I want more challenge in this game

[Ayakaru.6583]

I mean, for real, why should we have to take Balthazar and Joko seriously, if we LITERALLY cannot lose to them?Every duel with a boss follows the same pattern, you put in half an effort, and you kill the boss with easy.Or you just laze away, half-minded, and the boss kills you a few times, but no worries, because THERE ARE NO FAIL CONDITIONS.There literally isn't a point to having a health bar, because once the health bar hits zero, it just goes back to full and you can keep fighting.Even if you're somehow so bad you keep dying until you're in your underwear, as long as you keep hitting that respawn button, you can kill Balthazar in your swim shorts.

So thats what I'm asking, why do we even care about the big villains if they're INCAPABLE of defeating us? We can literally keep nibbling away at them at our weakest, and they can't do anything to stop us.

And it's not just from a mechanical point of view, we're even immortal in the story.Apparantly, having died once, makes us immune to dying again, according to LS4-3, which didn't make any sense to me, at all.What, so we're incorporeal now? the beetles can't dig into us, lay eggs, and eat us up from the inside because our bodies have already been dead once before?

I am PLEADING you, anet, give the bosses some fail conditions, let them win for a change. Give us a reason to take their fights seriously?Otherwise we can all just go on vacation and send a swarm of Skritt and Quaggans to go kill the next boss.

The whole talk about Generation III bugs had me hoping there would be a story point where Joko unleashes the plague, and we lose, and we have to cleanse, purge, or downright burn down an entire society or something. To keep it from spreading.When we stormed that palace of his, and the gates broken, I thought "here it is".Only to have a bunch of ghosts say "we'll keep them contained".Then what was the whole point of the plague?There was never any risk if we only needed a few ghosts to end the plague.The plague was a sort of MacGuffin, but now it's just a background drop.

Give the villains some slack, anet, please, give us a reason to actually WANT to defeat them

[Strider Pj.2193]

Like 5 gold per death.

And maybe some loss of your luck percentage so those that are complaining about maxing it out can have something to do.

[Eekasqueak.7850]

Go play raids if you want challenge.

[Gehenna.3625]

I don't think the story line is the place for what you want, cause in essence the story is something that everybody should be able to go through. If you would get what you wanted, this game would lose more players than it can afford.

Surely you know there are people who struggle with these story bosses just the same. You may find them easy but I don't think that you're representative of the majority of the player base. The story is about the story and it's something that everybody basically should be able to go through. Go to raids and higher fractals for challenge or sPvP. Don't expect the main story to get more challenging because it will chase a lot of people away and I doubt you drop enough in the gem store to make up for that.

[Ayakaru.6583]

@Eekasqueak.7850 said:Go play raids if you want challenge.

I already am, but I got into this game for the story.I played GW1 and GW2 because it has an amazing world, with amazing villains. And if you played GW1 you will know what Imean when I say how dumbed down GW2 has become.

At this point it has nothing to do with 'wanting challenge' anymore. But the most basic respect we're supposed to have for our villains.Instead, our characters are just gods who can even taunt the actual gods at this point.

[Ayakaru.6583]

@"Gehenna.3625" said:I don't think the story line is the place for what you want, cause in essence the story is something that everybody should be able to go through. If you would get what you wanted, this game would lose more players than it can afford.

Surely you know there are people who struggle with these story bosses just the same. You may find them easy but I don't think that you're representative of the majority of the player base. The story is about the story and it's something that everybody basically should be able to go through. Go to raids and higher fractals for challenge or sPvP. Don't expect the main story to get more challenging because it will chase a lot of people away and I doubt you drop enough in the gem store to make up for that.

I get what you mean, I do.But being able to take a boss seriously is part of that story experience.Don't you ever watch a movie, and find it boring because you already know the villain's gonna get his ass kicked?That the good guys win without so much as a comprise or a scar?

Be honest, did you walk into Joko's chamber thinking "Square up, if I don't do this know, we're all doomed!"or did you think "okay.. time to defeat randomly generated NPC#72333, though I don't see why the local plants didn't kill this thing"

[Gehenna.3625]

@Ayakaru.6583 said:

@"Gehenna.3625" said:I don't think the story line is the place for what you want, cause in essence the story is something that everybody should be able to go through. If you would get what you wanted, this game would lose more players than it can afford.

Surely you know there are people who struggle with these story bosses just the same. You may find them easy but I don't think that you're representative of the majority of the player base. The story is about the story and it's something that everybody basically should be able to go through. Go to raids and higher fractals for challenge or sPvP. Don't expect the main story to get more challenging because it will chase a lot of people away and I doubt you drop enough in the gem store to make up for that.

I get what you mean, I do.But being able to take a boss seriously is part of that story experience.Don't you ever watch a movie, and find it boring because you already know the villain's gonna get his kitten kicked?That the good guys win without so much as a comprise or a scar?

Be honest, did you walk into Joko's chamber thinking "Square up, if I don't do this know, we're all doomed!"or did you think "okay.. time to defeat randomly generated NPC#72333, though I don't see why the local plants didn't kill this thing"

Neither, I went there and thought: here we go again, another fight that takes too long with weird mechanics that make no sense (not like impossible to figure out but like who the heck came up with this). However, I know that in a game that is not made just for me, I have to allow for some things I don't like to accommodate other players as well.

You win some and you lose some. But since the story is a more general experience that players of all types should be able to go through this is what it is. The only thing they could do is have a choice of Story Mode and Hard Mode with added rewards/achievements for the latter, but as long as there is only one mode, it's one mode fits all.

[Healix.5819]

If you add a fail condition that prevents people from completing the content, it will only become easier to compensate as fewer complete it. Allowing people to fail their way through it is what allows them to continuously toy with the difficulty. They would have to separate it into a normal and easy mode, which could be as simple as giving you the option to continue on easy or accept defeat on death.

[Overlord RainyDay.2084]

@Ayakaru.6583 said:

@"Eekasqueak.7850" said:Go play raids if you want challenge.

I already am, but I got into this game for the story.I played GW1 and GW2 because it has an amazing world, with amazing villains. And if you played GW1 you will know what Imean when I say how dumbed down GW2 has become.

At this point it has nothing to do with 'wanting challenge' anymore. But the most basic respect we're supposed to have for our villains.Instead, our characters are just gods who can even taunt the actual gods at this point.

I played GW1 too, and i have no idea what you're talking about. The big boss fights in story missions weren't exactly rough there either. I remember getting to the Lich to be much harder than actually killing him, Abbadon not being as threatening as he looked, and Shiro and the Great Destroyer being easily-cheesed pushovers. The final boss of EotN, built up over the entire game as a legendary foe, can be annihilated in a minute, with most of that time spent walking over to him so you can cast one single pain inverter.

If you wanted decent challenge you didn't get it in the story. You went to elite areas, or went vanquishing, and even then, most of the tougher vanquishes were only bad if you pulled too many or RNG gave you an obnoxious enemy comp to deal with. Speaking of taunting gods to their face, Abbadon in hard mode is not nearly as difficult as fighting a group of regular awakened with 3 cavaliers if you forgot to bring frozen soil.

Admittedly, it would be nice if there was an optional hard mode for story bosses, even if it was just "Allies don't res you, and enemy HP always resets to 100% if you die".

[Tails.9372]

Well they can use machine learning to create bots which behave like human players, immagine going in a room full of mesmers and they all fight like their top ranked human counterparts. Or going to queensdale and all the bandits start behaving like your average thief in WvW, that's the experience PvE is currently missing.

[Ashen.2907]

@Tails.9372 said:Well they can use machine learning to create bots which behave like human players, immagine going in a room full of mesmers and they all fight like their top ranked human counterparts. Or going to queensdale and all the bandits start behaving like your average thief in WvW, that's the experience PvE is currently missing.

Then the bots would complain about a lack of challenge

[Wolfb.7025]

Yes you can.

Go and do explorable dungeons naked or something. Or fight the bosses with tuned down gear so you can die in 1 or 2 mistakes.

[Scud.5067]

Difficulty Select:

I'm Too Young To Die - Mobs have 25% less healthHurt Me Plenty - Normal modeUltra Violence - Mobs have 25% more health and do 20% more damageNightmare - Mobs have 50% more health, do 25% more damage and each instance has its own time limit.Ultra Nightmare - As Nightmare, but if you die, it resets the story to the beginning of the chain.

[Menadena.7482]

sigh

Another 'I need a challenge' thread. You can come up with plenty of challenges. Like roll an alt and walk to Orr as soon as you rez. Or take on what is meant to be a group boss (that nobody does because it has a high failure rate) singlehandedly.

This is part of why so many things in the world now are so kitteningly ridiculous to beat.

[Blocki.4931]

@Scud.5067 said:Difficulty Select:

I'm Too Young To Die - Mobs have 25% less healthHurt Me Plenty - Normal modeUltra Violence - Mobs have 25% more health and do 20% more damageNightmare - Mobs have 50% more health, do 25% more damage and each instance has its own time limit.Ultra Nightmare - As Nightmare, but if you die, it resets the story to the beginning of the chain.

Honestly I would pay for that

[Strider Pj.2193]

@Menadena.7482 said:sigh

This is part of why so many things in the world now are so kitteningly ridiculous to beat.

I guess I don't see this at all.

When on a class I rarely play, I can solo most of the Openworld content minus world bosses and some champs, that isn't challenging.

I certainly wouldn't classify it as ridiculous to beat in any shape or form.

Story, I would have to agree as it should be designed for soloing. But even then, it is just learning the mechanics.

[Lambros Augustus.6594]

Those people wanting challenge go buy an old arcade machine and see how many coins you got to use to playthrough all way. You will find almost all mechanics unfair and a game that just wants more of your coins. If I want to play something thats fun I dont want to die. I want to casually breeze through all my games on a pretend fake challenge that exists only in my head. You want to perserver to be the best player ever ever you will find that is an illusion too.

[IndigoSundown.5419]

@Ayakaru.6583 said:

@Eekasqueak.7850 said:Go play raids if you want challenge.

I already am, but I got into this game for the story.I played GW1 and GW2 because it has an amazing world, with amazing villains. And if you played GW1 you will know what Imean when I say how dumbed down GW2 has become.

GW story was (initially, anyway) a group game. GW2 story is not. GW2 story is aimed at (roughly) the midpoint in player skill. Anyone who is on the low side of that divide will struggle, but has the option to turn story into group content. Anyone above the (hypothetical) midpoint will find it too easy. One thing is certain, if a player is capable of doing well in raids, then story is going to be too easy because it's not aimed at you.

As with dungeons, players can opt to add challenge themselves in GW2 story. A manual boss fight reset (player chooses to start the fight over) would be one way to do that. Now, if only the game supported you in doing so by saving progress so you could bypass the trash mobs and dialogue that comes before the boss fight.

Going back to GW, power creep and Heroes went a long way towards removing the challenge from GW story instances. That's why we had hard mode. Why can't we have a hard mode in GW2? I blame the decision to make GW2 an MMO. MMO's have increasingly turned to a broader market than players who want a challenge seem able to provide. Likewise, making the game an MMO meant that hard mode was no longer an option, so harder PvE content is limited to raids and top tier fractals.

I get the frustration, I'm just not sure there is going to be anything ANet can do about it because of design decisions that were made 6-10 years ago.

[Dashingsteel.3410]

That's a great idea if you want to reduce the population of gw2 to the percentage of gamers who are looking for more challenging content. Changing the story to the conditions that you state would effectively drive off a significant amount of players. This would be a terrible business decision.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

There's a 200+ post thread on this page suggesting Story Content be made easier. Who should ArenaNet listen to?

[GDchiaScrub.3241]

@Wolfb.7025 said:Yes you can.

Go and do explorable dungeons naked or something. Or fight the bosses with tuned down gear so you can die in 1 or 2 mistakes.

This, then also request underwear accessories in the gemstore.

D:

[Amaranthe.3578]

I think that one of the main philosophy s of the famefame is having little to no challange in pve

[Obtena.7952]

@Ayakaru.6583 said:

@Eekasqueak.7850 said:Go play raids if you want challenge.

I already am, but I got into this game for the story.I played GW1 and GW2 because it has an amazing world, with amazing villains. And if you played GW1 you will know what Imean when I say how dumbed down GW2 has become.

At this point it has nothing to do with 'wanting challenge' anymore. But the most basic respect we're supposed to have for our villains.Instead, our characters are just gods who can even taunt the actual gods at this point.

Well, at this point it's too late. There's no return on that investment to increase difficulty for storyline.

Besides, maybe you want more challenge but the significant portion of the market didn't choose to play this game because it's challenging to them. It would be a move away from that market. That would be a disaster.

[ChronosCosmos.9450]

@Ayakaru.6583 said:

@Eekasqueak.7850 said:Go play raids if you want challenge.

I already am, but I got into this game for the story.I played GW1 and GW2 because it has an amazing world, with amazing villains. And if you played GW1 you will know what Imean when I say how dumbed down GW2 has become.

At this point it has nothing to do with 'wanting challenge' anymore. But the most basic respect we're supposed to have for our villains.Instead, our characters are just gods who can even taunt the actual gods at this point.

Yeah, I feel you. GW1's story and characters were phenomenal. Shiro, Lich, Togo, Abbaddon, the 5 gods, Zaishen, and Heralds. Amazing. Eye of the north and the heroes had amazing backgrounds too.

[Ashen.2907]

I would love normal and hard modes for story content, if hardmode wasnt just a matter of adding health and damage buffs to mobs.

But I understand that it could be costly and so can seek challenge elsewhere in game.