Blog about upcoming strike missions and their CMs

[Forum Moderator.3419]

Hello Everyone,

 

Just a reminder to keep it civil and avoid attacking each other.

 

Regards.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

On 11/2/2021 at 10:32 AM, Krzysztof.5973 said:

It was your choice to point out that there should be some way to standardize the mechanics between raids and OW so I've asked you to give me couple simple examples, since it's your opinion. What is wrong in current raids that OW does not follow? I would expect something more constructive than "thing bad, anet pls fix" kind of response. If you are unable to backup your own claims, then why are you even trying to discuss anything? 

I’ll back up Obtena with some examples:

example 1

VG’s teleport mechanic…which shows up at VG and Cairn. Such a mechanic can be in the open world given to whatever mobs you want…it’s just an attack that teleports players a distance that stood in the circle when it pops

 

example 2

Collecting orbs to cure debuffs…this seems to be a pretty common mechanic but in particular for Goreseval. You can easily see this in the hands of a trash mob…they inflict a rebuff and spawn an orb to cure it…actually sounds like really good fun.

 

example 3

Flame wall…need I say more? Trash mobs with mini versions of flame wall makes this mechanic easy to understand.

 

So the above are just 3 examples of how raid boss mechanics can be placed in the open world to help players understand raid mechanics before they enter raids, and in this way you’ve homogenized a bit the two levels of content. 

 

About the topic, diversity in mechanics is absolutely a staple for interesting and novel gameplay. Homogeneity however is what you can typically think of as “anchors” that people use to deal with total diversity (complete randomness) Most systems are a balance of these two things (in fact they are both the same thing.) We learn from behaviors that exhibit patterns and regularity to make sense of a world full of randomness. Standardization(homogenization) is key in that balance.

 

In the same token homogenization does make the game “easier” rather than more difficult. If you want a hard game, the more heterogeneous the encounters should be. If you want an easier game then the encounters should be homogenous, and predictable. Raids should scale naturally in this spectrum…from more homogenous encounters toward more heterogeneous encounters…pretty much as a faucet you can tweak for difficulty…but it is indeed necessary to be a mixture of both and it is a tug of war between them.

Edited November 7, 2021 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[Linken.6345]

2 hours ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

I’ll back up Obtena with some examples:

example 1

VG’s teleport mechanic…which shows up at VG and Cairn. Such a mechanic can be in the open world given to whatever mobs you want…it’s just an attack that teleports players a distance that stood in the circle when it pops

 

example 2

Collecting orbs to cure debuffs…this seems to be a pretty common mechanic but in particular for Goreseval. You can easily see this in the hands of a trash mob…they inflict a rebuff and spawn an orb to cure it…actually sounds like really good fun.

 

example 3

Flame wall…need I say more? Trash mobs with mini versions of flame wall makes this mechanic easy to understand.

 

So the above are just 3 examples of how raid boss mechanics can be placed in the open world to help players understand raid mechanics before they enter raids, and in this way you’ve homogenized a bit the two levels of content. 

 

About the topic, diversity in mechanics is absolutely a staple for interesting and novel gameplay. Homogeneity however is what you can typically think of as “anchors” that people use to deal with total diversity (complete randomness) Most systems are a balance of these two things (in fact they are both the same thing.) We learn from behaviors that exhibit patterns and regularity to make sense of a world full of randomness. Standardization(homogenization) is key in that balance.

 

In the same token homogenization does make the game “easier” rather than more difficult. If you want a hard game, the more heterogeneous the encounters should be. If you want an easier game then the encounters should be homogenous, and predictable. Raids should scale naturally in this spectrum…from more homogenous encounters toward more heterogeneous encounters…pretty much as a faucet you can tweak for difficulty…but it is indeed necessary to be a mixture of both and it is a tug of war between them.

And aint it good that some bosses got something new and unpredicitable when you try them the first few times?

Cant agree that your example 2 is a common occurance in the game at all cant think of anyone else then gorseval that have that mechanic and I find it fine.

Some of the mechanics thats hard to train alone is for example qadim solo kiting/lamp, dhuum greens/kiting/tank, desmina push/tank.

But Im not sure they would be easy to implement training for it in open world, the rage would be unreal if people failed and the meta event failed because of it.

[Sobx.1758]

2 hours ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

Flame wall…need I say more? Trash mobs with mini versions of flame wall makes this mechanic easy to understand.

...is this suggesting that a literal flame wall needs to be explained to the players for them to not step in it?

Honestly, things like teleporting aoe or flame wall are being learned the first time you/someone at your group fail at them. In case of VG, there's a short pre-event where those mechanics are introduced to the players one-after-another without pulling the boss. Gorse orbs are less obvious, so there's that.

There is standardization in regards of how the basic mechanics of the game work, standardization doesn't mean that different content can't introduce new obstacles into the game that still play according to the earlier learnt general set of rules.

18 minutes ago, Linken.6345 said:

And aint it good that some bosses got something new and unpredicitable when you try them the first few times?

^agreed, not a fan of trying to homogenize every part of the content available in the game, it really just makes it less interesting.

Edited November 7, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

1 hour ago, Linken.6345 said:

And aint it good that some bosses got something new and unpredicitable when you try them the first few times?

Ya it’s a good thing to an extent. Like mentioned before, systems are a mixture between these two things: homogeneity and heterogeneity (because really they are the same thing.) 

 

Here is a cool way to think about it. Imagine, what would be the hardest boss you could ever design in theory…

 

The hardest boss, would be a boss that never does the same thing twice, selecting from an infinite pool of tactics, strategy or abilities that are completely different from one another, picked by a random generator.

 

in theory, such a boss has no strategy in order to defeat it because it features no regularities. The optimal strategy for you to take in that case, is essentially behaving randomly yourself. 
 

Heterogeneity is a good thing, but maximal heterogeneity is by its nature impossible to extract regularity from, and therefor information we could use to simplify a systems behavior. So if you want to play a game that is well…beatable…introducing and finding regularity in that system is how you would do that. Boss encounters are by this nature a mixture of both things: enough nuance in its behavior to be somewhat unpredictable, but also have predictable behavior that allow players to defeat it.

 

Another way to think about homogenization, is that by homogenizing some boss mechanics of raids into open world, allows leeway for boss mechanics in raids to have more unpredictable behavior (introducing more heterogeneity into raids), to raise the global difficulty of the entire game as a whole.
 

As a result, the above operation globally introduces more heterogeneity into the game.

 

In the same token, open world mobs are generally speaking very homogenous in that they don’t really do anything other than auto attack. The difficulty of open world is trivial, so there really is no harm in introducing mechanics into open world to make open world more heterogeneous, and at the same time complimenting raids, which acts as a stepping stone into that content.
 

 

Edited November 7, 2021 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[Sobx.1758]

22 minutes ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

Another way to think about homogenization, is that by homogenizing some boss mechanics of raids into open world, allows leeway for boss mechanics in raids to have more unpredictable behavior (introducing more heterogeneity into raids), to raise the global difficulty of the entire game as a whole.
 

As a result, the above operation globally introduces more heterogeneity into the game.

Enter the regular encounters and CM ones. There's no need to mix every part of the game together just to pretend that people don't understand that a flame wall = bad and that's what's stopping them from entering endgame content.

That limited homogenity you seem to be talking about are exactly the basic mechanics of the games that can tell the players "this thing is good" and "this thing is bad" (heeey, orange circle, my old friend). The heterogenity is implementing different mechanics based on the "base ones" so there's still something to figure out, while understanding how it can be figured out with utilizing the constant elements of the game.

22 minutes ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

In the same token, open world mobs are generally speaking very homogenous in that they don’t really do anything other than auto attack. The difficulty of open world is trivial, so there really is no harm in introducing mechanics into open world to make open world more heterogeneous, and at the same time complimenting raids, which acts as a stepping stone into that content.

Yes, making open world harder is something I have no problem with (and something I expect at this point), but that's also something that has been a fact in both of the HoT and PoF expansions. Coincidentally that raised difficulty is also something that some people claim kills the game for them. Somehow I doubt that players not interested in improving in order to be able to participate in harder content are looking for a solution in making open world content harder. But if, in the end, that's what those players need then sure, lets keep making it harder. Still don't think they need to be completely homogenized with the boss encounters, because as already mentioned, it would just make them less interesting by default.

Edited November 7, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

2 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

That limited homogenity you seem to be talking about are exactly the basic mechanics of the games that can tell the players "this thing is good" and "this thing is bad" (heeey, orange circle, my old friend). The heterogenity is implementing different mechanics based on the "base ones" so there's still something to figure out, while understanding how it can be figured out with utilizing the constant elements of the game.

Yes, making open world harder is something I have no problem with (and something I expect at this point), but that's also something that has been a fact in both of the HoT and PoF expansions. Coincidentally that raised difficulty is also something that some people claim kills the game for them. Somehow I doubt that players not interested in improving in order to be able to participate in harder content are looking for a solution in making open world content harder. But if, in the end, that's what those players need then sure, lets keep making it harder. Still don't think they need to be completely homogenized with the boss encounters, because as already mentioned, it would just make them less interesting by default.

 

Right. 
 

Just like heterogeneity, having homogeneity is good only to an extent. Too much means the game becomes predictable. 
 

like stated previously, the balance there is nested in between the two regions. How “far” these regions are from each other as you go from one content type to another is what you can think of as the transition between difficulty.

 

Naturally, games want a progression that scales rationally with the capacity of the human brain. As an example, taking a person from playing Tic Tac Toe immediately into Dwarf Fortress or Eve Online is not a rational transition in difficulty. Likewise, introducing all the elements of Dwarf Fortress into Tic Tac Toe is not rational either. There is a continua of arbitrary transitional states to take a player from one game to the other, and even those are arbitrary because these states can be different from one player to another player.

 

So generally speaking, there is always going to be disagreement about difficulty because it is somewhat subjective, and as a designer you merely want it to be rational. Following a logic that people can understand…or you can be a rebel and throw people into the viper pit. People use difficulty as a measuring tool to decide whether to play certain content or not, and if the transition between different difficulties is not rational, it does discourage players from “taking that risk.” 

As a side note, I don't believe difficulty is the only measuring tool people use to pick content. There is a basket of tools people use to determine that, difficulty is just one of them. 

Edited November 7, 2021 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[Obtena.7952]

56 minutes ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

 

Right. 
 

Just like heterogeneity, having homogeneity is good only to an extent. Too much means the game becomes predictable. 
 

like stated previously, the balance there is nested in between the two regions. How “far” these regions are from each other as you go from one content type to another is what you can think of as the transition between difficulty.

I wouldn't agree that 'predictability' necessarily a problem though. That really comes down to how the mechanics are incorporated in the encounters. I mean, do raiders actually have a problem with predictable mechanics? I don't think they do because EVERY raid is based on predictable events and phases that results in people 'scripting' their play and in the most capable player scenarios, going so far as to engineer optimal solutions to the content. So for me, any argument that we shouldn't have a crossover of mechanics from OW to group instanced content because of 'predictability' is a contradiction. As far as I'm concerned, whether that predictability is obtained from learning the events and phases in the group content OR obtained from simply being familiar with certain mechanics is equivalent. 

The difference (I believe anyways) is that learning predictability from the events and phases in that group content is a GREATER barrier for more players than learning predictability from their OW encounters. Dodging is a great example ... because even though Anet exposes players to that, they don't really NEED it in OW content. But at LEAST they are familiar with the concept, so when they experience content, they know what Dodge is, or least know its a thing they should be using. Some of the examples you provided are good to demonstrate the OPPOSITE ... mechanics OW players NEVER encounter until they get into the group content.   

Let's think about this ... what is Anet's goal here with strikes? Does anyone think Anet wants to repeat the failures they have had with other group content? I just don't see how anyone can oppose the idea it would be better to expose reluctant OW players to mechanics Anet wants to incorporate into strikes if it's Anet's goal to get those players into strikes. I can only think anyone that opposes that has some agenda to maintain the of 'purity' of group content, the 'purity' of players doing group content or just wants to see strikes fail outright because of some grudge about lack of raid development. 

 

Edited November 8, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Sobx.1758]

1 hour ago, Obtena.7952 said:

I wouldn't agree that 'predictability' necessarily a problem though. That really comes down to how the mechanics are incorporated in the encounters. I mean, do raiders actually have a problem with predictable mechanics? I don't think they do because EVERY raid is based on predictable events and phases that results in people 'scripting' their play and in the most capable player scenarios, going so far as to engineer optimal solutions to the content. So for me, any argument that we shouldn't have a crossover of mechanics from OW to group instanced content because of 'predictability' is a contradiction. As far as I'm concerned, whether that predictability is obtained from learning the events and phases in the group content OR obtained from simply being familiar with certain mechanics ... it's the same. 

The difference (I believe anyways) is that learning predictability from the events and phases in that group content is a GREATER barrier for more players than learning predictability from their OW encounters. Dodging is a great example ... because even though Anet exposes players to that, they don't really NEED it in OW content. But at LEAST they are familiar with the concept, so when they experience content, they know what Dodge is, or least know its a thing they should be using. Some of the examples you provided are good to demonstrate the OPPOSITE ... mechanics OW players NEVER encounter until they get into the group content. That's bad.  

Let's think about this ... what is Anet's goal here with strikes? Does anyone think Anet wants to repeat the failures they have had with other group content? I just don't see how anyone can oppose the idea it would be better to expose reluctant OW players to mechanics Anet wants to incorporate into strikes if it's Anet's goal to get those players into strikes.

Considering the SM bosses are supposed to be known from the EoD story content, we can suspect they will have some related mechanics, so possibly the progression isn't just "SM -> cm SM", but "story -> SM -> cm SM", similarly to the dragonstorm. At that point there's no reason to shove same mechanics in open world if your goal really is just getting people acquainted with them before going for instanced group content. If introducing concepts through the story isn't enough, then doing it through OW (which is less linear/"guided" than the story) won't be either.

Edited November 8, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

  

1 hour ago, Obtena.7952 said:

I wouldn't agree that 'predictability' necessarily a problem though. That really comes down to how the mechanics are incorporated in the encounters. I mean, do raiders actually have a problem with predictable mechanics? I don't think they do because EVERY raid is based on predictable events and phases that results in people 'scripting' their play and in the most capable player scenarios, going so far as to engineer optimal solutions to the content. So for me, any argument that we shouldn't have a crossover of mechanics from OW to group instanced content because of 'predictability' is a contradiction

 

 

 

Predictability itselfs not a problem...its just an absolute component of how systems work. That's also exactly why too much of it can, and is a problem, as predictably is what allows players to manufacture optimal strategy. In the same fashion, too much diversity (randomness) means players can never manufacture optimal strategy. (An argument I commonly use for SPVP balance discussion: That SPVP should be designed to be maximally Heterogeneous)

 

This is the key thing to understand: That homogeneity means sameness. When things are the same, you can make a predictions. Heterogeneity is the opposite, which means diversity. When things are different they are not predictable.

 

If I gave you a homogenous sequence of letters : A, A, A, A...and I asked you what is the next letter...you are going to know that it's probably A. Because you are able to predict that A is the next letter, you know ahead of time what strategy you are going to take.

 

Now if I gave you a heterogenous sequence of letters : B, Z, G, M... and I asked you what is the next letter...you have no idea what it's going to be. Thus, there is no strategy you can take to guess the next letter...other than to just say a random letter from the alphabet.

 

Most systems are combinations of the two things : A C B D C B A C.... If I asked you what the next letter is going to be, you are going to say that it is...

Spoiler

B.

There is enough regularity, and enough randomness in the sequence, that makes it possible to keep this encounter nuanced, but also predictable. It takes you a little bit of time to search for that regularity, but that is the point. You are searching for the regularity, in a world of randomness, and that is where we extract fun from the game. 

 

Guild Wars 2 boss fights (and really all games in existence), are complicated extensions of the above. 
 

just to address the point you are making, which I agree with, you can imagine mobs in the open world as you would the sequence of letters. If all the mobs you meet in open world only do A, then as the player you already know what they are going to do…which is A. Then all of a sudden when those players enter raids and their mechanics are ABHGFZAGFZAB…and so on, then players will see this as rather discontinuous jump from the open world. If some mobs in the open world do Z, others do B, others do G, others do HG and so on…then the jump to those raids is less of a jump, meaning in raids it’s  easier to identify those patterns, lowering that barrier. 

 

Edited November 8, 2021 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[Krzysztof.5973]

8 hours ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

I’ll back up Obtena with some examples:

example 1

VG’s teleport mechanic…which shows up at VG and Cairn. Such a mechanic can be in the open world given to whatever mobs you want…it’s just an attack that teleports players a distance that stood in the circle when it pops

 

example 2

Collecting orbs to cure debuffs…this seems to be a pretty common mechanic but in particular for Goreseval. You can easily see this in the hands of a trash mob…they inflict a rebuff and spawn an orb to cure it…actually sounds like really good fun.

 

example 3

Flame wall…need I say more? Trash mobs with mini versions of flame wall makes this mechanic easy to understand.

 

So the above are just 3 examples of how raid boss mechanics can be placed in the open world to help players understand raid mechanics before they enter raids, and in this way you’ve homogenized a bit the two levels of content. 

 

About the topic, diversity in mechanics is absolutely a staple for interesting and novel gameplay. Homogeneity however is what you can typically think of as “anchors” that people use to deal with total diversity (complete randomness) Most systems are a balance of these two things (in fact they are both the same thing.) We learn from behaviors that exhibit patterns and regularity to make sense of a world full of randomness. Standardization(homogenization) is key in that balance.

 

In the same token homogenization does make the game “easier” rather than more difficult. If you want a hard game, the more heterogeneous the encounters should be. If you want an easier game then the encounters should be homogenous, and predictable. Raids should scale naturally in this spectrum…from more homogenous encounters toward more heterogeneous encounters…pretty much as a faucet you can tweak for difficulty…but it is indeed necessary to be a mixture of both and it is a tug of war between them.

VG is a bad example since there are 3 guardians in the raid itself before you start the actual boss and there is open world vg in bloodstone fen. So there is some type of introduction to what some blue aoes might do. 
As for picking up orbs for cleansing in particular, yes we are lacking on those in the open world. There is tons of robs that buff you though. 

I would argue that flame wall is very iconic but it is re-used on freezie the wintersday 'raid' so adding it is some other manner in the OW could be a good idea. But the general idea for "giant orange aoe moving towards you is bad" kind of mechanic is all over the place. 

Edited November 8, 2021 by Krzysztof.5973

[Obtena.7952]

51 minutes ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

just to address the point you are making, which I agree with, you can imagine mobs in the open world as you would the sequence of letters. If all the mobs you meet in open world only do A, then as the player you already know what they are going to do…which is A. Then all of a sudden when those players enter raids and their mechanics are ABHGFZAGFZAB…and so on, then players will see this as rather discontinuous jump from the open world. If some mobs in the open world do Z, others do B, others do G, others do HG and so on…then the jump to those raids is less of a jump, meaning in raids it’s  easier to identify those patterns, lowering that barrier. 

 

Bang on.

The only thing I want to add is that there is an interesting option Anet hasn't taken. The strategy where a group of familiar mechanics are incorporated into a group encounter at random ... and as long as there is sufficient indicators for players in the encounter to know how to react to the mechanic that is is going to happen, Anet can adjust parameters for the mechanics to occur to impact difficulty at the different levels.

For me, changing the parameters for duration, severity and frequency of these mechanics is a far more interesting way for Anet to distinguish the different difficulty levels of an encounter than just turning certain mechanics on and off. Frankly, even at CM level, out group content it's still just a scripted encounter people can memorize and outplay. 

Edited November 8, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Obtena.7952]

6 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

And aint it good that some bosses got something new and unpredicitable when you try them the first few times?

Yeah sure that's true. This happens all the time in OW right? PoF bounties introduced all kinds of new mechanics people weren't familiar with for example. The question isn't if it's good or not, it's where they are first encountered if Anet's goal is to encourage reluctant players to do strikes. 

I mean, if there is lots of evidence to support the idea that OW mechanics and group instance mechanics can be 100% different and Anet can still entice reluctant players to do strikes with some other carrot, then so be it; mechanics is NOT the only barrier that exists. Lower some other barrier, participation is bound to increase. I think based on the lack of success with raids as sustainable content, that evidence would be pretty hard to find. 

Edited November 8, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Sobx.1758]

1 hour ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

just to address the point you are making, which I agree with, you can imagine mobs in the open world as you would the sequence of letters. If all the mobs you meet in open world only do A, then as the player you already know what they are going to do…which is A. Then all of a sudden when those players enter raids and their mechanics are ABHGFZAGFZAB…and so on, then players will see this as rather discontinuous jump from the open world. If some mobs in the open world do Z, others do B, others do G, others do HG and so on…then the jump to those raids is less of a jump, meaning in raids it’s  easier to identify those patterns, lowering that barrier. 

38 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Bang on.

Ok, have you two even read the "blog" entry that's discussed here in the first place?

Spoiler

Normal difficulty Strike Missions are intended to be an entry point into the world of 10-player content in Guild Wars 2. These instances are designed to be something you can tackle alongside both close friends and new allies, pitting you and nine others against jazzed-up, remixed versions of epic, exciting bosses from the Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons story. This gives every player the opportunity to experience these encounters as key story moments, while enabling each Strike Mission to hold greater importance in the overall narrative. These encounters will introduce you to the mechanics you’ll need to learn and master in order to continue your journey, in an environment that doesn’t demand perfection but still pushes you to learn and grow your combat capabilities.

By the time you’ve completed each Strike Mission, you’ll be familiar with encounter terms like fixates, stack and spread, kiting, and more. Our goal is that once you’ve got a firm grasp of the fundamentals, you should feel confident tackling the next steps on the difficulty ladder, including a much-requested addition to Strike Missions…

For some reason you're trying to say that this is not good enough as long as it's not in open world?

Edited November 8, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

37 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Bang on.

The only thing I want to add is that there is an interesting option Anet hasn't taken. The strategy where a group of familiar mechanics are incorporated into a group encounter at random ... and as long as there is sufficient indicators for players in the encounter to know how to react to the mechanic that is is going to happen, Anet can adjust parameters for the mechanics to occur to impact difficulty at the different levels.

For me, changing the parameters for duration, severity and frequency of these mechanics is a far more interesting way for Anet to distinguish the different difficulty levels of an encounter than just turning certain mechanics on and off. Frankly, even at CM level, out group content it's still just a scripted encounter people can memorize and outplay. 

 

Yep totally agree.

12 minutes ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Ok, did you two even read the "blog" entry that's discussed here in the first place?

  Reveal hidden contents

Normal difficulty Strike Missions are intended to be an entry point into the world of 10-player content in Guild Wars 2. These instances are designed to be something you can tackle alongside both close friends and new allies, pitting you and nine others against jazzed-up, remixed versions of epic, exciting bosses from the Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons story. This gives every player the opportunity to experience these encounters as key story moments, while enabling each Strike Mission to hold greater importance in the overall narrative. These encounters will introduce you to the mechanics you’ll need to learn and master in order to continue your journey, in an environment that doesn’t demand perfection but still pushes you to learn and grow your combat capabilities.

By the time you’ve completed each Strike Mission, you’ll be familiar with encounter terms like fixates, stack and spread, kiting, and more. Our goal is that once you’ve got a firm grasp of the fundamentals, you should feel confident tackling the next steps on the difficulty ladder, including a much-requested addition to Strike Missions…

For some reason you're trying to say that this is not good enough as long as it's not in open world?

 

I mean basically yes, and I'll explain: 

 

It's like trying to learn a new computer program. Let's just take a program like Unreal Engine 5 which is a program I started using recently. This program is very easy for someone like me to learn, that has exposure to Animation software which is structured in a very similar way to Unreal.  However, to someone else that has never used these kinds of programs before...I doubt they will want to try to learn how to use Unreal, let alone be good at using it. The jump for me, is much easier, then it is for that other person, and the reason is the exposure to which that person has experience with programs that are similar in structure. You can now imagine that the jump is even greater for boomers, and less so for millennials, since millennials overall have exposure to computers in the computational age, where as boomers have had less exposure to computers in the computational age. So the transitive exposure between me, a millennial animation guy, is going to be a bigger jump, than a boomer that barely knows how to use their cellphone. Nothing personal against boomers, just using that as an example to illustrate the gaps in trying to approach new things like software, is an equivalent analogy to gw2 game design, and how casual players, need exposure to raid mechanics. 

 

I think Obtena has made this point once before (sorry if I'm misquoting or generalizing you)...that "the players that play strikes, are the same players that play raids", and I think there is truth to this statement. Strikes is the "Animation Program" as Raids are to "Videogame Creation Program." Even though I don't make videogames, I fit the profile of someone who does...I know a lot of game creation terminology, system design and some coding. 

 

I think if A-net wants to actually turn casuals into raiders, what has to happen is a targeting of not my demographic...but of the open world casuals demographic, and this means exposing them to raid mechanics in the open world. What Anet decided to do was sort of provide a stepping stone approach to the game...where you got "Open World -> World Bosses -> Meta Events -> Dragon Response -> Dungeons -> Fractals -> Strikes ->Strikes CM's -> Raids" Where in my opinion, all those steps are unnecessary. All it would take is the approach Obtena mentioned above...taking mechanics from the OW or from raids, and sharing  those mechanics in the OW, scaling it appropriately...and the difficulty comes from the unpredictable usage of these already existing mechanics in these encounters.

 

It's not the only way to design a game sure...just one way to approach it, which in my opinion is a better way to approach it since that's what will target the right demographic, to convert casuals to raiders.

 

 

[Sobx.1758]

10 minutes ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

mean basically yes, and I'll explain: 

 

It's like trying to learn a new computer program

Pass, stop with the unneeded hypotheticals. You've spent last few posts on ""explaining"" what "homogenized/heterogenized/random/predictable" means by using "ABCD". Doubt literally anyone currently active in this thread needed that explanation. How about you drop those hypotheticals and just start using the environment we're talking about, which is -specifically- gw2 game?

Edited November 8, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[Obtena.7952]

1 hour ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

 

Yep totally agree.

 

I mean basically yes, and I'll explain: 

 

It's like trying to learn a new computer program. Let's just take a program like Unreal Engine 5 which is a program I started using recently. This program is very easy for someone like me to learn, that has exposure to Animation software which is structured in a very similar way to Unreal.  However, to someone else that has never used these kinds of programs before...I doubt they will want to try to learn how to use Unreal, let alone be good at using it. The jump for me, is much easier, then it is for that other person, and the reason is the exposure to which that person has experience with programs that are similar in structure. You can now imagine that the jump is even greater for boomers, and less so for millennials, since millennials overall have exposure to computers in the computational age, where as boomers have had less exposure to computers in the computational age. So the transitive exposure between me, a millennial animation guy, is going to be a bigger jump, than a boomer that barely knows how to use their cellphone. Nothing personal against boomers, just using that as an example to illustrate the gaps in trying to approach new things like software, is an equivalent analogy to gw2 game design, and how casual players, need exposure to raid mechanics. 

 

I think Obtena has made this point once before (sorry if I'm misquoting or generalizing you)...that "the players that play strikes, are the same players that play raids", and I think there is truth to this statement. Strikes is the "Animation Program" as Raids are to "Videogame Creation Program." Even though I don't make videogames, I fit the profile of someone who does...I know a lot of game creation terminology, system design and some coding. 

 

I think if A-net wants to actually turn casuals into raiders, what has to happen is a targeting of not my demographic...but of the open world casuals demographic, and this means exposing them to raid mechanics in the open world. What Anet decided to do was sort of provide a stepping stone approach to the game...where you got "Open World -> World Bosses -> Meta Events -> Dragon Response -> Dungeons -> Fractals -> Strikes ->Strikes CM's -> Raids" Where in my opinion, all those steps are unnecessary. All it would take is the approach Obtena mentioned above...taking mechanics from the OW or from raids, and sharing  those mechanics in the OW, scaling it appropriately...and the difficulty comes from the unpredictable usage of these already existing mechanics in these encounters.

 

It's not the only way to design a game sure...just one way to approach it, which in my opinion is a better way to approach it since that's what will target the right demographic, to convert casuals to raiders.

 

 

While there is lots of sense here, I have no doubt that many of the people in this discussion will not recognize it and find some subtle point to argue with you about in your example, completely misunderstanding or just outright ignoring what you have to say. They have an agenda to protect ... something ... and if it means retaining features of the game that maintain the current but failed group content structure ... they will argue for that retainer. 

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

3 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Pass, stop with the unneeded hypotheticals. You've spent last few posts on ""explaining"" what "homogenized/heterogenized/random/predictable" means by using "ABCD". Doubt literally anyone currently active in this thread needed that explanation. How about you drop those hypotheticals and just start using the environment we're talking about, which is -specifically- gw2 game?

 

I gave some specifics already, I think i made them pretty clear, and supplementing why those specifics are an option with those analogies and definitions to make it even more clear. 

Just to repeat again, difficulty comes from the inability to predict enemy actions. There's a number of ways to introduce that...one of which is just adding more and more unique mechanics, more and more strikes or what have you...another way is to take mechanics that already exist, and having encounters use those mechanics in more unpredictable or more complex ways.

Some more specifics : Let's take some trash mob mechanics, this time from open world and introduce them into raids as boss mechanics.

So I went to a random page on the Guild Wars 2 Wikipedia and searched up some monsters. Most monsters just Auto-attack (lol) so it took me a while to find monsters that have documented abilities: 

This Centaur does the following attacks : 

1) Trick Shot - projectile attack, bounces

2) Call of the Wild - Grants boons to pets, grants Might 8s and  Swiftness 8s

3) Summon Warbeast- summons War Beast x1-2

 

So...let's just "upgrade" this centaur to boss level and adjust it's abilities a bit.

 

1) Trick Shot : Boss fires a projectile, bouncing between players. 

Range = 600

Bounce Range = 300

Cooldown = 0 seconds

First Bounce Damage = 5000, Second Bounce Damage 2500, Third Bounce Damage 1250.

Cast Time = 2 seconds

Bounce Travel Time = 1 second

Note: Uses attack randomly. Can use a minimum of once every 10 seconds.

 

2) Call of the Wild : Grants boons to War Beasts. Grants 25% damage for 10 seconds, Swiftness for 10seconds.

Range = 1200

Cooldown = 0

Cast Time = 3 seconds

Note = Uses attack randomly and only once every 25 seconds only when there are War Beasts in range, 

 

3) Summon War Beast

Cooldown = 45 seconds

Cast Time = 2 seconds

Note: Uses attack randomly. Can use a minimum of once every 45 seconds.

Summons A War Beast. Since War Beasts have no abilities...I'm just going to give them some abilities that already exist:

1) Call of the Wild : Grants Boons to War Beasts. Grants 25% damage for 10 seconds, Swiftness for 10 seconds.

Range = 1200

Cooldown = 0

Cast Time = 3 seconds

Note = Uses attack randomly and only once every 25 seconds, only when there are War Beasts in range.

 

2)Ricochet: Bounces an Axe between multiple foes. Dealing more damage with each enemy struck.

Range = 600

Bounce Range = 300

Cooldown = 0

First Bounce Damage = 1250, Second Bounce Damage 2500, Third Bounce Damage 5000.

Cast Time = 2 seconds

Bounce Travel Time = 1 second

Note: Uses attack randomly. Can use only once every 10 seconds.

 

3) Summon War Beast

Cooldown = 0

Cast Time = 2 seconds

Note: Uses attack randomly. Can use a minimum of once every 45 seconds.

 

Okay so...I could go on with this because it's quiet a fun exercise to just come up with these examples, and already this fight looks pretty difficult. One obvious thing I'm noticing is that Projectile reflect is gonna be your best friend for this boss encounter. Boon Strips as well. Because you don't know when they are going to attack, it makes the fight a lot harder and reliant on responding to these bouncy attacks. What also seems to be manifesting, is that players are encouraged to spread apart to avoid the attacks from bouncing off each other...which conversely makes it harder for healers to heal or protect allies with reflection. What's also cool here, is that the Pet's have Call of the Wild and Summon War-beast too...so if the boss summons a Beast, it can cascade into the War beasts summoning more and more Beasts that buff themselves.

Anyway, the point here is that all these mechanics exist across the game (not just open world, players have access to them to) so players are familiar with them already...which means they will know how these mechanics work, and will understand how to respond to them. The difficulty comes in when trying to predict when the bosses and its pets do their moves and trying to prevent the cascade from occurring which could happen fast if people aren't on their toes...to pop a projectile reflect, spread apart, and corrupt the boons. A hypothetical CM would "increase" the frequency of the abilities used, so that they use them more often.

In Conclusion, this is just an example of such a thing...it's not a foreign concept it existed in Guild Wars 1, and Guild Wars 2 has already some of the mobs using player abilities. Hell...there's probably a huge plethora of bosses you could design that are just player builds.

Edited November 8, 2021 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[Linken.6345]

11 hours ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

 

I gave some specifics already, I think i made them pretty clear, and supplementing why those specifics are an option with those analogies and definitions to make it even more clear. 

Just to repeat again, difficulty comes from the inability to predict enemy actions. There's a number of ways to introduce that...one of which is just adding more and more unique mechanics, more and more strikes or what have you...another way is to take mechanics that already exist, and having encounters use those mechanics in more unpredictable or more complex ways.

Some more specifics : Let's take some trash mob mechanics, this time from open world and introduce them into raids as boss mechanics.

So I went to a random page on the Guild Wars 2 Wikipedia and searched up some monsters. Most monsters just Auto-attack (lol) so it took me a while to find monsters that have documented abilities: 

This Centaur does the following attacks : 

1) Trick Shot - projectile attack, bounces

2) Call of the Wild - Grants boons to pets, grants Might 8s and  Swiftness 8s

3) Summon Warbeast- summons War Beast x1-2

 

So...let's just "upgrade" this centaur to boss level and adjust it's abilities a bit.

 

1) Trick Shot : Boss fires a projectile, bouncing between players. 

Range = 600

Bounce Range = 300

Cooldown = 0 seconds

First Bounce Damage = 5000, Second Bounce Damage 2500, Third Bounce Damage 1250.

Cast Time = 2 seconds

Bounce Travel Time = 1 second

Note: Uses attack randomly. Can use a minimum of once every 10 seconds.

 

2) Call of the Wild : Grants boons to War Beasts. Grants 25% damage for 10 seconds, Swiftness for 10seconds.

Range = 1200

Cooldown = 0

Cast Time = 3 seconds

Note = Uses attack randomly and only once every 25 seconds only when there are War Beasts in range, 

 

3) Summon War Beast

Cooldown = 45 seconds

Cast Time = 2 seconds

Note: Uses attack randomly. Can use a minimum of once every 45 seconds.

Summons A War Beast. Since War Beasts have no abilities...I'm just going to give them some abilities that already exist:

1) Call of the Wild : Grants Boons to War Beasts. Grants 25% damage for 10 seconds, Swiftness for 10 seconds.

Range = 1200

Cooldown = 0

Cast Time = 3 seconds

Note = Uses attack randomly and only once every 25 seconds, only when there are War Beasts in range.

 

2)Ricochet: Bounces an Axe between multiple foes. Dealing more damage with each enemy struck.

Range = 600

Bounce Range = 300

Cooldown = 0

First Bounce Damage = 1250, Second Bounce Damage 2500, Third Bounce Damage 5000.

Cast Time = 2 seconds

Bounce Travel Time = 1 second

Note: Uses attack randomly. Can use only once every 10 seconds.

 

3) Summon War Beast

Cooldown = 0

Cast Time = 2 seconds

Note: Uses attack randomly. Can use a minimum of once every 45 seconds.

 

Okay so...I could go on with this because it's quiet a fun exercise to just come up with these examples, and already this fight looks pretty difficult. One obvious thing I'm noticing is that Projectile reflect is gonna be your best friend for this boss encounter. Boon Strips as well. Because you don't know when they are going to attack, it makes the fight a lot harder and reliant on responding to these bouncy attacks. What also seems to be manifesting, is that players are encouraged to spread apart to avoid the attacks from bouncing off each other...which conversely makes it harder for healers to heal or protect allies with reflection. What's also cool here, is that the Pet's have Call of the Wild and Summon War-beast too...so if the boss summons a Beast, it can cascade into the War beasts summoning more and more Beasts that buff themselves.

Anyway, the point here is that all these mechanics exist across the game (not just open world, players have access to them to) so players are familiar with them already...which means they will know how these mechanics work, and will understand how to respond to them. The difficulty comes in when trying to predict when the bosses and its pets do their moves and trying to prevent the cascade from occurring which could happen fast if people aren't on their toes...to pop a projectile reflect, spread apart, and corrupt the boons. A hypothetical CM would "increase" the frequency of the abilities used, so that they use them more often.

In Conclusion, this is just an example of such a thing...it's not a foreign concept it existed in Guild Wars 1, and Guild Wars 2 has already some of the mobs using player abilities. Hell...there's probably a huge plethora of bosses you could design that are just player builds.

But you do know its going to attack after the internal cd is done since the cooldown on all abilities are 0

So every 10 seconds trick shot every 25 call of the wild and every 45s if killed warbeast.

If warbeast can summon another it would be like the wolf one right? and stop at a total of 2 warbeasts.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

2 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

But you do know its going to attack after the internal cd is done since the cooldown on all abilities are 0

So every 10 seconds trick shot every 25 call of the wild and every 45s if killed warbeast.

If warbeast can summon another it would be like the wolf one right? and stop at a total of 2 warbeasts.

 

It doesn’t stop. Within a 45 second window, the boss it will summon a warbeast, and it will keep doing so every window.

Since the warbeasts themselves also have summon warbeast, they will also use it within 45 second windows.

So like a bacteria, if you don’t control it it can go from 1->2->4->8->16…and so on. They also all have Call of the Wild, so the fight gets double exponentially more difficult the more Warbeasts there are in the fight.

So a players response to such an encounter is to kill the warbeasts the moment they are summoned. This is the regularity that players induce onto the fight in order to defeat it.

To make the fight even more difficult, removing the pseudo ICD would all together make it completely unpredictable. 

You can even have the Summon Warbeast ability be tied to a breakbar so that players can opt to interrupt casts as another way to approach the encounter.

Anyway, this is just a sampling of what is possible, and the sky is really the limit. It’s a proof of concept that illustrates the point I’m making about difficulty (that players will seek regularity in randomness in order to defeat them)

Edited November 8, 2021 by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[Brave Mallyki.1563]

Any information on when they plan to combine the Icebrood Saga SM currencies? Hoping we don't have to wait until EoD release.

[Linken.6345]

28 minutes ago, Brave Mallyki.1563 said:

Any information on when they plan to combine the Icebrood Saga SM currencies? Hoping we don't have to wait until EoD release.

Yea they told us in the EoD strike mission blog post so dont expect it before EoD release

[Astralporing.1957]

On 11/8/2021 at 2:38 AM, Obtena.7952 said:

I mean, if there is lots of evidence to support the idea that OW mechanics and group instance mechanics can be 100% different and Anet can still entice reluctant players to do strikes with some other carrot, then so be it; mechanics is NOT the only barrier that exists. Lower some other barrier, participation is bound to increase. I think based on the lack of success with raids as sustainable content, that evidence would be pretty hard to find. 

There's not much evidence for the opposite either. The main barrier is not the lack of understanding of mechanics. It's the problems with executing those.

VG teleports mentioned earlier? Players can "get" that mechanic on its first appearance. Being able to avoid getting teleported however, as it turns out, for many players is not so easy.

Sure, you can try to introduce that mechanic in OW, but it will not work exactly the same (it's not like VG and Cairn teleports work the same way, btw), and, what's more important, the consequences will be different.

 

On 11/7/2021 at 10:26 PM, Sobx.1758 said:

That limited homogenity you seem to be talking about are exactly the basic mechanics of the games that can tell the players "this thing is good" and "this thing is bad" (heeey, orange circle, my old friend). The heterogenity is implementing different mechanics based on the "base ones" so there's still something to figure out, while understanding how it can be figured out with utilizing the constant elements of the game.

This. The basis of homogenity that has to apply is consistent markers for different types of recurring mechanics. Once you have this, you can use it to create a lot of interesting and unique stuff.

Case in point: the teleport mechanic in VG and Cairn. It has actually different visual and sound clues. That should never happen. The same mechanic should be marked the same way (and it's better if the markers are relatively simple, btw, instead of thinking of more creative in artistic sense ways of getting the message across).

If you see a new mechanic marker, it should immediately tell you that something completely new happens. And it should still be relatively easy to read.

Similarily, if a new mechanic is a derivative of an already existing one, the marker should reflect that as well.

If you look at FF XIV, and the marker evolution over all its expansions till now, you can realize how complexand simple at the same time it can be, and how important it is to get it well. I see GW2 improving on this slowly over time, but it's still not there yet. Not anywhere close either.

[Tiviana.2650]

On 10/27/2021 at 12:05 PM, zidane.5194 said:

Strike CM = New Raids

Raids = Nothing to see here move along

Boring boring boring! At least raid instances have more to them than run in kill a target golem, done. We have lore and story in raids and Glenna and her sidekicks, there are side lines in raids , achievements, not to mention a while legendary armor set and a plethora of ascended weapons gear pets ect. Strikes will be no dif than now, just some numbers turned up boring. Oh and raids have some of the best and interesting  mechanics in this game. Too bad none of those developers are still here. You will never make strikes anywhere near the level of a full raid.

Edited December 6, 2021 by Tiviana.2650

[Linken.6345]

11 hours ago, Tiviana.2650 said:

Boring boring boring! At least raid instances have more to them than run in kill a target golem, done. We have lore and story in raids and Glenna and her sidekicks, there are side lines in raids , achievements, not to mention a while legendary armor set and a plethora of ascended weapons gear pets ect. Strikes will be no dif than now, just some numbers turned up boring. Oh and raids have some of the best and interesting  mechanics in this game. Too bad none of those developers are still here. You will never make strikes anywhere near the level of a full raid.

well it is good everyone can experience the story and lore mate.

they can still award ascened weapons and ap in strikes