Before purchasing DLCs and extras

[Iskras Femme.1693]

 

GW2 is absurdly poorly designed - if you like a good story without it don't become hell. In the final 'boss' of each campaign, you will die more than 30 times in absolutely all DLCs and extra campaigns.

Bad design decisions. Imagine Elden Ring 100 times worse in terms of difficulty and, add to that, you have no conditions - minimal - to survive? What's the logic behind this? When imagination and creativity are lacking, exaggerations are left to make your experience the most absolute terror. It's as if the developers made conscious decisions to harm you. 😕

 

But is GW2 all about it?

 

Lucky for us, Gw2 is not just about its absurdly ill-planned and extremely poorly designed campaigns - as well as terrible scripts. The open world, after completing the campaigns (suffering and never wanting to return to the title) is something different, diverse and very fun, which is really worth it in Gw2. Too bad, I like the game, except for its horrible campaigns... 

[NovaanVerdiano.6174]

The story isn't really difficult for the most part though. I oneshot all of the "final bosses" of "each campaign".

This is going to sound harsh, but frankly if you die 30+ times in each of them it sounds like it's a a) skill issue, b) gear/build issue or c) both in your case and you never bothered to reflect/try to learn, thus getting your teeth kicked in by the story encounters.

[kharmin.7683]

Sure, chief.  The design is bad.  That's why millions play the game.

[Randulf.7614]

What Kharmin means is that most players get through the story without too many issues - if the difficulty was on par with 1000x Elden Ring, it simply wouldn’t have millions of accounts and most would have abandoned it due to frustration. That isn’t the case. In fact GW2 more often than not, gets criticised for being too easy.

The issue is down to a steep post core game learning curve and the skill gap between players which is vast, making balancing difficult. There are obviously some tricky bosses, but all are doable on first or second attempt for most players. They key is adjust your build/traits/weapons/armour stats if struggling.

There are design flaws, but they are quite minor overall. I’m sure players here would be willing to help with boss tactics, build ideas etc.

[Bern.9613]

5 minutes ago, Randulf.7614 said:

What Kharmin means is that most players get through the story without too many issues - if the difficulty was on par with 1000x Elden Ring, it simply wouldn’t have millions of accounts and most would have abandoned it due to frustration. That isn’t the case. In fact GW2 more often than not, gets criticised for being too easy.

The issue is down to a steep post core game learning curve and the skill gap between players which is vast, making balancing difficult. There are obviously some tricky bosses, but all are doable on first or second attempt for most players. They key is adjust your build/traits/weapons/armour stats if struggling.

There are design flaws, but they are quite minor overall. I’m sure players here would be willing to help with boss tactics, build ideas etc.

Balancing is easy. Leave the class traits and power alone, adjust the environment/mobs. See? Easy. 

[Randulf.7614]

7 minutes ago, Bern.9613 said:

Balancing is easy. Leave the class traits and power alone, adjust the environment/mobs. See? Easy. 

Right, but that’s the exact issue I’m stating. The player skill difference is stated to be x500 between across the top/bottom spectrum of players. That makes it near impossible to find a sweet spot for the devs to balance difficulty via environment/mobs. They need to make it just challenging enough, whilst still doable for a majority and finding that sweet spot is hard as that skill spectrum constantly changes. All the while, putting up with complaints that it is too hard or too easy from some players.

Not an easy task by any means for a games developer

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

2 hours ago, Iskras Femme.1693 said:

In the final 'boss' of each campaign

it's impossible to die against Zaithan, I don't remember Mordremoth and I did die against Balthazar the last time but mostly due being rusty after 3 years hiatus (and being completely unaware of the massive nerfs on Reaper). And dying against Sushi dragon is part of the story, I think.

LW is usually harder and way more annoying, but I won't say hard. It's more an issue of dying of boredom (seriously, aside from the Icebrood Saga, all LW are awful boring).

[David.1603]

2 hours ago, Iskras Femme.1693 said:

In the final 'boss' of each campaign, you will die more than 30 times in absolutely all DLCs and extra campaigns.

Yeah maybe this game isn't for you.

[mythical.6315]

5 hours ago, Iskras Femme.1693 said:

if you like a good story without it don't become hell. In the final 'boss' of each campaign, you will die more than 30 times in absolutely all DLCs and extra campaigns.

It's not bad design if you play through the game without learning how to play and then expect to win by throwing yourself at a boss 30+ times without taking the time to figure out what you may be doing wrong.  Using brute force only gets you so far.

Making exaggerations by comparing GW2 to Elden Ring doesn't help your case either.  It shows that you cannot make a reasonable argument or you're trying to make a comparison between something you do not understand.  Anyone who has played Elden Ring would know that GW2 doesn't come close as challenging except perhaps the content designed specifically to be so.

Edited November 28, 2022 by mythical.6315

[Danikat.8537]

Story missions can all be completed solo, even if you don't have the best build and/or aren't very good at using it. But if you can't do it on your own you can ask other people to help. All story missions can be played with parties of up to 5 players, and some of them are much easier with 2 or more people just because it splits the damage between you (because the bosses attacks only hit a single target at a time) or because you can support, revive etc. each other.

A lot of them also require specific tactics - you can't just throw yourself at the boss and hope they die first, you have to wait for an opening or do something to make them vulnerable.

[Sarius.9285]

insane how people always fall for this Bait lol...

[yoni.7015]

11 hours ago, Iskras Femme.1693 said:

In the final 'boss' of each campaign, you will die more than 30 times in absolutely all DLCs and extra campaigns.

No you don’t. 

[b k.1648]

Pebkac

[Cyninja.2954]

Read up on open world builds. They also make for good solo story builds.

 

If you are dying 30+ times to story bosses you should at some point realized that your approach must be flawed. Obviously the game is not designed with the intent to have players die that many times. The general idea here is for players to experiment and improve. That is the extent to which this game is similar to Dark Souls (or Elden Ring) but the difficulty is, just like in those games, pretty much dependent on the effort you put in.

 

Want to be challenged to the maximum? Play Elden Ring or Dark Souls in a super squishy character dependent on perfect dodging/avoiding every enemies attack. Want a more relaxed approach, find out which cheeses strats or combinations of items make a fight easier and maybe overlevel.

 

The same works here: if your "full berserker no defensive utility skills" build gets toasted by a final boss, maybe read up on how the boss works, what you can do to make life easier on yourself and adjust your approach (and most likely build) accordingly.

 

Plus if all that fails, do the same as in FromSoft games: bring friends.

Edited November 28, 2022 by Cyninja.2954

[Sobx.1758]

12 hours ago, Iskras Femme.1693 said:

you will die more than 30 times in absolutely all DLCs and extra campaigns.

Maybe if you try brute-forcing your way through without any understanding of the game's mechanics, at which point...

35 minutes ago, Ben K.6238 said:

Pebkac

Edited November 28, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Iskras Femme.1693]

I forget translate 1 post here. 

[Iskras Femme.1693]

My build is good for PVE, it's about mechanics involved in stories and a kind of gameplay design.

Of course the tendency in 'forums' is for people to defend game on the understanding that any criticism of something is bad - forums are like that and this one is no different. But it is possible to separate things.

Edited November 29, 2022 by Iskras Femme.1693

[Sobx.1758]

3 minutes ago, Iskras Femme.1693 said:

My build is good for PVE, it's about mechanics involved in stories and a kind of gameplay design.

Build is one thing, understanding and utilizing game's/encounter's mechanics is another.

3 minutes ago, Iskras Femme.1693 said:

Of course the tendency in 'foums' is for people to defend game on the understanding that any criticism of something is bad

Nope. There's valid criticism and then there's the "story is designed to make you die 30 times on a boss" take.

[Iskras Femme.1693]

No, just one campaign or several, extremely poorly designed, poorly made, where the lack of creativity gave way to impossible mechanics, no matter the set, build, whatever, just something bad. About many comments here, I don't doubt that they are profiles (here, on this forum) made by people who don't even play the game.

 

I'm off this forum.

Edited November 29, 2022 by Iskras Femme.1693

[kharmin.7683]

Do people actually rage quit a forum?

[Sobx.1758]

2 hours ago, Iskras Femme.1693 said:

No, just one campaign or several, extremely poorly designed, poorly made, where the lack of creativity gave way to impossible mechanics, no matter the set, build, whatever, just something bad.

Which ones, specifically?

Notice how you're once again refocusing into "no matter wht set/build I run!", when I've already told you: "Build is one thing, understanding and utilizing game's/encounter's mechanics is another". Having a coherent build is good, some builds can indeed help with specific mechanics, but for the most part you'll still have to deal with the mechanics instead of wanting to bash it head-on just because "you have a good build already".

Edited November 29, 2022 by Sobx.1758