Hard mode for core story

[Biff.5312]

Part of the problem with just making it 'more difficult' is that this tends to simply mean more HP on the bosses. Another is that not all professions are equally well-suited to all the story challenges, so as they get harder it will become more obviously difficult for some than for others. Frankly I think you should just look elsewhere for hard content (new fractals?). The story imo should just be access to lore for those who are interested.

[Edelweiss.4261]

@"maddoctor.2738" said:No it can't be fun handicapping myself because it doesn't give my enemies more exciting mechanics to deal with. I get my fun from content by dealing with complex mechanics that require me to think and use my brain, use the proper skills and builds to beat them, not by making mobs take longer to kill or deal more damage. The pre-Heart of Thorns high end Fractals were full of 1-shot-kill damage sponges with infinite amount of hit points, I'd never call that "challenging", engaging or fun to play (thank god they changed that). How are people finding this kind of artificial "difficulty increase" fun is beyond me.

I highly doubt an added hard mode would add any new mechanics. It would simply up the difficulty and damage. I'm kind of surprised you get any fun from GW2 if complex mechanics is your thing. Sometimes, there are badly communicated mechanics, but none that are mentally engaging on any level.

[Urud.4925]

@Fipmip.7219 said:I've already answered this partially.

@Fipmip.7219 said:

The point is to improve the solo experience of levelling, choosing traits, skills and making gear choices as you progress through the story. sure I could strip naked and run into the final battle. I could also ignore the story and get max traits and gear before starting it. but both would defeat the purpose of role playing in what is supposed to be an mmorpg.

Fractals raids, expansions and LW are end game content. This post is about the character building and the rpg and replayability experience. If I build a new character one way to get to 80 is to replay the story. This is an experience that can be improved in multiple ways, for instance adding challenge settings, and even some rewards for completing them.

I've played this game for a while and am currently playing through with some friends that I have introduced to the game. As we churn through the content at basically running speed I can feel the pressure of just wanting to get to the end and witness the story, and then get to the interesting challenging stuff like dungeons and expansions. What do you want me to tell them? just remove the gear you've been getting to make it harder? Is this what we have to do to make the game fun?

You can't tell an entire demographic to just 'go make your own fun.' what if the game had no dungeons or raids, would you tell people to just do meta events in nothing but white gear?

Your friends are playing with you, that are already a veteran and know what to do. But try to think about the new players that start to play GW2 alone. I'm sure they won't have such a smooth and easy fights like your friends have. The personal story is quite old, and afaik quite difficult to revamp (and honestly I don't see the need). PoF's story is more challenging (and several players complained for this), HoT has even a CM against the last boss, definitely challenging. They have indeed achievements and rewards, since they can be played again. If ArenaNet decided to nerf the core one, it probably means that someone complained when it was more difficult.

Since you know the game, you could alternate the personal story with some world boss, like Triple Wurm. The whole Central Tyria is newbie-friendly, there's no point in increasing the difficulty on a "almost mandatory" content that takes few hours, when the rest of the maps are easy anyway. It should introduce new players to the lore, give a background for their character, some RP. You play it to read some dialogue, if you like it, not to rush it to the end. If you want some challenge, why don't you try to level up on maps with mobs of higher level? Bring your friends to some fancy spot!

[Gehenna.3625]

A hard mode for story bosses could be something they would implement in future content. Emphasis on "could". I do not see them apply it retroactively for various reasons.

They will likely open up a couple of cans of worms if indeed they do so:1) If HM gives you rewards that are unique to that content, they will get a crapstorm of complaints from casual players.2) If they implement a HM, there will be still be complaints about the difficulty and therefore nothing much will change in that respect. Some will find it not hard enough and others too hard. So then there will be the next request for a Super Hard Mode.

A couple of side comments:1) Personally I think that harder content should be rewarded accordingly. So I do not share the complaint but I do expect it.2) I am not a believer that ArenaNet can actually provide the difficulty people are asking for, also because of the way the combat system works. So, it seems unlikely that they want to do this because it doesn't advance things for them.

In the end there will still be complaints about difficulty regardless of whether they implement HM or not. So why do the effort and get the same result?

[Menadena.7482]

@Fipmip.7219 said:I think there should be a reward at the end for the simple reason that people expect such things. Nothing too crazy, perhaps a title or a unique skin. Something that makes the effort feel all the sweeter once the end is reached. I'd feel fairly cheated if I had no commemorative aspect to completing a long and difficult challenge, especially when the game rewards you for every other such feat.

I would love to see difficulty settings. Maybe for easy it would be just the basic like map access (possibly more depending on what wants story completion). For normal it would be as it is now in both difficulty and rewards. More difficult would get you more rewards. Nothing above easy's rewards would be part of an achieve that was a must (the bandolier or the 5th mount), possibly the most difficult level would include a title.

[Menadena.7482]

@"Gehenna.3625" said:A hard mode for story bosses could be something they would implement in future content. Emphasis on "could". I do not see them apply it retroactively for various reasons.

They will likely open up a couple of cans of worms if indeed they do so:1) If HM gives you rewards that are unique to that content, they will get a crapstorm of complaints from casual players.2) If they implement a HM, there will be still be complaints about the difficulty and therefore nothing much will change in that respect. Some will find it not hard enough and others too hard. So then there will be the next request for a Super Hard Mode.

A couple of side comments:1) Personally I think that harder content should be rewarded accordingly. So I do not share the complaint but I do expect it.2) I am not a believer that ArenaNet can actually provide the difficulty people are asking for, also because of the way the combat system works. So, it seems unlikely that they want to do this because it doesn't advance things for them.

In the end there will still be complaints about difficulty regardless of whether they implement HM or not. So why do the effort and get the same result?

When you complete a chapter or instance you get two basic types of rewards: content specific (start of bandolier in chapter 2, map access always, start of griffon in POF, etc) and salvage stuff. I would put the content specific at the lowest level and no salvage stuff. Higher levels would get more and more salvage stuff (with chances at rares and exotics with skins you can get elsewhere). The top level I would also give a title to.

[Gehenna.3625]

@Menadena.7482 said:

@"Gehenna.3625" said:A hard mode for story bosses could be something they would implement in future content. Emphasis on "could". I do not see them apply it retroactively for various reasons.

They will likely open up a couple of cans of worms if indeed they do so:1) If HM gives you rewards that are unique to that content, they will get a crapstorm of complaints from casual players.2) If they implement a HM, there will be still be complaints about the difficulty and therefore nothing much will change in that respect. Some will find it not hard enough and others too hard. So then there will be the next request for a Super Hard Mode.

A couple of side comments:1) Personally I think that harder content should be rewarded accordingly. So I do not share the complaint but I do expect it.2) I am not a believer that ArenaNet can actually provide the difficulty people are asking for, also because of the way the combat system works. So, it seems unlikely that they want to do this because it doesn't advance things for them.

In the end there will still be complaints about difficulty regardless of whether they implement HM or not. So why do the effort and get the same result?

When you complete a chapter or instance you get two basic types of rewards: content specific (start of bandolier in chapter 2, map access always, start of griffon in POF, etc) and salvage stuff. I would put the content specific at the lowest level and no salvage stuff. Higher levels would get more and more salvage stuff (with chances at rares and exotics with skins you can get elsewhere). The top level I would also give a title to.

Sounds good to me. A title for completing the entire story in HM (per story line) and of course some additional achievements to go with it. That would work for the reward side without too many complaints I'd say.

[Menadena.7482]

@Gehenna.3625 said:

@Menadena.7482 said:

@Gehenna.3625 said:A hard mode for story bosses could be something they would implement in future content. Emphasis on "could". I do not see them apply it retroactively for various reasons.

They will likely open up a couple of cans of worms if indeed they do so:1) If HM gives you rewards that are unique to that content, they will get a crapstorm of complaints from casual players.2) If they implement a HM, there will be still be complaints about the difficulty and therefore nothing much will change in that respect. Some will find it not hard enough and others too hard. So then there will be the next request for a Super Hard Mode.

A couple of side comments:1) Personally I think that harder content should be rewarded accordingly. So I do not share the complaint but I do expect it.2) I am not a believer that ArenaNet can actually provide the difficulty people are asking for, also because of the way the combat system works. So, it seems unlikely that they want to do this because it doesn't advance things for them.

In the end there will still be complaints about difficulty regardless of whether they implement HM or not. So why do the effort and get the same result?

When you complete a chapter or instance you get two basic types of rewards: content specific (start of bandolier in chapter 2, map access always, start of griffon in POF, etc) and salvage stuff. I would put the content specific at the lowest level and no salvage stuff. Higher levels would get more and more salvage stuff (with chances at rares and exotics with skins you can get elsewhere). The top level I would also give a title to.

Sounds good to me. A title for completing the entire story in HM (per story line) and of course some additional achievements to go with it. That would work for the reward side without too many complaints I'd say.

Yes. Hard mode players want bragging rights. Easy mode players just want the content specific stuff. Everyone is happy and can choose what level of difficulty is appropriate.

[Briareos.1865]

@Menadena.7482 said:

@Gehenna.3625 said:

@Menadena.7482 said:

@Gehenna.3625 said:A hard mode for story bosses could be something they would implement in future content. Emphasis on "could". I do not see them apply it retroactively for various reasons.

They will likely open up a couple of cans of worms if indeed they do so:1) If HM gives you rewards that are unique to that content, they will get a crapstorm of complaints from casual players.2) If they implement a HM, there will be still be complaints about the difficulty and therefore nothing much will change in that respect. Some will find it not hard enough and others too hard. So then there will be the next request for a Super Hard Mode.

A couple of side comments:1) Personally I think that harder content should be rewarded accordingly. So I do not share the complaint but I do expect it.2) I am not a believer that ArenaNet can actually provide the difficulty people are asking for, also because of the way the combat system works. So, it seems unlikely that they want to do this because it doesn't advance things for them.

In the end there will still be complaints about difficulty regardless of whether they implement HM or not. So why do the effort and get the same result?

When you complete a chapter or instance you get two basic types of rewards: content specific (start of bandolier in chapter 2, map access always, start of griffon in POF, etc) and salvage stuff. I would put the content specific at the lowest level and no salvage stuff. Higher levels would get more and more salvage stuff (with chances at rares and exotics with skins you can get elsewhere). The top level I would also give a title to.

Sounds good to me. A title for completing the entire story in HM (per story line) and of course some additional achievements to go with it. That would work for the reward side without too many complaints I'd say.

Yes. Hard mode players want bragging rights. Easy mode players just want the content specific stuff. Everyone is happy and can choose what level of difficulty is appropriate.

Like those achievements? I forgot which story was it but its got something to do with a centaur being the last boss and I think u must not get hit by some abilities. Doing the achievement kind of increases the difficulty and gives u bragging rights.I'd rather have them spend more on map designs though. Want more maps like HoT. A few pof maps I find kind of boring.

[Pifil.5193]

I'd be OK with a hard mode being added to the Story instances so long as it was single player only. Go crazy, beef up the mobs, turn the bosses into one hit KO machines and do a hard reset to one of a sparse set of checkpoints whenever you get defeated, respawning all the enemies you've defeated.

It has to be single player otherwise it's not hard, one can get carried by a group, and people will be selling runs within a few days.

[Urud.4925]

@Pifil.5193 said:I'd be OK with a hard mode being added to the Story instances so long as it was single player only. Go crazy, beef up the mobs, turn the bosses into one hit KO machines and do a hard reset to one of a sparse set of checkpoints whenever you get defeated, respawning all the enemies you've defeated.

It has to be single player otherwise it's not hard, one can get carried by a group, and people will be selling runs within a few days.

Basically you want story instances like a crown pavilion or a HoT adventure. Wouldn't be just easier to introduce new solo contents, kind of fractal for 1 player, and leaving the story as it is? So the people who just want to enjoy the story wouldn't be worried about choosing the difficulty/feeling compelled to re-play it to get all the achievements, and the ones looking for challenges and titles to show off could just kill mobs without being forced to read all the dialogues.It seems easier to me, rather than risking to destroy parts that already work just fine.

EDIT: @"Briareos.1865" I think you refer to "Dodgy Crowd", against the mighty Togonn (who had all the rights of the world to hate us), in LW2. That achievement was hard indeed (mainly because my PC is crappy and I couldn't see well the sandpit). (and gratz for the name, it brought back to my mind some nice memories)

[Pifil.5193]

@Urud.4925 said:

@Pifil.5193 said:I'd be OK with a hard mode being added to the Story instances so long as it was single player only. Go crazy, beef up the mobs, turn the bosses into one hit KO machines and do a hard reset to one of a sparse set of checkpoints whenever you get defeated, respawning all the enemies you've defeated.

It has to be single player otherwise it's not hard, one can get carried by a group, and people will be selling runs within a few days.

Basically you want story instances like a crown pavilion or a HoT adventure. Wouldn't be just easier to introduce new solo contents, kind of fractal for 1 player, and leaving the story as it is? So the people who just want to enjoy the story wouldn't be worried about choosing the difficulty/feeling compelled to re-play it to get all the achievements, and the ones looking for challenges and titles to show off could just kill mobs without being forced to read all the dialogues.It seems easier to me, rather than risking to destroy parts that already work just fine.

EDIT: @"Briareos.1865" I think you refer to "Dodgy Crowd", against the mighty Togonn (who had all the rights of the world to hate us), in LW2. That achievement was hard indeed (mainly because my PC is crappy and I couldn't see well the sandpit). (and gratz for the name, it brought back to my mind some nice memories)

Actually I don't particularly want this, but if they were add a hard mode to appeal to those who do want it. Then I think it should be single player for the reasons I give. It shouldn't have any particular achievements, and certainly shouldn't be part of the current story journal achievements or be required for a Living World Episode meta achievement.

They certainly shouldn't add it to existing content and certainly not to the personal story which can't be replayed anyway.

[Linken.6345]

@Urud.4925 said:

@Fipmip.7219 said:I've already answered this partially.

@Fipmip.7219 said:

The point is to improve the solo experience of levelling, choosing traits, skills and making gear choices as you progress through the story. sure I could strip naked and run into the final battle. I could also ignore the story and get max traits and gear before starting it. but both would defeat the purpose of role playing in what is supposed to be an mmorpg.

Fractals raids, expansions and LW are end game content. This post is about the character building and the rpg and replayability experience. If I build a new character one way to get to 80 is to replay the story. This is an experience that can be improved in multiple ways, for instance adding challenge settings, and even some rewards for completing them.

I've played this game for a while and am currently playing through with some friends that I have introduced to the game. As we churn through the content at basically running speed I can feel the pressure of just wanting to get to the end and witness the story, and then get to the interesting challenging stuff like dungeons and expansions. What do you want me to tell them? just remove the gear you've been getting to make it harder? Is this what we have to do to make the game fun?

You can't tell an entire demographic to just 'go make your own fun.' what if the game had no dungeons or raids, would you tell people to just do meta events in nothing but white gear?

Your friends are playing with you, that are already a veteran and know what to do. But try to think about the new players that start to play GW2 alone. I'm sure they won't have such a smooth and easy fights like your friends have. The personal story is quite old, and afaik quite difficult to revamp (and honestly I don't see the need). PoF's story is more challenging (and several players complained for this), HoT has even a CM against the last boss, definitely challenging. They have indeed achievements and rewards, since they can be played again. If ArenaNet decided to nerf the core one, it probably means that someone complained when it was more difficult.

Since you know the game, you could alternate the personal story with some world boss, like Triple Wurm. The whole Central Tyria is newbie-friendly, there's no point in increasing the difficulty on a "almost mandatory" content that takes few hours, when the rest of the maps are easy anyway. It should introduce new players to the lore, give a background for their character, some RP. You play it to read some dialogue, if you like it, not to rush it to the end. If you want some challenge, why don't you try to level up on maps with mobs of higher level? Bring your friends to some fancy spot!

Or s/he could let the friends set the pace and just follow along seeing the sights, instead of running ahead clearing like it sounds from the post.

[Pifil.5193]

@Linken.6345 said:

@Urud.4925 said:

@Fipmip.7219 said:I've already answered this partially.

@Fipmip.7219 said:

The point is to improve the solo experience of levelling, choosing traits, skills and making gear choices as you progress through the story. sure I could strip naked and run into the final battle. I could also ignore the story and get max traits and gear before starting it. but both would defeat the purpose of role playing in what is supposed to be an mmorpg.

Fractals raids, expansions and LW are end game content. This post is about the character building and the rpg and replayability experience. If I build a new character one way to get to 80 is to replay the story. This is an experience that can be improved in multiple ways, for instance adding challenge settings, and even some rewards for completing them.

I've played this game for a while and am currently playing through with some friends that I have introduced to the game. As we churn through the content at basically running speed I can feel the pressure of just wanting to get to the end and witness the story, and then get to the interesting challenging stuff like dungeons and expansions. What do you want me to tell them? just remove the gear you've been getting to make it harder? Is this what we have to do to make the game fun?

You can't tell an entire demographic to just 'go make your own fun.' what if the game had no dungeons or raids, would you tell people to just do meta events in nothing but white gear?

Your friends are playing with you, that are already a veteran and know what to do. But try to think about the new players that start to play GW2 alone. I'm sure they won't have such a smooth and easy fights like your friends have. The personal story is quite old, and afaik quite difficult to revamp (and honestly I don't see the need). PoF's story is more challenging (and several players complained for this), HoT has even a CM against the last boss, definitely challenging. They have indeed achievements and rewards, since they can be played again. If ArenaNet decided to nerf the core one, it probably means that someone complained when it was more difficult.

Since you know the game, you could alternate the personal story with some world boss, like Triple Wurm. The whole Central Tyria is newbie-friendly, there's no point in increasing the difficulty on a "almost mandatory" content that takes few hours, when the rest of the maps are easy anyway. It should introduce new players to the lore, give a background for their character, some RP. You play it to read some dialogue, if you like it, not to rush it to the end. If you want some challenge, why don't you try to level up on maps with mobs of higher level? Bring your friends to some fancy spot!

Or s/he could let the friends set the pace and just follow along seeing the sights, instead of running ahead clearing like it sounds from the post.

Yep, I find it irritating whenever I'm playing with someone who is rushing ahead because they already know the content.

It's part of the reason I don't enjoy PUG instanced content in this (or any other) game, you so often encounter the people who are more eager to finish the content than to play it (the guys who are always asking "why we waiting?")

[Fipmip.7219]

Just to be clear, I'm asking for hard mode to be unlocked after completing the story once, and then being available on subsequent characters. Medium can also exist for newbies currently finding the story missions too easy.

The goal is to improve the leveling experience, with traits, abilities and gear choices meaning more, as well as you know, just being fun for people that like it hard. Again, this could be cheesed by people that just ignore story until they're maxed out, but the idea is that since the reward is nothing crazy, people should be allowed to do that if they want to just ignore the challenge.

Statements like maps are easy, just handicap yourself, do world bosses, stop running ahead (I don't), just do fractals/expansions/end game related stuff, are not really addressing what I'm proposing.

[Westenev.5289]

Idk, the purpose of story (imo) is to make the player feel like a badass, no matter how poorly they are playing. Because, realistically, story is probably the "tutorial" most new players are going to follow, and they will be too busy spamming their cool new skills to care that enemies are dying in droves without any resistance.

Onto the main topic though, I'm not sure a "hard" mode would be possible without a complete redesign of the Personal Story. Many of the encounters wouldn't really be that challenging even if you simply upped the npc's damage or turned them into health sponges - which is, from my perspective, lazy game design.

[Gehenna.3625]

@"Westenev.5289" said:Idk, the purpose of story (imo) is to make the player feel like a kitten, no matter how poorly they are playing. Because, realistically, story is probably the "tutorial" most new players are going to follow, and they will be too busy spamming their cool new skills to care that enemies are dying in droves without any resistance.

Onto the main topic though, I'm not sure a "hard" mode would be possible without a complete redesign of the Personal Story. Many of the encounters wouldn't really be that challenging even if you simply upped the npc's damage or turned them into health sponges - which is, from my perspective, lazy game design.

I certainly don't expect it to be applied retroactively, but it could be an option for new boss fights like the next expansion for example, maybe even LS5.

[Robj.6815]

You can self-impose a "hard mode" on yourself without a lot of backend work on Anet's end.

Idea: Complete the story through Orr in nothing but the gear you start with (no upgrades, no weapon swapping, etc.). WoW had the Ironman Challenge (I failed). Why not do something similar?

[Astralporing.1957]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@YoukiNeko.6047 said:If you can't figure for yourself how to make the content more challenging, then you are bound to get bored pretty fast.

Or expect the developers to release ever more challenging content, without the player actually needing to do anything.

Or you could learn to adapt to the content and start to like it the way it is.(that's how that argument against easy mode raids went, i think).

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Some time ago, the Devs changed access to the Core Personal Story because, according to their metrics, players had difficulties with the Core PS. I don't think the Devs will put it back the way it was (allowing one to play encounters far above one's current level), much less change it to include a 'Hard Mode'. Not to mention, last time the Devs changed anything with the PS, it did not turn out will, and caused many bugs in the Personal Story, some which still affect some players today.

[Opopanax.1803]

I would personally love a new hardmode server. All mobs buffed to veteran status and hitting harder. Something that makes you want to group up more.

[starlinvf.1358]

@"Robj.6815" said:You can self-impose a "hard mode" on yourself without a lot of backend work on Anet's end.

Idea: Complete the story through Orr in nothing but the gear you start with (no upgrades, no weapon swapping, etc.). WoW had the Ironman Challenge (I failed). Why not do something similar?

Wasn't there someone doing Warrior Dodge roll only challenge for personal story?

[Robj.6815]

@starlinvf.1358 said:

@"Robj.6815" said:You can self-impose a "hard mode" on yourself without a lot of backend work on Anet's end.

Idea: Complete the story through Orr in nothing but the gear you start with (no upgrades, no weapon swapping, etc.). WoW had the Ironman Challenge (I failed). Why not do something similar?

Wasn't there someone doing Warrior Dodge roll only challenge for personal story?

No idea

[Hybarf Tics.2048]

Use an outfit without armor. :o

[TheBravery.9615]

I want a hard pve mode too

Currently all mobs just run up to you, stare at you, swing their weapon, stare some more and die.

No special AI, condi, boons, CC, etc. It's boring and what puts PVE off for me.