Guild Wars 2 should have harder content.

[Teratus.2859]

@zealex.9410 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@aspirine.6852 said:They used to have Elite areas in GW1, so why not in GW2.

Open world vs instanced maps..

It would be impossible to make a hard mode similar to Gw1.

It might be possible to make Elite Dungeons similar to Gw1 though.. but I expect many would state that raids are more or less the Gw2 variant of those.Personally prefer Gw1's Elite Dungeons to them though.Raids are more DPS vs a clock sorta thing where as Elite Dungeons were a hardcore endurance test.

I think they could do Elite map raids in Gw2 though if they wanted to.Wouldn't be easy to make and balance but I really like the idea of Elite maps full of strong enemies and raid like bosses, designed for 50 man squads.Would certainly make for some interesting Guild content, not to mention serious squad building consideration.You could have tank roles, healing roles, boon spam roles, DPS roles, support roles, ranged roles, condi roles.A squad actually working as an effective unit rather than a random zerg of people rushing through everything like we always see in PvE.

Story missions are instanced, hard mode for those would work as well as it did for the first game.

That is true although the personal story isn't currently replayable.There are some challenge motes in certain story instances though so it kind of already exists in a very limited way.

[Obtena.7952]

@"bOTEB.1573" said:

@Obtena.7952 said:And the majority of the community like it that way.

How do you know? Just curious.

If they didn't the game would have shut down years ago. People don't play games they don't like.

[Evil.1580]

@Obtena.7952 said:

@"bOTEB.1573" said:

@Obtena.7952 said:And the majority of the community like it that way.

How do you know? Just curious.

If they didn't the game would have shut down years ago. People don't play games they don't like.

So, a speculation. No post/video/etc from ANET, no reference at all.

[alcopaul.2156]

just go talk to the cabal of TP manipulators and raise the level 1 mats to 10 gold a piece. there is your harder content.

[Obtena.7952]

@"bOTEB.1573" said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@"bOTEB.1573" said:

@Obtena.7952 said:And the majority of the community like it that way.

How do you know? Just curious.

If they didn't the game would have shut down years ago. People don't play games they don't like.

So, a speculation. No post/video/etc from ANET, no reference at all.

Um ... sure, the fact that the game persists servicing a specific market for 7 years ... is speculation. People hate the game and it's content ... but keep throwing money at it to allow Anet to continue developing the game is just because ... you got this ALL figured out don't you. :+1:

[Magnus Godrik.5841]

Yes it should absolutely have a hard difficulty like in the original. I dont know how hard it would be to implement another instance but in hardmode with the difficulty jumping another 10%. And have loot table upped 10% as well in these instance so you still have a slightly better chance at getting these uber rare items like the chak egg sac.

[Astralporing.1957]

@"bOTEB.1573" said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:True. But i seriously doubt Anet made the change based on the forum blowback (because they sure as kitten have ignored even greater blowbacks in other matters). They did it after observing their

ingame

metrics. It was those that told them HoT was too hard for the community, not the forums.

I hope so, but don't forget that ANET listens to the forums - look at the most recent blow-back about the SKyscale. They did change it based on a forum blow-back.If that blowback wasn't reflected ingame in any way, you can bet it would have been ignored too. For them to make changes that way, the reaction had to be really major, and definitely not one limited to the forums (they tend to ignore forums for the most part).

[Obtena.7952]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"bOTEB.1573" said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:True. But i seriously doubt Anet made the change based on the forum blowback (because they sure as kitten have ignored even greater blowbacks in other matters). They did it after observing their

ingame

metrics. It was those that told them HoT was too hard for the community, not the forums.

I hope so, but don't forget that ANET listens to the forums - look at the most recent blow-back about the SKyscale. They did change it based on a forum blow-back.If that blowback wasn't reflected ingame in any way, you can bet it would have been ignored too. For them to make changes that way, the reaction had to be really major, and definitely not one limited to the forums (they tend to ignore forums for the most part).

I think it's also important to note that the major complaint about Skyscale was the timegating. Anet didn't remove that timegating. People think Anet act directly on the complaints on the forums? Anet listens to the complaints for sure, but they have reasons they do things and they kept the timegates anyways. People need to have a healthy respect for the fact that Anet will solve problems and implement the game as they see fit, not how players decide it should be changed.

[Trise.2865]

@Ashen.2907 said:

@Ashen.2907 said:

I think a better analogy would be something like eating the chocolate sundae you ordered and noticing that the kitten cream and cherry on top were missing and asking for them to be added.

Seriously, censoring dessert topping?

Hi. I know you've been here a long time, so I'll spare you the new player spiel, but did you know the forums have an "Edit Post" feature? It's there specifically so you don't have to quote yourself to add or change the original thought. There's a little gear icon on the right hand side of the tag line, next to the time stamp, that contains the feature.

Hope this helps!

[Josiah.2967]

I am completely against this. Me and a few friends started playing recently. As new players HOT's in it's current form and POT without help for events made things much harder than they originally were to complete. My fiance almost wanted to quit in HOTS.

This idea would remove new players and casual players from the game. The open world is hard enough as it is. If you want a challenge, downgrade you gear. Your legendary/ascended gear is your problem. You can lower gear. They can't up gear.

I would rather keep the casuals and the game healthy then cater towards the hardcore community. Especially if they ever want to attract new players.

[Turkeyspit.3965]

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"bOTEB.1573" said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:True. But i seriously doubt Anet made the change based on the forum blowback (because they sure as kitten have ignored even greater blowbacks in other matters). They did it after observing their

ingame

metrics. It was those that told them HoT was too hard for the community, not the forums.

I hope so, but don't forget that ANET listens to the forums - look at the most recent blow-back about the SKyscale. They did change it based on a forum blow-back.If that blowback wasn't reflected ingame in any way, you can bet it would have been ignored too. For them to make changes that way, the reaction had to be really major, and definitely not one limited to the forums (they tend to ignore forums for the most part).

I think it's also important to note that the major complaint about Skyscale was the timegating. Anet didn't remove that timegating. People think Anet act directly on the complaints on the forums? Anet listens to the complaints for sure, but they have reasons they do things and they kept the timegates anyways. People need to have a healthy respect for the fact that Anet will solve problems and implement the game as they see fit, not how players decide it should be changed.

The problem with ANET isn't that they don't listen to feedback, or listen to the wrong feedback - it's that too often they don't get feedback from the community BEFORE going live with some additions.

For example, had they announced during the live stream that there would be a 24hr time gate between collections, the community reaction would have been identical, only now ANET would have had the chance to alter the gating to 2hrs before implementing the collection.

This is why things like a test realm are so helpful. Sure it doesn't fix all problems, nor will a developer implement changes just because the player's dislike something (welcome to MMOs).

But clearly whatever internal testing or discussion that occurs during the creation of these assets, it is either insufficient or dreadfully myopic with regards to what the general player base wants.

We've seen that recently with the Warclaw. ANET made many changes very swiftly after launching it, to their credit, but many of these issues were brought to their attention on the 1st day of launch, meaning the players saw issues that the dev's didn't. Today there are some who maintain it was nerfed too much, some not enough, others want it deleted - proof you can't make everyone happy every time in an MMO. But so many of those changes could have been implemented before the mount went live had they been proactive.

[Safandula.8723]

U have raids that are already considered as hard, and fractals. And fractals are rly good cuz u can do them from t1 to t4+ 100 and 99 cm which imo are best content of this game.Now how do u want to make metas harder if they will be failing over and over in off hours, and u will be able to do them only when any guild will lead them.If u want challenging content do raids and fractal cms, and let casuals get their shines. If ur here for just a challenging content u shouldn't mind that casuals have more shiny weapons etc.

[Obtena.7952]

@Turkeyspit.3965 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"bOTEB.1573" said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:True. But i seriously doubt Anet made the change based on the forum blowback (because they sure as kitten have ignored even greater blowbacks in other matters). They did it after observing their

ingame

metrics. It was those that told them HoT was too hard for the community, not the forums.

I hope so, but don't forget that ANET listens to the forums - look at the most recent blow-back about the SKyscale. They did change it based on a forum blow-back.If that blowback wasn't reflected ingame in any way, you can bet it would have been ignored too. For them to make changes that way, the reaction had to be really major, and definitely not one limited to the forums (they tend to ignore forums for the most part).

I think it's also important to note that the major complaint about Skyscale was the timegating. Anet didn't remove that timegating. People think Anet act directly on the complaints on the forums? Anet listens to the complaints for sure, but they have reasons they do things and they kept the timegates anyways. People need to have a healthy respect for the fact that Anet will solve problems and implement the game as they see fit, not how players decide it should be changed.

The problem with ANET isn't that they don't listen to feedback, or listen to the wrong feedback - it's that too often they don't get feedback from the community BEFORE going live with some additions.

For example, had they announced during the live stream that there would be a 24hr time gate between collections, the community reaction would have been identical, only now ANET would have had the chance to alter the gating to 2hrs before implementing the collection.

This is why things like a test realm are so helpful. Sure it doesn't fix all problems, nor will a developer implement changes just because the player's dislike something (welcome to MMOs).

But clearly whatever internal testing or discussion that occurs during the creation of these assets, it is either insufficient or dreadfully myopic with regards to what the general player base wants.

We've seen that recently with the Warclaw. ANET made many changes very swiftly after launching it, to their credit, but many of these issues were brought to their attention on the 1st day of launch, meaning the players saw issues that the dev's didn't. Today there are some who maintain it was nerfed too much, some not enough, others want it deleted - proof you can't make everyone happy every time in an MMO. But so many of those changes could have been implemented before the mount went live had they been proactive.

Right ... but what is their process for testing things? Nothing is a better testing ground than how it actually works. It's not about being proactive because IIRC, there isn't a test server with a full population to ensure the numbers are right. We have to recognize that WE are the test server.

[Turkeyspit.3965]

@Obtena.7952 said:

Right ... but what is their process for testing things? Nothing is a better testing ground than how it actually works. It's not about being proactive because IIRC, there isn't a test server with a full population to ensure the numbers are right. We have to recognize that WE are the test server.

There has to be a middle ground somewhere. I'm cognisant that ANET isn't Blizzard and doesn't have the same resources, and even with their PTR realm, very often a patch goes live with bugs and features that are obviously flawed.

But I'll refer to the example I gave already: It didn't take long for ANET to announce they were changing the time gating from 24hrs to 2hrs. They also quickly addressed the issue that XP was locked behind mastery points we couldn't get until after completing a lengthy and timegated collection. The community raised these issues within 24 hrs of the patch going live, and ANET obviously agreed with the objections.

So why didn't the devs think of that in the first place? I don't believe we as the player base are like the Skritt, and therefore have a collective intelligence that magnifies with our population.

And again, had they discussed the time gating as part of the sneak preview, do you not think the community reaction would have been identical? ANET could then have changed the time gate before releasing the patch, saving the players a good deal of frustration.

It seems like the devs think they are doing us a favor by keeping everything a secret and springing new content and features on us, but lately it seems that philosophy is doing more harm than good, as once these features go live, the players discover flaws that ANET then scrambles to fix - and I'm not talking specifically about bugs, but about design choices. In the meantime players can lose out on time and resources, and it fosters negative feelings - all of which is bad for business.

I don't have a solution, but I'm not going to pretend like I don't see a problem, and one that seems to manifest more and more of late.

[DeWolfe.2174]

If you want harder content, then you should be asking for solo'able content too.

[zealex.9410]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"bOTEB.1573" said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:True. But i seriously doubt Anet made the change based on the forum blowback (because they sure as kitten have ignored even greater blowbacks in other matters). They did it after observing their

ingame

metrics. It was those that told them HoT was too hard for the community, not the forums.

I hope so, but don't forget that ANET listens to the forums - look at the most recent blow-back about the SKyscale. They did change it based on a forum blow-back.If that blowback wasn't reflected ingame in any way, you can bet it would have been ignored too. For them to make changes that way, the reaction had to be really major, and definitely not one limited to the forums (they tend to ignore forums for the most part).

It was largely the social media side of things. For them, their metric ingame most likely showed higher engagement with the game than the other releases, which is what they want.

[Thorstienn.1642]

I've seen similar arguments in many games. It comes down to 2 problems.First, it's always a small % that wants the hardcore content, due to the overall games design and target audience, this (unfortunately) means that at the end of the day, if you want hardcore content you have to play a hard ore game: similar concept to PvP player issues.Secondly, the players that want harder content invariably want better rewards for completing said content. This then means the other 95% of players WANT those rewards; "but it's too hard" "devs nerf this content" etc. Then what?

[Turkeyspit.3965]

@"Thorstienn.1642" said:I've seen similar arguments in many games. It comes down to 2 problems.First, it's always a small % that wants the hardcore content, due to the overall games design and target audience, this (unfortunately) means that at the end of the day, if you want hardcore content you have to play a hard ore game: similar concept to PvP player issues.Secondly, the players that want harder content invariably want better rewards for completing said content. This then means the other 95% of players WANT those rewards; "but it's too hard" "devs nerf this content" etc. Then what?

Honestly it's a tired trope of an argument. EQ was a hardcore MMO, but it got destroyed, kicked out of the market it created by World of Warcraft, a game marketed as "less hardcore" than EQ and more accessible (despite 40 person raids with terrible system performance and pigeonhole classes).

WoW then began to expand by making the game MORE accessible, and less hardcore.The Burning Crusade was no walk in the park, but it dropped raid sizes down to 25 (and 10 for two smaller raid instances).Wrath of the Lich King, where WoW hit its PEAK population, reduced the hardcore element even further, and offered 10 person raids as options.Cataclysm, in response to complaints from the "hardcore" that the game was too easy, made dungeons massively more difficult than Wrath (on par with Burning Crusade) and it was an utter kittenshow. The developers had to massively nerf what they had "buffed" because players were dropping like flies.

Since then they have added in Mythic mode for the "hardcore", but also created LFR mode to enable anyone to participate in raiding content, something that used to be only for the elite and hardcore.

My point is, the hardcore have always been a vocal minority, but the vast majority of MMO players have different interests. Developers will continue to create content aimed at those hardcore players, but they know that population growth will be from the casual market and everyone in between.

Creating hardcore content doesn't pay off - otherwise EverQuest would still be a thing.

[Dadnir.5038]

If they do introduce harder content, 2 possibilities:

• There won't be reward worth the assle and players won't bother doing it even the OP.
• Rewards will be worth it and players will both abuse it and ask for the content to be nerfed (which is already what happened with raids).

There won't be a middle point for this kind of things and what would happen to this "content" already happen to the current content. A lot of content isn't done because it's not "worth it" and a lot of content receive plea for nerf because players want the reward without the difficulty.

[Blockhead Magee.3092]

@serialkicker.5274 said:

@Blockhead Magee.3092 said:Take off your armor and go take SMC from Blackgate single handed.

I don't know why people think Anet needs to make harder content when you can do it for yourself.

That's the most common and stupidest idea to make content hard that I heard.

So, figuring out something for yourself to make the game more challenging is beyond your abilities?

[Dragon.8762]

I agree with the op to an extent.

However; leave open world pve as is. That content isn't supposed to be overly hard. Like my ex tried playing gw2 open world and found everything way too difficult which turned her off of the game. If Gw2 wants to keep promoting a causal friendly game (even though, personally I've never heard them say this) Their current balance is good.

Now, when it comes to instanced content, thats where I would like to see harder content. I'd love to see more challenge motes be implemented into the game in the form of Raids and Fractals. These should be optional but a bit more rewarding for the players that want to do them.

Gw2 has an excellent combat system, however it isn't fully utilized all the time, due to the content not being challenging enough to warrant it all the time. To make a long story short: I say yes to optional harder content for instanced content only.

[Deihnyx.6318]

@"Astralporing.1957" said:No, these changes are made because people vote with their feet. The hardcore content was simply not popular enough for Anet to continue to invest in it at the cost of ther more casual part of community.Here's the problem with a more casual audience: They're not loyal veterans of a franchise, veterans that contributes greatly in supporting the game long term. It's not a "bad" thing per say, but they need to keep their expectations in check.I don't agree that hardcore content wasn't popular. One of the main complains when the game came out was the lack of challenging end content. Its implementation was just pretty underwhelming at the beginning of the game (dungeon are more or less all stack and dps, typically). The aetherblade path was greatly appreciated however. Fractals are kind of that, but it doesn't get nearly as much attention as it should.

[Psycoprophet.8107]

@Cronospere.8143 said:

@"ChronosCosmos.9450" said:We already have plenty of ways to casually play the game with barely any effort. Is there not a way where you guys can make some parts of the game more difficult? I understand that your main audience is not hardcore, but please leave some hardcore content for your hardcore fans that have been with you for a while. That is all that we ask for. Legendaries are nice...but we prefer harder content. I would trade my existing Legendaries for difficult content.

And yet when a new mount comes out 90% complains "its too difficult"....If they bring harder content. Do it like raids: a seperate part of the game which isnt linked to the main story or main game. And be clear from the beginning its difficult, hard and prestige content

I think their complaints aren't the difficulty of the content but the amount of grinding and time it takes to get mount. I think the content being easy actually makes this issue worse because for alot of people easy is boring.

[serialkicker.5274]

@Blockhead Magee.3092 said:

@serialkicker.5274 said:

@Blockhead Magee.3092 said:Take off your armor and go take SMC from Blackgate single handed.

I don't know why people think Anet needs to make harder content when you can do it for yourself.

That's the most common and stupidest idea to make content hard that I heard.

So, figuring out something for yourself to make the game more challenging is beyond your abilities?

Taking off your armor and weapons that you worked hard for to acquire and feel like your character has evolved and progressed, is just silly. What kind of rpg and progression would that be? People want to feel progression of their characters, fighting tough baddies and beating them with skill/experience/gear they acquired to get to that point. No one wants to beat supposedly badass bosses and other enemies in underwear, just because AI is stupid enough for that to be doable. With your logic, every game could be piece of cake. "Just play with one hand or blindfolded if you want challenge, dude." Right? What kind of argument is that? And what kind of shitty game is that? Tell that to everyone who wanted raids in any game. "Just go naked into dungeon dude. They will raid your ass in no time!"

There is nothing wrong for people to wish and ask for harder content, just like there is nothing wrong for people to ask for easier content or anything else they wish to see in game. Arenanet will decide what they think is best for their game.

[Obtena.7952]

@Turkeyspit.3965 said:

@Obtena.7952 said:

Right ... but what is their process for testing things? Nothing is a better testing ground than how it actually works. It's not about being proactive because IIRC, there isn't a test server with a full population to ensure the numbers are right. We have to recognize that WE are the test server.

There has to be a middle ground somewhere. I'm cognisant that ANET isn't Blizzard and doesn't have the same resources, and even with their PTR realm, very often a patch goes live with bugs and features that are obviously flawed.

But I'll refer to the example I gave already: It didn't take long for ANET to announce they were changing the time gating from 24hrs to 2hrs. They also quickly addressed the issue that XP was locked behind mastery points we couldn't get until after completing a lengthy and timegated collection. The community raised these issues within 24 hrs of the patch going live, and ANET obviously agreed with the objections.

So why didn't the devs think of that in the first place? I don't believe we as the player base are like the Skritt, and therefore have a collective intelligence that magnifies with our population.

And again, had they discussed the time gating as part of the sneak preview, do you not think the community reaction would have been identical? ANET could then have changed the time gate before releasing the patch, saving the players a good deal of frustration.

It seems like the devs think they are doing us a favor by keeping everything a secret and springing new content and features on us, but lately it seems that philosophy is doing more harm than good, as once these features go live, the players discover flaws that ANET then scrambles to fix - and I'm not talking specifically about bugs, but about design choices. In the meantime players can lose out on time and resources, and it fosters negative feelings - all of which is bad for business.

I don't have a solution, but I'm not going to pretend like I don't see a problem, and one that seems to manifest more and more of late.

I think this is where Anet has missed a step ... they forgot there was a content difficulty between 'scrub' and 'hard'. Nothing a casual player experiences prepares them for Fractals, Raids, Dungeons, etc... How they continue to fail to bridge that disconnect ... amazing.