Convergences. Why is it always Umbriel?

[Kranlor Greyhelm.8417]

Can you please just sort the tuning of this boss out for normal. The amount of stuff going on is ridiculous, the damage being done to Zojja is insane. Keep your difficulty for organised groups and CMs, STOP making content that is this hard for groups that are going into public events.

Twice I've tried to do this today, and twice we've failed on Umbriel. That's an hour of my playing time wasted because someone in your design team thinks 20 different kinds of moving kitten on the ground is good content.

Oh, and we were healing her as much as we can. When you get a ton of spammed damage all around and indeed on her, it gets a bit tricky to get that precious residue to her. Especially when you lose it if you get downed.

Yes, I'm angry. No, it isn't about "git gud". It's about ANET recognising what content is designed for which group of people. And public instances should be an appropriate level. Which is not this.

[Sobx.1758]

5 minutes ago, Kranlor Greyhelm.8417 said:

because someone in your design team thinks 20 different kinds of moving kitten on the ground is good content.

Pay attention to red/orange circles, most of the time (always?) they can be simply walked out of, without using any mobility skills or dodges.

5 minutes ago, Kranlor Greyhelm.8417 said:

And public instances should be an appropriate level. Which is not this.

While playing convergences in public groups, I recognized that they're rather easly completed by pugs. So yes, this is an appropriate level.

I don't understand why some people think all of those events should be auto-win and have no possibility to fail at all, it defeats the purpose of games having any player input.

Edited September 2 by Sobx.1758

[Cyninja.2954]

I've had Umbriel 6 times since I started running convergences again a few weeks back.

4 times success, 2 times fails. The fails where ALWAYS clearly fault of poor builds, poor positioning, poor boon support and thus poor damage.

I've mentioned in another thread that I run a heal scourge just for this boss. When I am hitting new records of picking players up in the triple digits (aka over 100-150 people resurrected) then that is clearly a player issue.

The 4 times the fight succeeded most players moved out of damage, stacked properly for boons, brought enough boon support builds and thus succeeded.

As long as players who go down 5-10 times in this fight decide that it's the fight and not them, this is what can be expected. At some point players might have to question if THEY are the issue and not the fight.

Edited September 2 by Cyninja.2954

[Kranlor Greyhelm.8417]

6 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

I've had Umbriel 6 times since I started running convergences again a few weeks back.

4 times success, 2 times fails. The fails where ALWAYS clearly fault of poor builds, poor positioning, poor boon support and thus poor damage.

I've mentioned in another thread that I run a heal scourge just for this boss. When I am hitting new records of picking players up in the triple digits (aka over 100-150 people resurrected) then that is clearly a player issue.

The 4 times the fight succeeded most players moved out of damage, stacked properly for boons, brought enough boon support builds and thus succeeded.

As long as players who go down 5-10 times in this fight decide that it's the fight and not them, this is what can be expected. At some point players might have to question if THEY are the issue and not the fight.

Walk me through how you ensure a good selection of boon supports in a group of 50 players randomly thrown together. In a game that teaches you close to sod all about that in open world content.

You're talking as if this is an organised group. Hell, you've admitted that despite your ability this is failing at a 33% rate for you. Doesn't that bother you? Why is this so much tougher than the other random options you can get on this map? Doesn't that disparity indicate a problem?

I don't know why I bothered even writing anything on this forum. The confused emojis were almost instant, followed by people replying that just want to ignore the problem and, as I said, tell people to "git gud". You've got plenty of content available for people like you; a LOT more than your portion of the player base should get, if it were pro-rata. Demanding that randoms just improve, magically, rather than accepting there is an issue in the tailoring of the content to the audience, is part of the problem.

This is normal mode. Random people grouped together. No organisation beyond what is done on the map. With a lot of players who may think games are things that you pick up and play, rather than requiring reading sessions on multiple websites and practice on golems. Throwing this kind of content at them isn't going to make them step up; it will make them step away.

[Sobx.1758]

33 minutes ago, Kranlor Greyhelm.8417 said:

I don't know why I bothered even writing anything on this forum. The confused emojis were almost instant, followed by people replying that just want to ignore the problem

I don't know who do you think is trying to "ignore the problem", what was said is more that the event having ability to fail is not a problem in the first place.

33 minutes ago, Kranlor Greyhelm.8417 said:

You've got plenty of content available for people like you

Funny you should say that, but if that's the angle you're taking here... there's plenty of content that's basically fail-proof: show up, tag, grab whatever loot drops and move on. But again, not sure that's really the angle you want to take on this discussion, because it probably works more against you than for you.

33 minutes ago, Kranlor Greyhelm.8417 said:

Demanding that randoms just improve, magically, rather than accepting there is an issue in the tailoring of the content to the audience, is part of the problem.

This is normal mode. Random people grouped together. No organisation beyond what is done on the map.

Yeah, there doesn't need to be any organized group for normal convergences and unorganized pugs is what I was talking about (as opposed to organized pugs for cm, for example). Although people need to be active and pay attention to some mechanics. Isn't it fun when the "go to" argument for harder events was that they're not reasonable "because the game never needed me to pay attention to mechanics!", but the moment some events like that appear/reappear... that limited number of players go to war against it remaining in the game? How do you want the game to teach you anything and signal that you should be paying attention while playing when you don't want to see any fail state for those events?
And yes, randoms don't improve "magically", they improve "over time" and events like that influence the process of that improvement. If aoes/mechanics/damage don't matter and there's no fail state (because how DARE the event fail?!) then why would anyone ever pay attention to aoes/mechanics/damage?

Edited September 2 by Sobx.1758

[Cyninja.2954]

28 minutes ago, Kranlor Greyhelm.8417 said:

Walk me through how you ensure a good selection of boon supports in a group of 50 players randomly thrown together. In a game that teaches you close to sod all about that in open world content.

You're talking as if this is an organised group. Hell, you've admitted that despite your ability this is failing at a 33% rate for you. Doesn't that bother you?

No it doesn't bother me. If it did, I'd join a private squad. I accept that certain content might fail because players playing that content are unprepared. I've given advice on how to minimize or reduce failure for one self (join public convergences early, bring a proper build yourself, bring cc, pay attention to mechanics).

This is far from organized content. It is more than sufficient to have 10 decent players to carry almost an entire squad here. Unless the remaining 40 decide to afk yolo into every bit of damage they can.

Quote

Why is this so much tougher than the other random options you can get on this map? Doesn't that disparity indicate a problem?

True, that is an issue. I do believe that future convergences are supposed to be more difficult if I recall the latest communication on this from the developers.

It is indeed an issue that the bosses are not similar in difficulty. I am not sure you'd like the 2nd way to "solve" this issue tough, aka adjusting the other bosses to be more in line with Umbriel.

Quote

 

I don't know why I bothered even writing anything on this forum. The confused emojis were almost instant, followed by people replying that just want to ignore the problem and, as I said, tell people to "git gud". You've got plenty of content available for people like you; a LOT more than your portion of the player base should get, if it were pro-rata. Demanding that randoms just improve, magically, rather than accepting there is an issue in the tailoring of the content to the audience, is part of the problem.

This is normal mode. Random people grouped together. No organisation beyond what is done on the map. With a lot of players who may think games are things that you pick up and play, rather than requiring reading sessions on multiple websites and practice on golems. Throwing this kind of content at them isn't going to make them step up; it will make them step away.

 

Normal mode does not mean you are guaranteed loot. For years some players complained that the game does not give enough feedback. Well now you have the feedback: if you keep failing, something is off.

The other aspect is players love to complain about "gatekeeping" in this game. Convergences are the "solution" to offer slightly more challenging content WITHOUT it being "gatekept". The fact that some players are suddenly unhappy that this might come with a certain lack of performance is not my concern.

EDIT: and just to give an overview, here is the breakdown of which bosses I encountered:

Dreadwing 5, Umbriel 6 (2 fails), Demon Knight 1, Sorrow 2

In every fight I was providing boons and healing, cc and resurrection (if needed, usually only on Dreadwing or Umbriel). In some convergences where there was someone who tagged up I was usually BY FAR top cc (and I wasn't even going out of my way to cc, golem rush, warhorn 4, maybe F4 if I don't expect to transfuse in the next few seconds). In some fights I can guarantee the breakbar would have failed if it hadn't been for my part in doing cc.

Individual players absolutely can affect their success rates for these fights, IF they decide to bring a proper build and know how to play it. The issue here is to many players NOT bringing proper builds and playing poorly (as I mentioned earlier on the 2 Umbriel fights).

Edited September 2 by Cyninja.2954

[Gehenna.3625]

1 hour ago, Kranlor Greyhelm.8417 said:

Can you please just sort the tuning of this boss out for normal. The amount of stuff going on is ridiculous, the damage being done to Zojja is insane. Keep your difficulty for organised groups and CMs, STOP making content that is this hard for groups that are going into public events.

Twice I've tried to do this today, and twice we've failed on Umbriel. That's an hour of my playing time wasted because someone in your design team thinks 20 different kinds of moving kitten on the ground is good content.

Oh, and we were healing her as much as we can. When you get a ton of spammed damage all around and indeed on her, it gets a bit tricky to get that precious residue to her. Especially when you lose it if you get downed.

Yes, I'm angry. No, it isn't about "git gud". It's about ANET recognising what content is designed for which group of people. And public instances should be an appropriate level. Which is not this.

I've done 17 public convergences, so not a whole lot but my groups have never failed and I've had my fair share of Umbriel fights. I'd say between 6-8 times. For me it seems to be tuned fine; sure it's a fair bit tougher than the others, but it seems fine to me.

Perhaps I'm lucky or perhaps you're unlucky, but a couple of failed attempts doesn't mean it needs nerfing.

[Arianth Moonlight.6453]

ou aren’t failing against Umbri; your instance just isn’t good. Get there early and hit the join button as soon as possible. The sooner you join, the better your chances of getting into a decent instance.

[Skub.8240]

I don't find umbriel that hard, or the others. The actual boss is fine, imo. The hard part comes from teh fact that, seemingly randomly, he and a few of the others can just do garbage like spawn axes on top of Zojja constantly, and so it doesn't really matter how much time people are healing her or how hard the group DPSes him. If he wants you to fail it will, because he's going to be obliterating the rat the entire fight. Any time he doesn't do that the fight's fine. 

[WhiteSmoke.5926]

Welcome to the purgatory of pugs and multiboxer. It's here you belong untill you decide to get good and meet people like that.

This is the good side of dev refusing to touch the old content.

Here a secret : Umbriel do not do a single damage to Zojja

[Scratchpaw.1069]

If you are joining public convergences and you aren't in one of them within 10 seconds of the public convergences becoming available, don't even bother. The quality of players in one of the 'late' instances is horrible. I have done 70-ish convergences and was amazed that we actually failed one. I didn't even know they could fail without actively trying... Unfortunatly I joined late that day and got into one of the leftover groups.

[Aaron Forestman.4758]

2 hours ago, Scratchpaw.1069 said:

If you are joining public convergences and you aren't in one of them within 10 seconds of the public convergences becoming available, don't even bother. The quality of players in one of the 'late' instances is horrible. I have done 70-ish convergences and was amazed that we actually failed one. I didn't even know they could fail without actively trying... Unfortunatly I joined late that day and got into one of the leftover groups.

Same here, after 42 convergences done I have 1 failure - the 1 time I joined a couple minutes late. Play with people that are enthusiastic about getting into the fight and you're more likely to have people enthusiastic about playing it well.

[MercurialKuroSludge.8974]

I've succeeded most times, when I do get late starts into low pop Instances, that eventually got dice rolled Umbriel too.
Easily succeeded those, because I AM carrying, and theres less leechers to scale up boss HP. 🙂
Also, low pop maps make island phase WAAAAAAY faster due to said scaling in public instances, so the champs die much faster with 20 ppl than 50 (I wonder why? KEKW).

Remember all those Sorrow posts? look where the whiners then are now?
Oh thats right, they "got gud" and so did many ppl doing Convergences, so most of the complaints stopped.
The point of GW2 combat system, is to adapt to different fights and be rewarded for actually playing the game, rather than press 111111 and get loot.

[Kunavi.2407]

I think the frustration comes from the lack of any measures specifically targeting people who just auto attack and stand still, no CC and no reading chat(Or people just semi AFKing TBH). Failure should always be a possible outcome if it's deserved; Failure in a public instanced event full of random people though, collectively?... Caused by others not bothering ever to get good, and just hope for a carry... Yeah, it can be very frustrating, for such a length of time. And sure, we can just sit here and compare instances and frequency but that doesn't mean much, when it's so RNG what kind of people you'll be paired with and at what quantities, how much of the roster they'll make up and so on.

Some times you go in, roll bad RNG and get a bad group, Umbriel shows up(Specifically) and after some time the instance fails. Not a matter of difficulty, a matter of no consequence on a personal level for people being bad or useless on purpose, and full consequences for the whole group, including those who at the end of the day, don't even mind longer encounters or more difficult, and pull their weight.

IG it's not Umbriel, not the increased difficulty nor Convergences per se that's the issue. ANet should find a way to moderate so to speak, who's allowed to stay in the instance and who's gonna replace them if they need to be removed mid fight. Dunno what that would be though? Stricter contribution requirements based on orbs gathered and DPS dealt? Fewer than X times of being a Wisp or spending X amount of time as a Wisp? And getting kicked if you don't meet those? Or transferred to an instance that's doing bad in general(A bit like how that one game lumped together cheaters and hackers so they can just waste each other's time) and replaced by someone in qeue?

Edited September 10 by Kunavi.2407