[Suggestion] Stop making Story Bosses Hard (LS4 Spoilers)

[Ayrilana.1396]

I don’t recall any story bosses being difficult and especially since it’s impossible to fail them as their HP doesn’t reset.

The scruffy one mentioned is not as bad as it’s being made out to be. The last few percentage gets hectic for sure but dodging those attacks only matters if going for the achievement.

[James.1032]

There are some people in here who just straight up refuse to improve their gameplay. Get help from other people, it's an MMO not a single player novel.

[Mikali.9651]

I know I am defensive when it comes to this topic, honestly, sometimes even fired up when reading it, for the reason that Guild Wars 2 became a very easy game that can basically be played as a singleplayer game. I do not enjoy it, I strive for team and group play, even outside instanced content - in the Open World, something like how HoT was, maybe even a bit harder.

It's all about Anet and their stance. Humans adapt, very fast. If 95% of the content is faceroll easy I can understand some of the comments here, because suddenly it becomes strange to lose so players cry for nerf of the difficulty of the content. I do not like that.

If there was more difficult content, then people would have a well-balanced build - it's not about having the perfect build, min-max build, meta build - all you need is a bit more refined build.I would like if this game becomes more group-oriented. I miss the need to play with other players. I guess I never had a problem playing story missions with a full group of people in Guild Wars 1. It was just so much more fun, I had a feeling I really belonged to the community. Guild Wars 1 helped me become more social - I needed to adapt. I could have chosen to play with NPCs, but playing with people actually was kinda cool, cuz I experienced all kinds of emotions - success, happiness, friendliness, rage, toxicity, sadness, everything.I know lots of people are afraid of other people, afraid of them pointing their mistakes. But you gotta make yourself stronger. I am sure, that for every evil person out there who mocks you, you can find a friend that will make you laugh in this game.

So, if you can't solo something - ask us. We will make you a better player, you will understand the game better. If you understand things, you can have even more fun creating your builds.

[ugrakarma.9416]

my only problem with bosses is AoE spam, is designed if everyone play mesmer/thief or moviment/dodge bonus. Scruffy is cancerous, but still doable. they should pick the Mordremoth fight as parameter to history boss dificult.

[Cuks.8241]

@nembool.5981 said:And there should be no reason why I'm forced to play in a particular style to beat an instance. The instance should have multiple options, or paths to victory, that any playstyle is possible.

I'm sorry but there is so much wrong with this statement.This is a game. A game should give you a challenge and you should should find a way to overcome it. This goes for all games; computer games, sports, board games...Yes it is good if you have different possibilities how to beat a game and GW2 story has that. Many of us beat the story with much different classes, builds and game styles.

But any play style possible? No no no no no. To enable this all challenge should be removed. What you are asking is not a game anymore.

[Opopanax.1803]

Most of the story bosses i find ok and to be a good balance, but there are some stand out bad ones.

1. Hearts and minds updrafts are bugged out and is known to dc people.
2. Caudacus fight was a terrible aoe spam, cramped camera, bad particle effect fight. Worst one imo.
3. Taimi fight lists by the op was truly too long and too much aoe spam. It lost its fun.

All said, I enjoyed all of the others, and considering how many other chapters there are, I'd say most of the time, Anet finds a good balance. There is definaywly room for improvement, though...especially the dc issue.

[whoeverxwins.1279]

No. Just no. I'm pretty darned casual (only play 3 days a week, disabled, and have rheumatoid arthritis in my hands) and I still enjoy a challenge. If I can't manage, I can always call in a guildie for help. Or even look on lfg. Shoot, last week I saw someone who looked newish (low mastery points), standing at the hearts and minds point as I was getting ready to go do mine, so offered to party up and help them. Sometimes I have to back up and change my skills, either to be tougher or add more stun breaks, etc, but it's all doable. It is boring if everything is always the same!

[Friday.7864]

Yup, agree, story isn't fun for me.In fact, it's one of the few things that actually annoys me about the game.Just having to listen to the story to unlock the content I want to access is meh. Add the annoying bosses and it suddenly becomes a 100 times worse.I gave up on the final HoT chapter completely, way too annoying.

And ye, ppl in guild regularly complain about repeatedly insta dying in story chapters.

[mauried.5608]

Ive been playing this game since it started and Ive asked repeatedly on this forum can someone actually define in an objective way what challenging content is .Ive never got an answer.GW2 is a game , its not a school classroom where you MUST learn things.Games are designed to provide entertainment for EVERYONE, not just for players who are obsessed with challenging content.Easy content is still fun.

[nembool.5981]

@Cuks.8241 said:

@nembool.5981 said:And there should be no reason why I'm forced to play in a particular style to beat an instance. The instance should have multiple options, or paths to victory, that any playstyle is possible.

I'm sorry but there is so much wrong with this statement.This is a game. A game should give you a challenge and you should should find a way to overcome it. This goes for all games; computer games, sports, board games...Yes it is good if you have different possibilities how to beat a game and GW2 story has that. Many of us beat the story with much different classes, builds and game styles.

But any play style possible? No no no no no. To enable this all challenge should be removed. What you are asking is not a game anymore.

Not quite why you're sorry? It isn't personal, I simply have a different opinion to you. I don't take offense at people who have different opinions.

Your next statement about overcoming challenges is fair, in that we should be adapt to survive. However, the problem here, and in many of the GW2 instances, is that there is only one way forward and that way is programmed by the Arenanet team. If there were multiple options to beating a boss (perhaps in the case of Scruffy, Taimi could give you some access codes to input whilst NPCs tank) then we'd have options. As I said, options are everything. Arenanet could still lock the achievements behind actually combatting the boss, and everyone would get their choice of how to beat it, with appropriate reward.

[Astralporing.1957]

@Laila Lightness.8742 said:No one said pve bosses should be easy that would defeat the purpose of even having bossesIt's a story instance. They are there for narrative reasons. they are not there so we can feel challenged - the content for that is somewhere else.

Besides, those fights aren't even challenging. They just drag on for way too long.

@Laila Lightness.8742 said:Then the fight is kinda pointless for most would skip itIf most people would skip it, then the fight is pointless, and you can safely nerf it. It's not like there are any rewards attached to it anyway.

[Yumenei.7943]

@nembool.5981 said:Two points here:- Firstly, the mechanics are often poorly signposted, with illogical invulnerability phases and massive AOE effects. It's not easy to work out what you need to do when you're dodging/healing/kiting.Secondly, DPS isn't everything. If I want to play a build focused on boon-sharing, or healing allies, I should be able to and still have a decent chance of getting through an instance. The fact that I can't implies that the encounter isn't designed fairly. Perhaps that's the flaw in the underlying GW2 mechanics.

Poorly signposted? I don’t know If we are playing the same game, but there are always visible buffs on the bar below portrait of your target. This regardless of any animations. It’s not WoW where addons are telling you when to jump, where to stand etc. You need to figure it out yourself and in a game that has no death penalty it ain’t bad at all. I remember story missions from GW1, those you could call hard at times.

About that DPS thing. So sacrificing all your damage for healing shouldn’t come with any costs? Does that also implies that players that sacrifice all their defensive stats for damage should have the same chances at surviving incoming damage and thus have an easier time doing story bosses? I mean you can’t fail anyway, you can literally drown them with your naked corpses if you want. All choices come with advantages and disadvantages, that’s what they are. If all outcomes would be the same, it would be pointless to even have different gear stats. You however choose to bring a healing build to a fight and you expect to complete it on a pace similar to full DPS build.

I don’t know why people insist on making games dumber for everyone? If anything, ANet could add easy and hard mode for story missions, with the second one giving some extra rewards or achievements.

[lare.5129]

How I understand the main idea of topic - living STORY is not RAID boss.Who want challenge go farm cm99 fractal wiht non skilled players, or go raid.Why people like me, who like ascalon dungeon and don't go raid should stuck on living STORY and 30 min dps boss?

[Tarlonniel.6534]

Having another player there wandering around as I listen, stare, and just think about the story would destroy my flow and make me highly uncomfortable.

So much this. The only way I could finally beat "Hearts and Minds" was to bring someone else along, at the price of basically ruining the story sequence for me afterwards. :/

Fortunately I've been able to beat every other story boss in the game solo. It may take a long time, and my armor may be in pieces on the floor, but they're dead.

[Zunki.3916]

@lare.5129 said:How I understand the main idea of topic - living STORY is not RAID boss.Who want challenge go farm cm99 fractal wiht non skilled players, or go raid.Why people like me, who like ascalon dungeon and don't go raid should stuck on living STORY and 30 min dps boss?

While i was pleasently and positively surprised by this bosses difficulty level that alone might be enough to underline your point.The optimal solutions would be hardmodes for such content that you can toggle on your first playthrough for those wo actually like playing the games mechanics beside just enjoying the story. That would be best for both worlds.

[tnarrant.9714]

I'll weigh in as someone who has played this game on-and-off for years, but has struggled with many if not most story boss fights post-Tyria.

In some cases, I was able to try the fight with a different class and succeed better. In many cases, I have to take advantage of the progress saves and die over and over until winning. For instance, my ranger kept failing the final Mordremoth fight, but I was able to complete it with my engineer (part of that was abandoning the updrafts and using the barrier dome). My mesmer was struggling with later PoF content, but my necromancer (minion master) got through it a bit better. I know some of that is build choices, but I'll touch on that in a bit.

The struggle I have is mainly reaction time and controls. Because of the near-constant AoE barrages, I can't stand still for more than a half second to decide where to go or what to cast, because doing so risks losing half my health. I also can't take my hand off the main keys or mouse for long because I have to maintain constant movement. This makes casting lots of skills problematic, because taking time to look carefully at the keyboard and move either hand over to 6-9 or the F keys means my attention might miss something crucial. In that regard, I usually fare better with my mesmer because I'm not always the focus of aggro and that gives me more windows to consider and decide.

To respond to those who say to just optimize your build, I would counter that it would be nice to be able to play a build that is comfortable and fun, and not have to contort to specific builds just to proceed through the story. I play games for fun, not to shoehorn into someone else's ideal build. I'd like to come up with cool build concepts, not ignoring synergies, but not feeling as wedged into some corners. I don't want to deny someone the pleasure of build optimizing, but it would be good to have broader choices, and be able to prosper in the story without going full-bore DPS and crit-crazy. I am okay with the idea of either increasing survivability or toning down story bosses a little, while keeping the challenge in fractals and raids and world bosses. That would let more people enjoy the story and accompanying things like mounts without watering down the whole game.

[Ashen.2907]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Laila Lightness.8742 said:No one said pve bosses should be easy that would defeat the purpose of even having bossesIt's a story instance. They are there for narrative reasons. they are not there so we can feel challenged - the content for that is somewhere else.

Besides, those fights aren't even challenging. They just drag on for way too long.

@Laila Lightness.8742 said:Then the fight is kinda pointless for most would skip itIf most people would skip it, then the fight

is

pointless, and you can safely nerf it. It's not like there are any rewards attached to it anyway.

The bosses are there for the purposes of both narrative and challenge. If not intended for challenge (to whatever extent) they would be cinematic cutscenes rather than playable.

Some people do find them challenging, although I am inclined to think that is more a reflection of the player or character than of the content.

[Nephalem.8921]

@mauried.5608 said:Ive been playing this game since it started and Ive asked repeatedly on this forum can someone actually define in an objective way what challenging content is .Ive never got an answer.GW2 is a game , its not a school classroom where you MUST learn things.Games are designed to provide entertainment for EVERYONE, not just for players who are obsessed with challenging content.Easy content is still fun.

Thats not true at all. Lots of people don't enjoy easy content. Would rather watch a movie with good story instead of playing a game that plays itself.Football is a game aswell, chess, puzzles... All games where you must learn things. Story bosses have most of the time only 1 gimmick you have to figure out.Are people here really spending 30min on taimis golem alone or the whole story dungeon? I can barely attack it before it goes invuln and i have to throw orbs again.Story dungeons don't scale with players in them so a party of 2-3 just steamrolls everything. I really don't understand whats the problem with them. Sometimes a build inspect feature would already give answers to why people are failing.

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

@tnarrant.9714 said:

The struggle I have is mainly reaction time and controls. Because of the near-constant AoE barrages, I can't stand still for more than a half second to decide where to go or what to cast, because doing so risks losing half my health. I also can't take my hand off the main keys or mouse for long because I have to maintain constant movement. This makes casting lots of skills problematic, because taking time to look carefully at the keyboard and move either hand over to 6-9 or the F keys means my attention might miss something crucial. In that regard, I usually fare better with my mesmer because I'm not always the focus of aggro and that gives me more windows to consider and decide.

This is an issue of poor keybinding. You need to reorganize your 6 - 0 keys to be either 1) all accessible to your left hand (for example using some combination of Q, E, R, T, Z, X, C, etc. ) that way you don't have to worry about clicking your skills. OR 2) Go buy an MMO style mouse that way you can either use all skills through your right hand or a combination of both left and right hands. I personally use option #2, and use 1-5 with my left hand and 6-0, plus some profession skills with the right hand. Makes things much much much easier.

[lare.5129]

@Zunki.3916 said:The optimal solutions would be hardmodes for such content that you can toggle on your first playthrough for those wo actually like playing the games mechanics beside just enjoying the story.O think this is fail idea to make additional different content for 3-5% players.. And generate question - why LS become toxic.This is Guild Wars 2 - fashion and roleplay domination.

[lare.5129]

@Nephalem.8921 said:sometimes a build inspect feature would already give answers to why people are failing.95-97% players have dps from 0.2 till 3k, Don't kill any dhuums or etc, and don't have plan to do that. And they don't like elitism and 'meta'.

[Zunki.3916]

@lare.5129 said:

@"Zunki.3916" said:The optimal solutions would be hardmodes for such content that you can toggle on your first playthrough for those wo actually like playing the games mechanics beside just enjoying the story.O think this is fail idea to make additional different content for 3-5% players.. And generate question - why LS become toxic.This is Guild Wars 2 - fashion and roleplay domination.

What?!Switching some numbers here and there is most likely less then 3-5% additional work than what they currently have, as all the art, asset, voice, writing and skill coding etc. is already done. Only a switch and some numbers tweaking would have to be adjusted. Even if only 3% would enjoy it, the time/usage ratio would most likely be okay the same as for the normal mode, given that mode is done anyways.

And what's with this "toxic" all over here? Some just want at least some difficulty to overcome. Some just want a proper solution for everyone. They started it with LS2 but in a bad way. You had to clear and reclear the instances and that bothered many. Also the rewards weren't really great. They ditched it, instead of improving the system to make it enjoyable, which is a little sad to me.

[battledrone.8315]

@Linken.6345 said:

@Aru.4156 said:

@"Mikali.9651" said:Imagine wanting to win just by showing up. That is what this thread is about. Maybe we should have autoplay feature enabled too?

It is very easy to win every encounter, all you need to have is: alright damage, healing skill, stun break skill, CC skill of a kind to deal with defiance bar. That is all.Can't you optimize your build while doing story mode?

It really isn't about wanting to win just by being there? With story I absolutely expect it to be challenging. But when a boss, not all of them mind you, we're talking about specifically 1 or 2 bosses here (with Scruffy from LWS4 E1 being our main example), are hair-tearingly tiring and taking well over 30 mins to do, it just doesn't fit the bill of "challenging story boss" anymore. A story boss is usually one that's, while tough, manageable alone and not cutting the flow of the storytelling. A 30 min boss that takes too long and is exhausting destroys the flow of storytelling by drawing our focus away from the plot and into the thought of "oh my god just please die already I don't ever want to do this again." Which honestly is sad for me as I thoroughly enjoy the story and would love to replay it numerous times through on each of my characters but this initial experience I have with such a boss makes me extremely reluctant to even touch the specific story instance again.

And with the optimization, I understand the basic line everyone's going to be spouting here is "get good at building a character" but some, possibly even many, of us don't understand these minute things. Yes, there are templates out there that kind people leave behind but sometimes these templates conflict with our own playstyles/preferences. And in my case at least, I'm highly reluctant to leave behind a build that I"m both used to and fond of. It's a part of what makes my main character my favorite, I rarely change it. Even if this isn't the case, some of us are also newer players tackling the living world story for the first time and in my short time playing, I'd say that some professions are way less tank-like than others, which also shifts the favor of survivability onto our enemy/boss. So the line of "Get Good" just isn't going to cut it.

Then group up and do it with +1-4 others mate?

it took me almost 2 days to find a group for the last mission i did in this game...awesome fun right thereand when we were done, naturally they wanted me to help with a story too, so now i had to suffer through even more of the storynot gonna happen

[battledrone.8315]

@Nephalem.8921 said:

@"mauried.5608" said:Ive been playing this game since it started and Ive asked repeatedly on this forum can someone actually define in an objective way what challenging content is .Ive never got an answer.GW2 is a game , its not a school classroom where you MUST learn things.Games are designed to provide entertainment for EVERYONE, not just for players who are obsessed with challenging content.Easy content is still fun.

Thats not true at all. Lots of people don't enjoy easy content. Would rather watch a movie with good story instead of playing a game that plays itself.Football is a game aswell, chess, puzzles... All games where you must learn things. Story bosses have most of the time only 1 gimmick you have to figure out.Are people here really spending 30min on taimis golem alone or the whole story dungeon? I can barely attack it before it goes invuln and i have to throw orbs again.Story dungeons don't scale with players in them so a party of 2-3 just steamrolls everything. I really don't understand whats the problem with them. Sometimes a build inspect feature would already give answers to why people are failing.

do you know what candy crush is? do you know, how many are playing it? do you think, that blizzard kept on casualizing wow , without a solid reason?your "lots" is about 5 % of the playerbase

[maddoctor.2738]

@"battledrone.8315" said:your "lots" is about 5 % of the playerbase

Source?