Guild Wars 2

deSade.9437:

swiftpaw.6397:

TheKillerAngel.3596:

spoj.9672:

We dont do constructive threads in this subforum. Please move along.

Get it.

Q_________________________Q

Do you want me to make a TAFU thread?

It’s the only thread the devs are likely to respond to right?

Not exactly. They answer only if:
- it’s a TA f/up or (bonus) AC thread, with a whiny, desperate OP;
- it’s a duplicate of an existing thread on the first page;
- someone reported it for being a duplicate of an existing thread;
- someone reported a post deemed as insulting;
- there is one post that is even remotely sarcastic. Sarcasm automatically triggers a bot which automatically triggers an infraction for the forum user. °
Even if all requirements are met, it will probably be an automated response.

° Sarcasm is hard to detect on the webz so if it isn’t… tough luck.

P.S. This boss sounds boring to fight for me as almost all bosses are. I DEMAND EXTREMELY HIGH MOBILITY!

P.P.S. And I feel like it would be burned down by a zerker team before it can even fart, again like all bosses. Who cares if it steals boons if it’s dead after 30 seconds? Just put a null field in there., you’re set. Necros still useless. Conditions are also easily removed. AoE attack? Aegis. Eat up an attack once after, I don’t know, 3-4 blocks/evades; it will be dead right after that.

I think 1.2 million HP is Lupi/HotW boss level HP so it isn’t going to be burned down that quickly, but a highly optimized group should be able to kill it in less than 5 minutes.

Well, at least you can’t afk it, you still have do pay minimal attention, especially if animations are fast. +1 to this. Is it a melee boss?

Attack 1 (condition spam basic attack) is melee. Attack 2 (900 diameter ground-target AoE) has infinite range.

I think it could be problematic for scrubs, and for me this is a +1. Another thing: if it’s indeed a melee boss, since the aoe has a limited range, pug scrubs can simply range and kite him around and have the hyper-pro tank warrior in pvt with mace/shield take a few hits during the fight. It does require minimal effort and cordination, though, so could cause some problems to braindead people. Should be ok, but again, there are people wiping at a single nightmare knight…

Attack 2 has an unlimited range, but the attack itself affects a circle 900 units wide and is instant hit. You dodge it based on the animation the boss gives, rather than counting when a red circle appears. Thus, if you wanted to, you could range it and as long as you spread out such that all players were more than 900 units apart from each other, only 1 player would be affected by the attack. However, if you sent in 1 person to melee it while 4 players stood at the back and ranged it, if those 4 players were clustered together they would be targeted. If they got to the point that the “Frustrate” mechanic were enabled, it is likely they would die without access to a heal that can provide over 400 hp/sec while having vigor.

I would also add that attack 1 is fast enough such that a single person tanking it is likely going to die to the sheer amount of condition spam, unless they run some sort of highly specialized build designed to negate conditions.

Assuming a player does not every dodge, the boss will generate its special attack every 30 seconds (5 players, 3 cycles on 10 seconds). To avoid activating the frustrate mechanic, it needs to generate 15 stacks at least once every 90 seconds.

You also forgot to add what happens if the aoe attack misses. Does it count like a block?

No, it won’t increment the attack counter but given that blind is only 10% effective on bosses I wouldn’t count on that.

Can you just block/mitigate the boon-stealing thingie?

No. The key to this is not mindlessly spamming shouts and other abilities that give boons. You want to use your boons right after this attack so he doesn’t heal too much.

Seems to me like it relies too much on that 900range aoe to be dangerous.
I might want to fight that, 6. Design a boss that runs everywhere, dodges, blocks and overall makes you sweat to position yourself well and to hit him, with more than 10 moves you have to learn (as randomised as possible so you have to look at the animations) and a hostile environment so you can’t just run after him and then make sure Anet hires you when they’ll start giving a kitten about dungeons again.
I’ll name my cat after you.

I can come up with something closer to that.

Nikaido.3457:

There are weapon sets designed around conditions, control, support none of them is needed and in most groups not allowed.

Long quote

I agree with you that control and conditions do play a role in PvE, but I feel that role tends to be under-utilized by the design of many encounters. Control in dungeons tends to be limited to pulling mobs together for cleaving or blocking/pulling for runs, whereas useful conditions are mostly ones that can either enhance or mitigate direct damage. Because of the defiant mechanic and some bosses just being immune to interrupts, many other forms of control are much less useful. That might not be a problem to everyone, but I think that the current PvE emphasis on power-based damage ends up unnecessarily stifling build diversity. I said once in an earlier post, once you get good, there is no reason to run a character equipped with anything more than zerker gear with scholar runes. If the dungeon designers can’t think of a situation that requires more creativity in builds, it shows that they 1. Probably haven’t played enough games and 2. Just aren’t very creative with their combat mechanics.

Your point about ascended grind for multiple gear sets is a legitimate concern, however. But I can think of designing bosses in ways that that wouldn’t necessarily require you to own a completely different set of stats (though this might be optimal), while encouraging players to use different weapons and tactics.

spoj.9672:

We dont do constructive threads in this subforum. Please move along.

Get it.

Q_________________________Q

Do you want me to make a TAFU thread?

I posted this earlier from a thread in the general discussion forum and it has been adapted for this post.

Here are some basic stats about the boss and its skills.

“Boss 1” has an HP pool of 1.2 million, which is about average for most legendary level dungeon enemies.
“Boss 1” has the following attacks and mechanics:

Attack 1: This is the boss’s basic attack. It is a low damage (less than 1000), high frequency melee attack that applies a random set of conditions to the player. It can generate 3 seconds of burning, 5 seconds of bleeding, 5 seconds of confusion, or 5 seconds of poison. Attack 1 does 10% more damage for each unique condition on the player.

Attack 2: A moderately frequent (every 10 seconds), moderate damage instant-hit area of effect (900 diameter) attack that can be dodged. This attack will hit a player in full zerk gear for about 4000 damage. If you have high toughness, the damage dealt from this attack is negligible (less than 1000), but each attack you absorb (if not mitigated by a block or evade) adds a stack to a special counter on the boss. Once this counter reaches 15, the boss can do one of several things:

- Summon 5 additional veteran-level minions to the fight.
- Unleash “Attack 3” a highly damaging radial area of effect attack that will reduce players to 10% of their current health.
- Gain an improved Attack 1 for 20 seconds; for 20 seconds, “Attack 1” now applies all conditions on hit.
- Gain several temporary buffs that cannot be removed: Fury, 25 might, Retaliation, and Protection for 20 seconds.

The attack happens frequently enough so that it’s difficult (but possible) to evade/block 100% of the time, but it presents players with several options: They can choose to build defensively and “eat” these attacks and deal with the adds/debuffs/etc. Or they can evade the attacks.

Choosing to evade the attacks comes with a caveat, though: If the boss misses most of its attacks, it gets “frustrated” and starts to apply long-lasting (1 minute) debuff to the team that cannot be dispelled. These debuffs include a 50% penalty on endurance regeneration and a long-lasting damage over time (damage is around -400 HP per tick every second). These debuffs can be countered in several ways: strategically choosing when to take a hit and when to evade (to prevent the boss from reaching this “frustrated” state), or building a team comp that can mitigate the endurance penalty/damage over time. This gives use for things like blasting water fields/running 1 member with a healing spec to provide AoE healing, or having a warrior run Warhorn for AoE vigor.

Attack 4: Every 30 to 45 seconds below 50% health, the boss unleashes a boon-punishing skill. This attack affects the entire room and cannot be mitigated. This attack does 2 things: It steals the team’s boons and heals the boss depending on how many boons are stolen (approximately .75% of the HP pool for each boon from each player) . Players who have 3 or more boons stolen from them are stunned for 5 seconds. This encourages players to bring some sort of boon removal and poison to fight the boss, along with strategic use of boons to as opposed to using them whenever they are available.

I’m thinking about making a “design a boss” thread in the Dungeons forums and I would love to hear your contributions.

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

Copestetic.5174:

those that are just anti-change because it would affect how they currently play the game.

Pretty much this. It’s clear that ANet want blocks/evades to be the most important mechanic(s) when it comes to designing their PvE content. I don’t understand how having to ‘require toughness gear’ is making content more diverse. You’re literally just asking to be able to facetank some hits so that you aren’t punished as hard for failing to use a combination of evades/blocks/aegis/blinds/reflects.

Asking for diversity via more mechanics in encounters, however, would be cool. I liked the suggestions someone made about implementing rooms such as were present in Urgoz/Deep/DoA in GW1.

Yeah, I would agree that “requiring toughness gear” wouldn’t be a good way to go about designing content. The best option, I think, is to design encounters that gives players choices on how they want to build, with ups and downs for each. Here’s an idea for a boss encounter I just brainstormed.

- This boss has moderately frequent, moderate damage area of effect attack that can be dodged. If you have high toughness, the damage dealt from this attack is negligible, but each attack you absorb (if not mitigated by a block or evade) adds a stack to a special counter on the boss. Once this counter reaches 25, the boss can do one of several things:

- Summon additional minions to the fight
- Unleash a special attack
- Apply multiple conditions to the team
- Gain several temporary buffs

The attack happens frequently enough so that it’s difficult (but possible) to evade/block 100% of the time, but it presents players with several options: They can choose to build defensively and “eat” these attacks and deal with the adds/debuffs/etc. Or they can evade the attacks.

Choosing to evade the attacks comes with a caveat, though: If the boss misses most of its attacks, it gets “frustrated” and starts to apply long-lasting (30s) debuffs to the team that cannot be dispelled. These debuffs include a penalty on endurance regeneration and a long-lasting damage over time. These debuffs can be countered in several ways: strategically choosing when to take a hit and when to evade (to prevent the boss from reaching this “frustrated” state), or building a team comp that can further mitigate the endurance penalty/damage over time. This gives use for things like blasting water fields/running 1 member with a healing spec to provide AoE healing, or having a warrior run Warhorn for AoE vigor.

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

Dramen Maidria.1034:

No one wants dodge removed from the game, it’s one of the things that makes this game unique and great. Dodging though shouldn’t be able to completely replace any defensive stats or gear.

Yes it should. The game was designed around that idea, it’s pretty obvious when they keep implementing stuff like Liadri in their new content, which is 100% an evade check. If you don’t like it, maybe this game isn’t for you.

I think the ideas in this thread are getting twisted away from the original message. Dodging has a role in this game, but when most boss mechanics tend to be built around evading highly damaging attacks it tends to reduce build and gameplay diversity. This ISN’T about making gameplay simpler or easier. If anything, it’s about making it more complex, with the potential to be much more challenging to skilled players. Well designed twitch games fighting games go far beyond simple evade to avoid damage, and Guild Wars 2 could learn a lot from them.

For example: Street Fighter and Soul Calibur. If an opponent is attacking, you can do several things to counter them:

- Block them
- Move out of the way
- Counter them with an attack
- Guard impact

If an opponent chooses to block an attack, you can do a variety of things:

- You can throw them
- You can reposition and attack them from a direction they aren’t blocking
- You can hit them with an unblockable attack
- You can use an attack that they aren’t guarding against (hitting an enemy with a low attack when they are only blocking mid-high attacks)

Combat mechanics for most encounters in GW2 can be summarized as:

- DPS. With only a few exceptions, enemies do not actively defend against your attacks or heal significantly.
- If the next attack is single hit, Aegis
- If the next attack is a reflectable projectile, reflect
- If the next attack is a multi hit over a 2 second window, evade

Designing enemy mechanics around simply evading big attacks gets stale really fast, in my opinion. It’s how most of the fights are made (Lupi, Subject Alpha, Kholer to name a few) and it reduces build diversity to the point that in PvE you only need 1 zerk set with scholar runes to complete the content once you get good enough. This isn’t good boss/dungeon design because it under utilizes a significant amount of the abilities and skills that are available to classes.

Wethospu.6437:

Sure, it’s easy to spice things up. My point is that if you want to make it tough for good teams it will be brutal for pugs. I’m perfectly fine with that but just want to ensure some of you know what you are asking. Cleric-heal-spam-bots or pvt-tanks won’t suddenly become good or wanted, probably vice versa (teams can’t afford carrying them anymore).

Diverse content, even if its more challenging than most pugs can handle, is sorely needed. Dungeon trash mobs are mostly HP sponges with the occasional highly damaging attack. They don’t use heals and rarely use any interesting control abilities.

Wethospu.6437:

Pretty much everything is already viable in PvE. It is just not required/needed. They can keep buffing stuff like healing or control but it won’t change a thing as long as nearly full offense works (faster clear times, faster rewards).
If they actually force us to use stuff like healing and control then casuals will get hurt. Good teams have plenty room for errors so they would really have to push the difficulty.

For example a boss which you have to interrupt every 30 seconds while keeping him slowed or you will wipe. Good teams can easily do it with some coordination. Pugs probably won’t have the tools and coordination to pull it off.

I can think of a couple things that might make a dungeon or boss encounter more interesting. In GW1, Urgoz’s Warren had zones that inflicted permanent debuffs on you (read more about it here: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Urgoz's_Warren ). If there were dungeons with sections that had unique debuffs to each zone, it might shake things up a bit. One zone could have permanent weakness, one zone could have permanent poison, etc. An area with permanent weakness would make most power builds ineffective vs condition builds. You could also have a dungeon fielding enemies that gain armor in proportion to the critical damage they absorb, so power builds are less effective vs them. Alternatively, you could have a boss that, instead of using powerful 1 hit kill attacks, relies on lots of condition spam and damage over time.

These are just ideas I brainstormed, there are many more. I believe dungeons should be split into normal/elite modes, with the normal modes being what we have right now and the elite modes being much more rewarding, diverse and challenging in terms of gameplay.

Wethospu.6437:

Just a word of warning. If PvE actually starts to require something you guys are getting hurt, not the speedrunners.

I don’t think the OP’s post is about casuals vs speedrunners. The way I see it, it’s pointing out that PvE gameplay in this game follows a very rigid pattern and just isn’t very interesting or diverse.

colesy.8490:

Lets point out one of the extremely rare exceptions in a poor attempt to invalidate colesy’s post.

Giganticus Lupicus, in the post I responded to can be melee’d, in 13.667 seconds if I recall correctly.

I’m not trying to invalidate your overall point – I melee most content but asking players to ditch all their ranged weapons is just bad advice for the rare encounters when you do need one.

colesy.8490:

Then you need a dose of learn to play.

Have you meleed Arah p1 ooze before?

charr wok speed to stronk

It would have been nice if the waypoint discount was a little clearer. I should not have to do what I did to determine what it was – something like “I will make waypoints 30% cheaper for 4 weeks” should have been stated.

I calculated Kiel’s waypoint discount. It was a 30% reduction in costs. This was determined by taking pictures of the fees from the Port Waypoint to the Terra Carorunda Waypoint during and after the waypoint bonus. To my knowledge, these are the two farthest spots in the game (Rata Sum to Blazridge Steppes)

During the discount, the cost to travel between these two points was 3.75 silver.

Without the discount, the cost to travel between these two points is 5.34 silver.

Gburzak.7035:

The price of the precursor didn’t double as a result of recent changes. Prices of all precursors have drasticaly gone up early on 27th August, before any details of the revamp were revealed, most likely as a result of well-coordinated flipping.

The price of Storm is actually slowly decreasing since the update. GW2 spidy is your friend.

http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/29176

The price of storm has more than doubled, going from ~160g (8/24) to over 350g (present). Additonally, many of the other precursors, while having increased in price due to speculation and other factors, have not increased by the same amount proportionally speaking.

The fact that the price of the precursor has more than doubled is a sign that most people want it now a lot more than before. I think the changes have generally been for the better, though I do agree that the footfalls could be better since the lightning just sticks out of the ground.

1. Warrior – Overall, probably the easiest to succeed with. Large HP pool and heavy hitting attacks.
2. Thief – Takes a bit more finesse in dungeons, but with black powder anything that isn’t a champion is super easy to kill.
3. Guardian – AH helps with survivability when you’re getting into the class, though it’s not necessary.

They’re “unique” rares because they don’t have a prefix denoting their stats (soldiers, wayfarers, rabid, magi) and use a basic skin. They likely came from the mystic toilet. Some people just like to collect stuff, but they really don’t have value to most players.

It’s true that prices went up significantly due to speculation, but you can’t deny that adding 100 additional crafting levels is going to change the long term demand for stuff like orichalcum.

I propose that additional gathering nodes for Orichalcum and Ancient Wood be added to offset the increased demand for these items and to help keep their price in check. Anyone else agree?

I barely post in this forum, so I wouldn’t know. But anyone who has the money to even buy that many Genesis would presumably have the brains to know better.

http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/44965

Bad investment, man.

Personally, I’d have to say Bifrost. I don’t see anything that special about an ivory colored rainbow stick. It’s not nearly as impressive or dramatic as many of the other legendaries.

SkyChef.5432:

I don’t see those activities much in NA servers and I have looked at LFG website like 4 or 5 times.

Same. Where are all these mythical Arah sellers?

You’ll have to explain to me why most lodestones and other commodities have fallen in price by 30-50% with all this inflation.

Next we’ll find out she can out drink a Norn and eat more meat than a Charr at Meatoberfest.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

cesmode.4257:

So with the invasions, we are waypointing all over. Aren’t you glad Ellen won? Reduced WP costs?

I make roughly 5 to 10 Gold per Invasion run, depending on which Exotic I get. Saving 10 Silver is nothing compared to cheaper BL Keys or an Abaddon fractal.

Same. The cheaper Bl keys would have made a much bigger difference when things like limited time items make a return to the store this week.

TheJokester.4672:

No offense I love the idea but I’d have to replace 1/2 of my bags with invisible 4 sets of armor and about 13 dif weapons.

As an alternative, you could specify which bags are subject to mass salvage.

Vitus Dance.4509:

The day you forgot to put that ‘keeper’ in an invisible bag…is the day you’ll wish the ‘mass salvage inventory’ idea never happened.
There’s just too much human error involved to make something like this fully automated – doubt we’ll ever see it.

TheJokester.4672:

idk about you but I dont really want to salvage my legendary on accident because of mass salvage I’d rather pick and choose like it currently is. this being that I ONLY use mystic I mean achievements and had almost a stack of stones -.-

This would not happen because you determine the rarity threshold and other categories eligible for mass salvage. By default “mass salvage” affects zero rarity categories and you must specify which can be salvaged, from exotic and below.

Offhand sword, melee staff. Melee staff could be an AoE damage type weapon (lots of multi hit melee attacks with cleaving), sword offhand could provide some interesting combinations (mostly serving a defensive role, perhaps with some blocks/counter type moves).

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with her being bad looking or ugly – she’s a villain.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Are there still engineers who use pistols?

If you’re using a kit it is better to use pistols for dual sigils.

Here’s an idea that might help with inventory clutter: Adding a feature to “mass salvage” the inventory (This ignores invisible bags).

Here is how it works:

1. You set a rarity threshold for automatic salvaging (i.e. salvage all items fine and below).
2. You designate what kit to use for what type of rarity class (i.e. basic salvage kit for all common and fine items, master salvage kit for all rares, mystic salvage kit for all items).
3. Press mass salvage button on inventory. Confirmation window shows up and you approve it.

Kirschwasser.3972:

TheKillerAngel.3596:

Kirschwasser.3972:

I like the implication that this game is somehow above Saturday morning cartoon villainry and must instead be grimdark for srs plots.

You -did- play GW1, right?

Yes, I did, and I think GW1’s cast was generally more compelling than GW2’s. Scarlet’s “evilness” reaches a level of comic absurdity.

As opposed to Vizier Khilbron’s Totally Evil Acccent™

Khilbron was over the top, but I think many of the other characters in the core campaigns, Nightfall, and Eye of the North were quite well developed.

Kirschwasser.3972:

I like the implication that this game is somehow above Saturday morning cartoon villainry and must instead be grimdark for srs plots.

You -did- play GW1, right?

Yes, I did, and I think GW1’s cast was generally more compelling than GW2’s. Scarlet’s “evilness” reaches a level of comic absurdity.

Rottaran Owain.6789:

TheKillerAngel.3596:

She loudly announces the fact that she has bombs in Divinity’s Reach during her attack. A smart terrorist wouldn’t say that.

The goal of terrorism is fear, not casualties.

The villain loudly proclaiming their plans in front of the hero is also something that probably 90% of Saturday morning cartoon villains have done.

Direksone.3867:

TheKillerAngel.3596:

If I’m going to be fairly blunt, compared to other AAA games with good cutscenes and cinematics, Guild Wars 2’s are very weak. Compare anything from GW2 to this:

StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm
http://youtu.be/L2o5dnVuxiI?t=3m15s

Mass Effect 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PjTuSQNLI4

Halo 4
http://youtu.be/GbjA6rB98Yk?t=51m58s

Guild Wars 2 lacks:

- Unique animations for close ups of characters (i.e. characters in cinematics are using the same animations that they are when in open world)
- Good cinematography for cutscenes
- In depth facial animations/speech simulation

These things are some of many elements that are required for engaging cutscenes. I don’t blame the GW2 team – their living story content is not “replayable” therefore it doesn’t make much sense for them to invest a lot into cutscenes. Additionally, as an MMORPG, GW2 is going to place a lot more emphasis on gameplay over story. I suppose the day will come when story and narrative become more valuable in MMOs, but investing in these things has an opportunity cost that right now isn’t worth it for most companies (See: SWTOR).

Yea compare million dollar games with months if not years to develop, whereas that cinematic had about 2 weeks of work in it to each other. The arty part with Lord Faren was beautiful and I’d like more of that. Powerful and to the point, no bugginess or glitchiness and fits the artstyle GW has going well.

Guild Wars 2 is also a big budget game that had many years to develop, and most of the cutscenes in the personal story and dungeons are 2 people talking against an animated backdrop. As I said, MMORPGs aren’t going to invest heavily in things like cutscenes (which are help convey the narrative and story) because the opportunity cost of such investment is high – it takes away from other (more important) areas like refining gameplay, balance, and introducing new content. That Guild Wars 2 has very simple cutscenes is totally understandable.

Remillard.8691:

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

However . . .

What should be done is some way of finding things out without getting it from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. Other people, clues, journals . . . sure, they might not be entirely accurate (“She graduated from all three colleges! No way was that a clerical error or a database hack.”) . . .

Agreed, and from the coy comments from Dev Stein above, I have a sneaking suspicion we’ll see something along those lines. We’ll just see how well they execute :-).

TheKillerAngel.3596:

She loudly announces the fact that she has bombs in Divinity’s Reach during her attack. A smart terrorist wouldn’t say that.

You’ve never heard of a call-in bomb threat? Announcing you have the capability for destruction is a time-honored terror tactic. Regardless of to what degree the actual bombs (if any) succeed is usually secondary to the main goal that you made someone do what you want them to do. Namely, react to you.

Quite obviously if she wanted to destroy Divinity’s Reach, she’s quite capable. The entire watchknight militia could have been activated without a peep, coupled with hidden bombs, and underground destruction from Molten Alliance. The entire city could have been reduced to a charnel house in a day. It wasn’t, thus that isn’t her immediate goal. What that goal is remains to be seen, and as noted, we’ll see how ANet executes on the rest of the story.

I have heard of bomb threats, but if you want to maximize casualties, I don’t think one would state their intentions so blatantly.

She loudly announces the fact that she has bombs in Divinity’s Reach during her attack. A smart terrorist wouldn’t say that.

Milennin.4825:

I don’t mind her being overly cliché, but I want to know how the hell she’s that powerful. She could probably beat the Elder Dragons with her powers and the amount of minions she has gathered.

Yeah, I never saw 1/10th as many Pact soldiers as the Aetherblades and Molten troops she’s deployed… she could probably conquer Orr by herself.

Xae Isareth.1364:

TheKillerAngel.3596:

If I’m going to be fairly blunt, compared to other AAA games with good cutscenes and cinematics, Guild Wars 2’s are very weak. Compare anything from GW2 to this:

StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm
http://youtu.be/L2o5dnVuxiI?t=3m15s

Mass Effect 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PjTuSQNLI4

Halo 4
http://youtu.be/GbjA6rB98Yk?t=51m58s

Guild Wars 2 lacks:

- Unique animations for close ups of characters (i.e. characters in cinematics are using the same animations that they are when in open world)
- Good cinematography for cutscenes
- In depth facial animations/speech simulation

These things are some of many elements that are required for engaging cutscenes. I don’t blame the GW2 team – their living story content is not “replayable” therefore it doesn’t make much sense for them to invest a lot into cutscenes. Additionally, as an MMORPG, GW2 is going to place a lot more emphasis on gameplay over story. I suppose the day will come when story and narrative become more valuable in MMOs, but investing in these things has an opportunity cost that right now isn’t worth it for most companies (See: SWTOR).

Those are console games, they are one-off projects developed over a long period of time. MMO content are constantly updated, giving the devs less time for stuff like cutscenes.

StarCraft 2 is not a console game, Mass Effect 2 was released for the PC, and I can cite many other PC games which have high quality cinematics. As I said, investing in cutscenes like this isn’t a priority for MMO devs because of the opportunity cost (which you and I agree on, and Bobby acknowledges brlow).

Mesket.5728:

Players don’t want to farm… Players wants rewards and progress.

Since there are none, they invent one (like Legendaries as one example) and farm for it.

I, too, think this is an accurate assessment of player behavior. Players will gravitate towards what has the highest payout, and thus the fastest progress, towards goals such as a legendary (which is really just a measure of money).

Well, the fact that SWTOR was a financial failure is probably going to scare away most MMORPG devs from investing into narrative to heavily.

If I’m going to be fairly blunt, compared to other AAA games with good cutscenes and cinematics, Guild Wars 2’s are very weak. Compare anything from GW2 to this:

StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm
http://youtu.be/L2o5dnVuxiI?t=3m15s

Mass Effect 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PjTuSQNLI4

Halo 4
http://youtu.be/GbjA6rB98Yk?t=51m58s

Guild Wars 2 lacks:

- Unique animations for close ups of characters (i.e. characters in cinematics are using the same animations that they are when in open world)
- Good cinematography for cutscenes
- In depth facial animations/speech simulation

These things are some of many elements that are required for engaging cutscenes. I don’t blame the GW2 team – their living story content is not “replayable” therefore it doesn’t make much sense for them to invest a lot into cutscenes. Additionally, as an MMORPG, GW2 is going to place a lot more emphasis on gameplay over story. I suppose the day will come when story and narrative become more valuable in MMOs, but investing in these things has an opportunity cost that right now isn’t worth it for most companies (See: SWTOR).

Avatara.1042:

/rollseyes

The internet killed that term.

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

Really, Scarlet so far “pretty much shows up as an author’s wish fulfillment to just be evil.”

Kratic.8763:

We should just grab buckets of water and throw them on her. game over.

Agreed.

Let’s see:

- She’s super educated beyond what can be reasonably expected of a Sylvari or any normal being for that matter
- She likes to taunt and insult the player during battle
- She appears to be both insane, with an inexplicable lust for power to boot
- She has a tendency to laugh and cackle
- She teleports
- etc. etc.

She seems too much like a cardboard villain that adheres to a bunch of tropes to feel like a real threat.

Wondering what a Villain Sue is? See:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VillainSue
http://www.catnip4writers.com/tools/cliche_villain.htm

I’m a little curious – how many of you have extensive experience in fighting games? I believe that high quality fighting games set a good example of how to design twitch-based boss encounters.

Dub.1273:

7 billion seems quite realistic to me.

Haviz, would you please pm me the link of a compliation of bosses HP pools?
I forgot where you put those together and i didn’t save any but Lupicus (and Mossman 48’s) myself.

I would like this too.

Getting good at lupi is a matter of fighting him over and over again until you know his moves well.