Guild Wars 2

Erasculio.2914:

“You don’t need it to play the game”

And then you’ll end up with a dead game populated by a handful of bitter circlejerkers. I’d rather the developers avoided that kind of future by instead designing fair and sensible content.

The Liadri fight, mechanically speaking, is crap. The difficulty stems not from the mechanics of the fight itself but rather things like the bad camera which I think we can all agree isn’t something that should be praised. So why is this bug ridden and poorly designed encounter praised? Because it has finally give the elitists of the community a chance to set themselves apart from the perceived plebbery.

Miflett.3472:

I don’t have any doubts that I can’t complete it, it’s just that I’m scratching my head as to why I’m not finding it nearly as fun as some of you, as I too like real challenging content.

Probably because you’re less concerned with scoring Internet cool points than some of your fellow posters.

I’ve gotten the achievements myself and Liadri is no different from world bosses like the fire elemental and whatnot in complexity. Just a bunch of AoE spam with the added gimmick of having to toss crystals at her. This is exactly the kind of content we don’t need more of since the game is already filled with it.

Gilded strongboxes. I know the destroyer boss in the pavilion drops one.

Fixing the encounter should be the priority here.

Good idea. I do think it’s important to let people somehow progress through SPvP and skins being universal would definitely bring more people to SPvP. I remember the stated goal was to have cosmetic progression so why not give us multiple ways to progress?

Astralporing.1957:

The conditions for the Gauntlet ignore all but two of combat mechanics. The only things that do count are dodge, and DPS. Everything else does not matter.

And that’s why I’ve argued that this encounter is exceedingly shallow and no different from the AoE spam boss fights the game is already populated with. Remember the fire elemental at launch? We need to move away from the AoE spam and the whole zerker meta. Dodge is a useful mechanic but is it really all this game has to offer?

There’s a reason as to why games like Dark Souls and Ninja Gaiden have no instant kill mechanics. If you seriously think this fight is well designed you might want to broaden your horizons a little.

Broadicea.8294:

Subject 7 goes down, but the other tier 3 folks still drop the same old bags.

Which is funny since Deadeye is even easier to farm if you know what you’re doing.

Guess they’ll hotnerf that tomorrow.

And still no bugfixes for the Liadri fight or camera fixes.

Keep it up, Anet. We know what to expect by now.

Tad.4109:

i don’t think anything has matched the rage seen on these forums when Ascended Gear was launched. that. was. bad.

most of the threads i have read regarding this update have been very constructive. i’ve seen a lot of respectful brainstorming and good ideas shared.

True. That kittenstorm even reached various gaming related news outlets and this is a very small issue compared to it. It’s just one poorly designed fight which has no real effect on the rest of the game.

Fix the camera, fix the bugs and fix the issues caused by having a zerg right underneath.

And this content is no different from what you’ve been getting with just about every single boss in the game. Instant kill AoE spam does not make for good boss fights. The sooner Anet learns this lesson the sooner we can get quality content.

Shostie.6435:

Complainers come to the forum to complain. People enjoying the content, by a large, are too busy playing to complain.

I don’t know about you but I’ve seen a whole lot of complaining in-game too. The content just wasn’t particularly well thought out. I loved the concept of the gauntlet and I was looking forward to it but the camera issues, the lag caused by zergs and the half-baked boss mechanics made it a huge letdown.

But it’s a work in progress and I’m sure it will improve with time. At least I hope so.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

The people complaining are the ones that frankly suck at the game.

Or the ones who don’t have to self-aggrandize themselves at every turn by taking on some silly hardcore veneer and can instead look at things more objectively.

It’s certainly the worst.

Please point me to all the one hit encounters in Dark Souls. You won’t find any except for the Bed of Chaos which is universally agreed upon to be the worst boss in the entire game. Even petrify required stacks before it took effect.

Dark Souls unlike Guild Wars 2 promoted build variety and that’s what made it such a superb game above all else. You really could play it the way you wanted. In Guild Wars 2 it’s go zerker or go home.

I don’t understand this obsession with promoting bad design which is all the Liadri fight really represents. Is it difficult? Sure, it is. But it’s difficult for all the wrong reasons.

Rottaran Owain.6789:

Funny thing actually, other than death by falling, there’s no one-shots in Dark Souls. There’s high damaging attacks that can kill you in one hit if you don’t have good health, but nothing that does so much that you can’t survive it.

With one exception.

The Bed of Chaos.

And there’s a kitten good reason as to why this fight is considered the greatest design error of Dark Souls.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

You mean excellent design. I love content that not everyone can do, even if that includes myself. It’s called a “challenge”. If you can’t do it, it’s not Anet’s fault.

Are you a bot? Because you’re starting to sound like a broken record. I’ve done the content. It’s still awful.

But please explain to me how this super original idea of stepping out of dangerous circles makes for compelling gameplay and is any different from the mechanics used by most of the world bosses including the fire elemental you yourself cited. I’m looking forward to it.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

You want to talk lazy? The Shadow Behemoth, Fire Ele, Jungle Wurm, etc. fights are lazy. You just sit there with a zerg, and spam 1.

Liadri? No no no. This is an example of excellent design. Heaven forbid that you actually have to use game mechanics to avoid getting killed.

When did step out of the barely visible red circles while combating the lousy camera become hallmarks of excellent design?

While I’d agree that most of the world bosses are awful Liadri is no better. The encounter is uninteresting and only made difficult by the poor design of it.

jportell.2197:

But there are a few classes that are completely obsolete atm. Which is an outrage

Are we really going to pretend that this hasn’t always been the case?

And no, making rangers and necromancers obsolete again isn’t going to fix it.

You have my axe.

/signed

Hawatak.8049:

We’re in sPvP forum here

Point? Nerfs in SPvP effects the rest of the game too unless they’re split.

It’d be a neat twist. I’m growing a bit tired of everybody being all goodie goodie. Jenna using her watchknight army to eliminate the ministry and then proceeding to rule Divinity’s Reach with an iron fist would shake things up a little.

knyy.6427:

try power necro in pve, very very strong.

Doesn’t matter when you have no survivability and do far less damage than a warrior anyhow. Necromancers lack useful damage mitigation options in PvE and WvWvW.

Necromancers are grossly underpowered in PvE at the moment. If a nerf happens it needs to be SPvP only like the Dhuumfire one. Our sustain doesn’t even function in bigger fights.

What we need is a proper split. Balancing this game around dueling and SPvP will lead to its doom.

The dome definitely needs to go. The bad camera is unjustifiable.

They did seemingly take inspiration from Dark Souls when designing the fight.

Just a shame they took it from the Bed of Chaos.

They remind me of Baroque sculptures and I find them very pleasing to the eye. But no, I can’t say they evoke any desire. Guess I’m just not into automatons.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I use the term “Easy Mode” or “Easy Button” a lot. That’s because there are people who complain that they want one.

There is one. It’s called rolling a zerker warrior.

Look, you can defend this broken content all you want for your own obscure reasons but that doesn’t change the facts. I’ve done it and I know that HiSaZuL has done it. Yet we’re both here calling it broken. Why do you think that is? I can’t speak for anyone else but for me the reason is very simple.

It just wasn’t very fun. I’ve gone through Ninja Gaiden, Demon’s Souls and some of the most difficult CRPGs ever created. I’m no stranger to challenge and I absolutely love it when a game brings it full force. But those games challenged me in a way that was fun and educational. I learned, I grew and I eventually succeeded. They made me a better player and I thank them for it.

The Liadri fight did not make me a better player. The mechanics were shallow, cheap and failed to take all the classes into proper consideration. I can kind of forgive it for that. What I can’t forgive it for are the numerous bugs and the camera issues caused by the dome. If this content was truly tested I’d like to think that somebody at some point spoke up and said that maybe it wasn’t the best of ideas to house this kind of battle inside a tiny glass dome where you can barely perceive what is going on if you’re unfortunate enough to be playing one of the bigger races.

Am I wrong?

If Liadri is to be considered hardcore content then I’d have to say casual. But if the rest of the pavilion is to be considered casual content then I’d have to say hardcore.

I’m torn here. Couldn’t we just have well designed content and forget all about zerg facerolling and cheap one hit kill mechanics?

Zaijin.5167:

Make no mistake people.

What this guys shows here is more than just Warrior being strong. He has full control over his class and made not a single mistake. He knew exactly “what” she was doing and “when”. He is also the type of player that doesn’t take the easy way out looking at the way he dodges these AoE attacks while all he could do is just step aside.

His damage was insane, but still 1 mistake and he would have been dead just like any other person. anyways Good Job there and solid skills.

What other classes can burst Liadri down before her second phase even has a chance of properly activating? I’m honestly curious here. Not denying that he’s great at playing a warrior because that much is obvious. Just questioning why other classes can’t compete.

If you disconnect or get booted from the game all those gambits disappear along with your tickets.

HiSaZuL.2843:

I did this and I’ll also be first to say this has nothing to do with any imaginary skill. Its luck pure and simple. Did it for a friend on his guardian in 1 go… watched a warrior go in and stay full freaking hp and leave with ~25 seconds of swiftness left… really?

No this is an insult and nothing else. A spit on this class that lacks any utility that helps every other class do this. I don’t care if your a ranger you still have leaps and a galore of swiftness and stability.

There’s a video of a warrior doing it before phase two even starts activating properly. Yeah, it’s broken. Unfortunately that goes for the vast majority of the content in this game and they just don’t seem to care.

I was hoping that the gauntlet would showcase their growth and renew my hope when it comes to PvE. Needless to say those hopes were thoroughly crushed.

If they give necromancers hammers before greatswords I will be one very disgruntled Asura. Well, I already am but I’ll be even more so!

As a side note, Cobalt makes me swoon.

To waste your tickets faster and maybe wring some gold out of you.

Well designed fight they said….

What a joke. It’s like they no longer care about PvE at all.

I suspect we’ll be seeing a lot less rangers after this update.

I’ve noticed that a lot of the bosses play by different rules and it’s very annoying indeed. In the future could content please be designed in a way that makes sense? And if a certain ability is going to be exempt for the normal rules of the game then please notify the player of that.

So many things about this fight are flat out broken and not a word about any fixes.

Throw us a bone here, Anet?

I’m not expecting them to lower the challenge. I’m expecting them to fix the bugs and all the other issues surrounding the fight. I’m also expecting to at some point move away from the zerker meta and at least attempt to balance PvE. To offer up a real challenge instead of more gimmicks.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FakeDifficulty

Give this a read and see how many of the tropes the Liadri fight checks. Then realize we’ve got a problem here in how the content is being designed.

Anything to fix the horrific camera.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

You’re misinterpreting “poorly designed” from “really challenging”. If you beat her, that means you learned how her mechanics work. So congratulations! But to complain that she was too hard is a bit much. This content was made specifically so that only the best players could finish it.

You’re confusing fake difficulty with actual difficulty. This fight isn’t particularly difficult when broken down. It’s just about avoiding the red floor and the clones while hitting the boss. That’s the extent of it. What makes this difficult is the sordid camera, the poorly outlined AoE circles and an assortment of bugs like the crystals sometimes not even working. Let’s not even get into Anet’s dogged and frankly misguided insistence on one hit kill mechanics in lieu of proper encounter design. Which, by the way, perpetrates the whole go zerker or go home issue.

When I beat her it wasn’t because I had mastered the game like you seem to believe. It was because I got lucky. My crystals all worked and the zerg was occupied elsewhere so I didn’t have to deal with all the technical issues that brings.

Zeph.5927:

People expected something other than OHKO and perma-KD from Anet?

HAHAHAHAHAHA.

That’s all Anet knows how to kittening do. It’s so pathetic. They are TERRIBLE at encounter design. Have been since launch. The encounters in this update are par for the course as well.

I hate this gauntlet as much as anybody else but let’s be fair. There have been some better bosses like the F&F ones. Fun, challenging and rewarding. That’s the way a boss fight should be done.

When I finished Liadri what I felt wasn’t satisfaction over having completed an awesome fight. It was satisfaction knowing I’d never have to do it again. To me this is the telltale sign of a poorly designed fight.

Junkpile.7439:

Now is good time nerf and boost classes. Guardian needs some serious nerf and necro boost.

Totally agreed. We need to move away from the zerker faceroll meta guardians are responsible for. Maybe then we can start seeing balanced and fun fights. Unfortunately it seems like Anet only cares about SPvP balance.

One hit kills are okay in some instances. I think the sniper guy was handled fairly well in this regard. He hits like a truck but his big attack is clearly telegraphed and it’s single target. That is how a one shot kill should be handled.

I don’t think any AoEs should be one hit kills though. It’s just cheap.

I want Elonan Undead with Palawa Joko as their leader.

Nerfing berserker gear really isn’t the solution here.

Nerfing the one shot kills on the other hand. I’d want to pack vitality or toughness if it actually did something useful for me during these fights.

This is why I gave up on trying to run a minion master around the time of Flame & Frost. Just AoE spamming boss after AoE spamming boss. I feel for all you rangers out there who are stuck with a nugget or steak because of this.

They really need to revamp bosses so that AoEs become more of a rarity.

Ynot.8397:

It is absolutely beatable by every class. It is not beatable by every spec for every class. There is a clear difference. If you refuse to change to take up this challenge then the game is not at fault. Some races having a bit more challenge always sucks, but your point about classes is silly.

Some classes can’t spec into helpful things like extra vigor and whatnot. In fact, I’d argue that spec is largely irrelevant on a necromancer when it comes to Liadri. It’s far more important to carry a sigil of energy to make up for the natural deficiencies of the class.

lordkrall.7241:

So basically make everything easy just like the rest of the game?

You seem to be forgetting that this fight is already easy for certain classes. What I want are more balanced fights which effectively cater to the strengths and weaknesses of every class. I’m tired of the one hit KO nonsense. The game should be about more than just dodging. A few telegraphed moves are okay but when the entire fight is just one drawn out dodge-o-rama I think it’s time to draw lines. Get more creative.

lordkrall.7241:

There is however a rather big difference between some classes having it easier and it being impossible to do on some classes.

The first would always be true unless every single class was identical. The second is not true in any way or form.

I don’t disagree there.

That said, all classes should come with advantages and disadvantages and I’m really not seeing the advantage of the necromancer in this fight. To be honest, this isn’t a new issue in regards to necromancers. It’s an issue which plagues us in dungeons too. When you get aggro as a necromancer you’ve got two choices. Dodge and dodge. Then you’re done unless you’re packing a sigil of energy or two which is pretty much mandatory at this point. Shroud simply isn’t designed to mitigate the ridiculous amount of damage put out by certain mobs and as a result the necromancer folds like tissue paper.

SolemnMalevolence.5248:

Sure, guardians, mesmers and the like have access to built-in mechanics that allow them to completely ignore damage, but timing is still crucial with these, and many players that main these classes are still struggling.

And how is that not an issue with balance? You said it yourself. Several classes have built in tools which allow them to mitigate one hit kills while other classes do not and since the entirety of the fight is based around avoiding said one hit kills you can’t really argue that there isn’t a disparity in difficulty here.

Seems to me like you’d rather play special snowflake than acknowledge the current issues plaguing PvE balance. Is it doable as a necromancer? Sure, I know of a few who did it on the very first day. Is it absurdly more difficult than on a guardian? Without a doubt.