The real core problem of the Dragon's End meta is all about DPS

[blp.3489]

[One possible solution in bold near the bottom of this post]

Context: I was lucky enough to get a win the first time I played the DE meta, thanks to the other players.  But I've played it another five times and they were all losses.

It seems to me that the core problems with the meta revolve around DPS.  The mechanics aren't that complicated, although I have died several times over the six times I've played it, those darned whirl pools, and there were often a lot of people that needed to be revived in several of the iterations.  But I think that if you just doubled everyone's DPS that the meta would rarely if ever fail.  If the meta didn't require high DPS to finish on time than the bonuses you get from the pre-event and the jade protocols  and the wisp mechanic would have no meaning and people would probably often skip them.  The fact that organized groups with subgroups with quickness and alacrity and might stacking and food etc. routinely beat the meta reinforces the central role of DPS.

And that's where a lot of the conflict between casual and hardcore players comes from.  Casual players aren't used to relying on high DPS, you can get through almost anything non-instanced with pretty minimal DPS.  The hardcore players that do a lot of instanced play are pretty used to group composition optimization so needing high DPS through builds and organization is nothing new to them.

For a casual player not being able to "pull your weight" in DPS feels pretty bad.  Being ridiculed for not having high enough DPS feels bad.  Casual players that do decent rotations that are sufficient for most open world content don't like being told that they just need to skill up and not just autoattack.  Knowing that you only succeeded because your group happened to have a lot of higher DPS players doesn't feel great.  Basically if you are not good at DPS you are basically a liability to the group, which feels bad, especially if you had previously thought you were okay due to being able to solo champions and so forth in the open world.

Hardcore player's don't like failing the event because other players don't do high enough DPS, but they do enjoy being challenged.  They are used to picking their groupmates in instanced content and resent being grouped up with people who "can't contribute their share".  Getting no loot after two hours of playing, even if you were stellar, feels bad.  Even just failing through no fault of your own feels bad.

The only people who feel like winners are the ones that are part of large parties with organized subgroups etc.

Other than lowering the DPS requirement (lower boss health or longer timer) or "forcing" casual players to play "better" builds and learn about organized boon sharing I don't see how this event can be made into something everyone can enjoy.  If you lower the DPS requirements the hardcore players won't be happy, if you try to force the casual players to change their builds and slot into an organized structure they won't be happy.

The only way I can see to make this enjoyable for everyone is to introduce private instances where hardcore player can enjoy a challenge and lower the DPS requirement in the open world version so casual players can enjoy it.  Also making DPS more visible to players so people are more aware of, and can therefore try to improve, their DPS ability.  Ideally you would have a story-like instance where you have NPCs that provide boons so the people can understand the magnitude of the result.  Maybe have a version where you have to provide support while the NPCs do the DPS too.  Maybe provide the gollum in the raid area somewhere where us casual players are more likely to try it out.  Adding a training area, along with other new ones, with an NPC opponent with a given rate of health recovery, hopefully that you can select, so that you can see whether you can do enough DPS to win against it.

Actually, it might be really cool to have a version of Dragon's end where there is no timer but Soo wan recovers health over time.  That way you could clearly see whether the group is doing enough DPS to ever win, and you could call out in LFG for new people to help.  That could be pretty epic!  And it would help people perfect the mechanics too.  And the good players could feel heroic jumping into a failing instance to save the day.

And of course having better rewards would help with popularity too, a two hour event that can end with no loot is pretty harsh.

Edited March 13, 2022 by blp.3489
TL;DR idea in bold at end

[Peterson.5172]

14 minutes ago, blp.3489 said:

That way you could clearly see whether the group is doing enough DPS to ever win, and you could call out in LFG for new people to help.  That could be pretty epic!  And it would help people perfect the mechanics too.  And the good players could feel heroic jumping into a failing instance to save the day.

so ummmm DE map has like a 50 people cap, so once there are 50, no more can get in.

Meta would probably be quite easy if we can have 80-100 people like most maps.

also, while dps can be a problem, some people have said you only need 7k dps per person (as a point of reference top end dps with all buffs hit 35-40k)

Edited March 13, 2022 by Peterson.5172

[blp.3489]

3 minutes ago, Peterson.5172 said:

also, while dps can be a problem, some people have said you only need 7k dps per person (as a point of reference top end dps with all buffs hit 35-40k)

I guess I should be embarrassed to admit that I usually only do 5k at best solo in most open world stuff, but that's more than enough to obliterate most open world content.  I don't know what DPS I do during DE because I'm too occupied with mechanics and doing as much damage as I can.

In a way, you reinforce my point, if some people are doing 35-40k while most people aren't hitting the 7k necessary to win, that's a pretty stark contrast to be mixing together.

[Cuks.8241]

4 minutes ago, blp.3489 said:

I guess I should be embarrassed to admit that I usually only do 5k at best solo in most open world stuff, but that's more than enough to obliterate most open world content.  I don't know what DPS I do during DE because I'm too occupied with mechanics and doing as much damage as I can.

In a way, you reinforce my point, if some people are doing 35-40k while most people aren't hitting the 7k necessary to win, that's a pretty stark contrast to be mixing together.

You cant look at numbers like that, can't compare open world with group enviroment. 35-40k requires 100% boon uptime, other buffs, specific condis that increase dmg directly or indirectly, ramp up and also depends on boss mechanics how much of the fight you can actually sustain such DSP.  

But yeah if you open Arc and see the dps of players you will see a big discrepancy. The funny thing is that Anet actually balanced the fight timer quite well for such a varied enviroment (if they wanted to have it tight). Many groups come close or just beat it. If the fight would be extended by just 1 min or 2, the success rate would be much higher.

 

[Swoo.5079]

As Cuks said instanced and open world are very different.

When I play scourge on open world I use trailblazer, I have a stun break, I have parasitic contagion.

First thing I do before searching for a fractal group is to change to viper's and swap parasitic contagion and the stun break for lingering curse and epidemic (or something else if don't need the cleave).

No one should run healing or full glass canon in open world. On instanced content it is the other way around.

 

DE is a open world map where you should play as instanced content.

I don't believe the audience of stuff like silverwastes, auric basin and tangled depths is a perfect match to the that likes raids.

 

 

Edited March 13, 2022 by Swoo.5079

[Hollowhisper.1093]

I guess DPS would be okay in any group if it wasn't for all that randomised movement breaking the routine. You start your rotation and halfway through it you have to abort it and move. Plus, I often see 10-15 downed folks after one of Soo-Wong's "half-the-platform attacks" which also deducts from your damage output. With the 50% tail attack adjustment it got better but I see a lot of situations where you just have a ten second damage window before the dragon again starts to do something stupid.

And lately, I see more and more people just staying dead or leaving the group, because apparently they just can't be bothered anymore. With two hours of spare time down the drain, who can even blame them?

[Scolix.4879]

1 hour ago, Swoo.5079 said:

As Cuks said instanced and open world are very different.

When I play scourge on open world I use trailblazer, I have a stun break, I have parasitic contagion.

First thing I do before searching for a fractal group is to change to viper's and swap parasitic contagion and the stun break for lingering curse and epidemic (or something else if don't need the cleave).

No one should run healing or full glass canon in open world. On instanced content it is the other way around.

 

DE is a open world map where you should play as instanced content.

I don't believe the audience of stuff like silverwastes, auric basin and tangled depths is a perfect match to the that likes raids.

 

 

With almost 20 years experience of different mmo's i can safely say that most people who do mostly just open world stuff and play how they like probably do not even know what their dps is or let alone what stats/runes/sigils they should have for better performance and then there is the talents on top of all that and the rotations.

The event itself when it gets going is quite cool but to me getting it running takes way too long and the event itself too is way too long for the payoff that most of the time ends in total and absolute failure.

Trying to mix and match different people with different playstyles and gaming habits in a meta event that requires more than playing with feet/face will never work.

I tried the event 4 times today first one total failure people running around like headless chickens even when commander(s) try to give instructions and orders. Second attempt not enough people so absolute fail. Third attempt people are having boat race with skiffs and fishing in the lake few people try to do event that fails. Last attempt same as second attempt not enough people we escort Caithe but then people just leave so its again total fail.

I think ill join skiff racing it looks more fun more rewarding and less stressful.

[Desh.7028]

3 hours ago, Peterson.5172 said:

some people have said you only need 7k dps per person (as a point of reference top end dps with all buffs hit 35-40k)

 

Ah yes. Golem with 100% uptime on absolutely everything and every possible (actually impossible once you think about it) unique profession buff and a grand total of zero movement. Of course target swapping, moving out of AoEs larger than the boss's hitbox or phases of literal invulnerability surely won't change anything here.

 

If Anet were to create a fight so hectic that DPS uptime is at 10% and the requirements are 7000 average DPS it would be impossible to do. As you can see just the average DPS (which includes support and boon support as well) doesn't tell you everything on it's own.

 

 

I feel sad about the decision to keep the HP scaling where it is because the spectacle of the fight is nicely done and it would even allow to keep more of the random elements to make it feel less repetitive if it becomes a frequently done open world meta like they want it to.

[AliamRationem.5172]

3 hours ago, Peterson.5172 said:

so ummmm DE map has like a 50 people cap, so once there are 50, no more can get in.

Meta would probably be quite easy if we can have 80-100 people like most maps.

also, while dps can be a problem, some people have said you only need 7k dps per person (as a point of reference top end dps with all buffs hit 35-40k)

35-40k is against a boss that stands still and allows the raid to continuously DPS while receiving full buff uptime in a fully organized squad.  Against a boss that has lots of invuln phases and where players get removed from the fight by bubbles/whirlwinds, etc. and where you have to continually run from one side of the platform to the other 7k DPS might actually be a pretty high bar. 

The other issue is that the lower the total DPS of the group, the more these factors compound.  You might be a pro capable of 40k DPS in a raid, but if your open world squad is taking too long your DPS is going to be garbage because you don't get to spend much of your time applying it.

[Kate.3679]

13 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

35-40k is against a boss that stands still and allows the raid to continuously DPS while receiving full buff uptime in a fully organized squad.  Against a boss that has lots of invuln phases and where players get removed from the fight by bubbles/whirlwinds, etc. and where you have to continually run from one side of the platform to the other 7k DPS might actually be a pretty high bar. 

The other issue is that the lower the total DPS of the group, the more these factors compound.  You might be a pro capable of 40k DPS in a raid, but if your open world squad is taking too long your DPS is going to be garbage because you don't get to spend much of your time applying it.

 

people literally drop 50k+ on the first 100-80% and you're telling me 7k dps is a high bar

[AliamRationem.5172]

1 minute ago, Ruru.1302 said:

 

people literally drop 50k+ on the first 100-80% and you're telling me 7k dps is a high bar

That's the part where she sits there for a good long while and lets you hit her.  After that your windows for DPS are quite small.  And no, I'm not telling you 7k is a high bar.  I'm telling it might be.  You do understand that Damage-Per-Second includes all the seconds that you aren't dealing damage, too, right?

[Ariane Barnes.6483]

What is really needed is to kill the RNG on the fight. It makes the event hard, true, but it also makes it frustrating and BORING to do the same thing over and over again.

My fix Soo Wan does three opening attacks, set attacks no RNG, doesn't matter what they are. Then a breakbar followed by a damage phase to get Soo Wan to 80%, if it takes too long, another breakbar.  MAKE SOO WAN IMMUNE TO ELECTRO SHOCK!  It's a skill from IBS mastery that not everyone has access to, force people to use their skill CCs which are usually stronger anyways.

Once 80% reached first green phase, followed by 2 to 3 attacks, then another breakbar/damage to 60%.  Then split one, followed by 2 to 3 attacks to 40% and second green, then second split at 20% and then 2 final attacks then breakbar/damage until its done.

Keep the time the same, but 10 set attacks + 4 extra phases is enough to keep it interesting without frustrating the player base.

 

Edited March 14, 2022 by Ariane Barnes.6483

[Woof.8246]

There could be a Skirt "Godly Thief " that when the majority of the people vote on , it steals 1min from the timer for increased reward/damage boost , but have a slightly chance to "accidentally" steal 10-20sec occasionally (cough* Maths) .

Commanders vote count as 20 extra people .

 

Or randomly these "godly thieves" steal time regardless if you want to (some tiny skirts willl start "digging" around the UI timer)   ,  and can be used as currency when you find the Skirt Vendor and threaten their face , asking for repercussions

Edited March 14, 2022 by Woof.8246

[Preppy.7046]

I'd love if we could get a golem that moves around like Soo-Won or Sorrowful Spellcaster so that we could have more accurate DPS bars to evaluate against.  People are using fragmented rotations and are forced to be out of position all the time due to boss movement. I'm usually seeing very high burst DPS in the opening semi-fixed attacks, but DPS suffers and even disappears at times as people have to flip sides and break attacks.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

From my experience, the biggest problem isn't the dps.

But the inability to dodge or move out of dmg. 

Seeing Soo-Won melt only to have 20 downstate to her Smash is.... 

 

[Grendel.1235]

I find it curious that ANet even put in a DPS check for this meta (essentially what the 50 player cap amounts to) considering the ONLY way for a player to reliably even check their DPS is with a third party addon that questionably hooks into the game client...

If you are going to go full bore on hardcore content why not just blow the top off and add an official addon API so everyone playing in the game can check their DPS, HPS, Gearscore, Raider.IO, logs, parses...

[Peterson.5172]

6 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

35-40k is against a boss that stands still and allows the raid to continuously DPS while receiving full buff uptime in a fully organized squad.  Against a boss that has lots of invuln phases and where players get removed from the fight by bubbles/whirlwinds, etc. and where you have to continually run from one side of the platform to the other 7k DPS might actually be a pretty high bar. 

The other issue is that the lower the total DPS of the group, the more these factors compound.  You might be a pro capable of 40k DPS in a raid, but if your open world squad is taking too long your DPS is going to be garbage because you don't get to spend much of your time applying it.

 

6 hours ago, Desh.7028 said:

 

Ah yes. Golem with 100% uptime on absolutely everything and every possible (actually impossible once you think about it) unique profession buff and a grand total of zero movement. Of course target swapping, moving out of AoEs larger than the boss's hitbox or phases of literal invulnerability surely won't change anything here.

 

If Anet were to create a fight so hectic that DPS uptime is at 10% and the requirements are 7000 average DPS it would be impossible to do. As you can see just the average DPS (which includes support and boon support as well) doesn't tell you everything on it's own.

 

 

I feel sad about the decision to keep the HP scaling where it is because the spectacle of the fight is nicely done and it would even allow to keep more of the random elements to make it feel less repetitive if it becomes a frequently done open world meta like they want it to.

yes but for DE you get 2 buffs that give 20% damage and 150power. and i remember someone mentioning they checked team dps, 2-3 people actually get like 40k overall

not saying everyone is expected to hit this (i cant do it myself), that's why i said high end as reference, with only 7k needed average

Edited March 14, 2022 by Peterson.5172

[Ashantara.8731]

14 hours ago, Peterson.5172 said:

so ummmm DE map has like a 50 people cap, so once there are 50, no more can get in.

I believe that to be incorrect. I think the DE map has the same cap as other maps, that means around 70 people, no?

14 hours ago, blp.3489 said:

The real core problem of the Dragon's End meta is all about DPS

I think that can be only one of the obstacles when you're running with random LFG squads. Not knowing the mechs (like completely ignoring the tail phase) and not avoiding the dangerous AoEs are also big issues, as whirlpools and dead people are slowing the progress down significantly. As does not having enough Stability during the split phases.

Edited March 14, 2022 by Ashantara.8731

[Izzy.2951]

The only real problem with the Dragons End event is 1) rewards being too low, and 2) people complaining they want stuff for free, cos they paid for the box, i want my aurene legendarys too cos i paid for the box, but i dont  wanna grind... wasnt gw2 casual?

[Blaeys.3102]

A bronze/silver/gold reward structure fixes this without detracting from the difficulty while still allowing a way to give groups not dedicated to metas/boon stacking/ pure luck with RNG a way to finish the fight.

 

We already see this with the last generation of strike missions, so at least one developer at ArenaNet understands this concept.

Edited March 14, 2022 by Blaeys.3102

[Peterson.5172]

39 minutes ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

I believe that to be incorrect. I think the DE map has the same cap as other maps, that means around 70 people, no?

i dont think we have official numbers, i've always thought most maps are 80, but i've hear some maps can be 100, someone even said 150

but DE definitely has a lower cap on purpose, feels like 50, maybe 55-60 tops

Edited March 14, 2022 by Peterson.5172

[wayneericgouin.9371]

14 hours ago, blp.3489 said:

[One possible solution in bold near the bottom of this post]

Context: I was lucky enough to get a win the first time I played the DE meta, thanks to the other players.  But I've played it another five times and they were all losses.

It seems to me that the core problems with the meta revolve around DPS.  The mechanics aren't that complicated, although I have died several times over the six times I've played it, those darned whirl pools, and there were often a lot of people that needed to be revived in several of the iterations.  But I think that if you just doubled everyone's DPS that the meta would rarely if ever fail.  If the meta didn't require high DPS to finish on time than the bonuses you get from the pre-event and the jade protocols  and the wisp mechanic would have no meaning and people would probably often skip them.  The fact that organized groups with subgroups with quickness and alacrity and might stacking and food etc. routinely beat the meta reinforces the central role of DPS.

And that's where a lot of the conflict between casual and hardcore players comes from.  Casual players aren't used to relying on high DPS, you can get through almost anything non-instanced with pretty minimal DPS.  The hardcore players that do a lot of instanced play are pretty used to group composition optimization so needing high DPS through builds and organization is nothing new to them.

For a casual player not being able to "pull your weight" in DPS feels pretty bad.  Being ridiculed for not having high enough DPS feels bad.  Casual players that do decent rotations that are sufficient for most open world content don't like being told that they just need to skill up and not just autoattack.  Knowing that you only succeeded because your group happened to have a lot of higher DPS players doesn't feel great.  Basically if you are not good at DPS you are basically a liability to the group, which feels bad, especially if you had previously thought you were okay due to being able to solo champions and so forth in the open world.

Hardcore player's don't like failing the event because other players don't do high enough DPS, but they do enjoy being challenged.  They are used to picking their groupmates in instanced content and resent being grouped up with people who "can't contribute their share".  Getting no loot after two hours of playing, even if you were stellar, feels bad.  Even just failing through no fault of your own feels bad.

The only people who feel like winners are the ones that are part of large parties with organized subgroups etc.

Other than lowering the DPS requirement (lower boss health or longer timer) or "forcing" casual players to play "better" builds and learn about organized boon sharing I don't see how this event can be made into something everyone can enjoy.  If you lower the DPS requirements the hardcore players won't be happy, if you try to force the casual players to change their builds and slot into an organized structure they won't be happy.

The only way I can see to make this enjoyable for everyone is to introduce private instances where hardcore player can enjoy a challenge and lower the DPS requirement in the open world version so casual players can enjoy it.  Also making DPS more visible to players so people are more aware of, and can therefore try to improve, their DPS ability.  Ideally you would have a story-like instance where you have NPCs that provide boons so the people can understand the magnitude of the result.  Maybe have a version where you have to provide support while the NPCs do the DPS too.  Maybe provide the gollum in the raid area somewhere where us casual players are more likely to try it out.  Adding a training area, along with other new ones, with an NPC opponent with a given rate of health recovery, hopefully that you can select, so that you can see whether you can do enough DPS to win against it.

Actually, it might be really cool to have a version of Dragon's end where there is no timer but Soo wan recovers health over time.  That way you could clearly see whether the group is doing enough DPS to ever win, and you could call out in LFG for new people to help.  That could be pretty epic!  And it would help people perfect the mechanics too.  And the good players could feel heroic jumping into a failing instance to save the day.

And of course having better rewards would help with popularity too, a two hour event that can end with no loot is pretty harsh.

You're partially correct, however it's more to do with people being downed, dead or in transit from the waypoint which is a massive loss in dps. In a 50 player meta very often half of those are in one of those states of zero damage uptime. 

[Scolix.4879]

11 hours ago, Ruru.1302 said:

 

people literally drop 50k+ on the first 100-80% and you're telling me 7k dps is a high bar

But you have to understand that basic open world Joe will never ever get that 50k+ dps. You should step off from your ivory dps tower and go look in hot/pof/eod open world and see how lot of people die from simple world mobs and then you might understand that even that 7k is actually a lot to ask from basic open world player.

Most people will never use dps meters never go 3th party sites and read what kind of talents to use or gear let alone rotations its the same stuff on every mmo i have ever played most people just try to play the game and i think they do not even actually realize if they do something "wrong" or their dps/tanking/healing/support is not even close up to par.

[jaif.3518]

I'm one of the kitten casuals people complains about.  I've failed this meta countless times (I'm a caveman, so more than 3<g>). 

 

I'm slowly learning the stages and overall doing better.  One thing I think is important here is burst instead of DPS over time.  In the beginning, yes, you can go through a 20 step rotation to do real damage, but most of the time you only have a few seconds, then you need to move, then a few seconds more, then move/revive, etc.

 

If I could recommend one thing to a casual, outside of learning the event, it would be to bring your big damage + kite build, not your slow-burn and tank build.  You can't tank squat anyways, you need to move, and your slow burn will never have time to mature.

[AliamRationem.5172]

6 hours ago, Peterson.5172 said:

 

yes but for DE you get 2 buffs that give 20% damage and 150power. and i remember someone mentioning they checked team dps, 2-3 people actually get like 40k overall

not saying everyone is expected to hit this (i cant do it myself), that's why i said high end as reference, with only 7k needed average

There is more downtime than uptime in this fight.  If you're anywhere close to 40k you're only counting uptime even with the buff. This again reinforces the point that in lower dps squads the negative impact on everyone's dps due to higher downtime is greater.