Simple Improvements to DRMs

[Luthan.5236]

22 minutes ago, Ayrilana.1396 said:

 

Each DRM is about 10-15 minutes long and have a piece of the story included with them.  You only need to repeat them for achievements and if you're an AP farmer, there are far more grinder achievements in the game.

For me it took a bit longer - at least when I tried it the first time. (Also listened to the dialogue but played it without challenges.) I think the 10-15 minutes is maybe for a pro player (not the average player) without the challengs. With challanges and for an average player it would take a lot longer.

22 minutes ago, Ayrilana.1396 said:

 

For the emote... sure.  Not for the infusion.

For both of the meta achievements. No reason to not have a reward track for the other one as well. (Mainly for it to unlock the option for that back item where you need the infusion box I think.) Would be on the same level with most other meta achievements that have a reward track for the item you get there.

22 minutes ago, Ayrilana.1396 said:

 

 

There really isn't that much group content in the game and the DRMs are perfectly soloable.  In fact, for capable players who do decent DPS, it's actually quicker to do it solo.  The challenges do scale like the normal DRMs and can be done solo.

There seems to be a lot of other group content. Map meta events. PvP, WvW. Strikes, Raids, dungeons, fractals.

22 minutes ago, Ayrilana.1396 said:

 

Dragonstorm meta gives a bunch of seals once per day.  Doing the DRMs give seals and you can get significantly more if you do them with the challenge motes on and have the boons.  The current cost of 10 seals for selecting the allied faction is reasonable.

It is high if you only solo play them without without challanges. (To prevent them from taking too long - when challenges need a group to do them faster.) Should have added a node that gives defense seals. (Instead of only the one for the prismaticite thing that is not needed that much - as long as you do not want to craft skins.)

22 minutes ago, Ayrilana.1396 said:

 

You don't have to be in the top 1% to solo DRMs quickly.  Average players should be able to do most of them in 15 minutes maybe 20 minutes at most.  You earning less seals is because you're paying for the convenience of selecting the allied faction.  If you want to earn more seals then activate more challenge motes and/or don't choose the allied faction.  Players can choose the timer challenge mote as it's largely irrelevant if it's the only once selected.

I was talking about the challenges. 15-20 minutes seems fine - without challenge. I might be able to do them in that time. When ignoring the dialogue that I read at the first time when doing them for story it took me about 15-30 minutes. The destroyer ones I think were more around 25 mins and the Jormag/Icebrood ones seemed faster around 20 mins or so. With challenge mote though it migh take longe rsince the boss is tankier. (And bosses are already tanky without challenge.) And I would not say that I'm worse than average. (Still far away from the top raid players though. But for open world/story and solo content maybe in the top 33 percent lol.)

 

I think it heavily depends on the allied faction (where chosing it reduces the amont of seals you earn cause you have to pay). Some really make it a lot easier - I remember the exalted there the thing does a ton of damage and helps a lot to speed things up. Maybe there should have been a diffetent cost based on the usefulness of the allied faction and based on the amount of players playing in the DRM. (If one player solo plays it only cost 5. Then costing more if more players play - since they could share the cost - if it was implemented that everyone had to pay.) But that only for the useful factions lol. Skritt and stuff ... not even worth 1 ... you just get them for the achievement. 😄

22 minutes ago, Ayrilana.1396 said:

 

So you've only done the DRMs once without the challenges with the exception of the Metrica one which you tried to solo with 2/3 challenges?  If that's true then how could you say whether the others are easier or not based on the timer as the timer isn't shown unless the challenge for it is activated?

As mentioned above: Solo play without challenge for the story + reading the dialogue at the beginning (losing a bit time on the pre event which might have saved me some time in those DRMs where it is possible to quickly solo the pre - in some it seems possible ... then saving some time if the pre event tim also counts to the timer for the challenge have not checked this).

 

I know the challenge timers from the wiki. And I know how long it took me without challenges (but reading dialogue). The other stuff was an estimation - when I knew that the boss is already tanky without challenge. And got a lot tankier with challenge.

 

30+ minutes with boss + mob challenge active seems like a reasonable amount of time. (At least for the destroyer ones.) For an average player that has a bit skill. (The not so skille average player migh take longer.) Further than that you proably need a lot of optimization. (= not "average player" anymore.)I read from some people that actually go full dps build using buff food + destroyer potions.

 

Nowhere did other solo (I am comparing it to solo cause we we are talking about solo challenge times) story content require this amount of optimization. (I did most other instanced story content without trouble even without buff food. Though I think there was not many that was focused on maxing dps. More for skill and evading attacks stuff.)

 

Here also checking gw2efficiency stats is interesting: Not a lot of people seem to complete DRMS a lot of time. Mentioned this in another more general thread about DRMs: More people have completed (example) the 15  times bjora eastern meta - though this is 15 times the same ... same boring stuff.

 

DRMs that technically require less repetitions and have more diversity (well actually it is 10 times copy pasted the similar content on different maps) have less people that completed the associated achievements. Even the one for just completing 20 playin DRMs has only about 7.x percent of players on gw2efficiency.  (And that should count even completions without challenges I guess? But not counting one you did for story I think.) The "Dragon Response Expert" is only done by 4.xx percent.

 

[Ayrilana.1396]

1 hour ago, Luthan.5236 said:

For me it took a bit longer - at least when I tried it the first time. (Also listened to the dialogue but played it without challenges.) I think the 10-15 minutes is maybe for a pro player (not the average player) without the challengs. With challanges and for an average player it would take a lot longer.

 

Well with the timers, they wouldn't take that much longer otherwise they'd fail.  When I did daily DRM runs with groups, it took around 15 minutes on average.  Based on the HP of the mobs and bosses when doing it solo, the average player should be able to do them in about that long as well. 

 

1 hour ago, Luthan.5236 said:

For both of the meta achievements. No reason to not have a reward track for the other one as well. (Mainly for it to unlock the option for that back item where you need the infusion box I think.) Would be on the same level with most other meta achievements that have a reward track for the item you get there.

 

The other meta achievements didn't give an infusion that I'm aware of. 

 

1 hour ago, Luthan.5236 said:

There seems to be a lot of other group content. Map meta events. PvP, WvW. Strikes, Raids, dungeons, fractals.

 

Compared to how much you of the game you can solo, it's small.  DRMs are an even smaller piece of that.

 

1 hour ago, Luthan.5236 said:

It is high if you only solo play them without without challanges. (To prevent them from taking too long - when challenges need a group to do them faster.) Should have added a node that gives defense seals. (Instead of only the one for the prismaticite thing that is not needed that much - as long as you do not want to craft skins.)

 

Challenges do not need a group to do them faster and quite often it's quicker to do them solo rather than play the RNG lottery on who you'll get in your group. 

 

I'm not sure why you said that it's "high if you only solo play them without without challenges" as that's wrong and I indicated why it's actually higher by doing challenges.  Doing challenges gives you more loot chests at the end which gives you more seals. 

 

1 hour ago, Luthan.5236 said:

I was talking about the challenges. 15-20 minutes seems fine - without challenge. I might be able to do them in that time. When ignoring the dialogue that I read at the first time when doing them for story it took me about 15-30 minutes. The destroyer ones I think were more around 25 mins and the Jormag/Icebrood ones seemed faster around 20 mins or so. With challenge mote though it migh take longe rsince the boss is tankier. (And bosses are already tanky without challenge.) And I would not say that I'm worse than average. (Still far away from the top raid players though. But for open world/story and solo content maybe in the top 33 percent lol.)

 

I think it heavily depends on the allied faction (where chosing it reduces the amont of seals you earn cause you have to pay). Some really make it a lot easier - I remember the exalted there the thing does a ton of damage and helps a lot to speed things up. Maybe there should have been a diffetent cost based on the usefulness of the allied faction and based on the amount of players playing in the DRM. (If one player solo plays it only cost 5. Then costing more if more players play - since they could share the cost - if it was implemented that everyone had to pay.) But that only for the useful factions lol. Skritt and stuff ... not even worth 1 ... you just get them for the achievement. 😄

 

If you're taking 20-25 minutes on normal then you're likely going to fail the timer challenge.  If you're in the top 33% then you should be clearing them quicker.

 

The allied faction that really only makes a difference would be the deldrimor because the acid is a little OP.  The others are marginal at best.  I used to use the seraph for Lake Doric as they could solo a few waves of the north area while I did the south but I stopped when Anet changed things by adding more vets and such.

 

1 hour ago, Luthan.5236 said:

As mentioned above: Solo play without challenge for the story + reading the dialogue at the beginning (losing a bit time on the pre event which might have saved me some time in those DRMs where it is possible to quickly solo the pre - in some it seems possible ... then saving some time if the pre event tim also counts to the timer for the challenge have not checked this).

 

I know the challenge timers from the wiki. And I know how long it took me without challenges (but reading dialogue). The other stuff was an estimation - when I knew that the boss is already tanky without challenge. And got a lot tankier with challenge.

 

30+ minutes with boss + mob challenge active seems like a reasonable amount of time. (At least for the destroyer ones.) For an average player that has a bit skill. (The not so skille average player migh take longer.) Further than that you proably need a lot of optimization. (= not "average player" anymore.)I read from some people that actually go full dps build using buff food + destroyer potions.

 

Nowhere did other solo (I am comparing it to solo cause we we are talking about solo challenge times) story content require this amount of optimization. (I did most other instanced story content without trouble even without buff food. Though I think there was not many that was focused on maxing dps. More for skill and evading attacks stuff.)

 

Here also checking gw2efficiency stats is interesting: Not a lot of people seem to complete DRMS a lot of time. Mentioned this in another more general thread about DRMs: More people have completed (example) the 15  times bjora eastern meta - though this is 15 times the same ... same boring stuff.

 

DRMs that technically require less repetitions and have more diversity (well actually it is 10 times copy pasted the similar content on different maps) have less people that completed the associated achievements. Even the one for just completing 20 playin DRMs has only about 7.x percent of players on gw2efficiency.  (And that should count even completions without challenges I guess? But not counting one you did for story I think.) The "Dragon Response Expert" is only done by 4.xx percent.

 

There's voice acting so you don't really need to read the dialogue.  Even if you do, you can still multi-task.

 

I don't believe any of the timer challenges for the DRMs are as long as 30 minutes.  I vaguely remember the Metrica was being something like 16 minutes. 

 

A lot of people skipped doing DRMs because they're boring.  I only grinded them out because I wanted the achievements completed but not everyone cares about that.

 

GW2Efficiency isn't reliable because only a small percentage of the playerbase use it, you don't know how many of those players are active, and it's not representative of the playerbase. 

 

One of the issues that I did have with the achievements is Anet staggering certain ones which could have been completed during their release window.  For example, those ones that require you do use specific allied factions, they could have released those achievements with their respective DRMs.  Instead they held them back until the very last release to artificially keep people busy.  The same goes for the achievements to complete 20. 30, and 40 DRMs.  The grind for a player doing them now with everything released is much less than those of us who did them as the episode was piece-mealed to us over the course of like six months.