@kharmin.7683 said:
Well, Anet has all of the data on player retention, so it would seem that these decisions are probably based on that.
I doubt the reduction in the challenge level of the Icebrood Saga has anything to do with some kind of "data". The way they market it and talk about it it's as if they want players to start with the Icebrood Saga and skip the rest of the game, which is understandable that's where all the old players will be. So this massive drop is there to better introduce players to the game with an extended tutorial. Where this kind of fails is that Path of Fire, the expansion required to play the Icebrood Saga, has higher difficulty fights than the Saga, as if telling players to skip even the expansion and go directly for the Season. It's a weird choice and I don't see it in any way being done for player retention, if someone finds Path of Fire too hard they'll leave already before touching the Saga, and those that liked the level of difficulty in Path of Fire will be confused at the massive drop in the Saga.
Overall it's a weird choice and reminds me of Ember Bay, the second episode of Season 3 which was a joke difficulty-wise. And judging by Anet not doing another Ember Bay afterwards they got the data on how good that episode was for player activity and retention.
Well said. I can understand where you're coming from with this analysis. Interesting perspective on it. Thanks for sharing.
@Dante.1508 said:
Its not fun for me to be challenged in gaming, to me challenge in gaming is like beyond pointless.. I do not feel complete after doing this stuff i just feel run down and uninterested..
Why are you playing games then and not interactive stories? I would say the majority wouldnt play a game that never challenges them. In another thread you said this game favours ranged combat a lot. You also said that vit is as important as power in pve. After all those years you still didn't understand the combat system. What armour are you using? Which traits?
Struggling with story is more of a terrible build problem. The only somewhat difficult story bosses were the ones in ls2 and maybe hearts and minds. Everything after that just dies. You have multiple seconds to walk out of a red circle. Thats far from requiring fast reflexes.
@Dante.1508 said:
Its not fun for me to be challenged in gaming, to me challenge in gaming is like beyond pointless.. I do not feel complete after doing this stuff i just feel run down and uninterested..
Why are you playing games then and not interactive stories? I would say the majority wouldnt play a game that never challenges them. In another thread you said this game favours ranged combat a lot. You also said that vit is as important as power in pve. After all those years you still didn't understand the combat system. What armour are you using? Which traits?
Struggling with story is more of a terrible build problem. The only somewhat difficult story bosses were the ones in ls2 and maybe hearts and minds. Everything after that just dies. You have multiple seconds to walk out of a red circle. Thats far from requiring fast reflexes.
https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Soulbeast_-Condi_Trapper
I use this build because i found it the most durable and high damage on many enemies
I also have this build on my second tab https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Ranger-_Longbow_Beastmastery
but i find longbow quite lackluster compared to shortbow and it kills trash way slower than the condi..
@Dante.1508 said:
Yeah but until you can empathize with others you don't really get to judge, not everyone has your skill levels or even wants it.. I'm here to enjoy a story and play a game casually after my real life, i'm not here to do raid lite just to see the next installment of what ever silly mechanics the devs think up next..
Its not fun for me to be challenged in gaming, to me challenge in gaming is like beyond pointless.. I do not feel complete after doing this stuff i just feel run down and uninterested..
Then, by all means, please go play a different game. The GW franchise, which has always been about fight mechanics and challenges since its GW1 days, is not for players like you.
@Dante.1508 said:
Thats why t4 Fractals and Raids exist.. go enjoy them i will not be there ruining them for you.
No, you just want to ruin story mission fights for the rest of us. Seriously, go try Hard Mode for story missions in GW1, then come back complaining. You'll probably find Normal Mode already to be too difficult.
@Dante.1508 said:
Yeah but until you can empathize with others you don't really get to judge, not everyone has your skill levels or even wants it.. I'm here to enjoy a story and play a game casually after my real life, i'm not here to do raid lite just to see the next installment of what ever silly mechanics the devs think up next..
Its not fun for me to be challenged in gaming, to me challenge in gaming is like beyond pointless.. I do not feel complete after doing this stuff i just feel run down and uninterested..
Then, by all means, please go play a different game. The GW franchise, which has always been about fight mechanics and challenges since its GW1 days, is not for players like you.
@Dante.1508 said:
Thats why t4 Fractals and Raids exist.. go enjoy them i will not be there ruining them for you.
No, you just want to ruin story mission fights for the rest of us. Seriously, go try Hard Mode for story missions in GW1, then come back complaining. You'll probably find Normal Mode already to be too difficult.
GW1 i played for 4 years and never once had any of the issues this game labors me with.. It is far harder than GW1 ever was.. and its completely different.. this is more twitch white knuckle stuff, GW1 was nothing like that. Guildwars 1 was far far superior game in every way than this.
This has become WoW lite..
@kharmin.7683 said: @Ashantara.8731 Look, I get where you're coming from, even though I am a "filthy casual" as some may call me. What bothers me about this entire argument is that GW2 is really the only MMO out of the many in that market that I can play. I have enough stress with real life work and enough calls on my time with family, kids and other obligations that I enjoy the few hours each week that I am able to get online with the game and decompress. I don't want/need the level of difficulty in a game that you advocate -- I have enough stress already. If I wanted/needed that level of challenge, then there are plenty of other MMOs from which I could choose.
Both sides of this argument are passionate about the level of content that suits them. Unfortunately, it is difficult for any MMO to cater to them all. Those of us more casual players are fortunate to find one game out of many that we can manage.
I honestly wish that there were an alternative that would suit both sides. Raids should have been it, but even so I feel that ANet missed the mark there, or perhaps diverted resources away from that content because their metrics showed it to be less profitable? Again, without the insider facts, no one really knows.
I would swap light on your feed for quickdraw and stance share doesnt do much solo. Build is ok so you have to play it wrong if you struggle with it like ranging a lot so your traps dont do much.
I really dont like the metabattle power builds. Just use the raid build and swap thief runes for eagle, play gs + axe/axe and the stability stance instead of signet. Metabattle doesnt use sick'em at all while it cheeses story super hard. power soulbeast can dish out like 300k damage in a few seconds which is most of the time enough to phase a story boss.
I would swap light on your feed for quickdraw and stance share doesnt do much solo. Build is ok so you have to play it wrong if you struggle with it like ranging a lot so your traps dont do much.
I really dont like the metabattle power builds. Just use the raid build and swap thief runes for eagle, play gs + axe/axe and the stability stance instead of signet. Metabattle doesnt use sick'em at all while it cheeses story super hard. power soulbeast can dish out like 300k damage in a few seconds which is most of the time enough to phase a story boss.
Other option is to drop the dagger torch and just play condi shortbow with light on your feet to reduce complexity. Bear stance as a heal should be replaced with we heal as one in non condi heavy parts of the story. Entangle and oppressive superiority beats out stance share in solo play.
@kharmin.7683 said: @Ashantara.8731 Look, I get where you're coming from, even though I am a "filthy casual" as some may call me. What bothers me about this entire argument is that GW2 is really the only MMO out of the many in that market that I can play. I have enough stress with real life work and enough calls on my time with family, kids and other obligations that I enjoy the few hours each week that I am able to get online with the game and decompress. I don't want/need the level of difficulty in a game that you advocate -- was already in the game for years I have enough stress already. If I wanted/needed that level of challenge, then there are plenty of other MMOs from which I could choose.
ftfy
I honestly wish that there were an alternative that would suit both sides. Raids should have been it, but even so I feel that ANet missed the mark there, or perhaps diverted resources away from that content because their metrics showed it to be less profitable? Again, without the insider facts, no one really knows.
So what you are saying is the difficulty of story should always be at the level of what?
Zhaitan?
Grothmar?
...and should never get any more diffucult as the player progresses because you....have a full time job? I mean what other game gets easier as you progress and not harder?
Even simple clickers or puzzlers like Candy Crush get harder the further you go. That's why people pick them up and keep playing them.
The reality is that what you are arguing for creates a situation that invalidates everything the game has managed to tutorialize over 7 years of content. You are arguing in favor of creating a world in which the game never increases in difficulty and becomes a flat milquetoast experience where the player just wlks around, looking at the scenery, viewing cutscenes and picking up prizes.
Like the ghosts Pac-Man never getting faster, the final 15 minutes of HalfLife 2 being just as challenging as the first 15 minutes, or the 100th level of Candy Crush being as hard to clear as the first...because you have a job.
I get up and go to work every morning and see dozens of people playing games on their phones on the subway on my way to the office.
I'm willing to bet each and every one of those games gates progression behind skill checks that get progressively more difficult, not less.
"We recognize that some players are not able to complete all content." Gaile Gray 01.10.19
the only cases of high difficulty we had? the one rescue taimi fight/story instance from her own robot suffocating her and that mostly because we had to deal with tons of enemies we cant take out faster then they hit us lol. and that instance was only problematic while playing deadeye lol too much creeps to even get far enough to not get killed before you killed the second of 40 enemies ^^ go in there as daredevil and you can easily win this instance even more so with stave/shortbow ^^
@SexyMofo.8923 said:
NONE of the pve story bosses are hard. I repeat: NONE. I am a solo player and I don’t recall needed help on any of them.
Then you are very fortunate to have the skill and ability to manage them by yourself. Not everyone possesses such level skill or ability.
This in my opinion.. And from talking to my guild in discord many others do not pass it either, a few ladies in discord never even leave core tyria.
Are these players also the reason why my trash exotics from raids with terrible dire, knights, rabid, magi stat combos sell?
Maybe start there and get them an actual build in pve and a lot of the difficulty goes away. When enemies die before they can even attack, theres no difficulty to speak of.
quite hard if you are playing thief and cant deal enough damage solo without ascended gear to get the story done fast enough (additionally to thief lacking damage and CC in every possible way compared to "hundred blades spamming warriors" or anything else with tons of damage)
oh right shouldnt speak about thief.... is just the only class to have seen only a single buff since the release of the game ^^
You must be joking. Thief has one of the highest amounts of health sustain in all of pve, has way higher damage than "hundred blades spamming warriors" as camping great sword is bad dps. Ascended gear isnt some magical fix all solution. If you do bad damage in your exotic gear, sorry to break it to you buddy but you're going to do bad damage in ascended gear too. Class knowledge, correct stat combos, and proper rotations matter way more than the upgrade from exotics to ascended.
Don't even try man, those players are too bad. I was going to write something like that, but there is no point. Those are the players MikeZ was talking about in one of his interview, where he said that many players are dealing 10 times less damage than average veteran player. This is why the game is a movie now, where you don't need to do anything, just walk around pressing 1 in random gear picking up loot. Those players are Anets focus right now and they still are not happy, because content is still too hard for them
how fun of you to assume how we play. but yeah you said something right there ^^ not gonna bother with people that see everyone as bad that isnt a player with reflexes on the level of special forces^
@Murtos.5342 said:
the only cases of high difficulty we had? the one rescue taimi fight/story instance from her own robot suffocating her and that mostly because we had to deal with tons of enemies we cant take out faster then they hit us lol. and that instance was only problematic while playing deadeye lol too much creeps to even get far enough to not get killed before you killed the second of 40 enemies ^^ go in there as daredevil and you can easily win this instance even more so with stave/shortbow ^^
@SexyMofo.8923 said:
NONE of the pve story bosses are hard. I repeat: NONE. I am a solo player and I don’t recall needed help on any of them.
Then you are very fortunate to have the skill and ability to manage them by yourself. Not everyone possesses such level skill or ability.
This in my opinion.. And from talking to my guild in discord many others do not pass it either, a few ladies in discord never even leave core tyria.
Are these players also the reason why my trash exotics from raids with terrible dire, knights, rabid, magi stat combos sell?
Maybe start there and get them an actual build in pve and a lot of the difficulty goes away. When enemies die before they can even attack, theres no difficulty to speak of.
quite hard if you are playing thief and cant deal enough damage solo without ascended gear to get the story done fast enough (additionally to thief lacking damage and CC in every possible way compared to "hundred blades spamming warriors" or anything else with tons of damage)
oh right shouldnt speak about thief.... is just the only class to have seen only a single buff since the release of the game ^^
You must be joking. Thief has one of the highest amounts of health sustain in all of pve, has way higher damage than "hundred blades spamming warriors" as camping great sword is bad dps. Ascended gear isnt some magical fix all solution. If you do bad damage in your exotic gear, sorry to break it to you buddy but you're going to do bad damage in ascended gear too. Class knowledge, correct stat combos, and proper rotations matter way more than the upgrade from exotics to ascended.
Don't even try man, those players are too bad. I was going to write something like that, but there is no point. Those are the players MikeZ was talking about in one of his interview, where he said that many players are dealing 10 times less damage than average veteran player. This is why the game is a movie now, where you don't need to do anything, just walk around pressing 1 in random gear picking up loot. Those players are Anets focus right now and they still are not happy, because content is still too hard for them
how fun of you to assume how we play. but yeah you said something right there ^^ not gonna bother with people that see everyone as bad that isnt a player with reflexes on the level of special forces^
Except you dont need reflexes of a super human to complete anything in the story. Theres a 65 year old man who full clears raids every week and he has...you'll never guess, the reaction time of a 65 year old man (who has not received special forces training btw). You're not bad because you dont have .01 second reflexes. You're bad because of terrible tactical decisions you make in and out of combat. These include but are not limited to, randomly double dodging when sidestepping will do, standing at range and having to dodge a wider arc than if you simply stood in melee and stepped behind the boss, not bringing block,stunbreak,condi cleanse, or any situational skill you might need after a failed attempt, and not knowing what your traits do.
There are builds out there that let you only auto attack and out sustain all damage you take so is targeting the boss and hitting 1 require special forces training now?
fun how some people think everyone does those mistakes when they complain about having problems with the content..... welp whatever people like generalizing all the time to justify their opinion.....
oh and to the person that said gw1 content was challenging? gw1 content was easy compared to gw2 content.... you can compare most of the content to the first 40 levels of gw2 and the rest of the content to the content from lvl 41-50 dungeons ^^. The only things that have been really challenging back in gw1 where the "raids" like the underworld raid lol.... you could solo most of the content with support npc´s and your own heroes no matter how bad your build was.
It has zero to do with the build, any one can get marauders, vipers or berserker gears and a build from metabattle, not everyone can acquire the skills to dodge 15 cc and 8k hits... yeah a few people playing games are top tier, pat yourselves on the back you are great at virtual entertainment twitch skills.. Grats..
Thats why t4 Fractals and Raids exist.. go enjoy them i will not be there ruining them for you.
This is an extremely misleading and unfair comparison. The difficulty of story bosses is nowhere near T4 fractals and raids. That's the point many of us are trying to make - it's already incredibly easy to beat story bosses without having any special talent for gaming, and struggling with story bosses indicates a broader inability to perform combat in this game, period.
I guess this is the consequence of living in a world where it's considered toxic to set norms - people seem to lack a sense of where they are on the spectrum, and conveniently refuse to believe that their level of play is gasp below standard. It does NOT take a gaming superstar with incredible ninja reflexes to beat a story boss. What it does take is the basic ability to learn how combat in this game is structured, and make adjustments to your play accordingly.
It has zero to do with the build, any one can get marauders, vipers or berserker gears and a build from metabattle, not everyone can acquire the skills to dodge 15 cc and 8k hits... yeah a few people playing games are top tier, pat yourselves on the back you are great at virtual entertainment twitch skills.. Grats..
Thats why t4 Fractals and Raids exist.. go enjoy them i will not be there ruining them for you.
This is an extremely misleading and unfair comparison. The difficulty of story bosses is nowhere near T4 fractals and raids. That's the point many of us are trying to make - it's already incredibly easy to beat story bosses without having any special talent for gaming, and struggling with story bosses indicates a broader inability to perform combat in this game, period.
I guess this is the consequence of living in a world where it's considered toxic to set norms - people seem to lack a sense of where they are on the spectrum, and conveniently refuse to believe that their level of play is gasp below standard. It does NOT take a gaming superstar with incredible ninja reflexes to beat a story boss. What it does take is the basic ability to learn how combat in this game is structured, and make adjustments to your play accordingly.
What is easy or hard is very relative. I have played fast paced fps games since the 90's, naturally the game is easy for me. But today gaming is streamlined and you want to bring in and cater to the broader audience. There is such a vast difference in skill between someone like me that was training his flick shots and precise backward blind movement through map and spacial awareness via map sounds and stuff like that to my girlfriend who probably has to look at the keyboard to not miss her buttons.
The only real solution are different difficulty modes.
I do agree though that suddenly decreasing difficulty in a 7 year old game is strange and probably not the best decision. It is still a game and without challenge it is boring.
@Murtos.5342 said:
fun how some people think everyone does those mistakes when they complain about having problems with the content..... welp whatever people like generalizing all the time to justify their opinion.....
oh and to the person that said gw1 content was challenging? gw1 content was easy compared to gw2 content.... you can compare most of the content to the first 40 levels of gw2 and the rest of the content to the content from lvl 41-50 dungeons ^^. The only things that have been really challenging back in gw1 where the "raids" like the underworld raid lol.... you could solo most of the content with support npc´s and your own heroes no matter how bad your build was.
Please enlighten us what types of mistakes you think you're making that makes story mode hard. Aside from one or two very egregious examples like white mantle caudecus, everything else can be done by spamming 1.
Please enlighten us what types of mistakes you think you're making that makes story mode hard. Aside from one or two very egregious examples like white mantle caudecus, everything else can be done by spamming 1.
^ That's the standard set by Anet. They create the story boss encounters, which can be cleared with absolutely minimal engagement with the combat system overall. That Caudecus encounter proved too complex for many, so they adjusted that down.
At this point, I realize it just looks like I lack empathy - which is only partially true. If there is some physical reason why a player can't perform the tasks necessary to clear a story boss, I can see how that could be extremely frustrating, and I would welcome a separate mode for those individuals to meet whatever gameplay needs they have.
What I have absolutely zero empathy for is the feeling that some of the above individuals have, namely that their level of gameplay should somehow set the standard for discussion, and any mention of how objectively simple these encounters are is somehow shortsighted or plain old mean.
In order for me to accept the current levels of story boss difficulty as too hard to be considered a reasonable standard, I'd have to have a more data-oriented discussion. We'd have to figure out, at minimum:
what is an acceptable rate of failure on soloing story bosses,
what "failure" actually means (X number of deaths and retries? Just quitting the boss encounter entirely? Quitting after X tries?),
how reliable any such measure of failure is (when new story is first released, a lot of players get disconnected during story boss fights - is that number going to be too high so as to inflate the "failure" measurement when it's really just server hiccups?)
and probably a few more statistical considerations I'm not educated enough to talk about.
Short of having the above discussion to a satisfying extent, I'll stick to my guns.
If you ask me anyone who complains story bosses are too hard are likely the same people who say things like "I don't want to play fractals because people expect me to use a meta build that is actually good for something, I don't want to be useful".
Story bosses being too easy is why I already avoid story for the most part, it's not fun when nothing is even remotely challenging. Play a good build. You don't even need to be that great at the game, just play a good build instead of the random mix of gear/traits that you're currently using. Look at youtube videos, look at metabattle, find a build that you didn't make and don't be so stubborn.
Idk what you are talking about. Story bosses are not hard. Well scruffy one was kinda nice, but not that hard... Honestly its really hard to balance thses things. Lets say you are running supportish class thst deals lower dmg, the yes its will be harder, but if you running powerhouse like holo or sokething that deals alot of burst dmg then it will be kinda easier.
@Murtos.5342 said:
fun how some people think everyone does those mistakes when they complain about having problems with the content..... welp whatever people like generalizing all the time to justify their opinion.....
oh and to the person that said gw1 content was challenging? gw1 content was easy compared to gw2 content.... you can compare most of the content to the first 40 levels of gw2 and the rest of the content to the content from lvl 41-50 dungeons ^^. The only things that have been really challenging back in gw1 where the "raids" like the underworld raid lol.... you could solo most of the content with support npc´s and your own heroes no matter how bad your build was.
Please enlighten us what types of mistakes you think you're making that makes story mode hard. Aside from one or two very egregious examples like white mantle caudecus, everything else can be done by spamming 1.
You try taking down Scruffy with only spamming 1 key... so tired of this hyperbole.
the mistake i make? trying to play the game as a casual that plays once per month/or when the story comes out for the 20 minutes of content we do get with an update....
fun how all those optimizers/hardcore players in here keep talking about other players are bad because we dont play the game to the point that we can play every content in our sleep without problems.
Welp back to not talking on forums.... Not gonna try to deal with walls that only see their own standpoint and cant think themselves into the shoes of others.
You try taking down Scruffy with only spamming 1 key... so tired of this hyperbole.
He did make an exception for egregious examples like Caudecus, and I would maybe include that Scraffy fight in that pool of exceptions as well. I don't remember much about that Scruffy fight, so I can't say much more without replaying it.
@SexyMofo.8923 said:
NONE of the pve story bosses are hard. I repeat: NONE. I am a solo player and I don’t recall needed help on any of them.
Then you are very fortunate to have the skill and ability to manage them by yourself. Not everyone possesses such level skill or ability.
This in my opinion.. And from talking to my guild in discord many others do not pass it either, a few ladies in discord never even leave core tyria.
Well why dont you team up with 4 people in your guild every weekend and finsih off some stories people need then?
@Murtos.5342 said:
the mistake i make? trying to play the game as a casual that plays once per month/or when the story comes out for the 20 minutes of content we do get with an update....
fun how all those optimizers/hardcore players in here keep talking about other players are bad because we dont play the game to the point that we can play every content in our sleep without problems.
Welp back to not talking on forums.... Not gonna try to deal with walls that only see their own standpoint and cant think themselves into the shoes of others.
Youtube is always there if you wanna watch a movie of someone playing and not play the game yourself mate.
@Murtos.5342 said:
the mistake i make? trying to play the game as a casual that plays once per month/or when the story comes out for the 20 minutes of content we do get with an update....
fun how all those optimizers/hardcore players in here keep talking about other players are bad because we dont play the game to the point that we can play every content in our sleep without problems.
Welp back to not talking on forums.... Not gonna try to deal with walls that only see their own standpoint and cant think themselves into the shoes of others.
I'm sorry, but we're not talking about content for hardcore player here. Story content doesn't come even close to that.
We're talking about content that asks of the player to... well... play the game.
Speaking about thinking into the shoes of others. It goes both ways. Understanding why one cannot do some content does not mean said content should be modified and adapted to them specifically. Especially when it can and would impact other players too. It already did in the past. (Eater of Souls, Caudecus...)
The content of this game is vastly made for casual play already. This is particularly jarring for people coming from the original guild wars.
And I dare say... people playing once a month aren't exactly what brings Anet money.
@Dante.1508 said:
You try taking down Scruffy with only spamming 1 key... so tired of this hyperbole.
If moving/no dodging is allowed thats not even that hard. Just take ip thief or trailblazer scourge. Complete faceroll builds exist.
Lupicus has been killed using only 1 finger.
@Dante.1508 said:
You try taking down Scruffy with only spamming 1 key... so tired of this hyperbole.
You can beat Scruffy by only spamming 1 key, if it's gonna be fun though is a different story. Arenanet made it so when you revive boss health doesn't reset so technically you can auto attack Scruffy to death without dodging, as long as you land a single hit before you die each time you will eventually (in a few hours maybe) beat him. Not to mention Braham will revive you rather quickly if you stay close to him, his shield skill will block Scruffy's projectiles too, so it's a good idea to hug the big brute.
Is it doable? Yes. But probably not anything someone might call "fun". The alternative is to use one of the faceroll builds that can kill the boss without struggling, but I guess "using a good build" is out of the question in "story is too hard" threads.
@Dante.1508 said:
You try taking down Scruffy with only spamming 1 key... so tired of this hyperbole.
You can beat Scruffy by only spamming 1 key, if it's gonna be fun though is a different story. Arenanet made it so when you revive boss health doesn't reset so technically you can auto attack Scruffy to death without dodging, as long as you land a single hit before you die each time you will eventually (in a few hours maybe) beat him. Not to mention Braham will revive you rather quickly if you stay close to him, his shield skill will block Scruffy's projectiles too, so it's a good idea to hug the big brute.
Is it doable? Yes. But probably not anything someone might call "fun". The alternative is to use one of the faceroll builds that can kill the boss without struggling, but I guess "using a good build" is out of the question in "story is too hard" threads.
They cant use berserker stats because it requires delta force military training and until we learn that, we have no place in this discussion.
@TheUndefined.1720 said:
I made this suggestion back in my HoT review, and I'm going to make it here; Stop making PvE story bosses hard. I'm currently sitting in the active fight with Scruffy 2.0, dead, having died at least a dozens times, and I honestly just want to throw my hands up. The point where you frustrate your player to quitting is bad game design. I understand, as game developers, you want to make the fight epic - oh no! Taimi suffocating! I care and have to hurry, but I have massive amounts of projectiles, burning, aoe's, and a completely incompetent NPC that DOES NOT use his reflect as he should... that means I don't care about Taimi, I just want to get out of the fight.
So here are some suggestions:
Lower the Bosses HP pool: The boss fight is taking way too long, and it is not enjoyable, take down the HP
Stop with the rapid fire AoE's AND projectiles: Slow down on the boss's attack
Relax on the complicated moves: This isn't a raid, it's a story boss, being solo'd, there's no need to make so difficult
Program a better companion: In every fight I did during LS4 (Sunspears, Corsairs, the rag tag team, Braham) they stopped attacking and just stood there.. seriously during the inquest swarm they all just stood there
I know the automatic response from the forum goers will be "get better," sure, I'm willing to do that, I've tried doing that, but ANet keeps making their story bosses more and more difficult. This isn't fun anymore. Please chill out on the difficulty of the story bosses.
Looking back on this thread, seeing this person's comment and seeing the level of support for it back then is immensely depressing.
Looking back at some of the great mechanical story mission fights over the years, Shadow of the Dragon round 1&2, Faolain, Modremoth, Caudecus, Lazarus, The Warbeast, Balthazar, and frankly culminating with King Joko and Zaphira it's incredibly disappointing how far the actual gameplay of the living world has fallen.
There are great moments, like the finale to Season 4, and the current story missions are fun from purely a narrative and atmospheric standpoint. Bound by Blood is a great reimmersion into Charr culture, and Whisper in the Dark is genuinely creepy and unsettling in a dark and atmospheric way I've not seen an MMORPG pull off since The Secret World. But look at the "gameplay" here.
Seriously, look at this. The first time he played this his response was "They were dead before I finished my Mantras."
I've noticed starting of All or Nothing while the story and scoping reminds great there's just no gameplay in the actual missions. The first fight against Kralkatorrik is visually stunning but you're just fighting a nonthreatening mobs, charging up pylons, and then hitting a beat stick that doesn't fight back. The fight against Kralkatorrik's Torment in War Eternal is just a joke. It's impossible to lose that fight. The final boss of LWS4 and he's not some tormented being in agony he's barely freaking awake. Flying Aurene is a visually stunning mission, but there's barely any actual gameplay.
Same thing with the fight against Braham's guildmates and the fight against the Icebrood Construct in Icebrood Saga.
This is "expansion level content?" The Living World story already struggled with being consistently too easy, but at least there were mechanics. At least there was fun getting through Joko's gauntlet, and fighting Joko himself. At least there was fun doing the stealth mission to set up a base in Korna. At least there were mechanics regarding fighting and getting to Zaphira the sniper.
But this? Breaking up the pace of the story with a potentially fun 2v2 with Rytlock against some bloodthirsty hardened charr soldiers could have been a fun little moment and it's embarrassing. Some people complained and so all the actual gameplay and mechanics needs to be thoroughly and completely drained from the game.
And what's doubly sad is that open world is already always really brain dead and it always will be where casuals thrived every since Arenanet completely abandoned the idea of challenging open world content after the backlash to Heart of Thorns. But the story is one of the few places in the game where you can make gameplay mechanically interesting, where you can make the game challenging, where you can put the ACTION and ROLEPLAYING back into this MMO-Action Roleplay game.
One of the number one things everyone walks away praising Guild Wars 2 is the speed, fluidity, and nuance of the combat system. It's dynamic and one of a kind. And the flagship content of the game that's supposed to draw in players is absolutely terrified of indulging in it.
But this guy, who hasn't posted on the forums in over a year, and probably doesn't play at all anymore. This guy got what he wanted. Everything interesting about the gameplay in the Living World has been completely drained. Fights are a complete joke. Over in a second and present absolutely no threat challenge or interesting mechanics just like he wanted. And he's gone. He didn't even stick around and doesn't appreciate it and doesn't care. But players like me who would love to see Living World also live up in terms of gameplay mechanics, quality, and difficulty that's worthy of single player roleplaying games, where a boss will kill me and leave me scratching my head and thinking about how I can approach the fight differently and gain victory. And then I can have fun doing just that and overcoming a challenge. The feeling of being satisfied completing challenging content. We lost everything.
Hitting Thumbs Up on your post simply wasn't enough.
This is not "expansion level content" to me.
No.
Thank you for aritculating what I have been looking for a way to say, so well.
I will say in the new episode's defense:
The open world combat (forgettable meta event aside) is at times a little more challenging than a few other maps. They are trying some new things. Open world champs with some beefy retal, elites that actually put up a fight, some actual boon play that makes for a slightly more engaging combat cycle, the new "bitter cold" debuff. It's not HoT, but it sure beats berry farming in BFF.
I get the map is small. Painfully small. And the meta is pretty much a snoozer. It's not a quarter the fun that Dragonfall was. But when I line it up with a few others, I'm enjoying it much more than I did Bitterfrost or Thunderhead.
What's there is still more entertaining than Bloodstone Fen.
If we could get the story instance back to the previous levels I would be much happier with the current product.
My only positive spin is this:
This is their new "Starting over" point. It's not their first. They started over after Season 1 when their planned content delivery (which was meant to exclude expansions) turned out to be flawed in both execution and concept. At the same time as this, a bunch of really central talent left for Amazon. It happened again after Heart of Thorns, when a massive outcry against much of it's design forced all hands on deck to spend the next six months "finishing the expansion".
Then we come the recent point where a bunch of people are let go.
Go look at Matthew Medina's youtube and see just how much really good stuff that one single guy was responsible for. Then ask yourself how many people just like him were let go. And of those who remained, (those familiar with the tools enough to create the really great encounters we enjoyed) how many were then promoted into positions of oversight.
I'm sure the department was absolutely gutted.
I guess my point is that, as a starting over point, they've reduced everything back to a pretty low bar for entry. They are likely highly reshuffled teams with a lot of new people trying to reinvent the wheel... again.
And for the first shot? it wasn't all doom and gloom for those of us who enjoy a challenge There was an increase in challenge from the Prologue's final story mission to Ep1's. Ep1's strike missions (while still hollow for many) were indeed harder than the first one was...and there were three. Grothmar was a shallow open world map but Bjora gave us more to fight than scorpions protecting chilis.
If everything trends in the right direction we might just start enjoying the ride again after another issue or two.
"We recognize that some players are not able to complete all content." Gaile Gray 01.10.19
@Dante.1508 said:
You try taking down Scruffy with only spamming 1 key... so tired of this hyperbole.
You can beat Scruffy by only spamming 1 key, if it's gonna be fun though is a different story. Arenanet made it so when you revive boss health doesn't reset so technically you can auto attack Scruffy to death without dodging, as long as you land a single hit before you die each time you will eventually (in a few hours maybe) beat him. Not to mention Braham will revive you rather quickly if you stay close to him, his shield skill will block Scruffy's projectiles too, so it's a good idea to hug the big brute.
Is it doable? Yes. But probably not anything someone might call "fun". The alternative is to use one of the faceroll builds that can kill the boss without struggling, but I guess "using a good build" is out of the question in "story is too hard" threads.
I hardly play now so it doesn't really matter, i login to use up my gems then i'll uninstall.. You guys can enjoy your hard Raid lite level content in stories..
@Dante.1508 said:
You try taking down Scruffy with only spamming 1 key... so tired of this hyperbole.
You can beat Scruffy by only spamming 1 key, if it's gonna be fun though is a different story. Arenanet made it so when you revive boss health doesn't reset so technically you can auto attack Scruffy to death without dodging, as long as you land a single hit before you die each time you will eventually (in a few hours maybe) beat him. Not to mention Braham will revive you rather quickly if you stay close to him, his shield skill will block Scruffy's projectiles too, so it's a good idea to hug the big brute.
Is it doable? Yes. But probably not anything someone might call "fun". The alternative is to use one of the faceroll builds that can kill the boss without struggling, but I guess "using a good build" is out of the question in "story is too hard" threads.
I hardly play now so it doesn't really matter, i login to use up my gems then i'll uninstall.. You guys can enjoy your hard Raid lite level content in stories..
If you played the last four story releases you'd realize that's been gone for about a year now. Story Missions already couldn't be failed, and now there is basically no game play and no mechanics. Your side won and you don't even appreciate it.
@Dante.1508 said:
I hardly play now so it doesn't really matter, i login to use up my gems then i'll uninstall.. You guys can enjoy your hard Raid lite level content in stories..
By the way you should try the Icebrood Saga it's of a similar difficulty as the personal story (if not even less) the last fight of Whisper in the Dark has some annoying area of effect knockback spam, but it's just that, annoying, the rest of the Saga is really easy catering to players that found past content hard and complained about it.
That said, you keep proving my point regarding the overall reduction of difficulty in the Icebrood Saga. Players like you should've left ages ago, if hard story content is what makes you quit a game. But now that they made the story content specifically FOR YOU, without altering past content, it begs the question "why?", if players that couldn't handle the old content left/leave and refuse to play the easy mode Icebrood Saga before first playing the old content, all this recent change will do is alienate those still playing and enjoying the game.
@Dante.1508 said:
I hardly play now so it doesn't really matter, i login to use up my gems then i'll uninstall.. You guys can enjoy your hard Raid lite level content in stories..
By the way you should try the Icebrood Saga it's of a similar difficulty as the personal story (if not even less) the last fight of Whisper in the Dark has some annoying area of effect knockback spam, but it's just that, annoying, the rest of the Saga is really easy catering to players that found past content hard and complained about it.
That said, you keep proving my point regarding the overall reduction of difficulty in the Icebrood Saga. Players like you should've left ages ago, if hard story content is what makes you quit a game. But now that they made the story content specifically FOR YOU, without altering past content, it begs the question "why?", if players that couldn't handle the old content left/leave and refuse to play the easy mode Icebrood Saga before first playing the old content, all this recent change will do is alienate those still playing and enjoying the game.
they would need a major rework of the game the game to get the casuals back, i dont see that happening this late.
im guessing they are testing something, or they need to prop up numbers for a report
icebrood saga wont win many casuals, its way to gloomy and boring
played about an hour, and uninstalled again
@battledrone.8315 said:
icebrood saga wont win many casuals, its way to gloomy and boring
played about an hour, and uninstalled again
The way they are doing the game won't win many casuals, while at the same time alienates those looking for more challenge in the game. Another reason why this sudden change in policy regarding challenge doesn't make any sense and won't help the game.
I disagree a bit here. Sadly with this model they keep the casual crowd playing and interested in the game. This target group is the one that changes real money into gems (& gold) and doesn't grind their gold on certain maps, daily fractals or raids. A lot of them are not done with achievements and story bits after one week and if they are done with it they have lots of things to do which ambitious veterans have finished long time ago.
In addition these easy story bits we've seen with the Episode 1 and to a smaller extent with Grothmar is appealing for the ones that got into the game recently with the new bundle structure (core + HoT + PoF for 30 €/$ which is a super sale of the century for beginners). These players are the potential ones to bring in fresh money because they don't have the stuff from the gem store veterans acquired over the years etc. pp. So, these players have a continuous flow of episode if they can maintain the 2 months cadence. It's very frustrating for me (and for you as well I guess) but I personally think that's their way to go now to stay financially healthy.
Maybe that won't pay off - I really cannot imagine and I also don't want that this will work. My guilds and mates died a horrible death a.k.a. people have left in droves but I have no objective oversight and most likely sitting in my personal filter bubble. Again: Unlucky me but that's life I guess I know it is.
I'm pretty new, having created an account this past April, followed by becoming very ill with an almost month long hospital stay. I wasn't able to really start playing until around mid July or so. So while I've had time to get used to GW2 and how it works, I'm a long way from being anywhere near an expert and experienced. Despite that, I haven't found the fights, boss or otherwise, to be too difficult; though at times really tedious with the amount of hitpoints and the repetition involved in beating certain bosses. The occasional puzzling mechanic, or "What the hell do I do now?" moment can also slow me down. But nothing, and I mean nothing, has been worse for me than story content I just don't enjoy in any way.
For me, that's been LS Season 3 in pretty much its entirety thus far. From the story, to the seemingly inane collecting one is asked to do has just shut me down from finishing the game's story in order. I went ahead and finished the PoF story simply because I wanted the mounts having come from games in the past that had them. And for the most part really enjoyed it (oddly enough, I think I overall found PoF's story a little more difficult than HoT's, but preferred the story of HoT more). And now I feel "stuck" again as I want to get back to Season 3, and just can't make myself start again. So Seasons 4 & 5 remain untouched while I try to avoid spoilers.
This is all my own opinion of course, but long story short, I guess I wouldn't care if it were more difficult. Just give us content worth the challenge. Make it compelling enough that I welcome the chance to play it
I would swap light on your feed for quickdraw and stance share doesnt do much solo. Build is ok so you have to play it wrong if you struggle with it like ranging a lot so your traps dont do much.
The "rotation" consists in using f2, f3, 2, 4, 7, 8, 9 and elite on cooldown and swap weapon when you can to proc the sigil (flanking mob bring even more dps).
For the pets, use lynx for dps and warhog to bring a bit less dps but good cc. If you still struggle you can take the black bear pet to have 2 more invul (f2, f3).
Carcharoth Lucian/Mini Chibii
Ruin of Surmia world
PvE : [CdL] Les Chasseurs De Légendes
WvW : [MIMs] Mobile Ingénieuse Et Marteau
I hardly play now so it doesn't really matter, i login to use up my gems then i'll uninstall.. You guys can enjoy your hard Raid lite level content in stories..
If you played the last four story releases you'd realize that's been gone for about a year now. Story Missions already couldn't be failed, and now there is basically no game play and no mechanics. Your side won and you don't even appreciate it.
This... this is great truth. It pains me so deeply to see it written out, but it's so true. OP and their ilk complained, got their way (i.e. braindead "combat" content), and aren't even around to appreciate what they ruined for the rest of us.
@Shiyo.3578 said:
None of the story bosses are hard, please stop trying to make video games braindead easy. Thank you.
Smashing your face against the keyboard like a zombie... That is the definition of "braindead". Which also summarizes perfectly my experience with PoF maps. They are saturated with foes preventing me from doing anything interesting. Its all run or fight. That's the reason why now I spend my time at the forum instead of actually playing the game. The last fight of HoT was a pain. I think it took me over 20 minutes to solo it. And I had to do it twice because of a glitch.
@Duglaive.5236 said:
I'm pretty new, having created an account this past April, followed by becoming very ill with an almost month long hospital stay. I wasn't able to really start playing until around mid July or so. So while I've had time to get used to GW2 and how it works, I'm a long way from being anywhere near an expert and experienced. Despite that, I haven't found the fights, boss or otherwise, to be too difficult; though at times really tedious with the amount of hitpoints and the repetition involved in beating certain bosses. The occasional puzzling mechanic, or "What the hell do I do now?" moment can also slow me down. But nothing, and I mean nothing, has been worse for me than story content I just don't enjoy in any way.
For me, that's been LS Season 3 in pretty much its entirety thus far. From the story, to the seemingly inane collecting one is asked to do has just shut me down from finishing the game's story in order. I went ahead and finished the PoF story simply because I wanted the mounts having come from games in the past that had them. And for the most part really enjoyed it (oddly enough, I think I overall found PoF's story a little more difficult than HoT's, but preferred the story of HoT more). And now I feel "stuck" again as I want to get back to Season 3, and just can't make myself start again. So Seasons 4 & 5 remain untouched while I try to avoid spoilers.
This is all my own opinion of course, but long story short, I guess I wouldn't care if it were more difficult. Just give us content worth the challenge. Make it compelling enough that I welcome the chance to play it
Exactly my experience as well.. Also if you thought Season 3 was tedious you should try season 4.. It blows 3 out of the water in annoying inane mechanics.. I was exactly at your point then decided to do 4... wow, just horrible gameplay.
I finished it on one character never again.. what amazing content when customers do it once then never want to go back.
@Duglaive.5236 said:
I'm pretty new, having created an account this past April, followed by becoming very ill with an almost month long hospital stay. I wasn't able to really start playing until around mid July or so. So while I've had time to get used to GW2 and how it works, I'm a long way from being anywhere near an expert and experienced. Despite that, I haven't found the fights, boss or otherwise, to be too difficult; though at times really tedious with the amount of hitpoints and the repetition involved in beating certain bosses. The occasional puzzling mechanic, or "What the hell do I do now?" moment can also slow me down. But nothing, and I mean nothing, has been worse for me than story content I just don't enjoy in any way.
For me, that's been LS Season 3 in pretty much its entirety thus far. From the story, to the seemingly inane collecting one is asked to do has just shut me down from finishing the game's story in order. I went ahead and finished the PoF story simply because I wanted the mounts having come from games in the past that had them. And for the most part really enjoyed it (oddly enough, I think I overall found PoF's story a little more difficult than HoT's, but preferred the story of HoT more). And now I feel "stuck" again as I want to get back to Season 3, and just can't make myself start again. So Seasons 4 & 5 remain untouched while I try to avoid spoilers.
This is all my own opinion of course, but long story short, I guess I wouldn't care if it were more difficult. Just give us content worth the challenge. Make it compelling enough that I welcome the chance to play it
Exactly my experience as well.. Also if you thought Season 3 was tedious you should try season 4.. It blows 3 out of the water in annoying inane mechanics.. I was exactly at your point then decided to do 4... wow, just horrible gameplay.
I finished it on one character never again.. what amazing content when customers do it once then never want to go back.
I thought story was 1 and done for most people.
Only if you want ap and the reward that bring you go in more times.
We altoholics are a minority.
@Duglaive.5236 said:
I'm pretty new, having created an account this past April, followed by becoming very ill with an almost month long hospital stay. I wasn't able to really start playing until around mid July or so. So while I've had time to get used to GW2 and how it works, I'm a long way from being anywhere near an expert and experienced. Despite that, I haven't found the fights, boss or otherwise, to be too difficult; though at times really tedious with the amount of hitpoints and the repetition involved in beating certain bosses. The occasional puzzling mechanic, or "What the hell do I do now?" moment can also slow me down. But nothing, and I mean nothing, has been worse for me than story content I just don't enjoy in any way.
For me, that's been LS Season 3 in pretty much its entirety thus far. From the story, to the seemingly inane collecting one is asked to do has just shut me down from finishing the game's story in order. I went ahead and finished the PoF story simply because I wanted the mounts having come from games in the past that had them. And for the most part really enjoyed it (oddly enough, I think I overall found PoF's story a little more difficult than HoT's, but preferred the story of HoT more). And now I feel "stuck" again as I want to get back to Season 3, and just can't make myself start again. So Seasons 4 & 5 remain untouched while I try to avoid spoilers.
This is all my own opinion of course, but long story short, I guess I wouldn't care if it were more difficult. Just give us content worth the challenge. Make it compelling enough that I welcome the chance to play it
Exactly my experience as well.. Also if you thought Season 3 was tedious you should try season 4.. It blows 3 out of the water in annoying inane mechanics.. I was exactly at your point then decided to do 4... wow, just horrible gameplay.
I finished it on one character never again.. what amazing content when customers do it once then never want to go back.
I thought story was 1 and done for most people.
Only if you want ap and the reward that bring you go in more times.
We altoholics are a minority.
I've done the core tyria story about 30 times now.. Hot about 5, Pof once and the living stories 2 or 3 times uncompleted, living story 3 and 4 i've finished once completely.
Honestly this modern stuff just isn't fun to be redone.
@kharmin.7683 said:
I have enough stress with real life work and enough calls on my time with family, kids and other obligations that I enjoy the few hours each week that I am able to get online with the game and decompress.
I totally get that, but then Strike Missions, Raids and other such content might not be for you, and that's 100% okay. Just don't ask to have the challenge taken away from others, that's all.
By the way, it just took me less than 10 minutes to gather a good team and a couple more to finish the Boneskinner strike mission, so it's not all about "having tons of time". It's mostly about skill and the willingness to play properly. If someone, for whatever reason, can't learn the mechanics of a specific content, they are not forced to play it and it's obviously not made for them. For instance, I don't do raids for that very reason, because most raid players are elitist in regards of wanting proof of your skill by posting the raid drops that show how many bosses you've already killed (and since I rarely do raids, I don't have that many trophies to show off). So, no one is forcing me to play raids, it's my decision to not do so because of the circumstances. Doesn't mean I come to the forum and ask to have said "proof" items removed from the game because of my personal situation...
I mod Dragon Age Inquisition, and I'm surprised how popular the "Skip Fights" mod has been. Even story mode in that game is easy. A lot of people just want to experience the story, not be forced into some silly dance in World of Circlecraft (AGAIN!).
@Svarty.8019 said:
I mod Dragon Age Inquisition, and I'm surprised how popular the "Skip Fights" mod has been. Even story mode in that game is easy. A lot of people just want to experience the story, not be forced into some silly dance in World of Circlecraft (AGAIN!).
There are plenty of walking simulators with a story out there...
Edit: I am an old school pen & paper role-player, and there is no real adventure without epic fights. If you don't want challenging fights, don't play RPGs, MMO or otherwise.
@kharmin.7683 said:
I have enough stress with real life work and enough calls on my time with family, kids and other obligations that I enjoy the few hours each week that I am able to get online with the game and decompress.
I totally get that, but then Strike Missions, Raids and other such content might not be for you, and that's 100% okay. Just don't ask to have the challenge taken away from others, that's all.
I completely agree here. And you're right: SM, Raids and Fractals are definitely content that I don't enter. Where I have an issue is with the calls to change the difficulty for other content in the game.
@Ashantara.8731 said:
Edit: I am an old school pen & paper role-player, and there is no real adventure without epic fights. If you don't want challenging fights, don't play RPGs, MMO or otherwise.
"challenging fights" is arbitrary, and that I believe is the crux of this argument. What some find challenging, others may not.
The only way to make sure absolutely noone is going to complain about the difficulty is to turn all encounters into cutscenes, cutscenes which require you to press buttons occasionally to make you feel like you are actually playing but without any consequences whatsoever. Oh, and you need to be able to just skip these cutscenes to instantly "win". Maybe sell an "instant win" button on the cash shop...
On serious note: They seem to prefer to go for reasonably easy encounters instead, to actually retain at least some gameplay and I say reasonably to not offend anyone because they are certainly rather easy. Wouldn't mind if we went for less "tedious and boring" over "more easy" in the future.
Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something. ~ Robert Heinlein
Comments
Well said. I can understand where you're coming from with this analysis. Interesting perspective on it. Thanks for sharing.
I am a very casual player.
Very.
Casual.
Why are you playing games then and not interactive stories? I would say the majority wouldnt play a game that never challenges them. In another thread you said this game favours ranged combat a lot. You also said that vit is as important as power in pve. After all those years you still didn't understand the combat system. What armour are you using? Which traits?
Struggling with story is more of a terrible build problem. The only somewhat difficult story bosses were the ones in ls2 and maybe hearts and minds. Everything after that just dies. You have multiple seconds to walk out of a red circle. Thats far from requiring fast reflexes.
https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Soulbeast_-Condi_Trapper
I use this build because i found it the most durable and high damage on many enemies
I also have this build on my second tab
https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Ranger-_Longbow_Beastmastery
but i find longbow quite lackluster compared to shortbow and it kills trash way slower than the condi..
Exotic versions i'm still building my Ascended..
GW1 i played for 4 years and never once had any of the issues this game labors me with.. It is far harder than GW1 ever was.. and its completely different.. this is more twitch white knuckle stuff, GW1 was nothing like that. Guildwars 1 was far far superior game in every way than this.
This has become WoW lite..
Totally agree 100%.
I would swap light on your feed for quickdraw and stance share doesnt do much solo. Build is ok so you have to play it wrong if you struggle with it like ranging a lot so your traps dont do much.
I really dont like the metabattle power builds. Just use the raid build and swap thief runes for eagle, play gs + axe/axe and the stability stance instead of signet. Metabattle doesnt use sick'em at all while it cheeses story super hard. power soulbeast can dish out like 300k damage in a few seconds which is most of the time enough to phase a story boss.
Other option is to drop the dagger torch and just play condi shortbow with light on your feet to reduce complexity. Bear stance as a heal should be replaced with we heal as one in non condi heavy parts of the story. Entangle and oppressive superiority beats out stance share in solo play.
ftfy
So what you are saying is the difficulty of story should always be at the level of what?
Zhaitan?
Grothmar?
...and should never get any more diffucult as the player progresses because you....have a full time job? I mean what other game gets easier as you progress and not harder?
Even simple clickers or puzzlers like Candy Crush get harder the further you go. That's why people pick them up and keep playing them.
The reality is that what you are arguing for creates a situation that invalidates everything the game has managed to tutorialize over 7 years of content. You are arguing in favor of creating a world in which the game never increases in difficulty and becomes a flat milquetoast experience where the player just wlks around, looking at the scenery, viewing cutscenes and picking up prizes.
Like the ghosts Pac-Man never getting faster, the final 15 minutes of HalfLife 2 being just as challenging as the first 15 minutes, or the 100th level of Candy Crush being as hard to clear as the first...because you have a job.
I get up and go to work every morning and see dozens of people playing games on their phones on the subway on my way to the office.
I'm willing to bet each and every one of those games gates progression behind skill checks that get progressively more difficult, not less.
"We recognize that some players are not able to complete all content." Gaile Gray 01.10.19
the only cases of high difficulty we had? the one rescue taimi fight/story instance from her own robot suffocating her and that mostly because we had to deal with tons of enemies we cant take out faster then they hit us lol. and that instance was only problematic while playing deadeye lol too much creeps to even get far enough to not get killed before you killed the second of 40 enemies ^^ go in there as daredevil and you can easily win this instance even more so with stave/shortbow ^^
how fun of you to assume how we play. but yeah you said something right there ^^ not gonna bother with people that see everyone as bad that isnt a player with reflexes on the level of special forces^
Except you dont need reflexes of a super human to complete anything in the story. Theres a 65 year old man who full clears raids every week and he has...you'll never guess, the reaction time of a 65 year old man (who has not received special forces training btw). You're not bad because you dont have .01 second reflexes. You're bad because of terrible tactical decisions you make in and out of combat. These include but are not limited to, randomly double dodging when sidestepping will do, standing at range and having to dodge a wider arc than if you simply stood in melee and stepped behind the boss, not bringing block,stunbreak,condi cleanse, or any situational skill you might need after a failed attempt, and not knowing what your traits do.
There are builds out there that let you only auto attack and out sustain all damage you take so is targeting the boss and hitting 1 require special forces training now?
fun how some people think everyone does those mistakes when they complain about having problems with the content..... welp whatever people like generalizing all the time to justify their opinion.....
oh and to the person that said gw1 content was challenging? gw1 content was easy compared to gw2 content.... you can compare most of the content to the first 40 levels of gw2 and the rest of the content to the content from lvl 41-50 dungeons ^^. The only things that have been really challenging back in gw1 where the "raids" like the underworld raid lol.... you could solo most of the content with support npc´s and your own heroes no matter how bad your build was.
This is an extremely misleading and unfair comparison. The difficulty of story bosses is nowhere near T4 fractals and raids. That's the point many of us are trying to make - it's already incredibly easy to beat story bosses without having any special talent for gaming, and struggling with story bosses indicates a broader inability to perform combat in this game, period.
I guess this is the consequence of living in a world where it's considered toxic to set norms - people seem to lack a sense of where they are on the spectrum, and conveniently refuse to believe that their level of play is gasp below standard. It does NOT take a gaming superstar with incredible ninja reflexes to beat a story boss. What it does take is the basic ability to learn how combat in this game is structured, and make adjustments to your play accordingly.
Below whose standards? Yours or ANet's?
I am a very casual player.
Very.
Casual.
What is easy or hard is very relative. I have played fast paced fps games since the 90's, naturally the game is easy for me. But today gaming is streamlined and you want to bring in and cater to the broader audience. There is such a vast difference in skill between someone like me that was training his flick shots and precise backward blind movement through map and spacial awareness via map sounds and stuff like that to my girlfriend who probably has to look at the keyboard to not miss her buttons.
The only real solution are different difficulty modes.
I do agree though that suddenly decreasing difficulty in a 7 year old game is strange and probably not the best decision. It is still a game and without challenge it is boring.
Please enlighten us what types of mistakes you think you're making that makes story mode hard. Aside from one or two very egregious examples like white mantle caudecus, everything else can be done by spamming 1.
Anet's. @Shikaru.7618 said it best, so I'll repeat it here:
^ That's the standard set by Anet. They create the story boss encounters, which can be cleared with absolutely minimal engagement with the combat system overall. That Caudecus encounter proved too complex for many, so they adjusted that down.
At this point, I realize it just looks like I lack empathy - which is only partially true. If there is some physical reason why a player can't perform the tasks necessary to clear a story boss, I can see how that could be extremely frustrating, and I would welcome a separate mode for those individuals to meet whatever gameplay needs they have.
What I have absolutely zero empathy for is the feeling that some of the above individuals have, namely that their level of gameplay should somehow set the standard for discussion, and any mention of how objectively simple these encounters are is somehow shortsighted or plain old mean.
In order for me to accept the current levels of story boss difficulty as too hard to be considered a reasonable standard, I'd have to have a more data-oriented discussion. We'd have to figure out, at minimum:
Short of having the above discussion to a satisfying extent, I'll stick to my guns.
If you ask me anyone who complains story bosses are too hard are likely the same people who say things like "I don't want to play fractals because people expect me to use a meta build that is actually good for something, I don't want to be useful".
Story bosses being too easy is why I already avoid story for the most part, it's not fun when nothing is even remotely challenging. Play a good build. You don't even need to be that great at the game, just play a good build instead of the random mix of gear/traits that you're currently using. Look at youtube videos, look at metabattle, find a build that you didn't make and don't be so stubborn.
Idk what you are talking about. Story bosses are not hard. Well scruffy one was kinda nice, but not that hard... Honestly its really hard to balance thses things. Lets say you are running supportish class thst deals lower dmg, the yes its will be harder, but if you running powerhouse like holo or sokething that deals alot of burst dmg then it will be kinda easier.
You try taking down Scruffy with only spamming 1 key... so tired of this hyperbole.
the mistake i make? trying to play the game as a casual that plays once per month/or when the story comes out for the 20 minutes of content we do get with an update....
fun how all those optimizers/hardcore players in here keep talking about other players are bad because we dont play the game to the point that we can play every content in our sleep without problems.
Welp back to not talking on forums.... Not gonna try to deal with walls that only see their own standpoint and cant think themselves into the shoes of others.
He did make an exception for egregious examples like Caudecus, and I would maybe include that Scraffy fight in that pool of exceptions as well. I don't remember much about that Scruffy fight, so I can't say much more without replaying it.
Well why dont you team up with 4 people in your guild every weekend and finsih off some stories people need then?
Youtube is always there if you wanna watch a movie of someone playing and not play the game yourself mate.
I'm sorry, but we're not talking about content for hardcore player here. Story content doesn't come even close to that.
We're talking about content that asks of the player to... well... play the game.
Speaking about thinking into the shoes of others. It goes both ways. Understanding why one cannot do some content does not mean said content should be modified and adapted to them specifically. Especially when it can and would impact other players too. It already did in the past. (Eater of Souls, Caudecus...)
The content of this game is vastly made for casual play already. This is particularly jarring for people coming from the original guild wars.
And I dare say... people playing once a month aren't exactly what brings Anet money.
If moving/no dodging is allowed thats not even that hard. Just take ip thief or trailblazer scourge. Complete faceroll builds exist.
Lupicus has been killed using only 1 finger.
You can beat Scruffy by only spamming 1 key, if it's gonna be fun though is a different story. Arenanet made it so when you revive boss health doesn't reset so technically you can auto attack Scruffy to death without dodging, as long as you land a single hit before you die each time you will eventually (in a few hours maybe) beat him. Not to mention Braham will revive you rather quickly if you stay close to him, his shield skill will block Scruffy's projectiles too, so it's a good idea to hug the big brute.
Is it doable? Yes. But probably not anything someone might call "fun". The alternative is to use one of the faceroll builds that can kill the boss without struggling, but I guess "using a good build" is out of the question in "story is too hard" threads.
They cant use berserker stats because it requires delta force military training and until we learn that, we have no place in this discussion.
I may die a hundred times and have no armor left, but the boss eventually will die as long as I don't get disconnected.
Looking back on this thread, seeing this person's comment and seeing the level of support for it back then is immensely depressing.
Looking back at some of the great mechanical story mission fights over the years, Shadow of the Dragon round 1&2, Faolain, Modremoth, Caudecus, Lazarus, The Warbeast, Balthazar, and frankly culminating with King Joko and Zaphira it's incredibly disappointing how far the actual gameplay of the living world has fallen.
There are great moments, like the finale to Season 4, and the current story missions are fun from purely a narrative and atmospheric standpoint. Bound by Blood is a great reimmersion into Charr culture, and Whisper in the Dark is genuinely creepy and unsettling in a dark and atmospheric way I've not seen an MMORPG pull off since The Secret World. But look at the "gameplay" here.
Seriously, look at this. The first time he played this his response was "They were dead before I finished my Mantras."
I've noticed starting of All or Nothing while the story and scoping reminds great there's just no gameplay in the actual missions. The first fight against Kralkatorrik is visually stunning but you're just fighting a nonthreatening mobs, charging up pylons, and then hitting a beat stick that doesn't fight back. The fight against Kralkatorrik's Torment in War Eternal is just a joke. It's impossible to lose that fight. The final boss of LWS4 and he's not some tormented being in agony he's barely freaking awake. Flying Aurene is a visually stunning mission, but there's barely any actual gameplay.
Same thing with the fight against Braham's guildmates and the fight against the Icebrood Construct in Icebrood Saga.
This is "expansion level content?" The Living World story already struggled with being consistently too easy, but at least there were mechanics. At least there was fun getting through Joko's gauntlet, and fighting Joko himself. At least there was fun doing the stealth mission to set up a base in Korna. At least there were mechanics regarding fighting and getting to Zaphira the sniper.
But this? Breaking up the pace of the story with a potentially fun 2v2 with Rytlock against some bloodthirsty hardened charr soldiers could have been a fun little moment and it's embarrassing. Some people complained and so all the actual gameplay and mechanics needs to be thoroughly and completely drained from the game.
And what's doubly sad is that open world is already always really brain dead and it always will be where casuals thrived every since Arenanet completely abandoned the idea of challenging open world content after the backlash to Heart of Thorns. But the story is one of the few places in the game where you can make gameplay mechanically interesting, where you can make the game challenging, where you can put the ACTION and ROLEPLAYING back into this MMO-Action Roleplay game.
One of the number one things everyone walks away praising Guild Wars 2 is the speed, fluidity, and nuance of the combat system. It's dynamic and one of a kind. And the flagship content of the game that's supposed to draw in players is absolutely terrified of indulging in it.
But this guy, who hasn't posted on the forums in over a year, and probably doesn't play at all anymore. This guy got what he wanted. Everything interesting about the gameplay in the Living World has been completely drained. Fights are a complete joke. Over in a second and present absolutely no threat challenge or interesting mechanics just like he wanted. And he's gone. He didn't even stick around and doesn't appreciate it and doesn't care. But players like me who would love to see Living World also live up in terms of gameplay mechanics, quality, and difficulty that's worthy of single player roleplaying games, where a boss will kill me and leave me scratching my head and thinking about how I can approach the fight differently and gain victory. And then I can have fun doing just that and overcoming a challenge. The feeling of being satisfied completing challenging content. We lost everything.
Expansion. Level. Content. Enjoy.
Best Dressed Memser NA.
Hitting Thumbs Up on your post simply wasn't enough.
This is not "expansion level content" to me.
No.
Thank you for aritculating what I have been looking for a way to say, so well.
I will say in the new episode's defense:
The open world combat (forgettable meta event aside) is at times a little more challenging than a few other maps. They are trying some new things. Open world champs with some beefy retal, elites that actually put up a fight, some actual boon play that makes for a slightly more engaging combat cycle, the new "bitter cold" debuff. It's not HoT, but it sure beats berry farming in BFF.
I get the map is small. Painfully small. And the meta is pretty much a snoozer. It's not a quarter the fun that Dragonfall was. But when I line it up with a few others, I'm enjoying it much more than I did Bitterfrost or Thunderhead.
What's there is still more entertaining than Bloodstone Fen.
If we could get the story instance back to the previous levels I would be much happier with the current product.
My only positive spin is this:
This is their new "Starting over" point. It's not their first. They started over after Season 1 when their planned content delivery (which was meant to exclude expansions) turned out to be flawed in both execution and concept. At the same time as this, a bunch of really central talent left for Amazon. It happened again after Heart of Thorns, when a massive outcry against much of it's design forced all hands on deck to spend the next six months "finishing the expansion".
Then we come the recent point where a bunch of people are let go.
Go look at Matthew Medina's youtube and see just how much really good stuff that one single guy was responsible for. Then ask yourself how many people just like him were let go. And of those who remained, (those familiar with the tools enough to create the really great encounters we enjoyed) how many were then promoted into positions of oversight.
I'm sure the department was absolutely gutted.
I guess my point is that, as a starting over point, they've reduced everything back to a pretty low bar for entry. They are likely highly reshuffled teams with a lot of new people trying to reinvent the wheel... again.
And for the first shot? it wasn't all doom and gloom for those of us who enjoy a challenge There was an increase in challenge from the Prologue's final story mission to Ep1's. Ep1's strike missions (while still hollow for many) were indeed harder than the first one was...and there were three. Grothmar was a shallow open world map but Bjora gave us more to fight than scorpions protecting chilis.
If everything trends in the right direction we might just start enjoying the ride again after another issue or two.
"We recognize that some players are not able to complete all content." Gaile Gray 01.10.19
I hardly play now so it doesn't really matter, i login to use up my gems then i'll uninstall.. You guys can enjoy your hard Raid lite level content in stories..
If you played the last four story releases you'd realize that's been gone for about a year now. Story Missions already couldn't be failed, and now there is basically no game play and no mechanics. Your side won and you don't even appreciate it.
Best Dressed Memser NA.
By the way you should try the Icebrood Saga it's of a similar difficulty as the personal story (if not even less) the last fight of Whisper in the Dark has some annoying area of effect knockback spam, but it's just that, annoying, the rest of the Saga is really easy catering to players that found past content hard and complained about it.
That said, you keep proving my point regarding the overall reduction of difficulty in the Icebrood Saga. Players like you should've left ages ago, if hard story content is what makes you quit a game. But now that they made the story content specifically FOR YOU, without altering past content, it begs the question "why?", if players that couldn't handle the old content left/leave and refuse to play the easy mode Icebrood Saga before first playing the old content, all this recent change will do is alienate those still playing and enjoying the game.
they would need a major rework of the game the game to get the casuals back, i dont see that happening this late.
im guessing they are testing something, or they need to prop up numbers for a report
icebrood saga wont win many casuals, its way to gloomy and boring
played about an hour, and uninstalled again
The way they are doing the game won't win many casuals, while at the same time alienates those looking for more challenge in the game. Another reason why this sudden change in policy regarding challenge doesn't make any sense and won't help the game.
not unless they do a major overhaul on the rest of the game. and i would be very surprised if they did that.
it is very weird indeed
I disagree a bit here. Sadly with this model they keep the casual crowd playing and interested in the game. This target group is the one that changes real money into gems (& gold) and doesn't grind their gold on certain maps, daily fractals or raids. A lot of them are not done with achievements and story bits after one week and if they are done with it they have lots of things to do which ambitious veterans have finished long time ago.
In addition these easy story bits we've seen with the Episode 1 and to a smaller extent with Grothmar is appealing for the ones that got into the game recently with the new bundle structure (core + HoT + PoF for 30 €/$ which is a super sale of the century for beginners). These players are the potential ones to bring in fresh money because they don't have the stuff from the gem store veterans acquired over the years etc. pp. So, these players have a continuous flow of episode if they can maintain the 2 months cadence. It's very frustrating for me (and for you as well I guess) but I personally think that's their way to go now to stay financially healthy.
Maybe that won't pay off - I really cannot imagine and I also don't want that this will work. My guilds and mates died a horrible death a.k.a. people have left in droves but I have no objective oversight and most likely sitting in my personal filter bubble. Again: Unlucky me but that's life I guess I know it is.
R.I.P. Build Templates, 15.10.2019
I'm pretty new, having created an account this past April, followed by becoming very ill with an almost month long hospital stay. I wasn't able to really start playing until around mid July or so. So while I've had time to get used to GW2 and how it works, I'm a long way from being anywhere near an expert and experienced. Despite that, I haven't found the fights, boss or otherwise, to be too difficult; though at times really tedious with the amount of hitpoints and the repetition involved in beating certain bosses. The occasional puzzling mechanic, or "What the hell do I do now?" moment can also slow me down. But nothing, and I mean nothing, has been worse for me than story content I just don't enjoy in any way.
For me, that's been LS Season 3 in pretty much its entirety thus far. From the story, to the seemingly inane collecting one is asked to do has just shut me down from finishing the game's story in order. I went ahead and finished the PoF story simply because I wanted the mounts having come from games in the past that had them. And for the most part really enjoyed it (oddly enough, I think I overall found PoF's story a little more difficult than HoT's, but preferred the story of HoT more). And now I feel "stuck" again as I want to get back to Season 3, and just can't make myself start again. So Seasons 4 & 5 remain untouched while I try to avoid spoilers.
This is all my own opinion of course, but long story short, I guess I wouldn't care if it were more difficult. Just give us content worth the challenge. Make it compelling enough that I welcome the chance to play it
I'd rather they make them tougher, they're already easy as it is.
You can also use something like this (sb3 build) : http://gw2skills.net/editor/?POjAUVlZw+YTMJmJWaP7PvUYKWpeE-zRJYmRFfZEXGUZJ4zsAzZF-e .
It's easier to play and the dps is really nice (you can even use it in raid content with stance share).
The "rotation" consists in using f2, f3, 2, 4, 7, 8, 9 and elite on cooldown and swap weapon when you can to proc the sigil (flanking mob bring even more dps).
For the pets, use lynx for dps and warhog to bring a bit less dps but good cc. If you still struggle you can take the black bear pet to have 2 more invul (f2, f3).
Carcharoth Lucian/Mini Chibii
Ruin of Surmia world
PvE : [CdL] Les Chasseurs De Légendes
WvW : [MIMs] Mobile Ingénieuse Et Marteau
This... this is great truth. It pains me so deeply to see it written out, but it's so true. OP and their ilk complained, got their way (i.e. braindead "combat" content), and aren't even around to appreciate what they ruined for the rest of us.
Smashing your face against the keyboard like a zombie... That is the definition of "braindead". Which also summarizes perfectly my experience with PoF maps. They are saturated with foes preventing me from doing anything interesting. Its all run or fight. That's the reason why now I spend my time at the forum instead of actually playing the game. The last fight of HoT was a pain. I think it took me over 20 minutes to solo it. And I had to do it twice because of a glitch.
Live and let live I say.
Exactly my experience as well.. Also if you thought Season 3 was tedious you should try season 4.. It blows 3 out of the water in annoying inane mechanics.. I was exactly at your point then decided to do 4... wow, just horrible gameplay.
I finished it on one character never again.. what amazing content when customers do it once then never want to go back.
I thought story was 1 and done for most people.
Only if you want ap and the reward that bring you go in more times.
We altoholics are a minority.
I've done the core tyria story about 30 times now.. Hot about 5, Pof once and the living stories 2 or 3 times uncompleted, living story 3 and 4 i've finished once completely.
Honestly this modern stuff just isn't fun to be redone.
I totally get that, but then Strike Missions, Raids and other such content might not be for you, and that's 100% okay. Just don't ask to have the challenge taken away from others, that's all.
By the way, it just took me less than 10 minutes to gather a good team and a couple more to finish the Boneskinner strike mission, so it's not all about "having tons of time". It's mostly about skill and the willingness to play properly. If someone, for whatever reason, can't learn the mechanics of a specific content, they are not forced to play it and it's obviously not made for them. For instance, I don't do raids for that very reason, because most raid players are elitist in regards of wanting proof of your skill by posting the raid drops that show how many bosses you've already killed (and since I rarely do raids, I don't have that many trophies to show off). So, no one is forcing me to play raids, it's my decision to not do so because of the circumstances. Doesn't mean I come to the forum and ask to have said "proof" items removed from the game because of my personal situation...
♀ Gallery: Guild Wars 1 Memories
No more LW episodes, only Expansions and Side Stories, please!
I mod Dragon Age Inquisition, and I'm surprised how popular the "Skip Fights" mod has been. Even story mode in that game is easy. A lot of people just want to experience the story, not be forced into some silly dance in World of Circlecraft (AGAIN!).
This post contains my opinion.
There are plenty of walking simulators with a story out there...
Edit: I am an old school pen & paper role-player, and there is no real adventure without epic fights. If you don't want challenging fights, don't play RPGs, MMO or otherwise.
♀ Gallery: Guild Wars 1 Memories
No more LW episodes, only Expansions and Side Stories, please!
It’ll only get harder. These aren’t anywhere as difficult as hot bosses were in instances or living world season 2.
I’m not sure that it will since Anet seems to have dialed back the difficulty to appease a certain group of players.
I completely agree here. And you're right: SM, Raids and Fractals are definitely content that I don't enter. Where I have an issue is with the calls to change the difficulty for other content in the game.
I am a very casual player.
Very.
Casual.
"challenging fights" is arbitrary, and that I believe is the crux of this argument. What some find challenging, others may not.
I am a very casual player.
Very.
Casual.
The only way to make sure absolutely noone is going to complain about the difficulty is to turn all encounters into cutscenes, cutscenes which require you to press buttons occasionally to make you feel like you are actually playing but without any consequences whatsoever. Oh, and you need to be able to just skip these cutscenes to instantly "win". Maybe sell an "instant win" button on the cash shop...
On serious note: They seem to prefer to go for reasonably easy encounters instead, to actually retain at least some gameplay and I say reasonably to not offend anyone because they are certainly rather easy. Wouldn't mind if we went for less "tedious and boring" over "more easy" in the future.
Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something. ~ Robert Heinlein