Hard Mode suggestions for everyone from everyone :)

[moony.5780]

Hello heros of Tyria 😄

Lets all think of ways how to enjoy the game even more with challanging content🙂  Please write your suggestions \(^-^)/

Let's all be fair 🙂 we all enjoy the game with our own unique ways. So let's accept that everyone is different and find fun things that don't exclude anyone, may it be because it's too hard or too easy or cant be dont alone or in groups.

( I did not find a similar post in the forumssearch, but even if there is one...i dont think its the end of the world to just have a healthy and fair disccussion 😉 have fun<3 )

 

So here are some of my suggestions i posted in another post not long time ago 🙂 (i post it another time, because i dont want answeres on the first poster but i want that everyone can join a more general discussion)

* remove the powercreep by debuffs, but with a reward for it (like you suggested the food or just simply stronger downscaling, no need to be 3 lvl above mobs)

   + anyone can play together in the same map

   +adjustable for anyone. Everyone can just choose what's comfortable for her/him

   - easy to abuse by afk hardmode tanks and normalmode dps guys.

  - no reason to do this, if there is no reward

 

* split maps in normal and hardmode maps.

  + real challenge, without the chance of beeing abused

   - can't play with friends in normal mode together

 

* scavanger hunt mastery: player beeing able to trigger special events at will with different mechanics. Similar to bountys but with different mechanics. Not just boss fights. And it should be possible everywhere (except lvl 1-15 areas) to rediscover old maps. It could be linked to an achievement system 🙂 it even could be linked to a mastery. Beeing able to see some traces and go around the map like a scavenger hunt sounds fun!

  + play what you what, where you want and with whom you want

  + would bring some fresh gameplay in older maps

  - people who are randomly in the same area are involved in the event, even if they don't like it. (Well they could just go away..but still)

 

* new repeatable achievements:

     *Don't die and get 1000000 exp while that.

     *keep your HP for a certain time above  75% while beeing in combat

     * any other cool idea 🙂

+ can be done alone or in a group. Anywhere and everywhere.

- boring after a while if the rewards are bad.

- best locations might be camped by many....So there should be a way to prevent that.

 

* the game ask every player around in non meta and non achievement events how difficult the event should be (dynamic scaling). So if more player say easy, its easy and if more player say difficult, there could be more monster and stronger ones. There is more much karma for harder events and also rewards for failing it (then like the reward for winning a normal event).

+Since there start to be more and more ways to use karma that's a nice idea to collect karma while explorering older maps 🙂

+adjustable for anyone. Everyone can just choose what's comfortable for her/him.

+- failing an event feels bad, but still gives the same reward as normal events (but fixing the ways to abuse it)

- someone could be overvoted and often find too hard events (that's why it should not include metas and other events that are needed for critical achievements)

 

 

 

Please forgive me for my bad english 😄

Edited December 17, 2021 by moony.5780

[Mungrul.9358]

Well, to start with, top out the stat cap at Exotic levels and remove the ability to buff through foods or other means.

 

I did HoT like this (solo) when I returned to play the game after leaving in 2013, and it was devilishly hard at times.

Ascended stats weren't supposed to make a huge difference in PvE when they were released, but in reality, they really do.

 

And avoiding using food is much like not using potions or other similar buffs in games like Baldur's Gate. It makes you focus on optimising your build for the content you're facing rather than relying on a crutch to get you through.

 

The nice thing about these suggestions is that the individual player can impose them on themselves without ANet having to do any further development. But some form of recognition for playing content this way wouldn't hurt 🙂

[Danikat.8537]

If you want to invent challenges for yourself you can do that now. I've got a 'perma-death' character (meaning I'll delete her if she dies) who is only using the lowest rarity of equipment - so mainly white but with a blue aquabreather and jewellery. I haven't figured out the options for backpacks yet so for now she's not using any. That also comes with the unexpected challenge that white equipment is only available with beserkers stats, so I can't simply use very defensive stats to keep her alive.

There's some other restrictions too, like not using mounts or waypoints or anything obtained by my other characters, basically anything I thought would get around the challenge isn't allowed, and the nice thing about doing it this way is I get to set the rules.

She's only level 26 so it's not that difficult right now, although I've never managed to get much above level 30 doing this and I've had some close calls already, but it's very different from my usual way of playing, which I find interesting.

That's an extreme example, but you could do something less drastic, like limiting yourself to green or gold equipment, or not using traits or something. Whatever you think would make an interesting challenge.

I also heard of a guild organising a Dragon's Stand map where everyone started off naked with white quality weapons and could only equip stuff which dropped during the meta. That takes a lot more organising of course because you need enough people doing it at the same time to fill the map up (and I think they still had a few randoms who got in before it filled up) but I've heard it was a lot of fun.

[moony.5780]

Thanks for the replies 🙂 they are really intresting suggestions !

I keep challanging myself a lot and i have a lot of ideas 😄 but some r new and i will try it out!

 

But actually i was intending to make very new ideas that are not possible in the game yet. Things that still need to be developed.

 

[Mungrul.9358]

27 minutes ago, moony.5780 said:

But actually i was intending to make very new ideas that are not possible in the game yet. Things that still need to be developed.

 

How about bringing back the Vampiric weapons from the first game, in the form of Sigils of Vampirism?

We have Runes of Vampirism at the moment, but they don't behave the same way.

Vampiric weapons in GW1 would constantly be draining your health, but every strike restored health (the ratio was +3 per hit / -1 per second for 1-handed weapons and +5 per hit / -1 per second for 2-handed weapons).

 

That'd be a nifty risk/reward mechanic.

[Fueki.4753]

There already are options for you to restrict yourself.

For example, you can just play without armour or trinket.

There's no need to waste developer resources on that.

[moony.5780]

1 hour ago, Fueki.4753 said:

There already are options for you to restrict yourself.

For example, you can just play without armour or trinket.

There's no need to waste developer resources on that.

You also have any other ideas ? 🙂Its just a collection of suggestions...so just let ur mind go wild and have some fun thinking of something 🙂

 

[Asum.4960]

Ways to offer greater challenges in game without screwing less proficient players in existing content or asking proficient players to nerf themselves: 

 

1. Challenging instanced world bosses and Meta Events as Group content. Add NPC's to the spawn locations of World bosses and Events which allow squads to tackle a beefed up instanced version of them at any time, balanced around 50 moderately proficient players. Integrate into Guild Mission system. 

 

2. Story Hard Mode. Optional beefed up versions of the normal story missions, selectable by first playthrough, balanced around a single proficient player to allow them an engaging story experience. 

 

3. "Dungeons/Response Mission". Some Story missions are fairly solid dungeon like setpieces already, just lacking the tuning to make them interesting. Tune them to be challenging 5 player repeatable instanced content, give them their own Dungeon Token like currency. DRM's kind of tried to do this, but too forced and formulaic. Not every Story mission has or should be made into this, nor does it need to be the baseline - just an added option to the normal story mission. Just pick maybe one more action and setpiece driven Story mission out of every Expansion/LW chapter which could double as fun and repeatable group content for longevity (see, Fahranur, the First City, etc.). 

 

4. Vanquishing. Similar to GW1. Take instanced versions of current OW Maps and wipe them clean, then repopulate them with very challenging roaming packs of mobs, encampments and mini bosses, give players an enemy counter on the top right, success on clearing the whole map. Add some bonus objectives (Clear time, little bonus missions, events, etc.) for bonus rewards. 

Would work for both a smaller more limited and guided Party mode of 1-5 players, and an all out Squad mode for 10-50 players - which again could be incorporated into the Guild Mission system as well. 

Add some nice first time rewards and Vanquisher Titles for clearing out regions of Tyria, plus some repeatable Vanquishing currency.

 

I understand why Anet wanted to move away from instanced content after GW1, but it does provide a lot of possibilities and longevity. OW as the be-all-end-all might have been a nice vision, but it's a nightmare to balance with the drastic player skill gaps, and not everybody enjoys oneshotting mobs and giant laggy auto attack zerg fests. 

I think these options would be a great way to repurpose existing content (without taking away from it for those who currently enjoy it) to cater to a different audience.

Edited December 19, 2021 by Asum.4960

[Rasimir.6239]

6 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

without taking away from it for those who currently enjoy it

The problem is that instanced versions of events/maps do just that: they take away a significant part of the playerbase from open world.

Either the effort/reward ratio of the instanced version is worse than the open world, in which case they're a waste of developer resources, as players as a whole have proven again and again that they gravitate to the best effort/reward ratio they perceive.

 

Or the (perceived) effort/reward ratio of the instanced version is better than the open world, in which case open world will be left not only with fewer players, but also with the majority of those new, less invested, or straight-out clueless, which will make it even harder for people that want to get into this game to actually learn it and get things done.

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

A huge step into the right direction would be to stop using raid-builds in open world, which melt down worldbosses in seconds. It is completely unnecessary. You've brought a system from a game-mode where peak performance is key, to a game-mode where performance does not matter at all. But instead of realizing their mistake, they demand ANet to make the game harder.

Here is my suggestion:

Dear ANet, please cap outgoing DPS in open world ❤️

Currently a few high-performance players can single handedly carry entire boss events with their 30k+ dps. That is a joke. Open World was not designed for this. Raids were.

[Asum.4960]

40 minutes ago, Rasimir.6239 said:

The problem is that instanced versions of events/maps do just that: they take away a significant part of the playerbase from open world.

Either the effort/reward ratio of the instanced version is worse than the open world, in which case they're a waste of developer resources, as players as a whole have proven again and again that they gravitate to the best effort/reward ratio they perceive.

 

Or the (perceived) effort/reward ratio of the instanced version is better than the open world, in which case open world will be left not only with fewer players, but also with the majority of those new, less invested, or straight-out clueless, which will make it even harder for people that want to get into this game to actually learn it and get things done.

You can shut down any content addition with that argument though. Any new map, meta, event etc. "detracts" from the already existing ones in the game. 

 

If it's tuned to be a significantly harder experience requiring group compositions, communication etc. rather than something to just casually jump in, I don't think it's going to detract significantly from the players that currently enjoy current OW though, rather than attracting those who don't and on whom that content is currently entirely wasted. 

 

As for some skilled players still currently doing OW bosses migrating to harder and to them more enjoyable instanced versions, making it harder for new and less proficient players to learn the game, I'd also hard disagree. That's actually a big problem of GW2, there is never any performance feedback. A handful of proficient players carrying every OW event for a zerg of >95% players contributing barely more or even less than their presence scales up the events, having no clue about their lack of performance, means there is never any incentive to improve or learn there. Nobody learns from being carried, especially when they are unaware of that fact.

 

I'd say if this would actually cause some events and metas to fail for a time due to lack of carries, giving some players moments of pause and inspiration for what they could change and improve from that to do better in the future, increasing overall skill levels - I'd see that as a huge win for the game longterm. 

31 minutes ago, HnRkLnXqZ.1870 said:

Dear ANet, please cap outgoing DPS in open world ❤️

 

Why would you actively want to punish and limit players who learned the game and play it well - rather than giving those players other more suitable options and encouraging others to becoming more proficient as well?

Edited December 18, 2021 by Asum.4960

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

41 minutes ago, Asum.4960 said:

Why would you actively want to punish and limit players who learned the game and play it well - rather than giving those players other more suitable options and encouraging others to becoming more proficient as well?

Because everything else did not work. You've turned open world into a meme. Some bosses cannot even finish their epic dialogue, because they die half way through. They had to add spawn-invincibility to worldbosses, as the HP was alsmost depleted before most players even saw the HP bar. Opening the toolbox to grab invincibility is the last resort, you only do that when nothing else works.

How does it punish you, if the worldboss dies 5 seconds later?

[moony.5780]

1 hour ago, HnRkLnXqZ.1870 said:

A huge step into the right direction would be to stop using raid-builds in open world, which melt down worldbosses in seconds. It is completely unnecessary. You've brought a system from a game-mode where peak performance is key, to a game-mode where performance does not matter at all. But instead of realizing their mistake, they demand ANet to make the game harder.

Here is my suggestion:

Dear ANet, please cap outgoing DPS in open world ❤️

Currently a few high-performance players can single handedly carry entire boss events with their 30k+ dps. That is a joke. Open World was not designed for this. Raids were.

I think it would be fun :) so if its capped at 15k dps forexample, it would slow things down and let people concentrate more on other things, like healing and buffing others. But since the heal then might suddenly increase very much, things will be even more easy then maybe. But if its balanced it would be a lot of fun, and give also non dps tasks a higher value :D

[Asum.4960]

On 12/18/2021 at 12:14 PM, HnRkLnXqZ.1870 said:

Because everything else did not work. You've turned open world into a meme. Some bosses cannot even finish their epic dialogue, because they die half way through. They had to add spawn-invincibility to worldbosses, as the HP was alsmost depleted before most players even saw the HP bar. Opening the toolbox to grab invincibility is the last resort, you only do that when nothing else works.

How does it punish you, if the worldboss dies 5 seconds later?

It's not about the boss dying seconds earlier or later, it's about invalidating gear investment, game mechanics and theorycrafting. 

If as @moony.5780 says DPS were capped at 15k, and your build does 15k DPS without any Might (or insert any or all other damage increasing boons), what's the point in theorycrafting a good build that provides Might etc. for itself or others? What's the point in actively using skills, since there are builds in GW2 that can reach 15-25k DPS essentially just auto attacking? Why even have a skill bar at that point, when any button you press doesn't actually do anything since you are already damage capped? 

Likewise for gear - why would anyone run stats like Berserker's if it overcaps your damage over an arbitrarily by ArenaNet decided maximum amount of damage allowed? 

 

Also, how would you cap by DPS to begin with? What about power builds hitting huge crits/bursts in one second, and then a cast time/downtime the next - while that may average out to 15k+ DPS otherwise, if they are capped at maximum Damage allowed per second, those huge power damage hits would be nerfed/capped and the DPS of powerbuilds would plummet through the remainign downtime, while condi Builds ticking consistently at that maximum damage cap every second would reign supreme. 

 

You really don't need to think too much or long to see how this would be impossible to implement and a bad idea to begin with. 

 

If bosses die in seconds, either some powercreep on players needs to be tuned down, or the content needs to be beefed up. Arbitrary limitations are an awful design tool introducing more problems and redundant game systems and mechanics, as well as invalidating player investment and skill.

Edited December 20, 2021 by Asum.4960

[moony.5780]

2 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

It's not about the boss dying seconds earlier or later, it's about invalidating gear investment, game mechanics and theorycrafting. 

If as @moony.5780 says DPS were capped at 15k, and your build does 15k DPS without any Might (or insert any or all other damage increasing boons), what's the point in theorycrafting a good build that provides Might etc. for itself or others? What's the point in actively using skills, since there are builds in GW2 that can reach 15-25k DPS essentially just auto attacking? Why even have a skill bar at that point, when any button you press doesn't actually do anything since you are already damage capped? 

Likewise for gear - why would anyone run stats like Berserker's if it overcaps your damage over an arbitrarily by ArenaNet decided maximum amount of damage allowed? 

 

Also, how would you cap by DPS to begin with? What about power builds hitting huge crits/bursts in one second, and then a cast time/downtime the next - while that may average out to 15k DPS otherwise, if they are capped at maximum Damage allowed per second, those huge power damage hits would be nerfed/capped and the DPS of powerbuilds would plummet through the remainign downtime, while condi Builds ticking consistently at that maximum damage cap every second would reign supreme. 

 

You really don't need to think too much or long to see how this would be impossible to implement and a bad idea to begin with. 

 

If bosses die in seconds, either some powercreep on players needs to be tuned down, or the content needs to be beefed up. Arbitrary limitations are an awful design tool introducing more problems and redundant game systems and mechanics, as well as invalidating player investment.

Yes, thats so true.

 

 

Lets keep thinking of nice ideas an post them here \(^_^)/

[Linken.6345]

4 hours ago, Asum.4960 said:

You can shut down any content addition with that argument though. Any new map, meta, event etc. "detracts" from the already existing ones in the game. 

 

If it's tuned to be a significantly harder experience requiring group compositions, communication etc. rather than something to just casually jump in, I don't think it's going to detract significantly from the players that currently enjoy current OW though, rather than attracting those who don't and on whom that content is currently entirely wasted. 

 

As for some skilled players still currently doing OW bosses migrating to harder and to them more enjoyable instanced versions, making it harder for new and less proficient players to learn the game, I'd also hard disagree. That's actually a big problem of GW2, there is never any performance feedback. A handful of proficient players carrying every OW event for a zerg of >95% players contributing barely more or even less than their presence scales up the events, having no clue about their lack of performance, means there is never any incentive to improve or learn there. Nobody learns from being carried, especially when they are unaware of that fact.

 

I'd say if this would actually cause some events and metas to fail for a time due to lack of carries, giving some players moments of pause and inspiration for what they could change and improve from that to do better in the future, increasing overall skill levels - I'd see that as a huge win for the game longterm. 

Why would you actively want to punish and limit players who learned the game and play it well - rather than giving those players other more suitable options and encouraging others to becoming more proficient as well?

And about 80% of those players not getting rewarded would quit or stop playing that content after afew tries.

How would that help at all?

[moony.5780]

4 minutes ago, Linken.6345 said:

And about 80% of those players not getting rewarded would quit or stop playing that content after afew tries.

How would that help at all?

I think nobody said, that 80% of player should not get rewards.  The title says "hardmode suggestion for everyone from everyone". I'm really looking forward for your suggestion \(^_^)/

[Shikaru.7618]

1 hour ago, Linken.6345 said:

And about 80% of those players not getting rewarded would quit or stop playing that content after afew tries.

How would that help at all?

Problem with guild wars 2 is that it doesn't give the player feedback on why they failed. With the addition of this type of content, there would also need to be better feedback metrics like "how many times you got hit", "damage dealt rating", "break bar contribution", "healing done" or whatever metric makes sense.

 

What open worlders don't understand is that this game by and large is designed for most sources of damage to be avoidable. There's a few exceptions to this obviously but by and large you can survive most encounters in open world wearing full glass cannon gear. Prime example of not understanding this mentality is the open worlders that still cling to the "dead dps is no dps" mentality that then proceed to stuff their build with a bunch of toughness and vitality as if it's necessary. Don't get me wrong, there's a place for survivability stats because activily reading boss animations and getting heavily punished for missing dodges gets tiring quickly but the result of having this crutch is that most players grow up not realizing that getting hit by things are considered a mechanic failure.

 

Fix this mentality and you'd also have a lot less people complain about how hard raids are.

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

5 hours ago, moony.5780 said:

Lets keep thinking of nice ideas an post them here \(^_^)/

I'm sorry for the mess. It was not my intention to derail the thread into another endless "Raiders vs. Casuals" discussion.

Due to the development of Raids, Strike Missions, DRMs and Fractals, they run out of content. So we are looking for solutions, so we all can enjoy Open World, without forcing anyone into something they do not want to. @Asum.4960has the quote in their signature:

Quote

“The challenge (in designing engaging content) is that the skill disparity between average players and hardcore players is extreme. We’re talking about ten times damage output." ~Mike Zadorojny, former Game Director

This problem needs to be solved. Turning the entire playerbase into raiders and increasing the difficulty to raid-difficulty does not work. Capping the DPS, what I have suggested, would do the exact opposite and so also does not work. Turning every raider into a casual is a bad idea. We need a path that not works with extremes. 

Making Open World instanced with multiple difficulties would eat too many resources. In addition, the LFG would be an even greater mess than it is right now.

-

An Overhit mechanic could be interesting. This means you get a bonus when you cross a certain damage threshold. Lineage II had such a mechanic when I played. You fought your opponent (NPC) until it was close to death, then activated your most powerful attack. Every damage-point that overhit the target resulted in bonus-exp.

Bonus EXP is kind of useless in GW2, especially to raiders and veterans. But we have a mechanic that could be utilized for this, Map bonus reward. This is a thing for running events, you gain a bonus loot when the map-bonus bar is filled.

Overhit mechanic could add up progress for map-bonus when you cross a certain damage threshold.

Example: Recording DPS of players. If it crosses 10k, the bonus is 1.5 %, if it crosses 20k, the bonus is 2 % and if it crosses 30k, the bonus is 3 %. If you maintain a DPS of 30k, which is acceptable for instanced content, you will get a bonus loot item every 1:40 min. If you manage to keep the damage output going on, no run out of targets. 

This would definitely promote the power-creep, but the raiders would be happy. More loot for better performance!

But the casual players are left behind. With the above quote of Mike Z. in mind, that would be a horrible experience for new players. The mobs would literally vaporize on spawn, because everyone would try to get that bonus ^^. Increasing the HP pool would fix this problem in short term, but make the gameplay significantly harder for solo-players.

As you can see, satisfying both groups is not that easy. 

-

We have a couple of events with an upscaling mechanic tied to tiers. If a certain tier is completed, the next one activates with higher difficulty. Upscaling events works in a similar way, veterans are getting replaced by elite and champion mobs the more players participate in the event. 

Let us try the following:
Certain events spawn a sponge NPC, with a hilarious amount of HP. It does rather low damage and buffs the other NPCs a little, but you can win the event ignoring it 100 %. If that NPC gets killed within x time, the overhit mechanic gets unlocked for that event and the next spawning NPCs will have a significantly higher HP pool, so people can benefit from the system.  A new sponge NPC spawns. If that one gets killed within x time, the next overhit-tier unlocks. The higher the damage-output of the group is, the more HP the NPCs will have and the more loot they will get for out-performing their own skill. 

And if only casuals are around, the sponge remains alive. Overhit will not unlock and the event will just be possible to complete as normal. 

Edited December 18, 2021 by HnRkLnXqZ.1870
calculation error

[moony.5780]

1 hour ago, HnRkLnXqZ.1870 said:

I'm sorry for the mess. It was not my intention to derail the thread into another endless "Raiders vs. Casuals" discussion.

Due to the development of Raids, Strike Missions, DRMs and Fractals, they run out of content. So we are looking for solutions, so we all can enjoy Open World, without forcing anyone into something they do not want to. @Asum.4960has the quote in their signature:

This problem needs to be solved. Turning the entire playerbase into raiders and increasing the difficulty to raid-difficulty does not work. Capping the DPS, what I have suggested, would do the exact opposite and so also does not work. Turning every raider into a casual is a bad idea. We need a path that not works with extremes. 

Making Open World instanced with multiple difficulties would eat too many resources. In addition, the LFG would be an even greater mess than it is right now.

-

An Overhit mechanic could be interesting. This means you get a bonus when you cross a certain damage threshold. Lineage II had such a mechanic when I played. You fought your opponent (NPC) until it was close to death, then activated your most powerful attack. Every damage-point that overhit the target resulted in bonus-exp.

Bonus EXP is kind of useless in GW2, especially to raiders and veterans. But we have a mechanic that could be utilized for this, Map bonus reward. This is a thing for running events, you gain a bonus loot when the map-bonus bar is filled.

Overhit mechanic could add up progress for map-bonus when you cross a certain damage threshold.

Example: Recording DPS of players. If it crosses 10k, the bonus is 1.5 %, if it crosses 20k, the bonus is 2 % and if it crosses 30k, the bonus is 3 %. If you maintain a DPS of 30k, which is acceptable for instanced content, you will get a bonus loot item every 1:40 min. If you manage to keep the damage output going on, no run out of targets. 

This would definitely promote the power-creep, but the raiders would be happy. More loot for better performance!

But the casual players are left behind. With the above quote of Mike Z. in mind, that would be a horrible experience for new players. The mobs would literally vaporize on spawn, because everyone would try to get that bonus ^^. Increasing the HP pool would fix this problem in short term, but make the gameplay significantly harder for solo-players.

As you can see, satisfying both groups is not that easy. 

-

We have a couple of events with an upscaling mechanic tied to tiers. If a certain tier is completed, the next one activates with higher difficulty. Upscaling events works in a similar way, veterans are getting replaced by elite and champion mobs the more players participate in the event. 

Let us try the following:
Certain events spawn a sponge NPC, with a hilarious amount of HP. It does rather low damage and buffs the other NPCs a little, but you can win the event ignoring it 100 %. If that NPC gets killed within x time, the overhit mechanic gets unlocked for that event and the next spawning NPCs will have a significantly higher HP pool, so people can benefit from the system.  A new sponge NPC spawns. If that one gets killed within x time, the next overhit-tier unlocks. The higher the damage-output of the group is, the more HP the NPCs will have and the more loot they will get for out-performing their own skill. 

And if only casuals are around, the sponge remains alive. Overhit will not unlock and the event will just be possible to complete as normal. 

No problem:) I 100% agree with you. I think it's very tricky to balance everything, but it's needed in long term. I think it's important that every side of the discussion give some suggestions, and I was hoping for a collection of suggestions. The fight casual vs hardcore might continue  for ages and might even never stop....but I truly hope it will be possible for all player to play the same game and have equally fun. Because that's what made the base game so special at the first few years.

 

About your ideas...I like them a lot :) it sounds cool, when the whole group gets higher reward, when the stronger player go full berserker on the sponge mobs. 

I also like your other idea. It sounds fun to run around in the open world also without events. But I also agree that it will make the current situation worse....people who know the events can nuke down the monster at spawn...people who have no idea where the monster come from will be totally left out. Maybe it could be only active for monster outside events :)

[Sobx.1758]

Properly scaling difficulty levels between core and expansions, so there can be ""hard mode"" by default after playerbase learns to use game's mechanics.

+ no sudden jumps in difficulty levels eases people into learning they sometimes need to adjust their actions to the mobs they're fighting

+ improving overall playerbase abilities to play the game can lead to introducing new mechanics and content, which lowers stagnation and prolongs the lifespan of the game

+ no weird "toggles for difficulty" in open world, which can potentially be abused

- probably need to re-evaluate higher level core content

[Sobx.1758]

On 12/18/2021 at 11:00 AM, HnRkLnXqZ.1870 said:

Here is my suggestion:

Dear ANet, please cap outgoing DPS in open world ❤️

That's some backwards thinking. Generally you should want the playerbase to improve, not hold back the ones that did improve.

Edited December 19, 2021 by Sobx.1758

[Beorn Raukar.4328]

How about using the downscaling system already in game. Basically when you activate hard mode it downscales you to more that what it otherwise would while still keeping all skills, trait and armor perks. But everything will relatively be hitting you harder. They can also revamp the system into such a way that when you have hard mode on you get increased drop rate on rarer items.

P

[Fueki.4753]

1 hour ago, Beorn Raukar.4328 said:

They can also revamp the system into such a way that when you have hard mode on you get increased drop rate on rarer items.

If they want to make the game harder for themselves, the game getting harder is all the reward they ought to get from it.

Edited December 19, 2021 by Fueki.4753

[joneirikb.7506]

Couple of self restrictions I've tried with various success:
* No weapon (Thief), got to level 60 before I got bored of killing enemies with caltrops+traps (when they still existed) on a 25-30 seconds timer.
* No Armour (Thief), forgot where I stopped, was actually very hard as the difficulty scaled upward more and more as the levels increased.

For an actual "Hard mode", I've pondered this a few times in the past, and I think the most feasible is:
* A way to set your own level scaling. So you can set a handicap level (X) and have level scaling reduce you by this amount. Even on level 80 maps.
* No change to rewards. Absolutely none. Because any request for more or less rewards for this will doom the entire idea from the get go, too many people react too badly to either.

The main disadvantage with this idea, is that technically your self-handicap theoretically limit other people around you. But I also assume that if you're using a self handicap system, you're good enough that it shouldn't be too massive an impact on others.