Asum.4960

> @"Cleopatra.4068" said: > I don’t understand the raiding community at all. They complain they never get new raids. Then they yell at anyone who wants to play raids that they are all too incompetent, lazy, casual, and suck at the game to play with them. So no one plays raids. So ArenaNet doesn’t make anymore raids. So raiders yell at all the people who they wouldn’t let play raids for not playing raids. It just goes around and around in a circle that somehow never seems to be the raiding communities fault. > > If you want people to play raids, stop insulting people who want to play them and let them play with you. Stop creating artificial barriers to growing the raiding community by placing ridiculous hoops for people to jump through in the way. > > Want to play raids with us? First, install a third party application, then spend hundreds of hours whacking a training golem until the third party application says your DPS perfectly matched our arbitrarily defined measure of competence. Sure....I’ll get right on that. Then, join a training guild and spend months running training runs once a week until you have obtained our arbitrarily defined measure of KP and LI that indicates you aren’t too noob to live. That doesn’t sound condescending, insulting, rude or overbearing at all. Who wouldn’t want to play with a community of condescending, insulting, rude, overbearing elitists like that? > > The hoops aren’t really even the problem. The problem is that only kitten want to play with kitten. GW2 apparently doesn’t have enough kitten playing to support the raiding community. If that were how it happened, that would indeed not make any sense.

> @"MattDu.7123" said: > > @"mindcircus.1506" said: > > The low-effort "open world pve" population in this game actively rebels against any content that has a fail condition. > > @"Cyninja.2954" said: > > Raids needed a bigger player base > > @"Asum.4960" said: > > But to blame people who simply want to play with other players of similar skill levels > > So, you need a bigger player base, but not the "open world pve" population and only those that already know how to do raids? Doesn't leave a lot of people to pick from, but sounds like a great plan. > > > @"Pyriin.3291" said: > > The entry point itself is player motivation. > > What entry point are you talking about > > > @"aspirine.6852" said: > > Why would I join only to get kicked because I never done it before.. > > > @"vicky.9751" said: > > Why do people need to join a discord, put an api key, and then get pinged endlessly for mostly **experiencd** groups or stuff that fills too fast? **this is not** a healthy way to get people to play these raids. I wish gw2 had a matched finder like other games, at least you would GET a party. > > > > Tomorrow make a brand new account, quickly get your guy to 80, ascended everything and pop on down to the dome. Lay it on thick that you have never done a raid before but have watched the videos and come on here the following day to tell us how you failed miserably to find a game and it completely put you off the whole experience, or you can lie. > My money say you will lie? > You could always knee jerk reply straight away and say things like join a training guild(but not your one), try strikes first, or a favourite of mine come back when you've gain experience. > > I don't want raids or strikes to die, it seems like it could be great end game content but if you don't meet the majority of the population half way, they will. > > > ..you do realise that every Raider at one point had never done Raids before and then got into that content, right? It sometimes genuinely feels like people are arguing like there are people who were born as Raiders and those that weren't, and then those evil Raiders are keeping everyone else out from becoming one too. People need to have internal motivation to get better, and be willing to group and communicate. The whole emergence of LI/KP and gating in general is due to the countless times every Raider, Fractal or even Strike player experienced of people joining. refusing to communicate their purpose/contribution to the group, providing no perceivable damage, boons or healing, and at worst, then often getting incredibly toxic and combative at even the most gentle prodding about what they are doing or even tips going their way, after repeatedly causing wipes/fails. I don't know why some people think it's just the unconditional responsibility and duty of every existing Raider and such to take these people along and endure any waste of time, lack of fun or even abuse being hurled their way, because apparently everybody is just entitled to being taken along for endgame content without any preparation or common courtesy? Is it really that outlandish or surprising that many, if not most experienced players eventually lost patience and just gated their groups in order to not have to start at 0 again every week, enduring hours of wipes or even abuse, and never getting anything done? When I got into Raids, almost 2 years after their introduction to GW2 (being essentially brainwashed by the community for that time that they were way to hard and the environment way too toxic for me), it's not like I sat in the LFG just watching/joining experienced groups that were looking for like-minded/skilled people with no idea what I was doing and expected them to carry me or complain if they didn't. I crafted/looked up builds, practiced rotations/roles, watched and read guides and then went out to search and find a community that I was comfortable with doing training to do the content together with. That's exactly the kind of player I, and every other person I Raided and talked about this with, would have loved to have join us too. The "telling me how to play is toxicity" 1-5k DPS at max range sitting Longbow Ranger type OW player is never going to get into content like Raids unless they change their mindset though, and you can't blame any Raider for that. So no, getting into Raids and such is not a case of "OW players and beginners not allowed", but "common courtesy and motivation required". (And that is not why Dungeons, Raids, Guild Missions, Strikes, Fractals for the most part, etc. etc. died.)

> @"Captain Kuro.8937" said: > > @"Asum.4960" said: > > > @"Captain Kuro.8937" said: > > > > @"Cyninja.2954" said: > > > > > @"MattDu.7123" said: > > > > > > @"mindcircus.1506" said: > > > > > > > @"MattDu.7123" said: > > > > > > > Didn't the raid community want strikes as a way to encourage more people to raid, increase the player base so they could could justify needing more content. Seems that by making it a closed loop it will end up having the opposite effect. > > > > > > The raiding community did not ask for Strikes. > > > > > > They asked for more raids. > > > > > > > > > > I'll repeat it because obviously you must of missed it, in your haste to reply. Raids needed a bigger player base and an entry point to help it to grow, so they could could justify needing more content. If you don't have an easy way for new players to join then, your just cutting off your own nose. > > > > > > > > Raids needed a bigger player base because they were neglected for years at a time. In fact most players who raid disliked strikes from the get go, since those resources even in diminished form could have been used in new raids instead. You enjoy story and open world and are disheartened by the latest Icebrood Saga releases? Imagine having NO released content for over a year, regularly. That's what diminished raids. Raids were fine population wise before that. > > > > > > > > Some of us actively argued against this type of content (similar to the constant recurring "easy mode raids" demands), knowing that it would not work because having actually experienced the transition from baseline to challenging GW2 content and in some cases actively training the next generation of raiders gave us enough insight. Lo and behold, that turned out to be true. > > > > > > > > So again, no. Players who enjoy raiding did not "ask" for strikes. We hoped for the continued minimum developer resources be put into raids as in the past. The game got strikes instead. > > > > > > Ereyone got hurt at those 9 months, while they where making the expansion. > > > I don't see raiders in Wow, having the same issue with every expansion. > > > . > > > The simply do other stuff, than Raids in the meanwhile > > > > > > A quick google search tells me that WoW has about 50 Raids, with some single expansions launching with up to 9 Raids. > > GW2, over it's entire life cycle of 8+ years, added 7 Raids, at a pace of a little bit over one a year, after the initial 3. > > > > The Raiding community was hurting since 4 years, not 9 months. Not to any fault of the content or those playing it, but because there simply weren't enough of them to sustain a healthy playerbase. > > Even as highly repeatable as they are, 30 minutes of content every 9 months just isn't enough, neither for people to stick around, nor for people to see it as a healthy content avenue to get invested in, strive towards and join in alongside others (in turn keeping the community fresh and varied). > > > > As for doing other stuff meanwhile? > > The Shattered Observatory CM released in mid 2017, the next piece of Hardcore content came with the Sunqua Peak CM in late 2020. That's well over 3 years wait for another piece of ~15 minute challenging group content. > > > > What else was added over that time to keep these communities of highly proficient players engaged and playing together while waiting for those sporadic Raid releases? > > Any Dungeons? Tough.. or any new Guild Missions to rally around, anything? > > In fact, the only thing Anet did over recent times is taking features, such as proper, unlimited, Templates, essentially out of the game, in favour of a monetization scheme. > > > > I get confirmation bias and all that, if you never liked or played content such as this, to want to believe it just failed, didn't have interest or simply didn't work. > > But let's not bend over backwards just to not have to admit that Anet drastically mismanaged resources, siphoning talent and funding away from GW2 since years to their other (since failed) projects, while scaling GW2 down to nothing but the bare minimum, aka LW, to retain some periodic Gemstore engagement to fund their other products. > > > > With them now scrambling for an Expansion after revenue plummeted massively over the time they focused on LW and most of their new game projects they intended to transition to falling through. > > > > That's what happened to Raids, and just about any other form of content in the game, aside from LW. > > When casual where coming to the thread to whine , not for the dificulty/nor for the rewards of the Raids , but for the KP + damage meters , it wasnt the company telling them to suck it up , and do it the proper way . > And now people are trying to wash their hands from the responsibility If there was a healthy community being fostered, not just for Raids but group content in general (strange concept in an MMO, I know), with people having guilds, groups, networks to play with and feel comfortable tackling more challenging content with, whatever already experienced players/groups are doing on LFG to fill slots wouldn't be of much concern - as that is not the ideal place to first get into the content with anyway, in any case. Although even that would be much better ofc with more content and more frequent waves of new players coming in to take the dive in together. But to blame people who simply want to play with other players of similar mindsets and skill levels to be responsible for the death of a game mode is ludicrous, especially looking at Raids with all it's training communities, benchmarking efforts and build guides to help out less invested/proficient or so inclined players. And let's not forget - everybody can post an LFG. Posting your own with requirements is not excluding anyone, who have that very same ability to do so without requirements if they so wish, from any content. Players are not responsible for teaching the game (and yet many went above and beyond to try), nor for making a largely unsupported game (mode) look attractive, the developer is. It's just that growing GW2, in nearly all of it's aspects, clearly wasn't the priority over the last few years for Anet.

> @"Captain Kuro.8937" said: > > @"Cyninja.2954" said: > > > @"MattDu.7123" said: > > > > @"mindcircus.1506" said: > > > > > @"MattDu.7123" said: > > > > > Didn't the raid community want strikes as a way to encourage more people to raid, increase the player base so they could could justify needing more content. Seems that by making it a closed loop it will end up having the opposite effect. > > > > The raiding community did not ask for Strikes. > > > > They asked for more raids. > > > > > > I'll repeat it because obviously you must of missed it, in your haste to reply. Raids needed a bigger player base and an entry point to help it to grow, so they could could justify needing more content. If you don't have an easy way for new players to join then, your just cutting off your own nose. > > > > Raids needed a bigger player base because they were neglected for years at a time. In fact most players who raid disliked strikes from the get go, since those resources even in diminished form could have been used in new raids instead. You enjoy story and open world and are disheartened by the latest Icebrood Saga releases? Imagine having NO released content for over a year, regularly. That's what diminished raids. Raids were fine population wise before that. > > > > Some of us actively argued against this type of content (similar to the constant recurring "easy mode raids" demands), knowing that it would not work because having actually experienced the transition from baseline to challenging GW2 content and in some cases actively training the next generation of raiders gave us enough insight. Lo and behold, that turned out to be true. > > > > So again, no. Players who enjoy raiding did not "ask" for strikes. We hoped for the continued minimum developer resources be put into raids as in the past. The game got strikes instead. > > Ereyone got hurt at those 9 months, while they where making the expansion. > I don't see raiders in Wow, having the same issue with every expansion. > . > The simply do other stuff, than Raids in the meanwhile A quick google search tells me that WoW has about 50 Raids, with some single expansions launching with up to 9 Raids. GW2, over it's entire life cycle of 8+ years, added 7 Raids, at a pace of a little bit over one a year, after the initial 3. The Raiding community was hurting since 4 years, not 9 months. Not to any fault of the content or those playing it, but because there simply weren't enough of them to sustain a healthy playerbase. Even as highly repeatable as they are, 30 minutes of content every 9 months just isn't enough, neither for people to stick around, nor for people to see it as a healthy content avenue to get invested in, strive towards and join in alongside others (in turn keeping the community fresh and varied, and with that easier to break into). As for doing other stuff meanwhile? The Shattered Observatory CM released in mid 2017, the next piece of Hardcore content came with the Sunqua Peak CM in late 2020. That's well over 3 years wait for another piece of ~15 minute challenging group content. What else was added over that time to keep these communities of highly proficient players engaged and playing together while waiting for those sporadic Raid releases? Any Dungeons? Tough.. or any new Guild Missions to rally around, anything? In fact, the only thing Anet did over recent times is taking features, such as proper, unlimited, Templates, essentially out of the game, in favour of a monetization scheme. I get confirmation bias and all that, if you never liked or played content such as this, to want to believe it just failed, didn't have interest or simply didn't work. But let's not bend over backwards just to not have to admit that Anet drastically mismanaged resources, siphoning talent and funding away from GW2 since years to their other (since failed) projects, while scaling GW2 down to nothing but the bare minimum, aka LW, to retain some periodic Gemstore engagement to fund their other products. With them now scrambling for an Expansion after revenue plummeted massively over the time they focused on LW and most of their new game projects they intended to transition to falling through. That's what happened to Raids, and just about any other form of content in the game, aside from LW.

> @"Kaliwenda.3428" said: > I said PoF difficulty, b/c I definitely didn't want HoT difficulty, but now I'm remembering some of the places in PoF where I died repeatedly and I feel maybe that was the wrong choice. What's the problem with that though? Especially in GW2. If you die or fail at something, you can just rethink your builds/strategy, discover or learn to better understand a game mechanic, grow as a player and try again (what some would say playing a video game is in the first place) - and then benefit from that gained experience throughout all your time going forward with playing GW2. It's not like GW2 deletes your character upon death, takes away hours of experience or even de-leveling you, or even just making you go through a tedious or costly revival process. It's one button click at the price of a few silver that you'll make back in literally seconds with the first trash mob drop. Even the armor repair system has essentially been removed, requiring just a quick NPC visit, for free, after 7+ deaths. The option to fail, to me, always has been a pretty important part of what makes a game a game. If there is no failure state, pretty much no matter what you could reasonable do, then there isn't really any point or achievement to it, no? Doesn't seem very compelling, outside of non-traditional gaming products specifically advertising and catering to that, like walking simulators or visual novels, maybe. The only way I can see that being frustrating is if difficulty is done excessively or cheaply (which GW2 is as far from as a video game can be while still being a game), or if a player completely refuses to adjust and grow, essentially frustrating themselves, trying the same flawed strategy/build over and over, expecting different results. > @"sorudo.9054" said: > you should not have to go trough all of it, you should be able to go straight to EoD without any previous experience. It's max level (expansion) content... since when "should" that be easy to straight jump to and go through without any experience whatsoever in an RPG? Sometimes I wonder if some people even still want to play video games, or trying to turn video games into essentially success guaranteed non-interactive linear media.

> @"Cuks.8241" said: > The first thing cFB needs nerfed is the huge CC from Sanctuary. No need that the most versatile profession gets also a 1 button huge CC skill. I don't think the dmg is the issue here. If only there was some great equalizer in the game.. idk, something like consumables that CC, to increase build variety.

> @"Ashen.2907" said: > I find the open world content in this game to be mind-numbingly bland. Almost a complete lack of challenge. I prefer playing with others in general, just not here. Working as a group to overcome challenges greater than any one of us is fun. Having multiple people semi-afk auto-attack a foe down with almost no chance of failure is not more fun than doing so alone. Without challenges to overcome as a group (and I admit that there are a few) then playing as a group is meaningless. If all one wants is to socialize the game is not needed. Amen. @"Sobx.1758" There are a few negatives to other people joining/being around, in that trash mobs these days are near oneshot by (proficient) players, so when grinding out some heart, doing an event or needing something for a collection, kill stealing can be annoying. Similarly when soloing some Champion/Legendary/Group event, it's generally easy until other player's join and scale the whole thing up without contributing much themselves, essentially just making things more "bullet spongy" for myself and dragging out the time. Considering many/most of those have time limits, it can be annoying when the presence of other's fails an event by inflating boss HP too much, when I know I could have easily solo'ed it. (Dis)honorable mention, Longbow Rangers and the like rolling their face over their keyboard, knocking mobs out of all of your AoE's you've just put down every 15 seconds. As for positives.. yay, another player? I guess. It's not like you ever need to group, communicate and cooperate to overcome anything though, so meeting other players to silently play alone together with for a moment by happenstance doesn't really matter.

> @"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said: > The starter zones are designed to be approachable by the lowest common denominator. A lot of us are seasoned gamers around here, so we've lost perspective on how [low that denominator is.]( ) Anet wants to sell this game to people who don't know what hit points are, who don't know how to type yet, who don't know what damage is, who don't know how to auto attack. A lot of the lower level enemies may seem like they're trivial gimmies to us, but that is because we know how to play the game. But, there are potential players out there who upon being attacked will quickly panic, freeze, look at their keyboard, struggle to remember where the keys are, struggle to remember what the keys do, begin mashing randomly hoping that something will happen, panic again when they open a bunch of windows, ask the nearest person what they should do, and then maybe they'll mouse over the auto attack skill and click on it. Even if these enemies are so easy that you can slaughter them in mass by auto attacking, even that is not guaranteed for a new player. > > And that is why we need a defiance bar tutorial somewhere in the early game. Absolutely agree on the starter zones. The problem is that it doesn't change much from there, especially through out core. Many players, after getting over those perfectly understandable initial hurdles you describe either get overly complacent or slowly see their interest in the active combat system, movement etc. fade as they more and more realise that really all their buttons are redundant, and that if they wanted to they could just Autoattack everything down. Why that is an issue is because the seemingly majority of players, even by level 80 and beyond, still don't know things like either even how or at least when to dodge, or that dodging is a tool to be used against attacks that you can't just walk out of. Whenever I'm in OW I constantly see player's frantically trying to double dodge out of an incoming AoE Hit, burning all of their endurance, just to then get hit at the end anyway, when they either could have just taken a shorter path and walked out, or ideally timed a single dodge inside the AoE without moving at all to avoid it. Similarly timing and utilising CrowdControl. It feels like the Nr. 1 use of CC in Open World is knocking mobs out of other player's AoE's, essentially helping the mobs out and frustrating other players, by randomly hitting the buttons, while then in turn failing any and all interrupts or breakbars for which one is supposed to save those skills (who's primary purpose is largely CC, while generally doing less damage than even an Auto Attack). Boons and to a lesser extend conditions especially seem utterly undervalued or forgotten and I can almost guarantee that every player struggling with the game isn't aware of the fact that they can just select 2-3 Traits these days on most professions to grant themselves sheer perma 25 Might and Fury, which together with often even easier acessable 25 Vulnerability in many cases can double or even triple their damage, in turn massively increasing their survivability as well by defeating mobs before they ever even get to act. Speaking of survivability, Circle strafing is another big one ofc, and I don't think many players realise that by (turning off melee assist in the options and) simply strafing around and through enemies, one is able to avoid a good 90% of all melee attacks by making them swing/bite/claw into thin air. The Core experience simply never requires a player to stop and think, to master or even just learn any of these fundamental systems. I don't think anyone is asking for Queensdale to be tough as nails, throwing new player's into a frustrating hell, but imo the game does need a gentle curve upwards from 15-80 (at least if they want to grow the new playerbase with such things as a Steam release), which conveys the need to understand those systems, so that players then later aren't completely overwhelmed in (let's be honest, largely still incredibly easy, **If** one has learned those game systems) expansion content and beyond. It's not like failure and death are punished in any real way in GW2 already, so really those moments are nothing but learning opportunities, and I don't know why people seem to be getting so allergic to those. Without those moments to make player's look at their Skills, Traits, Skill use etc. to reconsider or better understand, there won't ever be room for growth, unless through already existing intrinsic motivation to be better - which then creates a massive rift in the community of those who do have that, and those who don't, making content delivery for the game extremely challenging.

> @"Oxstar.7643" said: > It isn't. If you are 1-shotting anything then you are either way overleveled for that area or have incredibly good gear. None of these applies to new players. For one, the design intention of the game with for example the downscaling feature was so content would, although easier, never be entirely invalidated in engagement, and secondly, >90% of mobs in core being literally one-shotable or to be killed by holding down Auto Attack without any challenge is indicative of the issue that many, including the OP have witnessed, where even if level, gear and experience appropriate, core especially still hasn't kept up with powercreep and design, becoming way too easy - if not for some to enjoy, at the very least for all to learn how to actually play, build and gear an effective character. Which the early to mid game is supposed to teach in an RPG. Suggesting for players to actively sabotage themselves (as I've seen plenty in these forums) by taking off gear/traits (which is as unfun as it is counter-intuitive and -productive) or seeking out zones which the game's design literally tells them in numbers they aren't supposed to go to yet, just to have a normal experience of actually fighting mobs, learning how to play, reading their skills and traits and combining them in a sensible way is quite backwards. That's an issue that ripples all the way back to how perceptively hard Expansions, all the way to even Raids are, and how much Anet struggles with content delivery that's suited to both players who got by for hundreds if not thousands of hours of content with literally just holding down Auto Attack or pressing buttons randomly off cooldown (doing ~5k dps), and people capable of 60k+ damage per second bursts. Without a proper teaching experience to close that massive gap, this game has become impossible to develop broadly engaging content for. That's ultimately not good for anyone.

> @"Oxstar.7643" said: > That is why I enjoyed taking on champions by myself and stuff like that. There are plenty of things in the leveling maps that is actually hard if there isn't already people there. My experience is actually the opposite. The average OW player scales up content more with their presence than they contribute, effectively just making me get hit harder and have to do more total damage (or stopping constantly and taking extra hits to ress). That's part of my critique of the game coddling it's players way too much, especially the outdated core experience - as it just completely removes the incentive for players to improve to overcome hurdles, which has progressed to a point where having other players around in the OW is actually a tangible detriment (at least for the proficient player). > @"kharmin.7683" said: > Not every game is for everyone. It simply cannot happen. There are many games I've tried and found the early experience to be more difficult than I would like to the point where it started to become more of a chore than entertainment. I didn't go to those forums and complain about the difficulty and/or ask for changes to it to suit my preference; rather, I left and found other games that more ably fit my gaming entertainment needs. > > Clearly, not every new player is turned away by the early parts of GW2 -- I see new players all of the time in higher than 1-15 zones. The thing is GW2 used to be a lot harder at launch and through it's prime. Running around self-buffed with 25 Might, Fury (and some cases Quickness) was utterly unthinkable at launch. Healing was more limited, damage much lower. Powerful open world options like the Diviner Stat set or Firework Runes didn't exist. Elite Specs weren't a thing. Many skills had longer cooldowns, less or or no cleave at all and so on. One little example, Ranger's Maul went from a 6 second Cooldown, single Target 300 base Damage ability, with a 1.1 Power coefficient and a Minor Bleed at 150 range at launch; to a 700 base Damage Ability, with a 1.75 Power coefficient, with extra Vulnerability, 5 Target nuke at 220 range at a 4 second Cooldown - for which, if that wasn't enough, an instant CD reset was added to Hilt Bash, which, together with the increase to Might, Fury and Vulnerability access, basically increased it's damage potential by sheer tenfold, leading to the little engaging oneshot gameplay we have today. OW, at GW2's peak, was actually a lot more difficult and engaging. The content, both numerically and design wise just has not at all kept up with the massive increase in efficacy and variation of player tools, let alone the increase of skill at the game for those who bothered to learn it's mechanics, old and new alike. The majority of mobs being literally oneshot by players wasn't a conscious design decision, nor what attracted many of us to the game initially (besides coming from GW1). It's not that the game wasn't designed for us, much of it's content just became outdated and obsolete over time, that being the new player/learning experience is now largely responsible for the harmfully massive skill gaps and Anet's struggle with creating and maintaining widely appealing content avenues.

I think that's unfortunately a fairly accurate representation of the game. If your skill at the game (as well as game knowledge) increases proportionally to the content, in retrospect I'd almost say HoT and especially PoF now are, relatively speaking, easier than core was 8 years ago. We had a lot over powercreep over the years, and once you realise that nowdays you can easily achieve perma 25 Might and Fury on yourself on all professions (often times as low as by level 30), and 25 Vuln on enemies, and beyond that learn to circle strafe and/or chain CC's - I don't recall struggling in HoT or PoF anywhere as much (or rather, at all) than with Core at launch, despite me coming in as an experienced MMO (and in general RPG) player at the time too. Meanwhile, sure, core nowdays genuinely allows you to oneshot the vast majority of mobs with almost any single button press on a reasonably set up/equipped character (while that's only true for select skills and builds for expansion content), paling in comparison to content down the line in genuinely problematic ways in terms of retaining new players, and lack of teaching those who get through it the base game mechanics to then find HoT and PoF easy as well. So yes, while the game gets drastically more "difficult" from core to expansion content at any given time, the vastly buffed player tools as well as expected increases in player skill through moving through that content and adjusting and building your character, imo actually still made it easier overall, while completely invalidating core as a game, or at least learning experience. > @"artcreator.4859" said: > It's just too easy, been playing with new people and they wanted to quit due to the first leveling maps, its just a steam roll, walk up, press 1 on key board, move on That's unfortunately the gist of GW2's open world content (and with that, the vast majority of game content). You can try rushing to expansion content and maybe have them struggle and have fun for a bit, but if they are adaptive/learning players - updating their build and gear as they go, those soon won't be much more than movement keys to walk/circle strafe and 1 either.

> @"Donutdude.9582" said: > There are more builds out there than simple condition builds. Thematically, it makes sense that inanimate objects do not take condition damage. This is something I enjoy immensely when popping back into Core Tyria. A lot of vanilla structures with condition immunity. > > Learn to build for the situation. You will see much better results that way. Tbf, if you want to make the thematic or realism argument, neither should bladed weapons or arrows be viable choices to damage most structures, or be flagged to break themselves. I don't think that's a solid argument at all. A Pillar would bleed to death long before swords or arrows have chiseled it down. _(apparently surprisingly, I was being facetious here)_ At the end of the day, it's just a further annoyance to generally already slower condition builds - and really not the place for GW2 to suddenly care about it's theme and world integrity. Plus previously thematically condition immune enemies have already been "fixed" in the past, due to the unfun dynamic they provide of suddenly invalidating certain builds/professions, in a game that otherwise doesn't care for such specifics/mechanics. As well as newer objects being changed to be affected by conditions as well. So there is precedent. The theme/realism argument falls flat, and existing non updated objects are simply an oversight/testament of Anets unwillingness at large to go back and fix things, especially concerning core.

> @"Redfeather.6401" said: > In order for it to be both fun and fair if the trash mobs... > 1. ... have knockdown skills then I would like a skill warm up bar for them. > 2. ... have immunity/evasion phases then I would like a way to interrupt them. Difficulty definitely can't just be numerical (high health and damage) or be cheap/annoying (oneshots, instant CC's). I just wish Anet would make greater use of all the already existing mechanics and with greater creativity. Have mobs that run around wildly and are hard to damage while having Swiftness, but bring some boon strip and they become snared and vulnerable. Give mobs big AoE CC's/nukes, dangerous buffs in PvE like Retaliation or invuln/evade phases, but telegraph them properly with Breakbars which can be used to interrupt them, making them more vulnerable instead. Give some mobs really dangerous opening attacks that need to be dodged, other's enrage at low health values with Might, Fury and Quickness and need to be bursted/kited. Give some mobs heavy projectile barrages akin to Bristleback's in HoT. Have some mobs briefly stun themselves when their attacks are blocked, but otherwise are really dangerous. Just give different professions opportunities to shine and struggle. Create rewarding difficulty by allowing players to learn tells and patterns. Teach and reward use of game mechanics and ability to adapt. Reward game knowledge. Nobody wants to get oneshot, roleplay a ping pong ball, make some tea while a Mob dances around evading for a minute or aggro half the map walking somewhere. That's not what (imo good difficulty) has to be though. Running always the same (often lacklustre) build, not knowing when and how to use half of the game mechanics such as CC, dodges, projectile denial, boon strip etc. and just pressing buttons at random/off cooldown just should not cut it in max level, especially expansion, content though in my opinion.

> @"Fueki.4753" said: > I think that map completion, including Hero Challenges and hearts, and the story should be viable to be done alone. > I used WvW to complete many HoT skill challenges (and some of PoF) because people simply didn't care to join me. > > But there should also be ample group content outside of that. > Meta Events, smaller Group Events, a variety of instanced content - there is so much that _could_ be done that doesn't interfere with map completion and the story. I do think that (people not caring to join) is largely a symptom of the current design which heavily consists of easy non-repeatable solo play, which then also leaves players often underprepared for challenges and without the infrastructure/network for grouping - rather than the problem being the semi-mandatory challenging/grouping sections themselves. If the content (like for example Hero Challenges) was per design much more difficult, requiring much higher level play or grouping, but also much more rewarding to repeat, come back to and help out - and people also being much more used to grouping, friendlisting and having active, helpful guilds in general (due to it being a necessity much more often) - those things, rather than being a rare annoyance that the average player grew frightful of or frustrated with, would be a lot more fulfilling, engaging and memorable experiences of grouping, meeting people and helping out, rather than just players walking through the world/maps solo like a checklist. GW2's problem, imo, is that 99% of the content is incredibly easy and soloable, making the 1% that isn't extremely frustrating or daunting for the average player. While if that was more balanced, with the game encouraging much more (gradual) skill increases in players and/or the formation and maintaining of social networks within the game, the whole experience would be a lot more engaging and memorable - and things like tough HP's or even content like Fractals, Strikes and Raids a lot more accessible for a lot more players, due to pre-existing groups and communities to play with and slimmer skill gaps.

> @"Oxstar.7643" said: > > @"Asum.4960" said: > > > @"Krzysztof.5973" said: > > > Difficulty that would encourage people to team up while playing a multiplayer game :) > > > > Are you proposing some sort of.. MMO? Where people have to ask for help, team up, overcome challenges, form communities and bonds and possibly play together for years to come, staying engaged with the game? > > Rather than some instant gratification train, walzing through the content in a week or two in "alone together" GW2 fashion and then quitting until the next content drop months down the line? > > Madness. > > I think you should have both. Not everybody wants to team up with strangers for all the content, and some just are not the soecial butterfly who makes enough friends to always have people to rely on. Balance is hard, as it usually is, but it seems to me ANet are trying to find a middle ground. The vast majority cannot solo legendary group events for instance, and those who can are honestly skilled to the point where they've earned it. Absolutely, but I don't think GW2 is in any danger of not having >95% of it's content be doable with auto attacking solo. Plenty, if not the majority of at least OW and Story content should imo be soloable, but I do think it's equally if not more important in an MMO to have certain areas, progression and rewards at least soft-gated behind group activities. Being the opposite of a social butterfly myself I always hated the idea of being forced to group/having to ask for help, but with more maturity, experience in game design and witnessing the effects of almost complete lack of that on a community in GW2, it really made me realise how vital those points are for an MMO especially. Always catering to that social anxiety just reinforces it and keeps players isolated, not as engaged with the game/with higher risk of burning out as well as hindering player growth through exchange and example. Whenever I look back to memorable MMO experiences in the past 1-2 decades, it's almost exclusively those experiences of having to group up for some character or story progression moment, meeting people, forming communities etc.*, maybe a few moments of overcoming some though challenge alone, and next to non of running around alone hitting mobs which aren't remotely a threat. GW2 for the last 2 years almost exclusively focused on providing the latter. If that doesn't change at least to a noticeable degree with EoD - with it turning out akin to PoF, I just don't see it having much longevity, at a very crucial point for the game. Too much of something is always bad, even if it is convenience. _*having to group up and people asking/coming for help for things like Hero Points in beta/early unnerfed HoT being one of those great experiences, and imo a golden age for GW2_