Please make 2 difficulty levels for living world

[Furball.1236]

Am I the only one that feels there is a huge discrepancy between the seriousness of the main story and the easiness of the combats we get after learning the story?

I feel this game is lacking good solo combats, and I really wish they're part of the main story of this game.

Just to clarify, I don't count soloing instanced contents or open world champions as good solo combat experiences. In that case, the boss just has more HP, has a defiance bar to ignore uniqueness of different CC effects, does AoE to the pre-determined area, and each hit does more damage. The ways to deal with these things is to wear more defensive armors and do the same things as you'd do in the group with some occasional defensive skills but the fight just takes longer time.

It is difficult to explain what makes it a good solo combat. But maybe it's more like some of the open world group events where there are normal/veteran/elite mobs with each of them having distinct combat mechanics and standing at different locations. But they will all attack you (not the ground you're standing) when they see you. The player has options to choose which group to engage without alarming the other groups, from which direction to engage, how to use the geography for their advantage, how to use movement-impairing condis to separate the enemies, whether to take projectile reflection or AoE blind to counteract impactful enemy attacks, whether fighting ranged enemies or melee enemies first, whether to kill the enemies at once with AoE or eliminate one troublesome enemy first, and etc.

 

I've heard there were people complaining about living world stories being hard and ANet had to nerf the difficulties over time. So I don't ask ANet to make living world challenging for everyone, but I hope we can have a harder level and an easier level. The rewards can be the same so people won't feel bad playing the easier option.

Edited September 12, 2023 by Furball.1236

[ugrakarma.9416]

u find the awakened groups too easy?

[Furball.1236]

2 minutes ago, ugrakarma.9416 said:

u find the awakened groups too easy?

I'm talking about fights in the living world stories. Which one do you mean?

[ugrakarma.9416]

Just now, Furball.1236 said:

I'm talking about fights in the living world stories. Which one do you mean?

I was thinking about open world.

The problem is histories is already too lengthen, even with "easy bosses".

The mordremoth final boss have a challenge mote, i didnt see anyone repeat that fight unless completing achievments.

[Furball.1236]

8 minutes ago, ugrakarma.9416 said:

I was thinking about open world.

The problem is histories is already too lengthen, even with "easy bosses".

The mordremoth final boss have a challenge mote, i didnt see anyone repeat that fight unless completing achievments.

I'm not sure exactly which open world awakened group events you meant, but there were some good ones. But I remember one of the living world story, where you had to rescue Taimi in Istan, was fun.

I liked the idea of having the challenge mote, but I don't always appreciate the way ANet scales up combats. It's usually more HP, more damage in each boss attack, etc.

I think there was something lost in the process of making the living world story combats easy that cannot be brought back by simply increasing boss HP or something like that.

Edited September 12, 2023 by Furball.1236

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Since, at this time, Living World has been shelved, I don't see the Devs going back and changing the existing Living World story encounters.

[phandaria.4891]

8 hours ago, Furball.1236 said:

It is difficult to explain what makes it a good solo combat. But maybe it's more like some of the open world group events where there are normal/veteran/elite mobs with each of them having distinct combat mechanics and standing at different locations. But they will all attack you (not the ground you're standing) when they see you. The player has options to choose which group to engage without alarming the other groups, from which direction to engage, how to use the geography for their advantage, how to use movement-impairing condis to separate the enemies, whether to take projectile reflection or AoE blind to counteract impactful enemy attacks, whether fighting ranged enemies or melee enemies first, whether to kill the enemies at once with AoE or eliminate one troublesome enemy first, and etc.

I think what you described is more of a CRPG kind of game. The issue is that Guild Wars 2 is an ARPG with fast paced combat system. Solo encounter design will end up skewing more to reactionary puzzle game akin to Liadri or Turai Ossa from Queen's Gauntlet. And it is difficult to design 2 level of difficulty of puzzle encounters aside from extending HP bar, damage or phases which usually only end up making it unfun without additional mechanics.

The issue is not to have 2 difficulty level for story encounters. Any story encounters already easy mode with infinite revives and NPCs engaging the boss to keep them from OOC regeneration. Arenanet just need to design one encounter with medium-hard difficulty and an optional achievement of "defeat boss solo without dying or disengaging".

Scruffy 2.0 boss fight that you mentioned is a good example. It's rather difficult to solo, but still possible to do with infinite revives. Easier option is to find group of 5 to finish the instance. To make it challenging, Arenanet should just add an achievement to defeat it solo without dying and disengaging.

I would like to see more solo encounters (and longer story content) though. I feel there are a lot of plotlines that were axed due to time and resource constraint.

[AliamRationem.5172]

23 minutes ago, phandaria.4891 said:

I think what you described is more of a CRPG kind of game. The issue is that Guild Wars 2 is an ARPG with fast paced combat system. Solo encounter design will end up skewing more to reactionary puzzle game akin to Liadri or Turai Ossa from Queen's Gauntlet. And it is difficult to design 2 level of difficulty of puzzle encounters aside from extending HP bar, damage or phases which usually only end up making it unfun without additional mechanics.

The issue is not to have 2 difficulty level for story encounters. Any story encounters already easy mode with infinite revives and NPCs engaging the boss to keep them from OOC regeneration. Arenanet just need to design one encounter with medium-hard difficulty and an optional achievement of "defeat boss solo without dying or disengaging".

Scruffy 2.0 boss fight that you mentioned is a good example. It's rather difficult to solo, but still possible to do with infinite revives. Easier option is to find group of 5 to finish the instance. To make it challenging, Arenanet should just add an achievement to defeat it solo without dying and disengaging.

I would like to see more solo encounters (and longer story content) though. I feel there are a lot of plotlines that were axed due to time and resource constraint.

There are definitely some challenging story bosses in the game.  It's important to keep in mind that this content is designed for everyone.  I think they hit on a good compromise allowing players infinite revives without losing progress.  This allows them to design more challenging encounters without making it impossible for players at the lower end of the skill/experience spectrum.  There are also optional achievements and challenge modes.  You mention Scruffy 2.0, which actually has an achievement called "Stand your Ground" which requires that you survive the final phase without going down or leaving the platform.

It's also worth noting that most of this content is years old and we've seen significant power creep since it was released.  New players who boost are given celestial gear, which is a dramatic improvement in damage and sustain over the soldier gear most classes were originally given.  We've also seen a huge increase in the amount of high-damage ranged builds, which tend to be a lot safer and less reliant on timing and positioning than melee builds.  So what seems "easy" today might very well have been a significant challenge for many players back then.

Finally, there's the perception issue.  With the dramatic difference in performance from one player and build to the next, one person's "damage sponge" is another's quick and easy kill.  This is especially noticeable when the fight includes soft timer mechanics.  The Caudecus fight from season 3 is a good example of this.  If you take too long to finish the boss, he eventually spawns a rather nasty jade construct add that makes the fight a lot more difficult.  But players who deal decent damage will never see this.  They'll just walk in, break the boss's shield, and melt him down in the first phase.  Then they'll wonder why other players seem to have such a difficult time with this fight!

[Noah Salazar.5430]

Quote

I feel this game is lacking good solo combats, and I really wish they're part of the main story of this game.

Science i left hot maps, i feel like that, that empty hole in your heart

i remeber till this day when on tangled depths made you to group up for exploring to be more safe, and how many friends you found cuz of it

 

Now you rarly group if not at all on open word, single player game cuz mobs don't give inaf chalange to presure you into making a group

Edited October 1, 2023 by Noah Salazar.5430

[Mistwraithe.3106]

I think personal difficulty levels which just scale your own character's stats to make things harder would be great. No extra rewards for playing on harder difficulty, it would just be something that players could set higher if they want more of a challenge while doing OW rather than everything dying with one shot...

[Furball.1236]

On 9/12/2023 at 2:41 AM, phandaria.4891 said:

Arenanet just need to design one encounter with medium-hard difficulty and an optional achievement of "defeat boss solo without dying or disengaging"

Although this is one way to raise the difficulty to complete the story instance, it actually isn't something I wish to see. Allowing players to revive as many time as they want allows more people to engage more challenging combats. If someone wants to have their progression reset every time they die, they can do it themselves and the game doesn't need to enforce that role for everyone else. If they choose to complete without dying at all, they get the achievement as the bonus.

 

On 9/12/2023 at 3:39 AM, AliamRationem.5172 said:

It's important to keep in mind that this content is designed for everyone.

I agree with the reasons you raised and that the story is designed as something everyone will play. That doesn't mean they should be easy encounters that don't match the seriousness of the story telling for everyone. The foes and challenges we face in the main story is supposed to be the main obstacles for the player characters and overcoming them is supposed to be meaningful achievements and the milestones of the character development.

That is why I think it is a good place to have challenging solo combats for those who want. Having multiple difficulty levels allow those who want the challenging contents to play them while allowing those who want to clear the story easily keep doing that.

 

On 9/11/2023 at 6:11 PM, Furball.1236 said:

I think there was something lost in the process of making the living world story combats easy that cannot be brought back by simply increasing boss HP or something like that.

I think one problem with designing an easy mode combat first and then scale it up for the hard mode is the lack of combat complexity. You can give the enemies more HP but it just makes them bigger sandbags and makes the fights repetitive routine tasks.

I think the better way is to design a harder mode first, which has more levels of combat complexities including what I wrote in my original post, and then reduce enemy numbers or boss HP for the easy mode.

Edited September 30, 2023 by Furball.1236

[Furball.1236]

On 9/14/2023 at 10:15 AM, Noah Salazar.5430 said:

Science i left hot maps, i feel like that, that empty hole in your heart

i remeber till this day when on tangled depths made you to goup up for exploring to be more safe, and how many friends you found cuz of it

 

Now you rarly group if not at all on open word, single player game cuz mobs don't give inaf chalange to presure you into making a group

I really agree with you. HoT mobs were unique. We needed to distinguish them and actually how to engage at them. There were enemies that summons flies that can be kited but deals a lot of damage, husks and tentacles that knock down or immob you and range attack you, mobs that charge towards you fast but strait and leaves strong condi aoe fields, mobs that charge straight and knocks you down, mobs that shoot projectiles that leave hard-to-see yet fatal AoE lines, mobs that blind you or cripple you, etc. etc. We were surrounded by these mobs and those maps felt actually hostle as the NPCs described them.

Edited September 30, 2023 by Furball.1236

[Lucius.2140]

On 9/11/2023 at 7:36 PM, Furball.1236 said:

Am I the only one that feels there is a huge discrepancy between the seriousness of the main story and the easiness of the combats we get after learning the story?

I feel this game is lacking good solo combats, and I really wish they're part of the main story of this game.

Just to clarify, I don't count soloing instanced contents or open world champions as good solo combat experiences. In that case, the boss just has more HP, has a defiance bar to ignore uniqueness of different CC effects, does AoE to the pre-determined area, and each hit does more damage. The ways to deal with these things is to wear more defensive armors and do the same things as you'd do in the group with some occasional defensive skills but the fight just takes longer time.

It is difficult to explain what makes it a good solo combat. But maybe it's more like some of the open world group events where there are normal/veteran/elite mobs with each of them having distinct combat mechanics and standing at different locations. But they will all attack you (not the ground you're standing) when they see you. The player has options to choose which group to engage without alarming the other groups, from which direction to engage, how to use the geography for their advantage, how to use movement-impairing condis to separate the enemies, whether to take projectile reflection or AoE blind to counteract impactful enemy attacks, whether fighting ranged enemies or melee enemies first, whether to kill the enemies at once with AoE or eliminate one troublesome enemy first, and etc.

 

I've heard there were people complaining about living world stories being hard and ANet had to nerf the difficulties over time. So I don't ask ANet to make living world challenging for everyone, but I hope we can have a harder level and an easier level. The rewards can be the same so people won't feel bad playing the easier option.

I agree in the hard mode, but disagree in the same rewards.

[Lucius.2140]

The ARPG part doesn't need to create "artificial mechanics" or really only in damage and health.

It could very well mean to add some extra skills and the AI conditions to use to bosses and mobs. If i have a basic awakened warrior with one hand sowrd and shield and he knows shield from the front and not behind (and have collision) im changing the way to fight him.

If Koss now not only has more life (since he was lacking in it) but has the skills of a full warrior then the fight is different.

[Lucius.2140]

It could be added an option to reset or not the boss after losing, only the boss.

 

On 9/30/2023 at 5:22 PM, Furball.1236 said:

Although this is one way to raise the difficulty to complete the story instance, it actually isn't something I wish to see. Allowing players to revive as many time as they want allows more people to engage more challenging combats. If someone wants to have their progression reset every time they die, they can do it themselves and the game doesn't need to enforce that role for everyone else. If they choose to complete without dying at all, they get the achievement as the bonus.

 

[stormemperor.3745]

On 9/12/2023 at 3:36 AM, Furball.1236 said:

The player has options to choose which group to engage without alarming the other groups, from which direction to engage, how to use the geography for their advantage, how to use movement-impairing condis to separate the enemies, whether to take projectile reflection or AoE blind to counteract impactful enemy attacks, whether fighting ranged enemies or melee enemies first, whether to kill the enemies at once with AoE or eliminate one troublesome enemy first, and etc.

TLDR: PVP

[Furball.1236]

4 hours ago, stormemperor.3745 said:

TLDR: PVP

Needless to say that's a different thing

Edited October 23, 2023 by Furball.1236

[Pax.3548]

On 9/11/2023 at 9:36 PM, Furball.1236 said:

Am I the only one that feels there is a huge discrepancy between the seriousness of the main story and the easiness of the combats we get after learning the story?

I feel this game is lacking good solo combats, and I really wish they're part of the main story of this game.

Just to clarify, I don't count soloing instanced contents or open world champions as good solo combat experiences. In that case, the boss just has more HP, has a defiance bar to ignore uniqueness of different CC effects, does AoE to the pre-determined area, and each hit does more damage. The ways to deal with these things is to wear more defensive armors and do the same things as you'd do in the group with some occasional defensive skills but the fight just takes longer time.

It is difficult to explain what makes it a good solo combat. But maybe it's more like some of the open world group events where there are normal/veteran/elite mobs with each of them having distinct combat mechanics and standing at different locations. But they will all attack you (not the ground you're standing) when they see you. The player has options to choose which group to engage without alarming the other groups, from which direction to engage, how to use the geography for their advantage, how to use movement-impairing condis to separate the enemies, whether to take projectile reflection or AoE blind to counteract impactful enemy attacks, whether fighting ranged enemies or melee enemies first, whether to kill the enemies at once with AoE or eliminate one troublesome enemy first, and etc.

 

I've heard there were people complaining about living world stories being hard and ANet had to nerf the difficulties over time. So I don't ask ANet to make living world challenging for everyone, but I hope we can have a harder level and an easier level. The rewards can be the same so people won't feel bad playing the easier option.

I don't know if this helps, but you can wear trash gear to make it more difficult, with the Equipment Template you can swap gear on the spot at the begining of the instance (I do this with the personal story bosses)

 

[taara.3217]

On 9/12/2023 at 2:36 AM, Furball.1236 said:

I don't count soloingopen world champions as good solo combat experiences. In that case, the boss just has more HP, has a defiance bar to ignore uniqueness of different CC effects, does AoE to the pre-determined area, and each hit does more damage. The ways to deal with these things is to wear more defensive armors and do the same things as you'd do in the group with some occasional defensive skills but the fight just takes longer time.

hm... If I understand correctly, all that one need to defeat OW Champion is to use more defensive armors and do the same things as you'd do in the group?

[taara.3217]

On 9/12/2023 at 2:36 AM, Furball.1236 said:

Just to clarify, I don't count soloing open world champions as good solo combat experiences.

What level and equipment  should you have to defeat, say, Varre the Underhanded (Kessex Hills) or Toxic Spider Queen (Kessex Hills)?

Edited October 23, 2023 by taara.3217

[Furball.1236]

15 hours ago, Pax.3548 said:

I don't know if this helps, but you can wear trash gear to make it more difficult, with the Equipment Template you can swap gear on the spot at the begining of the instance (I do this with the personal story bosses)

 

Yeah, it will probably improve the game experience to some extent. The issue for me would be:

1. Complexity of fights would be still lacking and the fight is no different from killing trash mobs in open world maps, which we've done again and again and again already in so many maps.

2. Some builds which take advantage of stats to properly function, say crit cap for the rotation to run smoothly or self-applied quickness to make the game play not too slow, will lose its good gameplay experience.

3. Some Living World stories, such as the one which took place in Gyala Delve, will still stay awful.

[Furball.1236]

13 hours ago, taara.3217 said:

hm... If I understand correctly, all that one need to defeat OW Champion is to use more defensive armors and do the same things as you'd do in the group?

My point is exactly that the hard mode should not be like fighting OW champions who simply hit harder and have more HP than normal mobs. That's very boring and the fights are repetitive.

[taara.3217]

 

On 10/24/2023 at 10:21 AM, Furball.1236 said:

who simply hit harder and have more HP than normal mobs. That's very boring and the fights are repetitive.

All of them have unique mechanics/abilities...

[zeyeti.8347]

i am not for a complete overall of the story mode , but some parts like the ending really could use a challenge mode (like mordemoth have) , the strikes mission are a bit in that persepctive and are fairly well done (story mode , normal group mode, cm) having this for Zhaitan and Balthazar could be great.

[larret.8910]

Can anyone still remember how more challenging GW1 was (comparing to GW2), especially in the end-game stage. This got even better with GW1 hard mode which completing was just joy.

Edited November 2, 2023 by larret.8910