for what you thought of it. I have been around through all the flawed games in the past, and I enjoy this. Where was I mocking btw? I’m simply encouraging people. If you really think it’s that long, join my party and I’ll show you that it takes 20 mins to beat zone 2. If you still choose to hate me, that’s your choice. Life goes on. I’m glad you took the time to reply to my post which was regarding the topic not you.

Haters gonna hate.

Wow.. you weren’t mocking anyone really. In fact, you had one of the nicer replies

Not to World 2 yet but after a couple of hours (and a disconnect), I have a more solid impression.

There are two jumps in normal mode I can’t reliably do. One due to a timed speed item and crap camera angles and the other due to depth perception problems on my end. Aside from those and the boss camera angle bugginess, world 1-1 is kinda fun but it looks like I have to go with infantile mode.. not that I want to and not that most parties want to… and to be honest? World 1-1 was MORE fun with others (until I died and that 3 hours until update suddenly became 3 seconds – if one party member loses all their lives, does the ENTIRE group fail ala Battletoads?). I may have to invest in that infinite continue and it’s ten shiny lives but we’ll see.

I don’t think I’ll ever see World 2 or World 1-3 without investing in continues. When jumping is your weak point, this sort of content isn’t friendly. THAT SAID (and before the hardcores jump me and tell me to “suk it up”), I like that Tribulation Mode exists because I think the uber hardcore players who like tormenting challenges need their fill too but it’s clear “normal” is a bit too hardmode and buggy ATM (but good god, don’t hand it to everyone with no need for skill or time… I hate that anyone who says content is buggy, too hard, too frustrating or too much of a pain gets downtalked and told lern2guildwars2 – kitten , no one wants Cuddly Candy-Land but no one wants IWTBTG x 100 either).

I’ll keep at it and see if I can get any progress in. At the very least, it’s a time waster.

A random invasion popped up about an hour ago and I really have to say…

Minus the people pushing for a finish for achieves and minus the majority of the hardcore farmers and minus the two bickering, and QQing this invasion was actually FUN. We failed but everyone there did their absolute best without any pressure or negativity floating about.

And WOW are those mobs a bit harder with less manpower, was great to pull out some skill instead of relying on a zerg of 50 people.

I like this addition to the LS when it’s not every hour and tied to timed achieves.

Deroy.2457:

There’s a difference in difficulty and punishment.
Dark Souls or XCOM are games I consider great and difficult games.
Because they telegraph everything properly allowing the player to sit back and study the enemy and hazard behavior.

Tribulation mode? It’s exactly the opposite.
Most of the time you’re exposed to invisible hazards, hazards you need to be exposed to before you are even aware of their existence. Also, most of the time objects you thought aren’t hazardous to the player, in fact is. It’s like removing the visual differentiation between 1up mushrooms and poison mushrooms.

If anything, Arena Net should be ashamed of themselves for stooping this low.
As it goes against everything in the book of good game design.
Then again, it’s in their nature to make the poorest decisions possible.

Tribulation mode is a tribute to torture platformers like I Wanna Be The Guy, Kaizo Mario, Unfair Mario, I Wanna Kill The Guy and others in the same vein.

http://youtu.be/EzxJgWbm_3I?t=2m20s

“Tribulation Mode is a grueling difficulty intended for hardcore gamers and serves as a torture platformer in the same vein as I Wanna Be The Guy and Kaizo Mario. "

You asked for impossible challenging content that would frustrate you and that only a small portion of the player base could do, they gave it to you. If they give you infinite lives, you’re having your hand held while players having problems with “normal” still have to grind to buy continues.

Nope.

Maybe you pushed up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Start…

Josh Foreman.8250:

CryxTryx.9208:

Fair enough, but you have also made infantile mode for the players that don’t want a challenge.

I want Normal Mode to be squarely in-between Infantile and Tribulation. Right now it’s leaning too far to the Tribulation.

Infantile mode IS a challenge for some players and some of us playing it WANT to be challenged =/ I’m sure eventually I’ll ace it but the “one life, start over if you die LOLZ” mechanic combined with bad camera angles is giving me a headache.

And no, I can’t buy an infinite continue right now and I’m afraid to waste the five continues I do have.

fungihoujo.8476:

Aerlen.5326:

Okay. Having played World 1 story mode a few times, I can now say the camera is your worst enemy thus far.

I had this issue in Megaman Legends (take a shot) where by the time you turned to face the enemy behind you and the camera was in place so you could see/hit them/dodge, they’d killed you.

Not a great game mechanic…

How many times has the camera in GW2 been one of the central issues? It’s like this comes up every single time they have an update- nobody wants to be fighting with their camera. Yes, it’s cute in the one chaos zone jumping puzzle that fools around with your size/camera- but it shouldn’t be a constant problem in so many events. It was one of the most complained about issues with the gauntlet fights, along with difficulty to see cues before OHKOs- and lo and behold, it’s a big complaint once again.

It feels like I’ve been saying this too long- people will accept difficulty more readily when it’s not UI things like camera, or when you’re not trying to hide telegraphs with flashy spells, poor camera angles and projectiles that camo with the floor. It’s kitten poor difficulty when you’re relying almost exclusively on having the player not notice what’s going to kill him.

On a second play in Baby Mode where I reached the boss, I found the camera for sure is an issue.

At the boss, it zoomed out which was incredibly disorienting but when I got hit and knocked back… it zoomed in again so I was staring at the block in front of me again and again and, yes just like before, I couldn’t get up and get reoriented before I was killed thanks to the camera. So the strategy is apparently not to be hit because the knock back will detroy your camera angle and you won’t see the monkeys who appeared out of no where hitting you nor the laser.

If this were a 2D game with a fixed angle, I know this would be a non-issue. It’s not fun at all when a game mechanic works against you. =/

Okay. Having played World 1 story mode a few times, I can now say the camera is your worst enemy thus far.

I had this issue in Megaman Legends (take a shot) where by the time you turned to face the enemy behind you and the camera was in place so you could see/hit them/dodge, they’d killed you.

Not a great game mechanic…

Josh Foreman.8250:

Aerlen.5326:

Seriously, what versions of these games are you playing?

We all have a broad range of experience with Atari – current games. I cut my teeth on NES Zelda, Metroid, Mega Man, Ninja Gaiden et all. When I reference one of these games I’m not saying “SAB is exactly like this game in every way.” SAB is a homage to ERA of games, not a single game or genre. SAB is LIKE Metroid in a couple ways. Like Ninja Gaiden in a couple ways, like Mega Man in a couple ways. We have items in shops you have to buy to progress like Zelda, we have instant kill spikes and pits like Mega Man and Ninja Gaiden. You can point to all the classic games that do things differently and say “See, that’s how you SHOULD do it.” The we we DID do it is based on the unique chemistry of our team and what we liked in old games and what we wanted to experience. Your milage may vary.

Then please don’t say “I wanted a life to be valuable like in X” when “X” treated lives entirely different. I never worried about dying in one hit in Metroid because I had energy tanks and Samus couldn’t die from a fall or a knock back into a pit ever. I already DO value a life in GW2 and often get that “you could die here and not get this skill point/vista/etc” feeling all the time.

I’m going to try SAB but I’m hoping for a challenge more on the level of NES Zelda and Super Mario Brothers 2. I may not be a complete “noob” but I have always really hated games that punish you for even trying =/

Josh Foreman.8250:

Ben.2685:

Stop being swayed by potential cash grabs (as evidenced through the limiting of baubles and one life given on map restart).

If I cared about cash grabs I’d be working at Zynga where they design based on MTX. We don’t do that here. I’m trying to make SAB (And I mean SAB, not the GW2 rewards, achievements, titles, MTX, etc) a good, solid, fun game. That’s my focus. If W2 is not fun I will make sure it is changed so that it is fun. As I said above, the one-life thing was to add fun. I don’t find mindlessly throwing away lives to be fun. I want death to matter in SAB like it mattered in Mega Man and Metroid. That creates tension. Causes you to be careful. To THINK about your environment, enemies, and how you approach jumps. It is fundamental to creating the experience I want to create. But if you can jump back to the hub, then back to your group at the end of a zone with 5 lives again those lives are next to meaningless. The tension, awareness and thoughtfulness slip to the wayside because it doesn’t matter how often you die. It has nothing to do with selling anything.

You can’t one shot die in Metroid, you have a health bar, there are no one hit kills, you cannot die from falling plus you have energy tanks brimming with health points that you can refill and passwords to save progress. What Metroid are you playing because it’s obviously not the NES one. And everyone who plays Megaman thinks the 1 hit deaths are cheap, we always have… Megaman also has three lives and a health bar which can be refilled by finding E tanks. Megaman also has passwords.

Seriously, what versions of these games are you playing?

Josh Foreman.8250:

Mirta.5029:

I would prefer us to be able to find those baubles as we go trough World 2, instead of getting to World 2 Zone 3, seeing that we can’t continue without a torch, having to exit the instance, farm in World 1, then enter World 2 Zone 3 and do it all again from the beginning. With levels being as long as they are, it just feels a tiny bit tedious.

I guess I would liken that to Metroid. Where you could zip along to the Mother Brain and get totally wiped out. Whereas if you dug around, found the secret health tanks, then it gets a lot more reasonable. Also, 2-2 is pretty short. If you find the Shortcut Eagle.

What version of Metroid were you playing because the one I played required beating two mini bosses and finding the power-ups to beat them before the passage to Mother Brain even opened up. There was no “zipping” to Mother Brain unless you used a cheat code and you better hope you had the freeze beam before you even went down there.

But then again, the freeze beam didn’t require grinding away or real cash so…

Your name dropping of popular, well thought out and classic games which are in no way comparable to this to cover poor design and prove how “hardcore” you are is getting really old. Apparently the jumping is more akin to The Wizard of Oz, the difficulty curve like Transformers: Mystery of Convoy and the play control and hit boxes like Action 52.

Josh Foreman.8250:

I remember starting the levels in Mario and Sonic and Ghosts ‘n’ Goblins, etc. over and over. Then as I learned the levels and creatively came up with tricks for beating them it became less and less until I could plow through without dying once.

Mirta.5029:

There are places where you barely not land on the second one and then there are places where the game teleports you on the second one without a choice. Really while I do understand the intention behind it, being forced to find an exact milimeter to land right next to the flower instead of on it is actually a bit too hard and some times glitchy for just the normal mode. It literally feels like the world is trolling you sometimes. Here you landed without touching the flower and there you go shooting into an opposite direction because the game thinks that you touched the flower.

Yeah, things can get squirly when lag’s involved. I’ll look into your suggestion to make them interactable instead of auto launchers.

Mirta.5029:

In old platform games you actually see your reach and manage to hit a model while still standing on some sort of sprite. World 2 Zone 1, after the rapids part, you use the flower to get to the side that has the shopping hut on it, you climb on the log to hit the crocodile to be able to jump on the flower from it, you have to move off the log and stand on thin air to actually hit him, if you don’t find the invisible spot in the correct way you kind of fall to your death. That’s not really strategy. That’s guessing how far can you walk on invisible air before you fall.

This is an example of what I mean by familiarity with the content. Soon it will be common knowledge that you simply stand on the river bank next to that log to shoot the croc. You can also shoot him from across the river and spin flower right onto his back. This is just like Ninja Gaiden or Mega Man where you have to find the right platform to hit the monster that will stab your face if you ignore him.

Mirta.5029:

As many as there are in some rooms on world 2 zone 2 and in the temple? That many have only be found on new age games that aim to be unforgiving, like for example “I want to be the guy”, such a difficulty spike is not characteristic of real old games, like zelda, or mario, or sonic. World 2 zone 1? Yeah, the increased enemy amount is fine. World 2 Zone 2? At times there’s simply too many of them.

I think I agree that the overall difficulty of W2 is disproportionately high right now. I don’t think it’s due to the number of enemies. I think first-day-lag due to hundreds of thousands of people all hitting the same maps at once is playing a big factor. I think there are a few specific spots like the gong and fish temples, Piranha Bend, and a few others that spike too high and I’m going to see what I can do about those.

Mirta.5029:

- the part where you have to push boxes to cover up the traps and jump over them, the one that shoots you at the end of it, as you’re jumping over one of them is simply not a fair one.
- the part where you’re climbing the temple that has the gong in it, in one area you pretty much can’t stop jumping and land, because the trap from the other side of the room will shoot you. That trap is not fair.

We have different definitions of fair. My definition of fair is having some form of danger detectable. The very first dart trap is not fair. But I’m willing to pay that price in order to set up the rest of that mechanic as a new and interesting flavor for the map. This is like the laser rooms in Mega Man 2. The first time you fall in there you WILL die. I don’t care how good you are at games. It takes many many lives to figure out the patterns and where you need to drop to survive. My dart traps are all visible if you know what to look for. I consider that fair.

Those are all 2D platform games with maybe three hours worth of content, that are free to play, have no lag or latency issues, are played on controllers not keyboards and are notorious for being frustrating. GW2, being 3D, multi-player, laggy, played on a keyboard (unless you have a controller mapped…) and requiring grinding away to get extra continues doesn’t even come close to those games and is like comparing Pong to Call of Duty.

This isn’t sounding like a Megaman 2 learning curve, this is sounding more like some impossible hard nightmare made by LJN that The Angry Video Game Nerd would be reviewing.

Plus in the NES era? We had password cheats, Game Genie, and Nintendo Power if something was stupid hard :P

DarksunG.9537:

Josh Foreman.8250:

@everyone: they made it this hard just to sell more infinite coins off the gem store. Don’t fall for this trap.

We made it so that it’s fun to play. It’s quite possible that we are just THAT much better at jumping than the average player, but I doubt it. I want it to be fun. If MOST people think it’s too hard to be fun then I’ll reduce the difficulty. But like I said above, we don’t have good numbers on that yet.

It’s also pretty ableist. Sorry, Josh, but you ARE just that much better at jumping than I am. I have depth perception and spacial issues which make it near impossible for me to do a good 75% of the jumping content in this game, which I accept, but snotting on people is a lousy attitude to have.

I’m sad because I really wanted to play this, I love Mario games but if non-disabled players are having this much trouble – what chance do I stand?

neon.4863:

I did this on infantile mode with 4 guildies. It was long, frustrating and unfun even with the clouds, but it could get better as we learn the ropes.

I have to complain about the part with the frogs that suck you into dart traps, though. One of us activated the checkpoint after it, and then it was a complete deathfest because we’d barely finish respawning and we’d get sucked back into death again, and again, and again, and again, and we collectively died some 50+ times before we managed to kill all the frogs just so we could all stand on the checkpoint to proceed. Plus, if you got even a little bit of lag on respawn, you’d get sucked back into the death trap before you could even do anything.

This is just world 2. I don’t even want to know what the difficulty level of world 4 will be. Even extremely punishing games like Super Meat Boy allow you to try again repeatedly and have a less harsh learning curve than this. People who mastered world 1 should not be dying 50 times in world 2 before they can even get anywhere.

Plus, the “you have to learn this blah blah” argument falls short when this is gated behind continue coins that cost 50 baubles each (not to mention the parts that need upgrades and you only find out when you get there) and you’re going to die a lot more often than the 5 lives you’re given with a coin until you learn anything.

I bought an infinite coin just to spare myself the headache of grinding to get past, and that’s p2w in my book.

Wow, I was kidding when I said it was I Want To Be The Guy but I guess it honestly is. Have the Devs actually played old NES games or just looked at Catmario and IWTBTG and said “this is old school gaming”? There’s quite a difference between Nintendo Hard and IWTBTG Style. Those games were purposely made to be punishing and near impossible and were advertised as such. I was expecting an old school Mario approach as in “This isn’t easy but the patterns can be learned if you take the time to do so”.

This sounds awful.

It’s “I Want To Be The Guy” obviously

I loled.

That was the best trolling, +1 Anet

I can’t do jp’s due to my disabilities.

And you know what? That’s okay. There are always nice mesmers willing to set up portals and if there aren’t, I deal.

SAB might be too hard for me on the harder levels and that’s also fine. Or it might be like the old NES platformers I played and fairly do-able if I try super hard.

Either way, IT’S FINE. I don’t understand the QQing.

Considering last night I was told my deceased father should molest me because I told someone throwing one heck of a verbally abusive tantrum over Scarlet failing to stop it, I think abuse flies on BOTH sides. In fact, I’m getting it more from the other side than the farming groups – called kittened, told some excessively lewd things I should do to myself.. and when we actually got to Scarlet that first week, the constant jokes about violating her despite people saying that isn’t funny.

Six months ago, I’d never believe I’d be seeing that WoW garbage trash talk disgusting behavior in GW2 but I guess I under-estimated the MMO crowd.

Can we not bring OCD into this? Trust me, OCD isn’t some cute quirky thing that just makes you collect mini pets and whine when you can’t get them. You’re looking at a collector’s mentality – not OCD – and that’s something you won’t get unless you collect something of your own.

That said – this is what every maker of anything collectable often does. They make some special, hard to get, unattainable for 90% of the population gimmick and if you want it – you have to either be at the right place at the right time or dig deep in your wallet. I’m surprised this didn’t happen sooner. Does it suck? Sure does but that’s the collecting world for you.

It’s possible to do the entire event, farm, and kill Scarlet. I saw it done four times today – twice in an overflow. Farmers and completionists only have to slightly work together but I rarely see this – instead I see constant QQing by people who’d be better off using that energy to organize people who aren’t farming.

I personally stopped trying to win the event after the first week. I worked very hard for success so myself and others could get the achieves until I realized I’m walking away with the SAME end loot and the achieves whether I win or not. Scarlet drops junk, none of which I can use, and tons of ugly shoulder skins. Why does a 40 minute event drop garbage yet the pirates are loaded up with exotic champ boxes and why do we get nearly the same reward if we fail? Seriously, this was a fail on Anet’s part but on the other hand, since I wasn’t skilled enough to farm 800g off Deadeye a week, it was a nice way to actually earn gold to prepare for the massive gold sink coming up.

Tarnished Coast – out of about twelve runs, three defeated Scarlet. I got the achieve about three hours after Daily’s popped.

Copestetic.5174:

Aerlen.5326:

Namu.5712:

Aerlen.5326:

What will happen is that you’ll have those 80 person mobs for about a week steady and they’ll be an awful lot of complaining, name calling, and berating in the map chat towards anyone who doesn’t seem to be “doing it right” – ten times that for a loss since the penalty is death and no loot. In fact, prepare the bottles now for the QQ tears.

BUT for that week, the hardcores will be grinding away at it to get the achieves and items…

And then no one will care. It’ll be too much of a pain to get that many people together to work together for a lengthy period of time for an uncertain or for no reward. Casuals won’t have the time or skill for it. Hardcores will have all they need from it and will be back on their champ farming trains. And the rest of us will have no hope of finding 80 man teams.

Not to mention a LOT of us are running on 20 fps and an 80 man mob plus a dragon plus the environment.. hahaha… to quote the bandits “You’re kidding, right?”

It’s a nice idea but… =/ I’ll give it a try during the first few days. It’d be nice to be wrong but judging by the amount of dead events in Orr and everywhere that isn’t Queensdale…

Do you know why people farm dragons? Because that uncertain reward precursor drop chance. Do you know why they had to put a limit on how many times you kill a dragon? Because thats all some people do for the chest.

What makes you think people aren’t going to farm the hell out of teq when he is THE ONLY BOSS in the game that drops specially skinned ascended weapons, a minature and other ascended specific mats?

You haven’t been playing GW2 very long if you think this encounter will be dead after a week lol.

Yeah, only playing almost a year, not long at all lol.

What I’m saying is.. if it takes an 80 man coordinated mob to kill this boss, you are going to see this event dead pretty quickly due to no one being able to complete it.

It will take an 80-man coordinated mob the first 2-3 times. Then, it’ll take 30, with the rest being mindless DPS’ers/randoms. Believe it or not, there’s some good players in this game whether they came from GW1 or WoW or any other game where auto-attacking wasn’t an option.

Yes and some of us grew up on NES where “easymode” didn’t exist either in addition to coming from WoW. Doesn’t mean there are enough of us to pull off an event meant for 80 people, level 65+ and well geared. You are talking about a NES-era end boss type fight which relies on other people, a lot of other people, to think of the group rather than themselves – I foresee a lot of verbal abuse, name calling, disorganization and people frustrated.

Namu.5712:

Aerlen.5326:

What will happen is that you’ll have those 80 person mobs for about a week steady and they’ll be an awful lot of complaining, name calling, and berating in the map chat towards anyone who doesn’t seem to be “doing it right” – ten times that for a loss since the penalty is death and no loot. In fact, prepare the bottles now for the QQ tears.

BUT for that week, the hardcores will be grinding away at it to get the achieves and items…

And then no one will care. It’ll be too much of a pain to get that many people together to work together for a lengthy period of time for an uncertain or for no reward. Casuals won’t have the time or skill for it. Hardcores will have all they need from it and will be back on their champ farming trains. And the rest of us will have no hope of finding 80 man teams.

Not to mention a LOT of us are running on 20 fps and an 80 man mob plus a dragon plus the environment.. hahaha… to quote the bandits “You’re kidding, right?”

It’s a nice idea but… =/ I’ll give it a try during the first few days. It’d be nice to be wrong but judging by the amount of dead events in Orr and everywhere that isn’t Queensdale…

Do you know why people farm dragons? Because that uncertain reward precursor drop chance. Do you know why they had to put a limit on how many times you kill a dragon? Because thats all some people do for the chest.

What makes you think people aren’t going to farm the hell out of teq when he is THE ONLY BOSS in the game that drops specially skinned ascended weapons, a minature and other ascended specific mats?

You haven’t been playing GW2 very long if you think this encounter will be dead after a week lol.

Yeah, only playing almost a year, not long at all lol.

What I’m saying is.. if it takes an 80 man coordinated mob to kill this boss, you are going to see this event dead pretty quickly due to no one being able to complete it.

Danikat.8537:

Algreg.3629:

people buy a ticket for the event, attend the anet set there and get a “reward” for that. How is that unfair to anyone who did neither of these things? And how exactly does that hurt you? Seems like some case of “I don´t have it and so noone should have it” scenario to me.

The problem is that in this case the reward is part of a set. And for many people the main appeal of these otherwise useless cosmetic (and frankly awkward to display) items is to try and complete that set.

Restricting this to only people who came to one particular event (and not promoting this fact beforehand) ruins the chance anyone else had of completing the set and therefore kills a large part of the appeal of the whole group of items.

Imagine this happening with any other kind of collectable. What if a company started a new set of football stickers for example and most of them were available with magazines or from any newsagent and then, after the launch they announced that actually one of them was only available by coming to the factory on the day of release and no one else would ever be able to get it and would have a big hole in the middle of their book forever.

It’d be ridiculous. All they’d achieve is a lot of people deciding there’s no point starting a collection they can’t complete and not bothering to buy the magazines in the first place. Same thing here.

Not that I support this nonsense but you do realize this is exactly what the makers of real world collectables end up doing, right? Collect those new Jem dolls? Well you better have been at Comic Con for the two only sold there in limited supply and you better be a member of the special club that few people knew about to buy the limited edition one there. If you weren’t.. well here’s hoping you have a couple of thousand bucks and the endless patience to fight for one on ebay. Maybe you like My Little Pony instead.. well each MLP fair had it’s own custom pony and there were ones only released overseas and ones only handed out at Toy Fair and Comic Con and ones that maybe only 2 or 3 at most exist of. Good luck filling those holes in your collection. Oh, like Monster High? Did you know there are dolls that only ONE exists of? Forget ever completing that collection…

Anet just did what every other company does – they gave the big middle finger to collectors with an exclusive. Do you want it? Get on ebay, empty your wallet, and prepare to fight. This is why I never touched mini collecting because I just knew this would happen eventually, it’s the bane of collectors and every company does it.

What will happen is that you’ll have those 80 person mobs for about a week steady and they’ll be an awful lot of complaining, name calling, and berating in the map chat towards anyone who doesn’t seem to be “doing it right” – ten times that for a loss since the penalty is death and no loot. In fact, prepare the bottles now for the QQ tears.

BUT for that week, the hardcores will be grinding away at it to get the achieves and items…

And then no one will care. It’ll be too much of a pain to get that many people together to work together for a lengthy period of time for an uncertain or for no reward. Casuals won’t have the time or skill for it. Hardcores will have all they need from it and will be back on their champ farming trains. And the rest of us will have no hope of finding 80 man teams.

Not to mention a LOT of us are running on 20 fps and an 80 man mob plus a dragon plus the environment.. hahaha… to quote the bandits “You’re kidding, right?”

It’s a nice idea but… =/ I’ll give it a try during the first few days. It’d be nice to be wrong but judging by the amount of dead events in Orr and everywhere that isn’t Queensdale…

If you’re on TC, I’ll help. I have to finish this as well…

lakdav.3694:

Actually he cannot be left out. For only one reason: His Wyld Hunt about cleansing Orr. That is as important a part of defeating Zhaitan as any other step we take in Orr. Hoever, that could have been made into a simple mission chain without making him Marshal of the Pact on the way. Just like so many NPCs that you actually meet in your PS, then separate only to meet again in Orr later.

He could have been someone we pledged to help or who pledged his service to us. He could have still helped unite the Orders without being made Marshal. The fact he comes out of nowhere and is suddenly respected and followed like a god is troubling. It would have been more believable to have a member of Destiny’s Edge take up that mantle because we at least see that they are capable and we have gotten to know one of them through the PS. Unless you are sylvari, you hear nothing about Trahearne until Claw Island – foreshadowing would have been very important for a character meant to literally replace the player character in the story.

Thinking on this – I don’t think it would have been as awful of a story if someone like Eir or Logan or anyone ELSE with actual emotion, flaws, and personality had to step up. Someone you’ve known since Day One and someone who will treat you as a valued second in command instead of “Trahearne’s Tank So He Doesn’t Die”.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

It is important to keep in mind, that since release there have been various changes to enemies that have had unexpected effects on the difficulty of some of the personal story quests. Some of the quests that we found easy, might now be hard due to buffs that some enemy types received. And sure, you can level up to 80 if you want, but personal story should be doable at level they are designed for.

That said, I have not experienced any spike in difficulty. So some specific information regarding which quest, and what enemies, might be helpful.

Critical Blowback (Order of Whispers – level 57) – the risen boss (Admiral Feiste Bakkir) of this instance is a champion and has the ability to summon several locust shields. His attacks seem to be meant for several targets and when focused on one, they can become insta-kills. Due to the NPCs tending to die when he’s down to 10% of his health, these attacks quickly get focused on you. The NPCs will instantly aggro him if you retry and manage to res one of them without him noticing you leading to their quick death and yours as well. This boss was obviously meant to be taken down as a group, non-heavy armor classes are at severe limitations even at level 80. I cannot complete this story and am stuck here, it’s looking like I’ll have to call in some guildies to help which, personally, I feel you should never need to do in a PS.

Cathedral of Silence (Pact – level 80) – The risen temple keeper has the ability to summon shades. Once the NPCs get themselves killed (and they will), these shades will swarm, one will knock down while the others and the boss will insta-kill. Taking out the shades doesn’t matter as he will continue to summon more and they are largely impossible to avoid. The only way I managed to beat this was that when I retried for the fifth time, the boss was right next to me at the checkpoint – minus his shades. Without the shades, he can be soloed with some difficulty. A better boss design would have been to make taking out his shades the first order of action and then focusing on him, taking away his ability to summon more would have made this a challenging but winnable fight.

GSTim.8094:

If personal story is too difficult for you to solo it then you just suck at mastering your chosen class. Simple.
For me it was easy both for my ele and for my guardian. You just need to learn your class mechanic, learn your class advantages and weak points and find viable build. The personal story development gives you that opportunity. The game even gives you opportunity to lvl up your char to 80 before doing that.
Actually I would make personal story even more difficult and more challenging.

You’re kidding, right?

There is part of my Guardian’s personal story that I only beat because it glitched, no amount of skill I could muster or build I could create was going to get past that part. Not without a complete redo of the entire mission and with a prayer that the NPCs and the enemy both behaved that time. It just was not happening. I’m at a similar point with my thief – the enemy fight was designed for multiple characters but the enemy is so overbuffed and the NPC’s so poorly coded that winning it comes down to luck alone, not skill, and that’s out of your hands – the NPCs die, then you’re screwed. The amount of unavoidable damage done is meant to be spread out and not concentrated on a single target. That’s the game sucking, not the player.

I’m at level 80 on both. Level 80 doesn’t mean kitten when one enemy knocks you down and the rest all gang up on you for an insta-kill. There have been some challenging and enjoyable parts that tested my abilities, I’ll give you that, and then there have been some which were unforgivably hard and poorly designed. The final boss is easier than two particular badly designed fights I can name off the top of my head. That’s an obvious issue.

Great for you that you are The Best Player On Earth and wholly in tune with The Game so that you can easily overcome everything thrown at you but not everyone is going to be a hardcore Nintendo Hard gamer who enjoys crying tears of frustration all the time.

And if you want things more difficult, go play “I Want To Be The Guy”.

atheria.2837:

IndigoSundown.5419:

All achievements are not aimed at all players. Why? Not all players like doing the same things. This includes playing more — or less. You can still get the meta achievement without doing the 13/13 invasion maps one.

No you can’t get the achievement without doing all 13 maps – I was stuck for over a week at 7/13

Getting the last one was the ONLY way to get to the “Playhouse”.

Stop lying and go read the event notes.

Um…

I think you need to read the event notes yourself.

You only need all of Vorrp’s achievements to get to Scarlet’s Playhouse and you can indeed skip the 13/13 invasion canceller if you complete a random daily that counts as a Clockwork Chaos achieve.

GSSBlunaspike.4153:

TehPwnerer.7215:

Dante.1508:

If they nerfed the Aetherblades i’d just stop doing the event completely +1 to op..

Good. Maybe more will think like you and stop the event so that people who want to succeed rather than farm champs actually have a chance at beating the event.

Yeah wasn’t that used as justification to farm embers. When it was pointed out that people would just stop the reply was “good, then we can always have it open”.

http://www.gw2state.com/temples.html

I laugh every time I see it. That sure worked.

What I think was meant was

Good. Maybe more will think like you and stop the event so that Anet will nerf it so people like me can finally succeed without having to put any effort into it. Then we will QQ that more of you would rather than farm champs instead of actually doing the events for us.

You know, I did an experiment last night. I only farmed and went with the farming zerg – ignoring the event completely. Two out of three times, we completed the event ANYHOW. On the last one, Scarlet actually spawned with the timer set at 0:00 but remained because we still had an Aether Captain in the map to kill. If the others on the map had gone to fight her instead of the barrage of QQ, that run likely would have succeeded as well despite an “exploit” being in play.

More hilarious was a group that purposely ran over to the farmers and started berating them instead of working on the event. We won that one with about three minutes to spare and no thanks to those who decided to go harass people.

So, in my experience, efficient farming by a concentrated group combined with organized effort by a group looking to complete the event always leads to a successful or near successful run for both. The things that contribute to a poor run are disorganization, contested waypoints, lack of people and lack of effort.

Brotein.8572:

i have been at this guy for days now and there is no way in all of Thiefdom this is possible. im about to quit GW2 all together if this is what level 80 is going to be like

It’s just THIS fight. I’ve fought in Orr and had an easier time.

I was enjoying it but between the QQing in map chat over farming vs completion and the “Something That Rhymes With Gape but with an R Instead of a G” jokes every time we get to Scarlet, this event is dead for me.

Brother Grimm.5176:

bhagwad.4281:

What are you suggesting? That players put someone else’s needs ahead of their own? How can you even expect something like that? I just don’t understand this style of thinking…

We’re all rational beings. It’s insane to demand that people act otherwise.

What I’m suggesting is that if a player is going to be a full tilt, selfish prick, they should just admit to it and quit trying to blame the game (or designers) for “enabling” them to be selfish. I don’t understand the current acceptance that EVERYTHING has to be some one’s fault (and those that think that way are absolutely sure it can never be their own).

I’m not saying that ANet could not make changes to alter the current behavior of selfish players, but putting the blame for selfish behavior 100% on ANet’s shoulders is what I don’t understand. The content presents a choice. It is NOT black and white. I often join in and help close portals and then later waypoint across the map to hit a Pirate event. From my observations there are a lot of other players that do the same.

This is what I do too – that’s what I mean by “moderately farming”. I will help close a few portals then I will hit one pirate event. Rinse and repeat. That way, I’m both helping advance the event and securing a bit of extra loot for myself. If I only get to hit one pirate event, that’s fine, it means everyone is working super fast for completion and I’ll likely get Scarlet loot if I haven’t already killed her that day.

HumaCarrionEater.8254:

Yes I think it’s a bad thing that farming is rewarded over finishing an event as intended Anet needs to rethink their rewards, their core players, and how players can achieve prestige items like legendaries. As long as things are time/mats gated people will try and farm. I think it negatively impacts the community, too. Everyone is suddenly very negative and punishing those who want to actually complete events.

That goes both ways.

I watched an event fail because no one wanted to touch the pirates and be complained at or accused of farming, any commander in a pirate circle got QQed at.

The invasions are easy mode. You get credit if they fail, you get credit if they succeed. Two folks got “Invasion Canceller” in Fields of Ruin though we failed.

You can moderately farm and still get completion.

I want to put this all in caps and beat both sides over the head with it.

Geez I hope you don’t start reporting people who are AFK or just standing around, I do that a lot because RL likes to pop in at the worst times and make me leave my desk – especially during a 40 minute raid. How do you know they’re purposely “ruining” the invasion anyhow? I’ve been on a map doing hearts when an invasion popped up and decided to avoid it.

This QQing is getting ridiculous.

I’ve finished the achieves, I keep going back for the loot. Remove the loot and I won’t bother, it’s a 40 minute raid.

FYI – You can safely farm in moderation and still get the event done, no problem. I think Soronthar though laid out a lot of reasons that invasions fail anyhow, even with 75% of the players there actively working to finish the event. Surpression is another thing working against commanders, hard to communicate with the map and organize a thing when you can’t speak.

That is so unfair, why does the enemy get to insta heal but not the NPCs?

mrauls.6519:

Remember this guy?

You mean “The 100% Unnecessary BS Death”?

As an 80th level Guardian in good gear, I had that Wrath pretty much pinned. He was easy and he was set to be dead then..

CUT SCENE! GUY WITH DOG DIES!

This made zero sense. I had that guy, he wasn’t even touching me and you can’t tell me that in a small area with how long that scene took, the player character was helpless – especially in a focused battle with one enemy.

That was just poor writing.

If any of you are on TC, we should join up to deal with this BS.

And I agree, the PS should be solo-able. This is Nintendo Hard punishing content, not a challenging battle.

Austin G.9826:

This is stupid. Hey devs is this guy the end boss? What it’s a lvl 57 quest? Wow could have fooled me. Hey I understand making something challenging but seriously? Even if he is bugged with the locus shields which is why I cant win by the way. Nuke him with everything I got (Elementalist lvl 62 with all current gear and weps) I get him a little past half then he wipes out the npcs and eats me for lunch. Why even offer a retry from checkpoint? The stupid NPCs will just agro him back in after res instantly and get you killed again.

The non-dungeon end boss is actually a hundred times easier than this guy as I’ve gotten to him on my Guardian and could easily beat him with any other class!

I’m an 80th level thief in 80th level gear with 80th level weapons and I’m still wiping because the skill level for this is just too high to solo. The NPCs are useless. The boss design is horrid.

Players want to be the star of the story. And not be forced to watch an npc’s story from the side of the stage.

This is the #1 problem with Trahearne, who in the human story, appears out of no where to steal the player’s thunder with zero lead-up. It’s understandable that WE can’t be the Hero remembered in the lore, I don’t think anyone expects the lore to be “And so the brave John Smith Pwns lead the pact, killed the elder dragon, and rose to glory.” but at a point where WE should be stepping up to a place of power or at least working up to equal footing to others in power, Trahearne magically steps in and sweeps that away.

I think the worst part is, he has no personality that we can even latch onto that makes him likable or believable. Tybalt felt like a person, Trahearne might as well be a golem. He is emotionless, seems to rely on us to help him out, and then runs off with all the glory. We are just there to be Trahearne’s forgotten, unimportant side kick. He personally doesn’t seem to value us, we build no personal feeling towards him.

I was left feeling like he stole the show and I’d rather not help him at all. Now Tybalt? I would have gone to the end of the world for… but Trahearne could rot for all I cared.

This fight is ridiculous.

If we’re meant to DODGE ALL THE THINGS, how about not having dodge so super limited?

Gave up after my naked 80 lvl thief had tried seven times, lovely NPCs too who engage him ASAP after being revived when he’s not aggroed and when there are still NPCs to revive.

Paulo.9540:

I can’t kill Admiral Feiste Bakkir. He killed all the NPCs and with about 5% HP left it was just impossible to kill him with all the swarms and everything else. Did anyone managed to solo this one? It is part of Critical Blow story.

Haha nope.

I’ve gotten close but on a non-heavy armor class, it’s just not happening. Nevermind I had two attempts that would have succeeded had the stupid NPCs not RUSHED to engage him before I’d finished reviving them all.

Complete BS.