Fractal Random Mistlock Instabilities

[TexZero.7910]

@Ultimatepwr.9562 said:

@TexZero.7910 said:

@zealex.9410 said:

@TexZero.7910 said:

@zealex.9410 said:

@TexZero.7910 said:

@zealex.9410 said:What we got now is the bosses being hard at the first 80% or so of the fight and then sudenly it decides to afk and let us kill it.

If you think so. I think it's entirely the opposite. Most bosses we have in fractals are just there for show for the first 75-85% then they "Get Serious". It's an old gaming cliche and it needs to die.

Truly challenging fights are challenging throughout, not just for an arbitrary % of health.

Read again what i wrote.

I know what you wrote, you're saying ark is now challenging throughout. I disagree.He now has 1 dps check at the tail end of the fight. Doesn't make him challenging through the course of the fight. It also still plays into the let me save my biggest threat for last trope which is stupid. He's not the only boss we have that does this, Sabetha, Molten etc... You name it we have plenty of "Boss" fights that really are not challenging until their last phases and even then its entirely debatable that the last phase is a "challenge".

Hows molten challenging at all in any part if the fight?

That's my point. None of our "BOSS" fights are anywhere near "BOSSES".They are little more than scripted HP pools with a Panic button.

It's an old trope and it needs to die off. All the fights with bosses need to be challenging throughout the fight, not just at some arbitrary % of health.

ah, hello. Its fractals. They are equivalent to dungeons in other mmos, and they are comparable in terms of boss complexity.

Also, having phases is accepted game design because it is good. It makes sense to change up the fight throughout it. If some phases are different, some phases will be harder. That is not a problem.

Having a high energy phase at the end, and having a low energy, flashy phase at the end makes absolute sense, both from a game design perspective and a flavor perspective. Hard phases at the end will elicit the "THIS ISN'T EVEN MY FINAL FORM" trope. Its a fun idea, this is the dice roll, its all or nothing, "I MAY BE GOING DOWN, BUT YOU'RE COMING WITH ME". It also allows the moment after beating it to be a moment of elation, sit back in your chair a little more tired then before, and be super happy about it. Final phases like Ensolyss's, on the other hand, can allow for really flashy graphics at the end of the fight, and add in some flavor or rp, without forcing people to concentrate hard on fighting the boss itself. It also allows the player to wind down from a harder fight, and just generally gives the feeling of pounding an enemy into the dust.

Calling it "A trope that needs to die" kinda betrays not thinking about it very much. I guarantee that if all bosses were designed to be the same difficulty throughout, you would not enjoy them as much. An am 100% certain of this, because that is how the human brain works. Admittedly, you might not be human, but I sorta doubt it, and I feel confidant enough assuming that you are.

I didn't say they can't have phases. I said the always having the stupid pseudo enrage at the end is a trope that needs to die. Currently we have no bosses that spike hard at the onset or even the middle of the fight, it's always without fail the end of the fight. This leads to 1) The First 80% of the fight being utterly boring and 2) Predictability of Design.

Not once in my doing fractals or any "Raid" have i been like, "Wow, didn't see that phase shift coming.....Didn't expect the boss to only now try and kill me". This is a problem with design. Familiarity is only good upto a point then it becomes design stagnation and doing it because it's been done before.

Imagine for a second if you will a boss who when spawned had RI and prevented people from rezzing manually or skill and there was nothing to rally off of. Now lets give him phases because well you can (again nothing against them) now what would your reaction be if instead of him going "bersker at 15%" he was that strong throughout and only added more mechanical complexity.

Yeah we don't have any boss that comes close to this. Instead we have "Try Hard Mode Engaged at 15-25%".

[zealex.9410]

@Faaris.8013 said:

@zealex.9410 said:

@Talindra.4958 said:

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:

@Talindra.4958 said:

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:Imagine if Ben didn't play with random instabilities at all and how much of recent problems would have been avoided.

i guess something has to be done to make the current fractal more interesting, something that will make old maps more alive. players (like myself) is starting to feel weary and impatient esp with the daily run..... -.- so I guess a little change can be refreshing . lets just see how this changes turn out once it is properly readjusted.. :D :cookie:

How about reworking bosses instead of introducing random gimmicks?

Can't rework a map every 3 months. If there's a rotation mechanic that works for players and can continue to keep the game moving.. it's actually good .. players just need to adjust to counter each combination mistlocks. I don't think it's that bad .. only in cm :p. And we can check what mistlocks it is before decided if I'm up for the challenge

Iirc ben said a new fractal would take 2 episodes usually so 4 to 6 months. Id assume a rework would take 3 to 4 and thats including the map changing in some way. It was just to rework a boss id assume it would take less.

Glad to see we agree on something for once, as Kheldorn said:

Instabilities are lazy as a concept. Instead of providing good fight experience with bosses, they are slamming random stuff on top on badly designed fights. As a result we arer spammed with multiple mechanics which are boring if you played them seperately. Instabilities are there to hide extremely lazy and boring fractal boss mechanics and I am under the impression current change is made only to make people think they are playing something new.

As you say, doing the necessary rework takes much time and effort, so they went for a quick and dirty quick fix instead. Let's see how players will react.

No. One is irrelevant to the other, random instabilities are that random instabilities. Solid ocean will still be solid ocean regardless of the instability combo.

It wasnt made to "avoid" reworking fractals. The intent was to add flavour yes. But in the end u still playing the same fractals and both devs and players are aware of that.

[zealex.9410]

@TexZero.7910 said:

@Ultimatepwr.9562 said:

@TexZero.7910 said:

@zealex.9410 said:

@TexZero.7910 said:

@zealex.9410 said:

@TexZero.7910 said:

@zealex.9410 said:What we got now is the bosses being hard at the first 80% or so of the fight and then sudenly it decides to afk and let us kill it.

If you think so. I think it's entirely the opposite. Most bosses we have in fractals are just there for show for the first 75-85% then they "Get Serious". It's an old gaming cliche and it needs to die.

Truly challenging fights are challenging throughout, not just for an arbitrary % of health.

Read again what i wrote.

I know what you wrote, you're saying ark is now challenging throughout. I disagree.He now has 1 dps check at the tail end of the fight. Doesn't make him challenging through the course of the fight. It also still plays into the let me save my biggest threat for last trope which is stupid. He's not the only boss we have that does this, Sabetha, Molten etc... You name it we have plenty of "Boss" fights that really are not challenging until their last phases and even then its entirely debatable that the last phase is a "challenge".

Hows molten challenging at all in any part if the fight?

That's my point. None of our "BOSS" fights are anywhere near "BOSSES".They are little more than scripted HP pools with a Panic button.

It's an old trope and it needs to die off. All the fights with bosses need to be challenging throughout the fight, not just at some arbitrary % of health.

ah, hello. Its fractals. They are equivalent to dungeons in other mmos, and they are comparable in terms of boss complexity.

Also, having phases is accepted game design because it is good. It makes sense to change up the fight throughout it. If some phases are different, some phases will be harder. That is not a problem.

Having a high energy phase at the end, and having a low energy, flashy phase at the end makes absolute sense, both from a game design perspective and a flavor perspective. Hard phases at the end will elicit the "THIS ISN'T EVEN MY FINAL FORM" trope. Its a fun idea, this is the dice roll, its all or nothing, "I MAY BE GOING DOWN, BUT YOU'RE COMING WITH ME". It also allows the moment after beating it to be a moment of elation, sit back in your chair a little more tired then before, and be super happy about it. Final phases like Ensolyss's, on the other hand, can allow for really flashy graphics at the end of the fight, and add in some flavor or rp, without forcing people to concentrate hard on fighting the boss itself. It also allows the player to wind down from a harder fight, and just generally gives the feeling of pounding an enemy into the dust.

Calling it "A trope that needs to die" kinda betrays not thinking about it very much. I guarantee that if all bosses were designed to be the same difficulty throughout, you would not enjoy them as much. An am 100% certain of this, because that is how the human brain works. Admittedly, you might not be human, but I sorta doubt it, and I feel confidant enough assuming that you are.

I didn't say they can't have phases. I said the always having the stupid pseudo enrage at the end is a trope that needs to die. Currently we have no bosses that spike hard at the onset or even the middle of the fight, it's always without fail the end of the fight. This leads to 1) The First 80% of the fight being utterly boring and 2) Predictability of Design.

Not once in my doing fractals or any "Raid" have i been like, "Wow, didn't see that phase shift coming.....Didn't expect the boss to only now try and kill me". This is a problem with design. Familiarity is only good upto a point then it becomes design stagnation and doing it because it's been done before.

Imagine for a second if you will a boss who when spawned had RI and prevented people from rezzing manually or skill and there was nothing to rally off of. Now lets give him phases because well you can (again nothing against them) now what would your reaction be if instead of him going "bersker at 15%" he was that strong throughout and only added more mechanical complexity.

Yeah we don't have any boss that comes close to this. Instead we have "Try Hard Mode Engaged at 15-25%".

Enso starts weaker and get buffed up from 80%~ onwards on normal nightmare. In cm u get him buffed up from the get go and he becomes a joke at 15%. Ahh yes that trope we see everywhere yet again.

[Benjamin Arnold.3457]

Ensolyss is supposed to be fairly easy at 15%. It is mainly just a thematic and visually compelling "victory lap" phase, since by that point you did all the mechanics correctly. Right now last laugh makes it overtuned so it will be adjusted.

We are still reworking and improving fractal content, not sure why people seem to think instabilities are an excuse to not do that. Instabilities allow us to provide complex mechanical variation to spice up repeated dailies at all scales even within the same tier, which would be an insane amount of work to manually do. Instabilities should be more fun and challenging than tedious and aggravating so in future instability changes we will try to improve this.

[Subli.8217]

The most fun I get from mists convergence. I just enjoy active instabilities, not passive ones. I don't care for every mob hitting me applying poison and other conditions - that's boring and annoying. I enjoy vindicators. Anything that adds external challenge. One fun instability I could see being added is a hostile weather occurences, like a sudden blizzard, sudden sandstorm etc.

[Bugabuga.9721]

@"Benjamin Arnold.3457" said:Ensolyss is supposed to be fairly easy at 15%. It is mainly just a thematic and visually compelling "victory lap" phase, since by that point you did all the mechanics correctly. Right now last laugh makes it overtuned so it will be adjusted.

We are still reworking and improving fractal content, not sure why people seem to think instabilities are an excuse to not do that. Instabilities allow us to provide complex mechanical variation to spice up repeated dailies at all scales even within the same tier, which would be an insane amount of work to manually do. Instabilities should be more fun and challenging than tedious and aggravating so in future instability changes we will try to improve this.

Hopefully future is "sooner" rather than later. So far combinations are aggravating and make things more tedious for sure :(If true purpose is to prevent boredom and add variety instead of "want to make everything even harder" then perhaps we need an "instability mote" ?Those who are bored or want modified fractal can always interact with it and get spice added.For casual pugs outside prine time, vanilla fractals are challenge enough ? (it's not fun soloing Mai Trin after multiple wipes in t3)

Or have it on by default and mote would be "infantile fractal" with happy cloud icon that turns instability off.

[TexZero.7910]

@zealex.9410 said:Enso starts weaker and get buffed up from 80%~ onwards on normal nightmare. In cm u get him buffed up from the get go and he becomes a joke at 15%. Ahh yes that trope we see everywhere yet again.

Oh so we have 1 boss i entirely forgot about because it falls into the same pitfall of not acting like a boss. It has as ben has stated a victory lap phase.

Why is this even a thing ?Why not have bosses act like bosses. Have them be cruel, merciless and unforgiving through the entire fight. Not just subject points during it.

[Talindra.4958]

The lower lvl t4 swamp with poison trail and last laugh is very tricky with normal pug.......... Had to give up and change to the higher lvl swamp to complete .. toxic trail itself is ok.. but when we hv last laugh .. esp in swamp with crazy mad creatures .. and players that get panic and freezes (like me jk) it's too challenging :p.
Tried to switch a few skills to control mob but yeah very difficult with that group. So we eventually changed to higher lvl for different mistlock combo to complete it.https://youtu.be/IEEsvLJeGPM

[dontlook.1823]

@"Benjamin Arnold.3457" said:Ensolyss is supposed to be fairly easy at 15%. It is mainly just a thematic and visually compelling "victory lap" phase, since by that point you did all the mechanics correctly. Right now last laugh makes it overtuned so it will be adjusted.

We are still reworking and improving fractal content, not sure why people seem to think instabilities are an excuse to not do that. Instabilities allow us to provide complex mechanical variation to spice up repeated dailies at all scales even within the same tier, which would be an insane amount of work to manually do. Instabilities should be more fun and challenging than tedious and aggravating so in future instability changes we will try to improve this.

The changes keep things fresh. Funnily enough it even encourages a couple of trait/skill changes here and there.

:+1:

[Benjamin Arnold.3457]

@"Talindra.4958" said:The lower lvl t4 swamp with poison trail and last laugh is very tricky with normal pug.......... Had to give up and change to the higher lvl swamp to complete .. toxic trail itself is ok.. but when we hv last laugh .. esp in swamp with crazy mad creatures .. and players that get panic and freezes (like me jk) it's too challenging :p.

Tried to switch a few skills to control mob but yeah very difficult with that group. So we eventually changed to higher lvl for different mistlock combo to complete it.https://youtu.be/IEEsvLJeGPM

This is one of the harder combinations I have seen. Upcoming changes to those instabilities should make this quite a bit more bearable.

[Benjamin Arnold.3457]

@TexZero.7910 said:

@zealex.9410 said:Enso starts weaker and get buffed up from 80%~ onwards on normal nightmare. In cm u get him buffed up from the get go and he becomes a joke at 15%. Ahh yes that trope we see everywhere yet again.

Oh so we have 1 boss i entirely forgot about because it falls into the same pitfall of not acting like a boss. It has as ben has stated a victory lap phase.

Why is this even a thing ?Why not have bosses act like bosses. Have them be cruel, merciless and unforgiving through the entire fight. Not just subject points during it.

Pacing variation is a good thing. A boss that is full tilt the entire time gives you no room to breathe and is mentally and physically exhausting.

[TexZero.7910]

@Benjamin Arnold.3457 said:

@TexZero.7910 said:

@zealex.9410 said:Enso starts weaker and get buffed up from 80%~ onwards on normal nightmare. In cm u get him buffed up from the get go and he becomes a joke at 15%. Ahh yes that trope we see everywhere yet again.

Oh so we have 1 boss i entirely forgot about because it falls into the same pitfall of not acting like a boss. It has as ben has stated a victory lap phase.

Why is this even a thing ?Why not have bosses act like bosses. Have them be cruel, merciless and unforgiving through the entire fight. Not just subject points during it.

Pacing variation is a good thing. A boss that is full tilt the entire time gives you no room to breathe and is mentally and physically exhausting.

But it's also then a boss.

You can build pacing variation into the encounter without undermining the quality of the boss. Again, it just feel really old to have bosses be only ever threating (with the one so far exception of enloyss or i'd even throw in astriviaa or vistara) at the end if at all.

Call me whatever you want, but there's good things i've seen Anet do as a company when it comes to breaking from standard to find new innovative ways of doing things and not just going with the because this is the industry standard and it works route. I'd like to see more of that in boss design specifically as it's pretty much always boss tropes.

[Talindra.4958]

@Benjamin Arnold.3457 said:

@Talindra.4958 said:The lower lvl t4 swamp with poison trail and last laugh is very tricky with normal pug.......... Had to give up and change to the higher lvl swamp to complete .. toxic trail itself is ok.. but when we hv last laugh .. esp in swamp with crazy mad creatures .. and players that get panic and freezes (like me jk) it's too challenging :p.

Tried to switch a few skills to control mob but yeah very difficult with that group. So we eventually changed to higher lvl for different mistlock combo to complete it.

This is one of the harder combinations I have seen. Upcoming changes to those instabilities should make this quite a bit more bearable.cool, at least theres different combo for that map to complete so it wasn't so bad.My ping was 400 average so time dodge still need lots of practice esp with this many bombs and etc hehehe..

[Tarasicodissa.7084]

Not clicking on your skills with mouse would probably help too.

Ben, I sincerely hope you will design high-level fractals around skilled players, not being so easily leeched by skillclickers.

[Benjamin Arnold.3457]

@Tarasicodissa.7084 said:Not clicking on your skills with mouse would probably help too.

Ben, I sincerely hope you will design high-level fractals around skilled players, not being so easily leeched by skillclickers.

lol,

I am happy with the difficulty of fractals as they are now. I just want to make sure outliers like toxic trails and last laugh aren't too frustrating for the average T4 player.

[zealex.9410]

@Benjamin Arnold.3457 said:

@TexZero.7910 said:

@zealex.9410 said:Enso starts weaker and get buffed up from 80%~ onwards on normal nightmare. In cm u get him buffed up from the get go and he becomes a joke at 15%. Ahh yes that trope we see everywhere yet again.

Oh so we have 1 boss i entirely forgot about because it falls into the same pitfall of not acting like a boss. It has as ben has stated a victory lap phase.

Why is this even a thing ?Why not have bosses act like bosses. Have them be cruel, merciless and unforgiving through the entire fight. Not just subject points during it.

Pacing variation is a good thing. A boss that is full tilt the entire time gives you no room to breathe and is mentally and physically exhausting.

I mean u dont have to make all of them mentally and physically exhausting. But like having some there doesnt hurt :gachiGASM:

[Talindra.4958]

@Tarasicodissa.7084 said:Not clicking on your skills with mouse would probably help too.

Ben, I sincerely hope you will design high-level fractals around skilled players, not being so easily leeched by skillclickers.

:P my style hard to change and i am average player, not highly skilled player which represent most of the payer base in the game :)

[squallaus.8321]

@Talindra.4958 said:

@Tarasicodissa.7084 said:Not clicking on your skills with mouse would probably help too.

Ben, I sincerely hope you will design high-level fractals around skilled players, not being so easily leeched by skillclickers.

:P my style hard to change and i am average player, not highly skilled player which represent most of the payer base in the game :)

dont lie the only reason you died and was clicking skill with mouse there was because your left hand was preoccupied with something else! :P

[Talindra.4958]

@squallaus.8321 said:

@Talindra.4958 said:

@"Tarasicodissa.7084" said:Not clicking on your skills with mouse would probably help too.

Ben, I sincerely hope you will design high-level fractals around skilled players, not being so easily leeched by skillclickers.

:P my style hard to change and i am average player, not highly skilled player which represent most of the payer base in the game :)

dont lie the only reason you died and was clicking skill with mouse there was because your left hand was preoccupied with something else! :P

Hehe ... Now I'm black listed !!! :p btw there's a typo .. I meant "represent most of the player base" not payer base lol.. I pay gem sometimes not all the time :p

[zealex.9410]

@Talindra.4958 said:

@Tarasicodissa.7084 said:Not clicking on your skills with mouse would probably help too.

Ben, I sincerely hope you will design high-level fractals around skilled players, not being so easily leeched by skillclickers.

:P my style hard to change and i am average player, not highly skilled player which represent most of the payer base in the game :)

And if i understand correctly u can clear raids and the cms(lag excluded). Ppl should take something from this...

[Benjamin Arnold.3457]

When I forget my MMO mouse when going to a play session I turn into a skill clicker cause my keys are bound too far away (usually on mouse side buttons).

[Quarktastic.1027]

Last laugh+toxic trail+Amala grenth phase (minions)=hardest boss in the game.

[squallaus.8321]

@Benjamin Arnold.3457 said:When I forget my MMO mouse when going to a play session I turn into a skill clicker cause my keys are bound too far away (usually on mouse side buttons).

Any chance you can get Anet and say Corsair to work together to release mmo mouse (schimitar based) and keyboard (RGB based) with gw2 logo on them? Wouldn't mind getting a pair!

[squallaus.8321]

@Quarktastic.1027 said:Last laugh+toxic trail+Amala grenth phase (minions)=hardest boss in the game.

Lies! If a clicker can do it you can do it too!

[Trae.2384]

@"Benjamin Arnold.3457" said:Ensolyss is supposed to be fairly easy at 15%. It is mainly just a thematic and visually compelling "victory lap" phase, since by that point you did all the mechanics correctly. Right now last laugh makes it overtuned so it will be adjusted.

Instabilities should be more fun and challenging than tedious and aggravating

Well you missed the mark slightly on that one, but why it was attempted probably made sense on paper or in a trial run of developers playing it. For the average player they are indeed quite annoying and extremely tedious in many aspects. I do think if the rewards were buffed along with the extra annoyance or better yet there was an option to play with randomly selected super annoying instabilities for bonus rewards then no one would have a problem and I bet many would be up for the challenge. Here whats happened is in an attempt to spice it up a bit we now have 10 times the annoyance for the same daily reward, thats where the complaining backlash is coming from.

Btw thanks for actually caring enough to interact with your playerbase like this and take our feedback into consideration like anet seems to do better than any other game ive played for a long time.

@Bugabuga.9721 said:

@"Benjamin Arnold.3457" said:Ensolyss is supposed to be fairly easy at 15%. It is mainly just a thematic and visually compelling "victory lap" phase, since by that point you did all the mechanics correctly. Right now last laugh makes it overtuned so it will be adjusted.

We are still reworking and improving fractal content, not sure why people seem to think instabilities are an excuse to not do that. Instabilities allow us to provide complex mechanical variation to spice up repeated dailies at all scales even within the same tier, which would be an insane amount of work to manually do. Instabilities should be more fun and challenging than tedious and aggravating so in future instability changes we will try to improve this.

Hopefully future is "sooner" rather than later. So far combinations are aggravating and make things more tedious for sure :(If true purpose is to prevent boredom and add variety instead of "want to make everything even harder" then perhaps we need an "instability mote" ?Those who are bored or want modified fractal can always interact with it and get spice added.For casual pugs outside prine time, vanilla fractals are challenge enough ? (it's not fun soloing Mai Trin after multiple wipes in t3)

Or have it on by default and mote would be "infantile fractal" with happy cloud icon that turns instability off.

Great idea with the mote, and have it come with some kind of carrot so its not entirely rewardless. That way if you want to pug your t4's and cm's quick and painlessly without having to be a total elitist lfg lister you can do it, if you want a challenge with something extra as a reward you activate the cancer that is forced upon us all now.