[Suggestion] Stop making Story Bosses Hard (LS4 Spoilers)

[adarsh.5412]

I agree with you i also want to point out that the character doesnt feel like a champion at all.....he just feels squishier than an npc who dies in at most 1 or 2 hits from any boss spell or attackI dont feel like i have killed dragons or gods i feel like all i could do better in this game after playing so long is cut wood faster....but definetly not dodge bosses tht throw 100 aoe without any cooldown.......and as a mesmer i can see the bloody ai knows whos real and whos a clone it just ignore all clones and comes for me.and all useless npcs are just there to make a story or resurrect u when u keep dieing a 100times .
The new trend of make it hard to get so people come back for it seems to be rising and it sucksTo think i purchased this game only because other ppl play it not because gave a fuck abt tyria or lore i already play wowAnd wow has a difficulty scale so next time u die u know exactly why

And just like op said even if its doable after dying 100 times it makes me rage at the merciless boss movesJumping everywhrre casting a 1000 spells at once like wtf ....I want that shit for my heroIts just me vs an npc why make him 100 times stronger......its not fuckin 10 man vs a boss

[Vyrulisse.1246]

This is level 80 content it should not be faceroll easy just because it's story. I'm also constantly confused about people balking at the mere idea of asking friends/guildmates for help. This is an MMO, forming parties should be a good thing.

[Draco.9480]

stop feeding. i did scruffy 2.0 first time and i killed it ez. maybe stop slacking? play harder. cuz people like you we have less challenging content.

[ProtoGunner.4953]

I found it not hard, but rather tedious, and you don't even have to restart the whole fight when you die (well I don't remember since I am not sure whether I died once). Some people like the challenge and as someone who play a lot of single player games (God of War, Devil May Cry, Dark Souls etc.) this is a welcome challenge. The Guild Wars franchise always had some harder sections in their stories which I like. That said, the only point I can see they should change is that the fights take too long.

[Ashantara.8731]

@Teleniel.1809 said:I feel the OP's pain, I had 2 problems with the LW4 missions myself (although I attribute them to being full-Zojja decked out) [...]

Errr... I have multiple characters that are fully equipped in Berserker's gear, so that cannot be the source of your problem. ;)

1. The SWARM at the asura gate, I felt like I was not getting supported by my NPC allies and was not comfortable rushing through that many hostiles to complete the task.

Movement is the key; also, not all enemies swarm you when you approach them smartly and take them out in smaller groups. Your companions pull aggro as well.

@Menadena.7482 said:Exactly. I want to enjoy a story for the story's sake. If I am spending all my time concentrating on the boss battle that is ALL I am paying attention to and the story is meaningless.

Maybe the firts time around, but once you have played through a fight, you should know the mechanics and can do it more relaxed the next time around, being able to listen to dialogue and focus not only on the fight.

[Tsar CUBE.9281]

it's not like you get kicked out of the instance when you die and in a lot of cases the HP of the bosses doesn't even reset. What I'm trying to say is that I respectfully disagree on making the bosses easier... mind you, that doesn't mean I want them to be harder either. Imo they current difficulty is well enough balanced for the story line.

[Menadena.7482]

@Ashantara.8731 said:Maybe the firts time around, but once you have played through a fight, you should know the mechanics and can do it more relaxed the next time around, being able to listen to dialogue and focus not only on the fight.

Umm, why would I willingly do a story again that gave me grief the previous time?

[Menadena.7482]

@Tsar CUBE.9281 said:it's not like you get kicked out of the instance when you die and in a lot of cases the HP of the bosses doesn't even reset. What I'm trying to say is that I respectfully disagree on making the bosses easier... mind you, that doesn't mean I want them to be harder either. Imo they current difficulty is well enough balanced for the story line.

Story chapters have varied. For some, there IS no respawn point inside of the instance (or respawning is broken). For most there is no anvil so you eventually would be fighting naked. During the 1st instance of the most recent chapter I died soon before the instance ended and could not respawn, fortunately I was doing it with someone else so had to wait until they were able to revive me.

[AliamRationem.5172]

@Chamelion.9536 said:As with anything, anywhere, there are those who want easier content, and those who say 'get better'. I'm on board with the third option; compromise. As I said previously, if Anet had a way to implement a skill level option of LV stories ONLY (Easy, medium, hard). Then those who want it the way it is, don't lose a thing, and those who want less, get to finish the LS content solo and enjoy the story. Now, when you return to any of those stories to pick up achievements, then it reverts to the normal level so you can only earn the rewards at the same tier as they are now.

C

Except we all lose when content that already pushes the limits of what this team can accomplish in a reasonable time frame now must come in three different flavors.

Further, the compRomise already happened. They made more exciting encounters, but with encounters that don't reset when the hero dies it is virtually impoSsible to fail.

That may not feel great, but that's what you get with compRomise. You do have the option of improving your level of play so that you die less and feel better about it. But you already can't fail. I don't see a big payoff from further compRomise.

[SunTzu.4513]

Imo the story bosses are not hard they are just anoying. I never had a problem to beat them with any of my toons but oh boy some of the mechanics are just anoying or plain boring. Also carpets of aoe spams are not a good way of balancing difficulty or a good encounter design. This desgin paired with an unbelivable great canyon of skill gap between different groups of players (resulting from the way how ANet is balancing the difficulty between the gamemodes) brings us to the point where one major group is complaining thats the difficulty is to hard while an other major group of people says it's to easy. In between it seems there are not a lot of players wich says: story bosses are fine.

[Moonyeti.3296]

@"TheUndefined.1720" said:I made this suggestion back in my HoT review, and I'm going to make it here; Stop making PvE story bosses hard. I'm currently sitting in the active fight with Scruffy 2.0, dead, having died at least a dozens times, and I honestly just want to throw my hands up. The point where you frustrate your player to quitting is bad game design. I understand, as game developers, you want to make the fight epic - oh no! Taimi suffocating! I care and have to hurry, but I have massive amounts of projectiles, burning, aoe's, and a completely incompetent NPC that DOES NOT use his reflect as he should... that means I don't care about Taimi, I just want to get out of the fight.

So here are some suggestions:

• Lower the Bosses HP pool: The boss fight is taking way too long, and it is not enjoyable, take down the HP
• Stop with the rapid fire AoE's AND projectiles: Slow down on the boss's attack
• Relax on the complicated moves: This isn't a raid, it's a story boss, being solo'd, there's no need to make so difficult
• Program a better companion: In every fight I did during LS4 (Sunspears, Corsairs, the rag tag team, Braham) they stopped attacking and just stood there.. seriously during the inquest swarm they all just stood there

I know the automatic response from the forum goers will be "get better," sure, I'm willing to do that, I've tried doing that, but ANet keeps making their story bosses more and more difficult. This isn't fun anymore. Please chill out on the difficulty of the story bosses.

No I agree with you, and I aced that one the first time. I am pretty good at these, but I understand not everyone is, and as you say there is no reason for such high difficulties in the story missions. And the thing that gets tedious for the players that find it easy is doing the same easy thing for too long because the boss has too many HP. And on the ones I do find difficult it only detracts from me trying to learn the new mechanics. Lower HP on story bosses in general would be a great idea.

[Ayrilana.1396]

This is a game and not an interactive movie. A major piece of the content in every episode is the story and overcoming the challenges within it.

Now when I say challenge, I’m not saying raid level challenge. None of the episodes are anywhere near that. All of the episodes are balanced so that the average skilled player can beat them. That said, there will be those that are lower skilled who will struggle no matter what. They have the option to do the story instance with other players to compensate.

The challenges in the story instances mostly center around knowing what to do. The execution of doing what you need to do doesn’t involve all that much effort. You may struggle on your first attempt but it’ll be easier with each subsequent try.

When trying to overcome a challenge, it helps to step back and assess the situation. Are there any mechanics to the fight whether they be the ones Anet introduced throughout the instance or not? What is it that you keep getting hung up on and is there anything you can do to get around it? Would a build change make things easier? Those are some very high level things to ask yourself.

It’s a lot more effective to critically analyze the encounter rather than continually throwing yourself at it until you eventually overcome it.

[Tsar CUBE.9281]

@Menadena.7482 said:

@Tsar CUBE.9281 said:it's not like you get kicked out of the instance when you die and in a lot of cases the HP of the bosses doesn't even reset. What I'm trying to say is that I respectfully disagree on making the bosses easier... mind you, that doesn't mean I want them to be harder either. Imo they current difficulty is well enough balanced for the story line.

Story chapters have varied. For some, there IS no respawn point inside of the instance (or respawning is broken). For most there is no anvil so you eventually would be fighting naked. During the 1st instance of the most recent chapter I died soon before the instance ended and could not respawn, fortunately I was doing it with someone else so had to wait until they were able to revive me.

The reason you couldn't respawn could have been due to the fact that you had another person in party. If the whole party wiped they could respawn. I personally never had the issue of respawn being broken but I'll take your word for it. As for the armour anvil, I'm all for adding one to the instances!

[Gehenna.3625]

My issue with story bosses is not so much the difficulty of the fight but the overuse of gazillions of circles on the floor and way too much HP. I just get bored halfway the fight and it kills any replay value for me because it's so tedious.

I found that my alts can go to HoT maps without doing the story and I'm hoping that for PoF I only need to start the story to go across the ocean and can then do the same. I just really don't want to go through those stories again. Even the conversations take too long and Taimi yelling through that communicator has done damage to my eardrums I think...

[Randulf.7614]

I'd be pretty happy with a health pool nerf on scruffy. It's not so much the difficulty - I can live with that despite the over use of things going on screen. It just takes far, far too long. Sure, raider/high end dpsers might be able to obliterate such bosses v quickly, but story isn't at that level nor should be trying to bridge any gaps. Challenge to an extent is fine, but encounters don't need to take forever for the average person or have a million things going on on screen. Scruffy's main issue is the health pool size dragging out the encounter after a lengthy build in.

[Rognik.2579]

I am far from the best GW player out there. I see some streamers kill certain enemies that take me a full minute to kill do so before I finish a sentence. However, I generally find the bosses are not that hard. Most of the time, the trick is to keep moving and some special mechanic demonstrated earlier in the encounter. For instance, you know that in the Scruffy fight, once it switches modes, you probably want to go and destroy those portals. Even if you don't know why, the clue was given earlier.

Now, if the problem is the climax part where everything is going off, that part is meant to be hard. I just jumped off the platform, and not worried about the achievement tosurvive it. Up until then, kerp moving, keep an eye on your health and your healing cooldown, and save your dodges for the big attacks.

The issue isn't "git good." A little bit might be "learn2play". But really, just pay attention, use your utility skills and be strategic. Nearly every story boss is a puzzle boss, not a health sponge.

[Lesan.4903]

One thing that definitely needs a change are fights like the LS2 segments where the player is forced to be Caithe. You can't adjust her build for anticondition or stunbreaks, and the player's gear doesn't affect her damage either - but at the same time, your gear STILL breaks down if you die. Which is not hindering, but annoying since you end up outside without and gear on you, and if an enemy has placed down some AoE, you might get pasted as you exit.

So simply have an 'Autorepair' after those Missions, so the player's gear is still up to task.

[Ayakaru.6583]

You guys know every single boss can be cheesed?Fight, die, respawn, fight boss at full health while boss doesn't reset, keep going even while your armour whittles down which you can fix for free afterwards.

Please don't make the bosses any easier, a group of Skritt is more dangerous Balthazar, the literal god of war

[DanAlcedo.3281]

I wonder if people think Joko was hard... He has so low HP, i did not get halve his dialogue because he melted so fast.

[starlinvf.1358]

@Gehenna.3625 said:My issue with story bosses is not so much the difficulty of the fight but the overuse of gazillions of circles on the floor and way too much HP. I just get bored halfway the fight and it kills any replay value for me because it's so tedious.

I found that my alts can go to HoT maps without doing the story and I'm hoping that for PoF I only need to start the story to go across the ocean and can then do the same. I just really don't want to go through those stories again. Even the conversations take too long and Taimi yelling through that communicator has done damage to my eardrums I think...

@"Randulf.7614" said:I'd be pretty happy with a health pool nerf on scruffy. It's not so much the difficulty - I can live with that despite the over use of things going on screen. It just takes far, far too long. Sure, raider/high end dpsers might be able to obliterate such bosses v quickly, but story isn't at that level nor should be trying to bridge any gaps. Challenge to an extent is fine, but encounters don't need to take forever for the average person or have a million things going on on screen. Scruffy's main issue is the health pool size dragging out the encounter after a lengthy build in.

But how long is "too long"? The levels are already notoriously short, and most fights basically scaling on your DPS suggests its logically scaling with the safety level of your build. I spent maybe 5-7 minutes on the Joko fight, and thats mostly because I got lost a little bit trying to figure out a mechanic, and not having enough CC skills loaded at the start.... but I still cleared it on the first attempt. I saw a video on TY where someone cleared it in roughly 10min using a not-damage oriented Druid build, and was fumbling around most of it (very likely a first attempt), not played to raid level efficiency.... but still cleared it in that single attempt.

Even in the Scruffy fight, I spent more time with the gate nodes then Scruffy. But whats confusing me is that you're implying that the fights need to be even shorter when going in with no knowledge of the fight before the chapter starts, when its arguably so easy at this point that the only thing that drags out of a fight is lacking DPS at level below that of average player builds (which is already pretty low on the buildcraft ladder). If the take away from anything, I'd make the case that there should be a minor DPS check prior to the boss fight, so players have an opportunity to adjust their build before hand.

[Ashantara.8731]

@Menadena.7482 said:

@"Ashantara.8731" said:Maybe the firts time around, but once you have played through a fight, you should know the mechanics and can do it more relaxed the next time around, being able to listen to dialogue and focus not only on the fight.

Umm, why would I willingly do a story again that gave me grief the previous time?

Well, I can't speak for you, but I do tend to play the story with all my characters. And the story missions' fight mechanics usually don't take that many attempts to grasp since, once you know what attacks to expect, you can counter them all.

Also, "grief"? You fail, you learn, you do much better next time. :) That's how it goes with gaming challenges at least. ;)

@"DanAlcedo.3281" said:I wonder if people think Joko was hard... He has so low HP, i did not get halve his dialogue because he melted so fast.

To be fair, and in defense of everyone complaining, that fight only goes fast if you know that you require (or happen to have equipped) skills that can provide four times CC in a quick chain. ;) Otherwise, it will take longer, naturally, as you wait for the skills' cooldown, because his Echos (or whatever those "illusions" were called) can only be dispersed by using a CC skil on them. Also, you only learn that the vents on the floor prevent you from receiving damage by those "scarab swarms" he casts after you stepped on them (or by carefully observing your environment and notice that none of them are to be seen on top of the vent grids).

And that - to get back to my point - I learnt during the fight. You (not you, but the people complaining) can't expect to cheese every fight right away if you haven't tried it at least once to see what it's about. And that's part of the fun for many, but apparently not all players. I think what the latter are asking for is story content without skill challenge - but then it wouldn't be GW anymore, IMO. If you want story without challenges, you should read a good book instead - most gaming genres are about challenges.

[Celsith.2753]

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

Further, the compRomise already happened. They made more exciting encounters, but with encounters that don't reset when the hero dies it is virtually impoSsible to fail.

I actually hate this. Last fight of PoF was very annoying to me. I went into it on a completely stupid build on my engy and died alot. I wanted to start over with the changes I knew would make a huge difference but nooooo just respawn over and over with his hp staying at whatever I got him too. I could quit of course but then i'd have to do that entire very long instance all over again.

I'd like challenging fights to stay challenging, but be their own seperate part you can restart without all the tedium of a long instance also needing to be redone.

As a side note, when I started gaming forums were often full of people asking for advice on how to beat a specific encounter. Now they're full of people demanding it's nerfed D:

[Ayrilana.1396]

@Celsith.2753 said:

@"AliamRationem.5172" said:

Further, the compRomise already happened. They made more exciting encounters, but with encounters that don't reset when the hero dies it is virtually impoSsible to fail.

I actually hate this. Last fight of PoF was very annoying to me. I went into it on a completely stupid build on my engy and died alot. I wanted to start over with the changes I knew would make a huge difference but nooooo just respawn over and over with his hp staying at whatever I got him too. I could quit of course but then i'd have to do that entire very long instance all over again.

I'd like challenging fights to stay challenging, but be their own seperate part you can restart without all the tedium of a long instance also needing to be redone.

As a side note, when I started gaming forums were often full of people asking for advice on how to beat a specific encounter. Now they're full of people demanding it's nerfed D:

The last fight is its own part.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/To_Kill_a_God

[TheMountain.6204]

The length bothered me the most. I have a 20 month old son and when he and mom need dad I have to walk away from the game. I can buy myself maybe 30 minutes but some of these fights/episodes need an hour + commitment. It really sucks to lose all that time invested when I have to walk away. I really do try to time it out when I think I'll have enough time but it doesn't always work out.I think I recall during the scruffy fight I found myself getting hurt less when I had to afk for a minute here and there for something with my son which led me to believe the difficulty was more of an illusion than a reality. I think the game wants it to feel hard but it gives you soo much forgiveness at the same time. You may not notice it with everything flying around and things seeming so crazy.

[Sojourner.4621]

@Raven.1524 said:

@Drew.1865 said:If I want a challenge I’ll raid or run a dungeon. The difficulty and health pools of the living story bosses are ridiculous in my opinion. Difficulty should also be tied to an actual reward. If I was rewarded it would be worth it.

Dungeons, really? They feel seriously nerfed, specially after the release of elite specs that seems to destroy every dungeon out there. (Unless you are referring to fractals, in which case you could just ignore this comment)

I solo dungeons. It's challenging enough when you're playing it as solo content, just like a group of fractal dailies can be breezed through in 30 minutes with a well laid out group.