Guild Wars 2

King Cephalopod.7942:

I’m hoping that this is more of an introduction to mechanics, and as we move north in the island chain things get harder, ramping up to HoT levels further on. Despite the relative ease there actually is a good spread of enemy offense types to counter with different utilities. Destroyers apply conditions, constructs have knockbacks, and karka (and some destroyers and constructs) have projectiles. Each are on different parts of the island so it feels more useful than usual to swap traits/utilities based on the area. I like the way it’s going, but want a bit more.

I can appreciate this perspective. Rather than wishing for some ultimate, uber-imbued mobs, having sections of the zone where some skills are more useful than others would still encourage build-tweaking as preparation. Note: one of those preparations is bringing your best Stability skill to the NW portion of Ember Bay.

Carlin Sanders.3587:

(WvW dragon style)

I think I want this. Instead of the 3-server hash, have three dragon factions fighting for control. #TeamPrimordus #TeamGEORmag #TeamKralkatorrik

Sorry, no #TeamSteve or #TeamBubbles.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Sigh. ANet’s motto about some collections seems to be:

If walking a dozen apples from point A to point B is fun, then carrying four dozen of them will be four times as fun.

You were peeking at their design documents, weren’t you? :|

Zedek.8932:

preacher.9370:

On that note, Anet can you PLEASE stop with the crazy thinking of “lets make this fight ‘challenging’ by throwing in constant knockdowns/backs” with your new content? all that does is make it annoying and makes me want to hurry up and get through it and not do it again.

HAH! And I thought I am the only one! The first time I stepped into HoT I was like “Wow, the game went into turbo mode” and I like it, but one time I have been kicked back and forth the map without being able to fight back. It was at the bottom of some spiral walkway and whenever I made it a few meters ahead, I am getting ping-poinged around like a football. Once I managed to fight that bunch o’ foes, the other beetle things respawned and I am being kicked around even harder without any possibility to really fight my way either forward or backward because in order to evade that I would have to dodge into the other bunch of knockdown enemies…

That was the first time I was yelling “BAD GAME DESIGN” at the screen.

Excelsior.

EDIT: That was with Zedekk, my (now-on-vacation) Engineer. Let’s see how it works with stealth abilities.

We’re not alone, we’re just not saying it loud enough.

My latest experience? Four (4) Veteran jade constructs. After two dodges, two stun breaks, and popping heals, I got “petrified” (aka, stunlocked) into a corner until I got downed. So, yeah, way to stay classy, ANet.

preacher.9370:

On that note, Anet can you PLEASE stop with the crazy thinking of “lets make this fight ‘challenging’ by throwing in constant knockdowns/backs” with your new content? all that does is make it annoying and makes me want to hurry up and get through it and not do it again.

So much kittening this. There’s a ton of other status effects besides Disable. Remember to use them, ANet.

Torgaard.1864:

Agreed. Always hated that about the-game-that-shall-not-be-named and it’s inevitable influence on other MMO’s art direction in this regard. It looks clown-like. Hate it.

Ayup, a lot of the shoulders being released nowadays are just over-huge. It’s not even spite against game-that-shall-not-be-named, but a semi-ridiculous aesthetic that I had assumed unnecessary in Guild Wars 2. At onset, GW2 leaned more toward the sincere and real-fantasy. ..and now it’s butterfly wings and shoulders you could staple together into a canoe.

It’s a shame, too, because some of the outfits weren’t so bad, excepting the ridiculous shoulders.

FrostSpectre.4198:

PvE should reflect some of player capabilities, as to give different builds viability, thus increasing the replay value.

As stated before, HoT did a good job on making the combat more engaging, rather than making it “full berserker stand-spam”. Anyone could play Support and Control builds there without being useless during group events, and these builds alsop had impact on solo roaming, when Direct dmg DPS wasn’t able to kill mobs with “stand-spam” tactic.

We did get a good dose of enemy-as-player in HoT, and for the most part, the ones that reflected it best I still find to be the most interesting and a benchmark for what enemy design should aim for. I have my arguments with some of them, but only because of specific issues in their design. Not quite relevant to explain it all here.

What I’m seeing from last night’s jaunt into Ember Bay is that HP pools seem lower, condition damage is prevalent, and some critters (Jade things, lava pool boss) still carry ANet’s traditional excessive-CC fetish. I’m waiting to hold judgment until I have more time in the zone, but the fist encounter proved easier than I expected, especially after the exploding destroyer swarms from the simulation.
And I’ll admit, those were cool. In the simulation, I had to rethink the battlefield, often guiding destroyers into kill spots so their lava fonts would overlap instead of smearing them all over the field. They weren’t hazardous on their own, but if you ignored strategy, they got much harder.
Is it wrong that I want to see Destroyer Pocket Raptor swarms now? It feels wrong, and yet it feels squee.

Daniel.5428:

Do you think we’ll see a D vs D battle in the next expansion?

I think the most likely answer is their upcoming free-to-play mobile game: Clash of Dragons.
/sagenod

Hot Boy.7138:

Or a Map of a ruined city.

The idea intrigues me. A zone the size of Black Citadel with a focus on several large, burned out buildings. It would still have plenty of room and reason for layering without some of the problematic faults of Tangled Depth’s design. A surface layer of wrecked landscape with a connecting underground city/encampment still trying to cling to the area in spite of the threat in the upper layers. I like it. It has potential.

The idea is kind of an inverse to how Tangled Depths works out. In TD, the silos screw down into the ground rather than emerge from it, which means reaching the end of a path is just that, the end. Then one has to walk/waypoint back. With an upward silo, there’s still room for internal complexity, but if the end of a track is reached, you jump out a window and soar somewhere, possibly to another building, adding to exploration rather than restricting it.

At least Rytlock doesn’t fall over at the drop of a hat, like most NPCs. It’d be nice if they could hold aggro in some fashion, so it’s not a constant 5v1 battle in many of the story instances.

General Health.9678:

It’s an attitude thing. Where you see frustration and snark, I see clever design and opportunity to explore.

“I can’t figure out how to get there from here.”
YouTube it. Dulfy it. The resources are there if you want to use them.

“Wiki” is not a game design element. It’s a generally a sign that the design is insufficient to convey what needs to be conveyed. While those tools exist, there are gaps in the knowledge and that leads to scouring a half-dozen videos with half of them being in other languages.

Not to say there shouldn’t be secrets and hidey-holes in the maps, but it’s a matter of what’s put behind them. Unique minis, jumping puzzle achievement credit, etc. That’s fine. Doing that for hero challenges and map completion is pretty kittenish.

Malediktus.3740:

I don’t think the vulnerable to chill makes a difference. The trash mobs die so fast already if you play berserker stats. They seem to have low health/toughness. Even the champions die fast with the exception of the jade armor boss

I suppose? Then again, after Mordremoth’s HP sponge critters, I’m fine with the HP balance swinging back in the other direction. It makes me wonder if there’s a study out there on the optimal kill times for MMO combat engagements. Hm.

If fights are going to be punishing, then they need to be short, which means smaller HP pools. If they’re going to be long and tactical, then enemy damage needs to be scaled appropriately, and that’s something we didn’t get with Magus Falls mobs.

Overall impression of the new patch is good! The story is dropping some plot bombs, so it feels like there’s momentum. The zone feels pretty sizable, even though I’m about 60% after a night of exploration.

And from a design perspective I see a lot of encouraging things:
Return of Reputation quests. Repeatable rep quests feels like a good move for having something to do in the zone. They way they tie into the zone’s daily quest also gives a wider variety of things to do than waiting for specific bosses/events, like in Bloodstone Fen.
Rewards and currency. I feel this patch struck a better balance between unbound magic and karma. Being able to buy petrified wood from rep vendors is a great karma sink and encourages returning to the zone. Glad to see the (really expensive!) Carnival weapon set sneak in there. ( Not personally interested in the look, but I know at least one guildie is excited about it. )
No White Mantle Knights. Sorry not sorry, but it’s sad that this needs praising, since Bloodstone Fen is obsessed with killing players with range-8000 stuns. But that leads me to..
More flying! Bloodstone Fen and Ember Bay have given me a lot of use out of my Leyline Gliding skill, and I love it. They’re little magical highway lanes that get me quickly around the zone, which is convenient in a way that just feels better than waypoints, sometimes.

Combat has been standard fare, perhaps a bit condi-heavy, but it’s not something I notice much with my warrior’s build (clinging ferociously to Cleansing Ire). Not a problem, just as an observation. A wee bit melee-unfriendly with a few mobs, but that’s been a (very) common complaint since HoT’s release. Minor spoiler:I'm actually a little disappointed that I haven't run into exploding destroyers outside the first story instance. :P

My experience wasn’t all pleasant, but I think it’s mostly the corner of the zone I was in before I stopped playing for the evening.
That mastery point, yo. In the northwestern portion of the zone is one of the attunement mastery points, plopped in the middle of a lava pool. I tried pixel-wiggling toward it for probably 15 minutes but couldn’t reach it. I was fortunate enough to learn the way out in time to not eat a death over it, but I watched another character die in the middle of a the lava pool. In the middle of an attempt, SUDDENLY BOSS FIGHT and I’m nailed for 15 stacks of confusion while I’m still jumping out of the lava. (More on that later.) I would have liked a proper indication that I was supposed to wait for this boss. Still not great at conveying what needs to be done, sometimes.
Why bother with Stability, you’ll get CC’d anyway. I’d been meaning to write on how combat design actually devalues the Stability boon, because there’s no way to escape getting plowed into the ground or knocked back unless you have 100% uptime on a boon that’s specifically designed to have small uptime rates and long cooldowns. Between Jade Constructs and the lava pit boss, I’d probably gotten nailed for stun/KD more in one evening than I had in a week of playing other HoT content. After the White Mantle Knights, and now this, I just don’t see combat designers learning from or improving on the experience for the players.

Hyper Cutter.9376:

Dawdler.8521:

Teratus.2859:

Players should not have to rely on other players to complete such a simple personal goal..

Thats not a simple personal goal. Its an MMO, you are meant to work together in the field. Getting to 80, crafting an exotic weapon, finding Lions Arch, thats simple goals. Taking on champion group event mobs is not supposed to be that. Its a group even for a reason.

Map completion is a personal goal, and everywhere else in the game it is something you can do solo.

keenedge.9675:

I think hard stuff on high-level maps is appropriate. Grouping to do hard stuff is what MMOs are all about.

That’s what the meta events are there for.

This player gets it.

GW2 already had a mechanism for fulfilling an MMO’s purpose, perhaps better than most of it genre. It didn’t need champion hero points, because map metas exist.

Not to say it shouldn’t push players to be better, but meatwall-HP mobs designed for 5+ players isn’t the way to go. Either have suitable complexity (which, let’s face it, for ANet just means stun/KD on every mob’s autoattack…) or scale appropriately for any party size, including one player.

Tangled Depths suffers from some of the worst aspects of HoT’s map design:

You can’t get there from here. Long, sprawling pathways to vistas/POIs that start halfway across the zone, and to make matters worse are often unseen because the end-points are on a completely different map layer. Cute for some explorers, perhaps, but without custom map tools/markers or the ability to trace the route from goal to start, it makes finding points extremely frustrating.

I’m hiding, teeheehee. While this happens occasionally in old Tyria zones as well, there are entire paths in HoT and Tangled Depths especially, that are hidden behind some of the most innocuously inane kitten, as if to say “aren’t we, the devs, so so clever, hohohoho!” I wasn’t sure I could ever say a game’s design was “snarky” before, until just now.

Malediktus.3740:

Yes, it is quite lame. More faceroll content where you dont need to adjust your builds.

Game designers who actually take into account multiple play styles? Scandalous. Sorry, not sorry.

I did note the added “vulnerable to chill” that they added, so I’m curious how that will work out for characters who have it (not warriors…).

Flowerpower.6795:

I wish the game had a little bit more Game of Thrones feeling, where nobody is safe and a lot of the powerful characters are evil.

No offense, but there’s WoW for that. (If you’re Horde, at least…)

MMOs generate a legion of inconsistencies if they kill/alter prominent characters, and it sets a terrible narrative atmosphere. With the way that Destiny’s Edge is slowly getting fridged for the sake of making room for Dragon’s Watch, it already makes visiting some locations in the world pretty awkward.

24 characters total. I’m rapidly closing in on having a different character to play for every day of the month. :P

HoT and the list of masteries and such kind of restricted me to playing only a few characters, as anything that was under level 80 was “wasting experience” I could have put toward masteries. ( So glad I finished everything but raid masteries now! )

Ascended is nifty stuff, but I don’t worry about it so much. If it weren’t for the bloated price of leather, I’d happily craft some exotics to do most of my content in. Looking forward to slapping around some fractals in the hopes for RNG Ascended gear and using the Forge to get stats I want.

But overall, GW2 has been the most friendly alt experience of any MMO I’ve run into, and I’m glad for that. Just waiting for playable Tengu, so I can make more characters.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

flog.3485:

Since the egg is a descendant of brill, why not call it destiny’s child lmao :p

You can’t poach names like that.

Something tells me these jokes aren’t going to be over easy.

The use of champions at these hero challenges is uncalled for. And so is having combat challenges surrounded by veteran mobs. Specific sins I’ve run into so far: frogs/wasps in Verdant Brink, guano spider nest in TD, and the troll champ in TD. I managed to solo spider on my thief, but in either of the Tangled Depths points, I spend just as much time fighting off veteran spawns as I do attacking the champ. But all of them, since they’re not tuned to single player approaches at all, are aggravating HP sponges with too-large Defiance bars.
Dealing with these bad decisions is what makes me log off early, and Tangled Depths overall does this to me more than any other zone.

My best advice to balance without over-nerfing would be to shift them to Elites at the most, or include champ scaling that goes down to 1 player.

Palador.2170:

Palom and Porom: “Break!”

You magnificent kitten. ;__;
But it’s also a solid point. Nearly 25 years later, and I’m still affected by that scene. What I’ll remember from Eir is disappointment. What I’ll remember from Trahearne is a fist-pumping Yes. I can’t even feel good about spiking Scarlet, it was more an “about time, geez” moment than a victory. And don’t get me started on Fridglinda, the two-episode wonder.

But those twins, I’m still sad about it.

Tsumiju.3071:

Since when did MMO endgame content rely on players following the exact guide from sites like metabattle etc? It seems nobody want’s to do raids unless someone has handed them the exact guide on a plate.

It’s getting lame but I’m not changing a working build just to be “allowed” to participate in raids.

Aside from the very, very high-end groups that run the content before the guides are made, this actually incredibly common. Raid mentality involves tons of “research” through YouTube videos with AMV background music and copying those who were already successful.

That’s probably the main reason why I can’t believe most raiders when they say they want a “challenge”. Most of them just want the exclusive loot after the thought-work has been done for them.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Amaimon.7823:

You had the chance to say it a yoke thread. You didn’t take it.

In defense of the OP, apparently their mind was scrambled.

I think that quip went ova my head.

Most metal word in the English language is “burn”. This is supported by science. ( No really, Google it, it’s hilarious. )

I suspect there may be a mastery to allow burning to affect destroyer minions. Not a strong suspicion, because ANet has botched plenty of other game-balance issues before, but the devs frequently surprise me with how thoughtful they can be, at times.

I was already thinking of this topic when I saw the trailer. It seems like an oversight to have lots of burning introduced with the warrior elite, then cripple it with following content. So, yeah, it seems like a proper balance issue to bring up, so I don’t get what all the counter-whinging is about.

If the devs leave burning out as an oversight, no biggie. I’ve got a legion of characters to use, so I’m comfortable switching to those.

CptAurellian.9537:

But that would require some thoughts from ANet’s side and not just mindless increases of HP, toughness and damage per attack.

You forgot the irritating one-note, knockdown-spam attacks. White Mantle Knights are the most lethal thing in the new content. And there’s a host of HoT mobs that are just punishingly boring.

If ANet can barely get it together to give all their enemy encounters good, variable attacks, there’s not much cause to believe they won’t just make high-damage HP sponges out of everything.

It’s the above that always makes me question these “pve too easy” threads. There’s never any offer as why the authors think so and pretty much never make a recommendation as to what would be acceptable difficulty.

“Enemies die too quickly.” HP pools increase.
“Wah, kill times are too long. Boring!” HP pools come down, toughness goes up. Condition meta spikes and zerk gear loses its worth.
“Wah, condi too strong!”
…Well, what now?

“I’m so special I do everything in naked zerker gear.” Enemies start doing tons of damage and have 25% uptime on evades so you can’t burst them down.
“Wah, I die too much now! These enemies are cheap!” ..Well, that’s what you asked for.

Even a small delay on tooltips would be helpful.

Bellatrixa.3546:

If you care enough about being on there, then you’ll care enough to do the dailies for that 10 AP.

Right? These AP adjustments came about because some people kew’d about the “stress” they were under from chasing all the achievement points. So, ANet shaved off the amount of time it would take to earn 10-12AP (rounded neatly to 10AP), and made dailies much easier for the rest of us. Serendipity.
But, there was also the urge to curb daily/monthly AP credit to cater to special snowflakes who want to stay at the top but can’t be bothered to do dailies for more AP. Smacks of hypocrisy, really.

If it’s a stalling mechanism to keep rewards out of everyone’s hands, shame on ANet for it. If it’s catering to <<<.01%, some mewling top-50 list, again, shame on ANet.

Ohoni.6057:

And while we’re on the subject, what about those enemies that have their bar broken and that leaves them vulnerable to damage for a few seconds, but usually not for the amount of time it takes for the brown bar to refill, meaning the player isn’t given a clear indication of how long he’s in that vulnerable phase. It might be nice if the brown bar turned red or something while the enemy was actually vulnerable, then flashed back to brown when they became normal again.

A broken enemy will show an extra icon, but it only lasts for a few seconds, so it’s hardly enough time to mouseover and know what it’s for. While I like the idea of a changing color bar to indicate vulnerability, not all bosses might react the same way to having defiance broken. Can’t recall any right off the top of my head, so it might be all theoretical.

And as a third aside, it might be nice if during breakbar phases they could pop-up “damage” numbers based on your own CC contributions, just so players would know without having to look it up how much CC impact each of their attacks was having.

Yes, please. Yes. Bonus points if it’s in percentage instead of generic blue numbers. I’ll get much more knowledge out of a blue [-8.4%] than a blue [-100]. And if I know my personal contribution, I have a stronger case to suggest more CC to squads/map chat.

Apologies if I semi-hijacked the thread, but I’ve had Defiance Bar improvements on my mind recently, and any good ideas we can get to bubble up to the dev team would help the game as a whole.

CMM.6712:

So, like spell checker and thesaurus will do more damage?

Ouch. :P

And dangit, I actually got a little excited to see the recommendation of buffing open-world enemies. Turns out the suggestions were more silly than sincere. :|

I’m not thinking of a huge boost, either, just something to make the mobs a bit more engaging and easing the transition from, for example, level 50 to level 80. Tweak up the damage a little, though updating mechanics is really what’s needed. More enemy self-boons, a few more replications of class abilities, that sort of thing. That way, when players run into several pseudo-thief mobs in HoT, it’s less of a shock.

Reinkarnated.3918:

Whenever I see NPC’s fishing I always think the same thing, how fun would it be to fish in this game and use the caught fish to make food buffs for like chef. The actual reeling in of the fish would have to be on a random timer though to prevent afk botting. Be a nice relaxing way to chill in the major cities too.

Whenever I see an NPC fishing, I think, “What a lazy bum! Get your spear and dive after those fish!”

And, sadly, there’s no actual way to get rid of botting. If someone wants it badly enough, they’ll find a way to scum the code for it.

Can’t say it’d be an overly useful idea, but if it helps with conveyance, I’d still support it. As it is, it’s the breakbar duration and defiance-HP that occasionally bothers me. For something like mushroom kings, it’s fairly worthless to try, because you may get one CC ability off before the bar closes, and it has way too much dHP.

Beyond that, if we’re talking having different breakbar effects, I still find it pretty shoddy that breakbars are all-or-nothing against CC. There’s no subtlety. Sometimes, it’d be useful to have Cripple up on a boss or there wouldn’t be much harm in allowing Weakness to mitigate damage; it’s a smart thing for players to do. So what I’m hoping for is that bosses start taking some conditions, and the defiance bar decays based on anything else. Of course, this would require a smidgen of extra design thought going forward.

It’s something I find is necessary to consider, since some champs/bosses have closed defiance bars with no openings, like the Crazed Whispers agent that roams Bloodstone. A very high damage, non-CC’able target is pretty bad design. There’s very little counter play. Changing the defiance bar to block only some conditions would give players more to do with their skills.

Any time my motivation for GW2 has been on the ropes, it’s generally from having end-game objectives that require going to one of two areas: Tangled Depths and Dragon Stand.

For the most part, I hate Tangled Depths. Not because it’s “difficult.” Because it conveys exploration information for kitten. The minimap isn’t just useless, it actively deceives attempts to navigate the zone. If anything, TD could have been a great map to test out a new cartography UI tool. I’d be thrilled for that, and it would have made all the difference.

Dragon Stand is a clusterbomb of taxis and clock-watching. A bit strenuous after you get in, again not for difficulty, but for time. Typically an hour or more, especially during the Blighting Trees or waiting for other lanes to finish their tasks. So it’s not hard, just unapproachable.

But there’s a lot of HoT that leans on those two maps, so when I have to focus on them for objectives, I end up getting very frustrated and logging out to do something more satisfying.

Also noticed this. So, question is, is this an oversight on the loot table or is this intentional?

Because if intentional, it’s really lame and unrewarding for the effort it takes.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

If that’s the case, what’s the point of the Treasure Mushroom in Bloodstone Fen? Some minor, extra loot that’s not much better than a generic mob makes little sense.

Edit: After some research, I’m reading other people confirming that the one in Bloodstone doesn’t drop the needed spores for any collection.

I figured it was a bug, but yeah, can confirm that I’ve never gotten a collection item from it.

Which means there’s no point in it being there. Treasure Mushrooms are mostly bothersome HP sponges that flail around into other mobs. Granted, the one in Fen is really easy to back into a corner, but it still takes minutes to kill for an insignificant speck of loot.

Ganathar.4956:

The cap should either stay where it is, or increase proportionally to match the AP of discontinued achievements. Simply put, AP from discontinued achievs should count as daily AP.

Best idea I’ve heard on the topic!
Someone copypaste this to reddit so the devs’ll see it.

Malediktus.3740:

I disagree with this suggestion.
If anything daily/monthly AP should be deleted completly and the AP from permanent achievements doubled to make up for it.

I still do dailies because the 2 gold and 3 skillpoints are worth the tiny time investment.

If anything, the unattainable AP from prior events shouldn’t count. Make them like Feats of Strength in WoW after they can’t be completed. Season 1 was just AP bloat anyway.

Obviously controversial topic ahoy!

Granted, I started off liking Scarlet. She was our giggly Joker understudy. We did actually get some interesting content out of it, too.

The invasions lingered on too long. Scarlet lingered on too long. As we learned more about her, she just got to be more and more of the Mary Sue the accusations make her out to be. Even after she died, Taimi carried around this fangirl torch for her, and ANet refused to let Scarlet stay dead.

So, no, we don’t need more Scarlet. Her time is past, and I won’t cheapen our victory at the end of Season 1 with bringing her back.

We need new, more compelling enemies. There’s a Mursaat on the loose! We have an egg to babysit. Primordius might be rising from the depths! None of that requires Scarlet. Or Caithe, for that matter. We’ve been through Artichoke Heart of Salads, now let us focus on something else.

tobascodagama.2961:

FrizzFreston.5290:

I’ll be pleasantly surprised the day ArenaNet developers dare to test the waters again. For now they seem irrationally scared of it.

It’s a pretty rational fear, I’d say. Very few people actually like the underwater content as it is.

It’s because ANet did a half-effort of underwater combat (and it was still better than any other MMO’s underwater experience), but they abandoned it instead of fixing the half of skills that didn’t work underwater. I doubt anything short of an expansion will provoke them into doing the work necessary to finish what they started.

Balraw.3196:

Honestly I was more upset about Scruffy sacrificing himself to open a door than either Trehearne or Eir dying. I mean when he paused then Taimi told him she would be ok and briefly touched him, man right in the feels.

I didn’t hate Trehearne or Eir but I never felt connected to them either even when I was playing my Norn or Sylvari heroes. Taimi and Scruffy though are just a special team no matter who you are

Trehearne annoyed a lot of us into not caring. Pretty sure there were cheers from some when he died.
Eir’s death was just too sudden and lame. It shamed way Norn are perceived in lore. She got fridged so Braham would have something to do beyond being the dumb, male lump on the party.

Scruffy was a significant sacrifice for Taimi to make. He was her own work that she built to overcome her physical weakness, and losing that doubly hurt, especially when she was still stuck in hostile territory. Also, we’ve seen Taimi vulnerable before (an extra fist-shake to Phlunt, grr), and I think many of us were very reluctant to see her in that position again.

Shouldn’t it be Heart of Fire, though?

Justine.6351:

It’s so easy that the only way they know how to make it harder is by giving monsters MOAR health and MOAR dmg.

That’s not (always) true.

Sometimes they give monsters a single, overpowered attack with no cooldown.

Blackarps.1974:

nottsgman.8206:

the trait does work, however, it does not reflect that in the hero panel, or in the tooltips for skills.

I couldn’t get it to work at all. I tried both in and out of combat with a variety of boons and it didn’t appear to change anything. Boons were still the same amount of time and the hero panel with the attributes was obviously wrong.

Checked around to confirm. Long-standing problem, it seems. No change in tooltip, character panel, or in actual boon durations.

+1 to both these ideas. Every once in a while, I still go back and view the cutscene where we first met Marjory. Much cooler back then.

And yes yes yes for keyrings. We’ll probably be seeing more of these quasi-currencies in the next xpac, so maybe that’s when ANet will put that in.

DGraves.3720:

I think that there is a difference between self-inflicted difficulty and developer intended in difficulty. For instance if you play this game naked you’re not making the game harder in the “mechanical” sense but the “numerical” sense.

Now we’re getting somewhere!

I tend to see plenty of examples of the “too hard” monsters (heck, in other threads, I’ve identified quite a few low-effort/high-power criminals of lazy design), but I don’t usually see what “too easy” people say about how to handle difficulty. It’s mostly just whinging.

So, design your perfect HoT critter. Evaluate what would be good about it, and start pitching those suggestions.
What can’t be suggested is:
Hits harder: That’s just numerical, artificial difficulty
More HP: Same as above, and we’re tired of spongy mobs anyway. Lots of HoT isn’t more difficult from mechanics, it’s having to deal with the annoyances 3x as a long because kill times shot up between Core and HoT
More/Longer CC: Again, numerical and artificial difficulty with unnecessary punishment. (Many existing HoT mobs are guilty of this.)
One-hit KO: Perhaps the ultimate in artificial/numerical difficulty, and it encourages damage-meta builds, because defense is worthless. (Can’t “think about builds” if 2/3 of them are invalidated.) It’s unnecessarily punishing and doesn’t speak of good design.

Which leaves us with more puzzle-ish mechanics like:
Smokescales: Position-based invincibility.
On the one hand, teaches players to move. On the other “zomg fite takes 4evr bcuz smoke is cheez lol”. Because if one can’t zerk-burst an enemy down, it’s suddenly a nuisance.

So what are the goodly difficult mobs?

Hexinx.1872:

Henry.5713:

Rauderi.8706:

Hexinx.1872:

I remember all my friends and I made charr characters once to start and check out that area. There was some NPC bad guy shaman that was literally killing everyone. I mean dead bodies all around the cave and for at least 15 feet, yet people kept going back to fight it … die and respawn.

I’m pretty mad they removed that event. I’m not one to play the “dumbing down the game” card, but it felt that way when that event was nixed.
/sniffle

I remember the headstart. He turned it into a slaughter.
Used to be one of my favorite events. To actually have this powerful enemy in such a low level area.

That’s the best description, perfect. Yeah i think it was during that 3 day headstart. It was in fact just a slaughter, bodies strewn about… players going in to help res down players … only to die, and back on release we are talking about hundreds of new players. I’ve never seen anything like that in all my gaming career, it was hilarious, yet addictive. Like a challenge that could not be won, but like the lemmings we are, we were determined to beat it.

Oh, man, I’m reminded of the bandit boss with the golem. Kessex, I believe. Or Bloodtide. I forget the specifics. It’s the event where you stop the bandits from stealing materials, so then the boss gets ticked and goes champ mode. Back in the day, it felt pretty epic.

Bodies everywhere, my friend and two others were running around trying to rez the legion of 20+ bodies on the floor (before the days of “dead WP” whinging), and with a few minutes of dodging and LoS’ing him, the map had rallied to finally take the boss out.

Menadena.7482:

Thinking behind my first heavy class:

“I need a heavy armor class to be a tank. A Charr Guardian looks interesting.” (somewhat later) “Why am I dying so often in heavy armor?”

Now that character’s main duties involve crafting. I have long since decided guardian is my most hated class, especially without the elite spec.

Oogh. I know the feeling. I was beyond frustrated with my “squishy” guardian, especially comparing HP pools with my “squishy” warrior. And starting off, I also tried a ranger. Coming from a rather robust pet class that is WoW’s hunter, I balked (and still do, really) at how little pet control and utility the class had.

4 years later, I have found a way to love all the professions in some manner. GW2 may be the only game to do that for me.

Apart from that, another painful noob mistake: Crafting.
I had a warrior main, which meant I wanted to make gear for him as I progressed. Naturally, this meant Weaponsmithing and Armorcrafting. And two metric tons of ore-grinding to advance them simultaneously. I didn’t leave Plains of Ashford until level 25, because I was struggling to keep up, and I wasn’t using the trading post.
It became a constant race between my gear and my level, but I did manage to catch up around level 70.

Hexinx.1872:

I remember all my friends and I made charr characters once to start and check out that area. There was some NPC bad guy shaman that was literally killing everyone. I mean dead bodies all around the cave and for at least 15 feet, yet people kept going back to fight it … die and respawn.

I’m pretty mad they removed that event. I’m not one to play the “dumbing down the game” card, but it felt that way when that event was nixed.
/sniffle

I fell in love with Warrior during beta, so that’s what I went with as my main.
..No, that’s not my noob mistake. :P

But I do remember thinking “Warrior is really squishy for a heavy melee class.” I was probably doing something wrong. Granted, this was at a time before old Tyria mobs got stat adjustments and seemed to hit much harder. I’d gotten fairly frustrated at the kinds of situations I’d get KO’d for.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Rauderi.8706:

Shove some armor skins, minis, weapon skins, or any of the non-essentials in there, but gating character/account progression behind non-core gameplay is bad form.

If they are bad for account progression, why aren’t they also bad for skin collection? We don’t need all the skins, of course, but we also don’t need all the masteries.

I don’t personally care about it, but some people want unique, special snowflake skins as bragging rights for their achievements. Shrug-worthy, but it’s not completely untoward to let them have a special skin or mini for finishing a challenge.

If these lackluster activities are going to be in the game at all, they should at least come with some kind of reward. I’d rather prefer they stop wasting development time on “activities,” which aren’t even PvE appropriate, and “adventures,” which don’t feel adventure-ish at all and were certainly not executed smoothly.