Level of Difficulty for Story Instances

[Ayrilana.1396]

An easy mode that allows every type of player imaginable to complete the story but does not provide any achievement progression.

[Cernow.3974]

Completely agree. The DLC, LS2, LS3 and LS4 story content is totally overtuned. The difficulty is set way too high to make the content enjoyable as a STORY. My reflexes aren't what they were and I can usually complete story instances, although often with multiple deaths and lots of frustration. I usually finish a story step stressed, not relaxed and I've usually not been able to actually enjoy the story, plot and voice acting etc. I find that story content is usually pretty exhausting, which is surely the opposite of what most people want from a story?

The boss fights are the worst offenders, but often it's the trash too. There's often just an insane and relentless amount of mobs to clear,, constant aoe spam, excessive crowd control that no amount of stability or dodging can escape. Plus boss fights with all manner of cheese mechanics that can one-shot you and aren't properly explained or warned about and often spammed.

I've taken lots of different characters and builds through various story instances and some struggle a lot more than others, particularly classes and builds that can't cope with being swarmed and those that aren't very mobile or have skills which need to be channelled or have high activation times. Ranged seems to cope better than melee a lot of the time.

Often the story tries to help you with companion NPCs, but they are usually so ineffectual it makes the story less credible.

There needs to be an Easy Mode to allow players to enjoy the story. Not totally dumbed down, but certainly toned down from its current overtuned state.

[Overlord RainyDay.2084]

Well, this is certainly an old thread to dredge up.

Changing up your weapons and skills can help a lot. Every class has combos of skills and weapons that are better for solo fights or crowds of enemies. Even as a theif fighing a horde of white mantle you can bring weapons that bounce between multiple enemies (shortbow), skills that summon allies (thieves guild), stealths to break aggro for a second. Anything to hit more people at once and keep the pressure off of you. Then, you can just switch to a more one-on-one setup in between encounters. Solo story missions are some of the few times you may even want to break out the racial skills. I've used technobabble to stun the eater of souls, and distracted mordrem guard with a sylvan hound. If you're going it alone, you've got to look for ways to fill in gaps in your skills.

Also, people forget there's always the option of bringing a friend. Story instances don't scale quite as harshly as other things, so bringing a friend or two, even if all they do is mash 1 and pull aggro can be a big help. Sometimes I think the story is balanced around Anet expecting that the average player does the story with a friend/guildie.

[Brother.1504]

Difficulty is so subjective. What I may find stressful another may find face roll easy. I think resources like dulphy and other content creators help bridge the “skill” gap.

[Cernow.3974]

Story content should never be balanced around the assumption that a solo player either wishes to or is able to bring a friend. The whole point of story content is .... surprise surprise ... the story. Stories are rarely more enjoyable when someone is leaning over your shoulder or tapping their feet because they want to get a move on. Everyone goes at a different pace. This is a well known fact throughout the MMO industry and most MMOs get this right. GW2 doesn't. This is a shame for all the artists, writers and voice actors who part hard work into the game only for players to not be able to properly enjoy it due to gameplay decisions.

It should not be necessary to consult sites like Dulfy just to complete a story instance. If the mechanics aren't properly obvious or explained on first play through, or the combat difficulty set too high, then the designers have failed in their task. Yes it's nice to have special achievements, challenges and things to discover, but the core mechanics needed to progress the story should always be properly explained and feasible for players of a wide variety of ability levels to complete.

Besides, isn't it ironic that all the special achievements are only unlocked AFTER you've completed the story once already? Which kind of proves the point doesn't it.

[Algreg.3629]

@"Cernow.3974" said:Story content should never be balanced around the assumption that a solo player either wishes to or is able to bring a friend. The whole point of story content is .... surprise surprise ... the story. Stories are rarely more enjoyable when someone is leaning over your shoulder or tapping their feet because they want to get a move on. Everyone goes at a different pace. This is a well known fact throughout the MMO industry and most MMOs get this right. GW2 doesn't. This is a shame for all the artists, writers and voice actors who part hard work into the game only for players to not be able to properly enjoy it due to gameplay decisions.

It should not be necessary to consult sites like Dulfy just to complete a story instance. If the mechanics aren't properly obvious or explained on first play through, or the combat difficulty set too high, then the designers have failed in their task. Yes it's nice to have special achievements, challenges and things to discover, but the core mechanics needed to progress the story should always be properly explained and feasible for players of a wide variety of ability levels to complete.

Besides, isn't it ironic that all the special achievements are only unlocked AFTER you've completed the story once already? Which kind of proves the point doesn't it.

• difficulty is subjective, so setting combat difficulty "too high" is not a design failure. Someone wil always find something too hard. If you set the difficulty to a level noone will have to struggle with, you will get an empty map with a chest in the middle. When you desing for the 10 % most unskilled the story quests will be reduced to mere time investment for an average player. Might as well remove story quests completely then and just have green stars start cutscenes. Of cause, those triggers have to be placed only in easily accessible areas, because there will always be someone who just cannot pass that single non-veteran enemy to get there.
• not really ironic, as this has not been the case for a long time. And even if, this would not be "ironic" but telling

[Overlord RainyDay.2084]

Often when we're talking about the "mechanics" of story fights people are having trouble with, it's not the new special mechanics. It's not gliding against mordremoth, chasing the valley beast on a mount, countering bloodstone magic, throwing bloodstone shards at the white mantle leader, or leading the awakened soldiers. It's basic things like dodging, dealing with conditions and stunlock, managing large groups of enemies and the like. Admittedly, GW isn't the best at teaching the basics. Dodging has an easily missed tutorial, trait selection and buildcraft are an afterthought, and breakbars and CC are pretty much not explained at all. The story leading up to 80 tries (with questionable effectiveness) to give you the basics. I don't think it's unfair to have endgame content (which includes all expansions and living world episodes) be balanced around a player with an endgame build who has a firm grasp of combat mechanics (as long as it's not tuned to the point where it's only clearable in full raid builds or something). Escalating difficulty should also be expected to an extent. "Later" parts of any game are usually more difficult, so difficulty ramping up over the course of the story's run (at least within the confines of an expansion and its associated LW) should be expected.

Not that people who struggle with GW2 combat mechanics don't deserve to experience the story, but there are ways to work around it, like bringing a friend. Would an "easy mode" where the enemies were braindead, tuned so nobody could possibly fail it, that rewarded you with just a cutscene and a "git gud if you actually want some rewards" really be less insulting than just having to ask for a hand in map chat? Would it be any different than just watching someone else do it on youtube at that point? I don't think any game will ever be hard enough for the most hardcore players, nor easy enough for the most casual players. You can only hope you've hit a balance that satisfies as many people as you can.

[Cernow.3974]

It's not about dealing with "basic things" like dodging, breakbars and surviving AOE though because some story instances are tuned well above what players will encounter in the open world. Often in the story instances you get hit with stuff at a level, intensity or frequency you just don't encounter elsewhere.

For example, I find it odd that I can manage to solo many open world champion mobs, most zergy karma events and pretty much all of the HoT and PoF hero points apart from a handful of the toughest ones which need a group. And yet, I find so many story instances are a nightmare. I know the mechanics, I adjust my build as needed and yes I can complete them, but it's just not much fun.

Asking for some help is fine for open world content, such as help with a hero point. It makes a lot less sense for story content. For a start, the story bills the player as "The Commander". We all know that everyone else you see running around in the game is also "The Commander" but this little pretence doesn't need to be made even more flimsy by having story instances tuned for groups rather than solo.

One fairly easy way to solve this would be to have the NPC companions perform better if you are struggling. Their AI is mostly very weak but I'm sure it should be possible to bolster them if the player is struggling. A few of the story instances do seem to act in this way, at least by having the NPCs rezz you where possible, but it's not consistent.

It just needs two modes. Challenge mode (which would be the current difficulty with all achievements unlocked) and Story Mode, which could have toned down mechanics, lower rewards and more assistance from NPCs.

[IndigoSundown.5419]

DC issues have frustrated me to the point where I am on a story moratorium. What I would like to see if I were to return to play story going forward is not necessarily less chance to fail. What I would prefer is: less (maybe no more) carpet-bombing; raid mechanics being relegated back to raids or FotM; and either a buff to stability or some kind of short-term CC immunity as long as ANet wants to provide story mobs with only 3 moves which include one or more CC on a cycle that is on infinite repeat.

[maddoctor.2738]

The game is balanced around the performance of builds in Raids and other instanced content, this means that builds in this game are really badly balanced for solo situations. Solo story instances and the queen's gauntlet are some excellent ways for the developers to identify which profession has issues when soloing and which one does not.

You already have variable difficulty in the game. Unfortunately, it's called "use another profession" that is better suited for solo play. For example, Weavers, and Elementalists in general, have been on the receiving end of nerfs lately, to bring their performance down in group play, with little to no regard to their ability to do solo story instances. It's gotten to a point that finishing some story instances on a Weaver feels like playing the game on hard mode. On the other hand, other professions are really easy in solo play, like Dragonhunter, Renegade or Soulbeast.

The other solution is to add allies that revive you consistently and quickly. In the first battle with Balthazar it's impossible to lose, because you are auto-revived if you fail. In the last instance of Daybreak Braham revives you so quickly that even though the boss has lots of mechanics and abilities, it's very very hard to actually die there.

tl;dr If you are having trouble with a specific profession maybe it's one of those over-nerfed that makes it really hard to play solo. Try another one instead.

[MDove.2391]

@Overlord RainyDay.2084 said:

Changing up your weapons and skills can help a lot.

Also, people forget there's always the option of bringing a friend. Sometimes I think the story is balanced around Anet expecting that the average player does the story with a friend/guildie.No changing up weapons/skills or bringing a friend is going to get me thru the instakill red circles in Prized Possessions, following Ruka.Managed getting that far, then nope! Then, having to leave--back to the beginning.But, I get what you are saying. Thank you.

[Overlord RainyDay.2084]

Yeah, that's one of the few where it does throw new mechanics at you, expect you to pick them up quickly, and it does take some serious practice to get through. Now, you can get a friend to carry you through it, you'd just have to have your friend open the instance, and you accept completion for your chapter when they finish. It isn't going to let you complete it yourself or get achievements, but you could get past it that way, if you so desired.

[LucianDK.8615]

head of the snake is one of the hardest story missions, terrible. the reason why I bought a permanent repair cannister.

[Ayrilana.1396]

@Cernow.3974 said:Story content should never be balanced around the assumption that a solo player either wishes to or is able to bring a friend. The whole point of story content is .... surprise surprise ... the story. Stories are rarely more enjoyable when someone is leaning over your shoulder or tapping their feet because they want to get a move on. Everyone goes at a different pace. This is a well known fact throughout the MMO industry and most MMOs get this right. GW2 doesn't. This is a shame for all the artists, writers and voice actors who part hard work into the game only for players to not be able to properly enjoy it due to gameplay decisions.

It’s a game, not a movie. The story content is balanced for solo compared to the average player. There will be those with sub-par skill that struggle but fortunately they can group up with each other.

Content should not be balanced around the lowest skilled players just as it shouldn’t be balanced to those with the highest level of skill. An exception being to specific content intended to be on one end of the spectrum

It should not be necessary to consult sites like Dulfy just to complete a story instance. If the mechanics aren't properly obvious or explained on first play through, or the combat difficulty set too high, then the designers have failed in their task. Yes it's nice to have special achievements, challenges and things to discover, but the core mechanics needed to progress the story should always be properly explained and feasible for players of a wide variety of ability levels to complete.

It’s not necessary to go to those sites. It’s that players do not want to put the time and/or effort so they resort to those. I haven’t seen a single instance during story content where the core mechanics were not explained in one way or another.

Besides, isn't it ironic that all the special achievements are only unlocked AFTER you've completed the story once already? Which kind of proves the point doesn't it.

That’s LS2. Everything after that can be progressed the first time unless Anet specifically makes a particular achievement require a second playthrough.

[Opopanax.1803]

The aoe carpet bombing is the worst. Caudicaus is a prime example, had it this season at Sandswept isles with the charr council showdown as well. You literally can't dodge all the crap on the floor. Awful design.

[Ayrilana.1396]

@Opopanax.1803 said:The aoe carpet bombing is the worst. Caudicaus is a prime example, had it this season at Sandswept isles with the charr council showdown as well. You literally can't dodge all the crap on the floor. Awful design.

Don’t need to dodge as you can just walk around it (for Caudecus). I’ll have to remember the golem fight.

[starlinvf.1358]

@"Overlord RainyDay.2084" said:Often when we're talking about the "mechanics" of story fights people are having trouble with, it's not the new special mechanics. It's not gliding against mordremoth, chasing the valley beast on a mount, countering bloodstone magic, throwing bloodstone shards at the white mantle leader, or leading the awakened soldiers. It's basic things like dodging, dealing with conditions and stunlock, managing large groups of enemies and the like. Admittedly, GW isn't the best at teaching the basics. Dodging has an easily missed tutorial, trait selection and buildcraft are an afterthought, and breakbars and CC are pretty much not explained at all. The story leading up to 80 tries (with questionable effectiveness) to give you the basics. I don't think it's unfair to have endgame content (which includes all expansions and living world episodes) be balanced around a player with an endgame build who has a firm grasp of combat mechanics (as long as it's not tuned to the point where it's only clearable in full raid builds or something). Escalating difficulty should also be expected to an extent. "Later" parts of any game are usually more difficult, so difficulty ramping up over the course of the story's run (at least within the confines of an expansion and its associated LW) should be expected.

Not that people who struggle with GW2 combat mechanics don't deserve to experience the story, but there are ways to work around it, like bringing a friend. Would an "easy mode" where the enemies were braindead, tuned so nobody could possibly fail it, that rewarded you with just a cutscene and a "git gud if you actually want some rewards" really be less insulting than just having to ask for a hand in map chat? Would it be any different than just watching someone else do it on youtube at that point? I don't think any game will ever be hard enough for the most hardcore players, nor easy enough for the most casual players. You can only hope you've hit a balance that satisfies as many people as you can.

That covers most of what I was going to say, and segues into this next bit....... The majority of post-Core Story missions are 90% understanding mechanics and executing upon them. To make it any easier, you just have to bypass the mechanics entirely. In a single player game this would be less of an issue... but being an multiplayer focused game, and having a bunch of rewards attached to various things via achievements, this forces the Devs to choose between "content integrity" and "lowest common denominator accessibility". The latter isn't an insult, its a design term thats been in the forefront of design talks the past year and a half or so.

MMOs tend to have a common thread in that they're designed with a gelatinous mass of "stuff to do", in order to meet the nebulous requirement of having "enough content" for players to consume. But because of the way rewards are often bound to these activities, you run into a problem of perceived value in the eyes of the player base, and how they see other players who have said rewards. Cosmetic rewards are no exception to this, and are arguably more prone to this phenomena given most communities having at least some fixation on status symbols. Offer a path of lesser resistance to those rewards and most players will abuse it, and in turn lessen its value in the eyes of the community..... understanding skinner box design 101. Lowering the bar and stripping the rewards is more likely to get the community riled up about content being too easy, or otherwise trivial, which translates to grind/time wasting. Maintain the difficulty, and people who can't or won't succeed will cry foul, and demand the game conform their demands. There is no middle ground so long as the rewards are bound to the story missions... and removing the rewards is not logical, since those are the primary motivator for well over half the player base.

Which raises the important point of available resources. In single player games this job would normally go cheat codes and difficulty settings. But being a primarily multiplayer game, you have the resources of a community (with this one being exceptionally eager to help out), it comes off as counter-productive or even arrogant when someone claims that this "isn't an option" to achieve their goal. This is ALWAYS an option; and its only price is the minimum level of social skills required to communicate with another human being, and a basic understanding of social etiquette. Its the insistence that "it isn't" thats irritating people when these threads pop up.

Theres an age old Norn saying "There is no Shame in a Hunter asking for help when it is needed", and something along the lines of "a lone hunter doubles as prey".

[ugrakarma.9416]

in some old games that i just enjoy the history, or when im burned out, i just use a "godmode" cheat, some resource like that in history mode would be useful, with low cost of implementation, the rewards are already too nerfed.

[Algreg.3629]

@"starlinvf.1358" said:

Theres an age old Norn saying "There is no Shame in a Hunter asking for help when it is needed", and something along the lines of "a lone hunter doubles as prey".

"is that some kind of eastern thing?" :)

[Steve The Cynic.3217]

@"Cernow.3974" said:Story content should never be balanced around the assumption that a solo player either wishes to or is able to bring a friend.

It isn't. It's balanced around a certain (and not catastrophically high) level of player ability.(1) There seems to be an assumption that you don't go to HoT or LS2 or PoF in level 10 blues (heck, even Orr in Central Tyria will be painful in gear that weak), for example, so "selection of proper gear" may be assumed to be part of their calculations.

There's a general assumption that you've played through enough other content by the time you reach LS2 that you understand the fundamental mechanics of the game, how it works, and how to make use of the information that's presented in-game.

Let's be really clear on that last point: none of those people writing the Dulfy guides (Dulfy doesn't write all the guides herself) to content have special "inside" paths that nobody but they know about. They don't have a secret "how the game works" guide to help them through the stories, that tell them how to beat the Facets in Hidden Arcana. They read the information on the screen, same as all of us, me, you, everyone, can.

(1) I say that on the basis that I've played through all the green-star story content in the game except (by distaste for the species) for two out of the three Charr options for each of Chapter 1 and 2, and one out of three, I think for Asura. I have never brought a friend for inability. And I'm, quite frankly, a klutz on the scale of things. I'm better now than I used to be, but the first character I put through the Personal Story and LS2 and HoT and LS3 and PoF and LS4E1-3 died a lot in the earlier content until I refined my technique.(2)

(2) I did that the hard way, by digging up the Dulfy guide for Guardian and extracting the gear recommendations for power DH (full zerk, duh), and then learning how to survive in full glass. Years later, I'm way better than I used to be, but I'm still learning.(3)

(3) Remember the Jennur's Horde Rule: "If content is hard, that's an opportunity to learn to play better." I learned this one playing the Jennur's Horde mission in GW1:Nightfall, which is a step up in difficulty compared to the earlier missions. I have kept that rule close to my heart ever since.

[ugrakarma.9416]

@Opopanax.1803 said:The aoe carpet bombing is the worst. Caudicaus is a prime example, had it this season at Sandswept isles with the charr council showdown as well. You literally can't dodge all the crap on the floor. Awful design.

add to the list the flashy effects thats makes hard even figure where u are on floor.

[Gehenna.3625]

I think the HP of bosses in stories should be cut in half regardless. Some people find them too hard and have their reasons. I personally find the fights too long and tedious and already get bored with the fights before getting the boss to 50%. It's just unnecessary to make the fights as long as they are simply because of the huge HP on them.

Dodging 27 circles at a time in every fight gets old. Having to do that 132 times in each fight gets really boring. Yes the numbers are made up but it feels like that a lot. I think it's really unnecessary and it breaks the story telling as well. Let the world, dungeon, raid bosses etc. be the challenging ones and the story ones a bit more fun for the more casual players because that part is about the story and there's plenty of challenge already I'd say.

[starlinvf.1358]

@"Cernow.3974" said:It's not about dealing with "basic things" like dodging, breakbars and surviving AOE though because some story instances are tuned well above what players will encounter in the open world. Often in the story instances you get hit with stuff at a level, intensity or frequency you just don't encounter elsewhere.

For example, I find it odd that I can manage to solo many open world champion mobs, most zergy karma events and pretty much all of the HoT and PoF hero points apart from a handful of the toughest ones which need a group. And yet, I find so many story instances are a nightmare. I know the mechanics, I adjust my build as needed and yes I can complete them, but it's just not much fun.

Asking for some help is fine for open world content, such as help with a hero point. It makes a lot less sense for story content. For a start, the story bills the player as "The Commander". We all know that everyone else you see running around in the game is also "The Commander" but this little pretence doesn't need to be made even more flimsy by having story instances tuned for groups rather than solo.

One fairly easy way to solve this would be to have the NPC companions perform better if you are struggling. Their AI is mostly very weak but I'm sure it should be possible to bolster them if the player is struggling. A few of the story instances do seem to act in this way, at least by having the NPCs rezz you where possible, but it's not consistent.

It just needs two modes. Challenge mode (which would be the current difficulty with all achievements unlocked) and Story Mode, which could have toned down mechanics, lower rewards and more assistance from NPCs.

I would like to put forth an argument of Story Telling and "Stakes". This is kind of telling with a lot of players from this generation not really understanding what makes a story compelling, along with a stark difference in how they read things. This is easier to explain in passive media, since the story telling generally has carry most of the weight. But in games, the interactive element changes much, if not all of the perception of the situation..... and this is something thats difficult to account for when you can't count on your audience to play along. This is why I've been trying to bring attention to the fact that "Role Playing" doesn't mean what people think it means, and its having a major impact in player attitude and level of cooperation. The latest round of "Not my Commander" threads further highlights this issue.

The story chapters don't have a lot of time to flesh out characters and the setting the way any passive media would have to afford to do its job....... and as a result, the majority of the weight in getting the player into the right head space, is the puzzles and fights that make up the majority of a story chapter. Having a well themed or well designed fight quickly gets the player invested in the immediate events. And to keep it going, the mechanics have to follow similar rules to build up and pay off, that you would want to use in any good story. But theres an extra problem layers all over this...... Players generally don't like being told explicitly what to do, because it comes off as either insulting their intelligence, or "bad design". But if players are terrible at catching on to more subtle methods (a common challenge for any good mystery arc), when the pay off is supposed to happen, they immediately feel lost and insecure in that moment of confusion.

Pulling all of this together.... how much of an interactive situation can you strip out, before its weight and investment is utterly lost on the audience? But if they design around that, it would mean shifting everything into cut scenes and other passive interactions, making the fights superfluous (aka pointless), and comes off as lazy padding for time. This is why the "mode selection" or "options" type solution people keep throwing around aren't anywhere near as simple as people make it out be. Especially when a lot of story content is regularly criticized as being low quality, and not engaging; only to be met with equally loud criticism from another group when the game actively tries to directly engage with the player more.

Look at what happened to the Zhaitan fight.... and that wasn't even a difficult fight to begin with.

[Algreg.3629]

@Steve The Cynic.3217 said:

@"Cernow.3974" said:Story content should never be balanced around the assumption that a solo player either wishes to or is able to bring a friend.

It isn't. It's balanced around a certain (and not catastrophically high) level of player ability.(1) There seems to be an assumption that you don't go to HoT or LS2 or PoF in level 10 blues (heck, even Orr in Central Tyria will be painful in gear that weak), for example, so "selection of proper gear" may be assumed to be part of their calculations.

There's a general assumption that you've played through enough other content by the time you reach LS2 that you understand the fundamental mechanics of the game, how it works, and

how to make use of the information that's presented in-game

.

Let's be really clear on that last point: none of those people writing the Dulfy guides (Dulfy doesn't write all the guides herself) to content have special "inside" paths that nobody but they know about. They don't have a secret "how the game works" guide to help them through the stories, that tell them how to beat the Facets in

Hidden Arcana

. They read the information on the screen, same as all of us, me, you, everyone, can.

(1) I say that on the basis that I've played through

all

the green-star story content in the game except (by distaste for the species) for two out of the three Charr options for each of Chapter 1 and 2, and one out of three, I think for Asura. I have

never

brought a friend for inability. And I'm, quite frankly, a klutz on the scale of things. I'm better now than I used to be, but the first character I put through the Personal Story and LS2 and HoT and LS3 and PoF and LS4E1-3 died a

lot

in the earlier content until I refined my technique.(2)

(2) I did that the hard way, by digging up the Dulfy guide for Guardian and extracting the gear recommendations for power DH (full zerk, duh), and then learning how to survive in full glass. Years later, I'm way better than I used to be, but I'm still learning.(3)

(3) Remember the Jennur's Horde Rule: "If content is hard, that's an opportunity to learn to play better." I learned this one playing the Jennur's Horde mission in GW1:Nightfall, which is a step up in difficulty compared to the earlier missions. I have kept that rule close to my heart ever since.

The problem is people of really low skill considering themselves average players, which is all too human. I don´t want to bash them. By statistics, there have to be really bad players in comparison. That does not take away being wonderful and valuable individuals in real life. Sucking at computer games is really a negligible "flaw". Still, this cannot be the benchmark for average difficulty. Often this goes together with a weird stubborness and glorification of failure, as exemplified in recent festival threads. People are absolutely convinced it would not matter trying a different build, trying different things, they are convinced there is no self-improvement possible. That really has me worried far beyond the game tbh. Even if you are physically impaired to some degree I am convinced there are builds that are more forgiving on slow reaction times and things like that. But of cause you have to take the minimal effort to look into those things.

[Rasta.2371]

I don't care if the story is faceroll easy, I just wish the writing was good.