Raknar.4735 Posted May 4, 2020 Share Posted May 4, 2020 > @"Asum.4960" said: > > @"Raknar.4735" said: > > > @"mindcircus.1506" said: > > > > @"Raknar.4735" said: > > > > It's still sad to see how basically no one does it here in the GW community. The only time I've seen the GW2 playerbase do something similiar was during a raid tournament by not allowing downed state. > > > Wooden Potatoes did a series of "Iron Man" challenge streams with various restrictions such as permadeath, or only equipping items the story gave him... a variety of different things. A bunch of us were pretty stoked on this at the time. A few of us started challenge runs of our own. I know a few streamers like Jebro also started one as well. > > > But the last one I recall WP doing for GW2 was the "No Skill" challenge in which he proved that the personal story could be beaten in it's entirety by a player character using no weapon or utility skills. > > > Let that sink in a moment... the personal story of Guild Wars 2 can be beaten by a Ranger pet. > > > Once those of us interested in "Challenge Runs" saw this, the whole idea of making the game harder in this way went out the window. > > > How much more challenging can the player make it after "no skills"? > > > > I'm aware WP did clear the outdated personal story from 2012 with a ranger pet. Ranger pets don't scale with player equipment, so the equipped items didn't really matter. I applaud WP for doing something out of the box, which only a few do. > > I'm not sure, did he only beat the old personal story, or even newer releases with bossfights like Balthazar or Scruffy? > > I'd be interested in a pet soloing newer bosses, like Scruffy or Balthazar. But I guess since WP beat the story, no one else has to try it. > > Or do the same challenge without a pet class for that matter. > > > > That's why no one wants to do the iron man challenge in WoW, because someone else did it first! > > > > I mean, even Dark Souls, how much more challenging can someone make it, when people finish it on SL1, or when The Happy Hob was able to beat all parts, including Bloodborne and Demon Souls, without being hit? The whole game can be beaten without getting hit, imagine that! > > No reason to do any more challenges in Dark Souls, ever. > > The point is there needs to be a baseline difficulty to make challenge runs worth it/satisfying to do. Soloing MAMA in 99CM is fun and engaging, even if people have already done it, because it's still an achievement to have done so. Soloing Story content without Gear, Utilities, dodge rolling, or even not using any skills altogether is just tedious and doesn't prove anything at all when an AI Pet can solo it. And once that's done, what's the point? Anyone can do that, or rather, anyones Pet can. > Soloing MAMA 99 cm sounds tedious to me, not fun and engaging. It is a personal achievement if you see it as such, but so is creating a legendary to many people, even though that is mind numbingly boring to me, since most of it is just farming gold. One could even say doing MAMA 99 cm in a group isn't achievement worthy anymore, since someone soloed it. So what's the point in doing it? Someone else has already done it. Something being "tedious" or "rewarding" is subjective, but it seems people don't get that. And I've still yet to see someone solo the new bosses only with their pet. Or the new bosses without Gear, Utilities, dodge rolling, or a pet, just using auto attack and a lvl 1 white weapon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fueki.4753 Posted May 4, 2020 Share Posted May 4, 2020 > @"Asum.4960" said: > That still only fixes (less than) half of the problem though. Sure, you then get to see some of the mechanics, but they are still tuned to be so easy that they are meaningless, so you are still left with essentially just watching a boring fight. > That isn't much better than just nuking the boss and skipping all of the mechanics that don't matter anyway, other than for RP/appreciating what the devs designed and wondering about how fun the fight could have been, at which point you might as well just watch the Story on Youtube since the gameplay doesn't matter. The other half of the problem, some people being far better at the game than the average, is not something that can be fixed though. The story can't suddenly that a sharp turn upwards towards raid-level difficulty and leave the vast majority in the dust, just to please a handful of people. Multiple difficulties could help there. But as we can see with dungeons, raids (both of which seemingly are abandoned by Arenanet) and Strike missions, Arenanet isn't interested in making multiple difficulties for the same piece of content, **despite people already asking for years**. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mindcircus.1506 Posted May 4, 2020 Share Posted May 4, 2020 > @"Fueki.4753" said: > Arenanet isn't interested in making multiple difficulties for the same piece of content, **despite people already asking for years**. Fractals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fueki.4753 Posted May 4, 2020 Share Posted May 4, 2020 > @"mindcircus.1506" said: > > @"Fueki.4753" said: > > Arenanet isn't interested in making multiple difficulties for the same piece of content, **despite people already asking for years**. > Fractals. That's one content vs three others that never got multiple difficulties. And those _difficulties_ were made long ago, not recently. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mindcircus.1506 Posted May 4, 2020 Share Posted May 4, 2020 > @"Fueki.4753" said: > > @"mindcircus.1506" said: > > > @"Fueki.4753" said: > > > Arenanet isn't interested in making multiple difficulties for the same piece of content, **despite people already asking for years**. > > Fractals. > That's one content vs three others that never got multiple difficulties. > And those _difficulties_ were made long ago, not recently. I mean I'm no expert but.... Don't a very large number of raids contain challenge motes to increase the difficulty of the encounters? Doesn't Hearts and Minds and at least one one episode from Living World Season 2 have a challenge mote? Don't the buffs in LW4.4 "The Crystal Dragon" constitute a way to empower the player to trivialize the content for an "easy mode"? ...isn't this also the purpose of us wielding Sohothin in the climax of PoF? oh yeah.... And Fractals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asum.4960 Posted May 5, 2020 Share Posted May 5, 2020 > @"Raknar.4735" said: > > @"Asum.4960" said: > > > @"Raknar.4735" said: > > > > @"mindcircus.1506" said: > > > > > @"Raknar.4735" said: > > > > > It's still sad to see how basically no one does it here in the GW community. The only time I've seen the GW2 playerbase do something similiar was during a raid tournament by not allowing downed state. > > > > Wooden Potatoes did a series of "Iron Man" challenge streams with various restrictions such as permadeath, or only equipping items the story gave him... a variety of different things. A bunch of us were pretty stoked on this at the time. A few of us started challenge runs of our own. I know a few streamers like Jebro also started one as well. > > > > But the last one I recall WP doing for GW2 was the "No Skill" challenge in which he proved that the personal story could be beaten in it's entirety by a player character using no weapon or utility skills. > > > > Let that sink in a moment... the personal story of Guild Wars 2 can be beaten by a Ranger pet. > > > > Once those of us interested in "Challenge Runs" saw this, the whole idea of making the game harder in this way went out the window. > > > > How much more challenging can the player make it after "no skills"? > > > > > > I'm aware WP did clear the outdated personal story from 2012 with a ranger pet. Ranger pets don't scale with player equipment, so the equipped items didn't really matter. I applaud WP for doing something out of the box, which only a few do. > > > I'm not sure, did he only beat the old personal story, or even newer releases with bossfights like Balthazar or Scruffy? > > > I'd be interested in a pet soloing newer bosses, like Scruffy or Balthazar. But I guess since WP beat the story, no one else has to try it. > > > Or do the same challenge without a pet class for that matter. > > > > > > That's why no one wants to do the iron man challenge in WoW, because someone else did it first! > > > > > > I mean, even Dark Souls, how much more challenging can someone make it, when people finish it on SL1, or when The Happy Hob was able to beat all parts, including Bloodborne and Demon Souls, without being hit? The whole game can be beaten without getting hit, imagine that! > > > No reason to do any more challenges in Dark Souls, ever. > > > > The point is there needs to be a baseline difficulty to make challenge runs worth it/satisfying to do. Soloing MAMA in 99CM is fun and engaging, even if people have already done it, because it's still an achievement to have done so. Soloing Story content without Gear, Utilities, dodge rolling, or even not using any skills altogether is just tedious and doesn't prove anything at all when an AI Pet can solo it. And once that's done, what's the point? Anyone can do that, or rather, anyones Pet can. > > > > Soloing MAMA 99 cm sounds tedious to me, not fun and engaging. It is a personal achievement if you see it as such, but so is creating a legendary to many people, even though that is mind numbingly boring to me, since most of it is just farming gold. > One could even say doing MAMA 99 cm in a group isn't achievement worthy anymore, since someone soloed it. So what's the point in doing it? Someone else has already done it. It's an achievement because one can fail at it, quite easily so (even doing it as a group), and unlike Story challenges (or making Legendaries) not just by being bored and losing patience. Don't get me wrong, the patience it requires to watch your AI Pet solo the entirety of the story for you is impressive in the sense of someone enduring that much boredom of "playing" content that is so easy you don't actually have to play it, but that's about it. It terms of being a mechanical gameplay challenge, yes, things like 99CM MAMA, solo or not, in my opinion have much more value still regardless of it being done before. > @"Fueki.4753" said: > > @"Asum.4960" said: > > That still only fixes (less than) half of the problem though. Sure, you then get to see some of the mechanics, but they are still tuned to be so easy that they are meaningless, so you are still left with essentially just watching a boring fight. > > That isn't much better than just nuking the boss and skipping all of the mechanics that don't matter anyway, other than for RP/appreciating what the devs designed and wondering about how fun the fight could have been, at which point you might as well just watch the Story on Youtube since the gameplay doesn't matter. > > The other half of the problem, some people being far better at the game than the average, is not something that can be fixed though. > The story can't suddenly that a sharp turn upwards towards raid-level difficulty and leave the vast majority in the dust, just to please a handful of people. And again that straw man. I've never seen anyone argue for Story difficulty to be suddenly increased sharply, nor to do so to a raid-like level or anything close to that. Slowly adding gamemechanics and failure states to Story content (like Anet has finally done so to some extend with the most recent releases btw, although it's unfortunate that they felt the need to do it with Special Action Keys and special weapon bundles, which while putting everybody on the same playing field without having to think ahead to bring CC, also still doesn't teach anyone their actual skills), like semi frequent **well telegraphed** breakbars in the story you **have** to break or at first make it much more difficult to eventually failing the encounter (slow AoE nuke's being channeled, shields that need to be broken etc.) could go a massively long way of teaching the "average" player about breakbars, what their CC skills are and when to use them, **without** them hitting a wall and being left in the dust. All while preparing them for gameplay where they then get to see the game from the point of view where they do more than rolling their heads over their keyboard, just pressing every button off Cooldown while running completely random Traits and gear, long term giving everybody a better experience. Just sharply increasing the difficulty, as you correctly identified, would do nothing but leave a bunch of people behind to please the few. **Slowly but most importantly consistently** introducing small mechanical challenges now and then which repeatedly teach the players the game mechanics, make them engage and think until doing those things is second nature on the other hand, slowly raises the skill level of the average player, and then allows Anet to create more complex and engaging content across the board, without leaving anyone in frustration of a sudden wall of difficulty. The alternative is content that's stuck in press F and RP walk forever, as we've seen for almost 8 years now, which causes the majority of players to completely stagnate in skill as they don't actually have to engage with the game to be showered in rewards, which then creates a massive skill gap to the type of players who go out of their way on their own to challenge themselves with the few bits of challenging content or self-imposed challenges. That creates a non-healthy environment for either type of players, as player a becomes almost purely reward driven and used to everything being "free" that they throw a fit every time the game asks them to actually play (fail and learn) it for something as well as ever inflating the ingame economy to keep those player's hooked with better and easier rewards to gain, and player b who enjoys an interesting journey over just getting rewards simply becoming frustrated and bored with the lack of engaging gameplay options, as well as pitting the interests of those two groups against each other creating a tear in the community as it becomes impossible to balance content catering to the two. While it's ofc up to personal opinion, in my opinion it's much more reasonable to slowly raise the lowest denominator to a more reasonable middle ground, trying to mend that tear, rather than just expecting the exceptional to self-sabotage and become worse again (and somehow enjoy regressing). 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Fueki.4753 Posted May 5, 2020 Share Posted May 5, 2020 > @"Asum.4960" said: > Just sharply increasing the difficulty, as you correctly identified, would do nothing but leave a bunch of people behind to please the few. > **Slowly but most importantly consistently** introducing small mechanical challenges now and then which repeatedly teach the players the game mechanics, make them engage and think until doing those things is second nature on the other hand, slowly raises the skill level of the average player, and then allows Anet to create more complex and engaging content across the board, without leaving anyone in frustration of a sudden wall of difficulty. You are wrong there. **Slowly and consistently** increasing the difficulty will **not** make average players better. Many people do not want to improve. Many others already feel sufficiently challenged. It'll **slowly and consistently** drop the numbers of people who are willing to try and drive them into abusing the _continue-after-death_ function. People want to play for fun, not get frustrated by ever-increasing difficulty. For many people I know, this game being comparatively easier is the **main reason** they tried it. From many samples of story bosses, we both can see that Arenanet won't increase the difficulty via interesting mechanics anyway. They'll most likely just inflate numbers and increase the AoE spam. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ayrilana.1396 Posted May 5, 2020 Share Posted May 5, 2020 > @"Fueki.4753" said: > > @"Asum.4960" said: > > > Just sharply increasing the difficulty, as you correctly identified, would do nothing but leave a bunch of people behind to please the few. > > **Slowly but most importantly consistently** introducing small mechanical challenges now and then which repeatedly teach the players the game mechanics, make them engage and think until doing those things is second nature on the other hand, slowly raises the skill level of the average player, and then allows Anet to create more complex and engaging content across the board, without leaving anyone in frustration of a sudden wall of difficulty. > > You are wrong there. > **Slowly and consistently** increasing the difficulty will **not** make average players better. Many people do not want to improve. > Many others already feel sufficiently challenged. > It'll **slowly and consistently** drop the numbers of people who are willing to try and drive them into abusing the _continue-after-death_ function. > People want to play for fun, not get frustrated by ever-increasing difficulty. > For many people I know, this game being comparatively easier is the **main reason** they tried it. > > From many samples of story bosses, we both can see that Arenanet won't increase the difficulty via interesting mechanics anyway. > They'll most likely just inflate numbers and increase the AoE spam. You’re wrong as it will and those players do not have to actively try to improve either as it can be done passively. Players naturally improve the more that they do something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asum.4960 Posted May 5, 2020 Share Posted May 5, 2020 > @"Fueki.4753" said: > > @"Asum.4960" said: > > > Just sharply increasing the difficulty, as you correctly identified, would do nothing but leave a bunch of people behind to please the few. > > **Slowly but most importantly consistently** introducing small mechanical challenges now and then which repeatedly teach the players the game mechanics, make them engage and think until doing those things is second nature on the other hand, slowly raises the skill level of the average player, and then allows Anet to create more complex and engaging content across the board, without leaving anyone in frustration of a sudden wall of difficulty. > > You are wrong there. > **Slowly and consistently** increasing the difficulty will **not** make average players better. Many people do not want to improve. > Many others already feel sufficiently challenged. > It'll **slowly and consistently** drop the numbers of people who are willing to try and drive them into abusing the _continue-after-death_ function. > People want to play for fun, not get frustrated by ever-increasing difficulty. That's where I believe you are wrong. As @"Ayrilana.1396" said, if done right (which granted, is not at all easy), with good design in form of a natural progression players don't have to **want to improve**, they **can't help but improve**. They will also not notice any increase in difficulty negatively, at least not to a point of frustration, as their level of personal skill increases in parallel to the more complex gameplay. The game just gets gradually more fun and engaging. Now ofc there can be miscalculations with things being tuned too high or low at times (but that happens anyway), but imo it's still a worthwhile effort as it increases both the quality of players and their experience as well as the game quality itself over time, offering more engaging gameplay for everybody. Alternatively keeping the game forever in tutorial mode where non of the carefully designed and fun and engaging game mechanics actually matter and everybody might as well just Auto Attack/bot/let an AI pet play for them with great success is imo admitting defeat as designer. The overall difficulty being too low and not gradually increasing is the cause why players then hit such a frustrating wall when something (often on accident) is actually moderately difficult. The solution is not to purge all difficulty, it's to naturally build up to it better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Comus.7365 Posted May 5, 2020 Share Posted May 5, 2020 i do not subscribe to the challenge = fun idea. so far pretty much every boss fight i've done in the game has just been frustrating and left me with the feeling that i never want to do them ever again. not once have i thought "wow that was fun". trying to have more of that kind of stuff everywhere would certainly kill any interest for me. this is coming from someone who likes fighting other players mind you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lare.5129 Posted May 5, 2020 Share Posted May 5, 2020 sometimes it can be hard, but possible. Main that we need, not avoid boss, and not restore ho at 100 after death Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raknar.4735 Posted May 5, 2020 Share Posted May 5, 2020 > @"Asum.4960" said: > > @"Raknar.4735" said: > > > @"Asum.4960" said: > > > > @"Raknar.4735" said: > > > > > @"mindcircus.1506" said: > > > > > > @"Raknar.4735" said: > > > > > > It's still sad to see how basically no one does it here in the GW community. The only time I've seen the GW2 playerbase do something similiar was during a raid tournament by not allowing downed state. > > > > > Wooden Potatoes did a series of "Iron Man" challenge streams with various restrictions such as permadeath, or only equipping items the story gave him... a variety of different things. A bunch of us were pretty stoked on this at the time. A few of us started challenge runs of our own. I know a few streamers like Jebro also started one as well. > > > > > But the last one I recall WP doing for GW2 was the "No Skill" challenge in which he proved that the personal story could be beaten in it's entirety by a player character using no weapon or utility skills. > > > > > Let that sink in a moment... the personal story of Guild Wars 2 can be beaten by a Ranger pet. > > > > > Once those of us interested in "Challenge Runs" saw this, the whole idea of making the game harder in this way went out the window. > > > > > How much more challenging can the player make it after "no skills"? > > > > > > > > I'm aware WP did clear the outdated personal story from 2012 with a ranger pet. Ranger pets don't scale with player equipment, so the equipped items didn't really matter. I applaud WP for doing something out of the box, which only a few do. > > > > I'm not sure, did he only beat the old personal story, or even newer releases with bossfights like Balthazar or Scruffy? > > > > I'd be interested in a pet soloing newer bosses, like Scruffy or Balthazar. But I guess since WP beat the story, no one else has to try it. > > > > Or do the same challenge without a pet class for that matter. > > > > > > > > That's why no one wants to do the iron man challenge in WoW, because someone else did it first! > > > > > > > > I mean, even Dark Souls, how much more challenging can someone make it, when people finish it on SL1, or when The Happy Hob was able to beat all parts, including Bloodborne and Demon Souls, without being hit? The whole game can be beaten without getting hit, imagine that! > > > > No reason to do any more challenges in Dark Souls, ever. > > > > > > The point is there needs to be a baseline difficulty to make challenge runs worth it/satisfying to do. Soloing MAMA in 99CM is fun and engaging, even if people have already done it, because it's still an achievement to have done so. Soloing Story content without Gear, Utilities, dodge rolling, or even not using any skills altogether is just tedious and doesn't prove anything at all when an AI Pet can solo it. And once that's done, what's the point? Anyone can do that, or rather, anyones Pet can. > > > > > > > Soloing MAMA 99 cm sounds tedious to me, not fun and engaging. It is a personal achievement if you see it as such, but so is creating a legendary to many people, even though that is mind numbingly boring to me, since most of it is just farming gold. > > One could even say doing MAMA 99 cm in a group isn't achievement worthy anymore, since someone soloed it. So what's the point in doing it? Someone else has already done it. > > It's an achievement because one can fail at it, quite easily so (even doing it as a group), and unlike Story challenges (or making Legendaries) not just by being bored and losing patience. > Don't get me wrong, the patience it requires to watch your AI Pet solo the entirety of the story for you is impressive in the sense of someone enduring that much boredom of "playing" content that is so easy you don't actually have to play it, but that's about it. > It terms of being a mechanical gameplay challenge, yes, things like 99CM MAMA, solo or not, in my opinion have much more value still regardless of it being done before. Like I already said, what‘s boring or not is still subjective. Soloing MAMA 99cm may be an achievement to you, but it is just boring to me, not fun or rewarding. The patience to fail the encounter over and over is impressive, but in the end it‘s just repeating the same boring mechanics over and over fighting a boss that wasn‘t designed for solo play. You can‘t really fail it, since you can just retry the boss instantly, whereas in ironman challenges, like in WoW you risk your character and progress. I‘d rather watch someone doing an ironman challenge or a hardcore run in any game, where risk of character loss is involved, than someone just retrying a GW2 boss over and over again. There‘s just no risk involved in soloing a GW2 boss, unless you set your own challenge. But like I previously stated, not many set their own challenges in GW2. Even PoE bosses (Non HC) which you can instantly phase with enough DPS have more risk involved, since you are limited to 6 tries. Edit: Still waiting for a pet to solo Scruffy and Balthazar, not just the outdated 2012 story! That still sounds way more enjoyable to me with the risk of permadeath than soloing a boss without any risk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asum.4960 Posted May 5, 2020 Share Posted May 5, 2020 > @"Raknar.4735" said: > > @"Asum.4960" said: > > > @"Raknar.4735" said: > > > > @"Asum.4960" said: > > > > > @"Raknar.4735" said: > > > > > > @"mindcircus.1506" said: > > > > > > > @"Raknar.4735" said: > > > > > > > It's still sad to see how basically no one does it here in the GW community. The only time I've seen the GW2 playerbase do something similiar was during a raid tournament by not allowing downed state. > > > > > > Wooden Potatoes did a series of "Iron Man" challenge streams with various restrictions such as permadeath, or only equipping items the story gave him... a variety of different things. A bunch of us were pretty stoked on this at the time. A few of us started challenge runs of our own. I know a few streamers like Jebro also started one as well. > > > > > > But the last one I recall WP doing for GW2 was the "No Skill" challenge in which he proved that the personal story could be beaten in it's entirety by a player character using no weapon or utility skills. > > > > > > Let that sink in a moment... the personal story of Guild Wars 2 can be beaten by a Ranger pet. > > > > > > Once those of us interested in "Challenge Runs" saw this, the whole idea of making the game harder in this way went out the window. > > > > > > How much more challenging can the player make it after "no skills"? > > > > > > > > > > I'm aware WP did clear the outdated personal story from 2012 with a ranger pet. Ranger pets don't scale with player equipment, so the equipped items didn't really matter. I applaud WP for doing something out of the box, which only a few do. > > > > > I'm not sure, did he only beat the old personal story, or even newer releases with bossfights like Balthazar or Scruffy? > > > > > I'd be interested in a pet soloing newer bosses, like Scruffy or Balthazar. But I guess since WP beat the story, no one else has to try it. > > > > > Or do the same challenge without a pet class for that matter. > > > > > > > > > > That's why no one wants to do the iron man challenge in WoW, because someone else did it first! > > > > > > > > > > I mean, even Dark Souls, how much more challenging can someone make it, when people finish it on SL1, or when The Happy Hob was able to beat all parts, including Bloodborne and Demon Souls, without being hit? The whole game can be beaten without getting hit, imagine that! > > > > > No reason to do any more challenges in Dark Souls, ever. > > > > > > > > The point is there needs to be a baseline difficulty to make challenge runs worth it/satisfying to do. Soloing MAMA in 99CM is fun and engaging, even if people have already done it, because it's still an achievement to have done so. Soloing Story content without Gear, Utilities, dodge rolling, or even not using any skills altogether is just tedious and doesn't prove anything at all when an AI Pet can solo it. And once that's done, what's the point? Anyone can do that, or rather, anyones Pet can. > > > > > > > > > > Soloing MAMA 99 cm sounds tedious to me, not fun and engaging. It is a personal achievement if you see it as such, but so is creating a legendary to many people, even though that is mind numbingly boring to me, since most of it is just farming gold. > > > One could even say doing MAMA 99 cm in a group isn't achievement worthy anymore, since someone soloed it. So what's the point in doing it? Someone else has already done it. > > > > It's an achievement because one can fail at it, quite easily so (even doing it as a group), and unlike Story challenges (or making Legendaries) not just by being bored and losing patience. > > Don't get me wrong, the patience it requires to watch your AI Pet solo the entirety of the story for you is impressive in the sense of someone enduring that much boredom of "playing" content that is so easy you don't actually have to play it, but that's about it. > > It terms of being a mechanical gameplay challenge, yes, things like 99CM MAMA, solo or not, in my opinion have much more value still regardless of it being done before. > > > Like I already said, what‘s boring or not is still subjective. Soloing MAMA 99cm may be an achievement to you, but it is just boring to me, not fun or rewarding. The patience to fail the encounter over and over is impressive, but in the end it‘s just repeating the same boring mechanics over and over fighting a boss that wasn‘t designed for solo play. You can‘t really fail it, since you can just retry the boss instantly, whereas in ironman challenges, like in WoW you risk your character and progress. > > I‘d rather watch someone doing an ironman challenge or a hardcore run in any game, where risk of character loss is involved, than someone just retrying a GW2 boss over and over again. There‘s just no risk involved in soloing a GW2 boss, unless you set your own challenge. > But like I previously stated, not many set their own challenges in GW2. > > Even PoE bosses which you can instantly phase with enough DPS have more risk involved, since you are limited to 6 tries. > Ofc it's subjective and what you describe making a challenge fun to you seems completely arbitrary to me, as when you misplay and die at a solo boss challenge at let's say 10%, you also lose all that progress. You could also set yourself to delete the character if you fail the boss, or reversely not delete a character if it dies in a story mission Iron Man challenge and just restart the mission, to fit or not fit your parameters for fun. On that note, I don't think I've died in personal/Living Story in 5+ years, bar purposefully doing stupid/risky things for science on rare occasions where dying was at all even possible, so doing an Iron Man playthrough of the story seems less than impressive or engaging to me for that simple reason. Arbitrary limits, like deleting a character after failure due lapse of attention or lag, to me personally, just isn't fun. Overcoming some actual mechanical challenge can be. Fighting a boss for minutes, executing every mechanic perfectly at which point any wrong move costs you all your progress, while not what I usually enjoy, can be exciting. It's precisely not about the patience to try it over and over until you get lucky, but to learn, improve and do it once well and having the skill and concentration to get through it. And you can indeed fail it, by just not being good enough (yet) to do it, no matter how many times you try. Running through the story without dying while knowing the only thing that could possibly kill me is a gross misjudgement/misplay, upon which I then force myself to delete the character despite knowing I could defeat that failed encounter in my sleep if I just tackled it more reasonably just seems silly to me personally on the other hand. Especially since there are plenty builds you can make for a variety of professions that are virtually immortal in Story/Open world content anyway since the content is just that easy, should that be necessary. That said, personal challenges (or lack thereof) isn't really the issue at hand. > @"Comus.7365" said: > i do not subscribe to the challenge = fun idea. Neither do I. The argument is not that more challenge is inherently more fun, but that fun mechanics that actually engage you with the game, by nature, are more challenging - but if you also carefully foster an increase in player skill leading up to that, you can make more mechanically fun and engaging fights without making them perceptively more challenging, even though they technically are. Challenge can be frustrating when you are not prepared for it, don't understand what makes it challenging, as well as not understanding the systems and tools available to you to alleviate that challenge, which would then otherwise leave you with a more fun and engaging experience. Imagine a boss just being a Golem standing still and not attacking which you simply had to DPS down. That's not challenging. It's also not fun. Imagine a boss having intricate and punishing mechanics you had to do, without you having the tools and understanding the mechanics to beat it. That's extremely challenging, but also most likely not fun and leading to frustration (the place a lot of the community is in when encountering any difficulty). Imagine a boss having intricate and punishing mechanics you had to do but you having been over time gradually given the tools and game knowledge to counter them and then being able to apply them as player agency. That's, imo, good game design and a fun experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raknar.4735 Posted May 5, 2020 Share Posted May 5, 2020 > @"Asum.4960" said: > > @"Raknar.4735" said: > > > @"Asum.4960" said: > > > > @"Raknar.4735" said: > > > > > @"Asum.4960" said: > > > > > > @"Raknar.4735" said: > > > > > > > @"mindcircus.1506" said: > > > > > > > > @"Raknar.4735" said: > > > > > > > > It's still sad to see how basically no one does it here in the GW community. The only time I've seen the GW2 playerbase do something similiar was during a raid tournament by not allowing downed state. > > > > > > > Wooden Potatoes did a series of "Iron Man" challenge streams with various restrictions such as permadeath, or only equipping items the story gave him... a variety of different things. A bunch of us were pretty stoked on this at the time. A few of us started challenge runs of our own. I know a few streamers like Jebro also started one as well. > > > > > > > But the last one I recall WP doing for GW2 was the "No Skill" challenge in which he proved that the personal story could be beaten in it's entirety by a player character using no weapon or utility skills. > > > > > > > Let that sink in a moment... the personal story of Guild Wars 2 can be beaten by a Ranger pet. > > > > > > > Once those of us interested in "Challenge Runs" saw this, the whole idea of making the game harder in this way went out the window. > > > > > > > How much more challenging can the player make it after "no skills"? > > > > > > > > > > > > I'm aware WP did clear the outdated personal story from 2012 with a ranger pet. Ranger pets don't scale with player equipment, so the equipped items didn't really matter. I applaud WP for doing something out of the box, which only a few do. > > > > > > I'm not sure, did he only beat the old personal story, or even newer releases with bossfights like Balthazar or Scruffy? > > > > > > I'd be interested in a pet soloing newer bosses, like Scruffy or Balthazar. But I guess since WP beat the story, no one else has to try it. > > > > > > Or do the same challenge without a pet class for that matter. > > > > > > > > > > > > That's why no one wants to do the iron man challenge in WoW, because someone else did it first! > > > > > > > > > > > > I mean, even Dark Souls, how much more challenging can someone make it, when people finish it on SL1, or when The Happy Hob was able to beat all parts, including Bloodborne and Demon Souls, without being hit? The whole game can be beaten without getting hit, imagine that! > > > > > > No reason to do any more challenges in Dark Souls, ever. > > > > > > > > > > The point is there needs to be a baseline difficulty to make challenge runs worth it/satisfying to do. Soloing MAMA in 99CM is fun and engaging, even if people have already done it, because it's still an achievement to have done so. Soloing Story content without Gear, Utilities, dodge rolling, or even not using any skills altogether is just tedious and doesn't prove anything at all when an AI Pet can solo it. And once that's done, what's the point? Anyone can do that, or rather, anyones Pet can. > > > > > > > > > > > > > Soloing MAMA 99 cm sounds tedious to me, not fun and engaging. It is a personal achievement if you see it as such, but so is creating a legendary to many people, even though that is mind numbingly boring to me, since most of it is just farming gold. > > > > One could even say doing MAMA 99 cm in a group isn't achievement worthy anymore, since someone soloed it. So what's the point in doing it? Someone else has already done it. > > > > > > It's an achievement because one can fail at it, quite easily so (even doing it as a group), and unlike Story challenges (or making Legendaries) not just by being bored and losing patience. > > > Don't get me wrong, the patience it requires to watch your AI Pet solo the entirety of the story for you is impressive in the sense of someone enduring that much boredom of "playing" content that is so easy you don't actually have to play it, but that's about it. > > > It terms of being a mechanical gameplay challenge, yes, things like 99CM MAMA, solo or not, in my opinion have much more value still regardless of it being done before. > > > > > > Like I already said, what‘s boring or not is still subjective. Soloing MAMA 99cm may be an achievement to you, but it is just boring to me, not fun or rewarding. The patience to fail the encounter over and over is impressive, but in the end it‘s just repeating the same boring mechanics over and over fighting a boss that wasn‘t designed for solo play. You can‘t really fail it, since you can just retry the boss instantly, whereas in ironman challenges, like in WoW you risk your character and progress. > > > > I‘d rather watch someone doing an ironman challenge or a hardcore run in any game, where risk of character loss is involved, than someone just retrying a GW2 boss over and over again. There‘s just no risk involved in soloing a GW2 boss, unless you set your own challenge. > > But like I previously stated, not many set their own challenges in GW2. > > > > Even PoE bosses which you can instantly phase with enough DPS have more risk involved, since you are limited to 6 tries. > > > > Ofc it's subjective and what you describe making a challenge fun to you seems completely arbitrary to me, as when you misplay and die at a solo boss challenge at let's say 10%, you also lose all that progress. You could also set yourself to delete the character if you fail the boss, or reversely not delete a character if it dies in a story mission Iron Man challenge and just restart the mission, to fit or not fit your parameters for fun. > > On that note, I don't think I've died in personal/Living Story in 5+ years, bar purposefully doing stupid/risky things for science on rare occasions where dying was at all even possible, so doing an Iron Man playthrough of the story seems less than impressive or engaging to me for that simple reason. > > Arbitrary limits, like deleting a character after failure due lapse of attention or lag, to me personally, just isn't fun. Overcoming some actual mechanical challenge can be. > Fighting a boss for minutes, executing every mechanic perfectly at which point any wrong move costs you all your progress, while not what I usually enjoy, can be exciting. > It's precisely not about the patience to try it over and over until you get lucky, but to learn, improve and do it once well and having the skill and concentration to get through it. And you can indeed fail it, by just not being good enough (yet) to do it, no matter how many times you try. > Running through the story without dying while knowing the only thing that could possibly kill me is a gross misjudgement/misplay, upon which I then force myself to delete the character despite knowing I could defeat that failed encounter in my sleep if I just tackled it more reasonably just seems silly to me personally on the other hand. > Especially since there are plenty builds you can make for a variety of professions that are virtually immortal in Story/Open world content anyway since the content is just that easy, should that be necessary. > > That said, personal challenges (or lack thereof) isn't really the issue at hand. Soloing a boss designed for a group is just as arbitrary as permadeath during a ironman challenge. That‘s what personal challenges are about, arbitrary factors. Soloing a boss is about patience and trying it out as many times till it finally works. The same things about not missplaying, despite being able to beat the boss by repeating the same actions over and over again applies here. But there‘s still no risk involved in soloing a boss, so I wouldn‘t feel any excitement. The challenge of ironman is to play a subpar build with subpar equipment, not play a virtually immortal build. Yeah, the issue at hand is that people don‘t realize people with varying skill levels play this game. So some might find story bosses easy, while they are hard for others. But instead of making up their own challenges to make the content harder for themselves, they‘d rather see an increase in difficulty to make it harder for everyone, including those that are already struggling with the story content ~~like OP~~(OP is not struggling, just thinks bosses have too much hp). That could lead to people not being able to complete the Story which should be accessible to everyone IMO (HoT pretty much proofed that, people still struggle soloing Mordremoth NM). It‘s just funny to me, coming from a Souls background, where I see people struggling with bosses, but at the same time I‘m able to melt bosses in seconds if I play an optimized build (e.g. RTSR setup with magic or BKH, in DS1). So this whole bosses melt in <20s argument with an optimized build is really strange to me, since I can do the same in games that are percieved as harder, even though it isn‘t true for the bigger bosses like Balthazar. Instead of telling FROM to make the game harder (They wouldn‘t listen anyways, I doubt feedback from a random western player matters to them), I‘d rather challenge myself with personal challenges and restrictions that make the game harder only for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asum.4960 Posted May 5, 2020 Share Posted May 5, 2020 > @"Raknar.4735" said: >The challenge of ironman is to play a subpar build with subpar equipment, not play a virtually immortal build. That's not a challenge though if the game over all (bar maybe a handful of encounter's) is so easy that it's beatable by a Ranger Pet with a character with no weapon no armor and using no skills/build at all. > @"Raknar.4735" said: > Yeah, the issue at hand is that people don‘t realize people with varying skill levels play this game. So some might find story bosses easy, while they are hard for others. But instead of making up their own challenges to make the content harder for themselves, they‘d rather see an increase in difficulty to make it harder for everyone, including those that are already struggling with the story content like OP. That could lead to people not being able to complete the Story which should be accessible to everyone IMO (HoT pretty much proofed that, people still struggle soloing Mordremoth NM). The issue with the game is not that some people don't realise that players with varying skill levels play this game, it's that the games design fosters an environment where those skill levels vary to such a ludicrous degree that some players are literally 10 times more effective than others, given the same gear - since the game over all is so easy that it doesn't naturally teach players the even most basic game mechanics as they can simply be ignored, unless they go out of their way to teach themselves. That leads to an environment where easy content is so easy it makes proficient players brains leak out of their ears, and challenging content so hard for others that it feels like smacking against a wall in frustration, creating a highly fractured community. The argument is not about making the game harder for everybody, it's about making it more engaging for everybody, through both a gradual increase in mechanical difficulty in tandem with fostering an increase in average player skill level by carefully and repeatedly engaging them with the games mechanics. Note: Sharp sudden increases in difficulty can be just as likely to drop engagement by some due to frustration than a complete lack of difficulty due to boredom for others, and both should be avoided. To put it simply, the goal is to strike a compromise and to gradually elevate the average player skill level in tandem with content complexity as much as possible while alienating as few players as possible, to generate the greatest possible amount of satisfied and engaged players by keeping the player spectrum as aligned as possible. > @"Raknar.4735" said: > I‘d rather challenge myself with personal challenges and restrictions that make the game harder only for me. Which probably works great in a game like Dark Souls, not so much in a game where AI companions can beat the game for you while you watch. At that point it doesn't really matter how much you try to challenge yourself with subpar gear, builds, gameplay styles etc., since you literally don't have to play at all for a majority of the content and will still beat it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Astralporing.1957 Posted May 5, 2020 Share Posted May 5, 2020 > @"mindcircus.1506" said: > > @"Fueki.4753" said: > > Arenanet isn't interested in making multiple difficulties for the same piece of content, **despite people already asking for years**. > Fractals. Ironically, Fractals are the one content where people _didn't_ ask for different difficulties (by the way, for the most part, when people were asking for multiple difficulties, they usually meant a _lower_ difficulty option, not a hard mode.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raknar.4735 Posted May 5, 2020 Share Posted May 5, 2020 > @"Asum.4960" said: > > @"Raknar.4735" said: > >The challenge of ironman is to play a subpar build with subpar equipment, not play a virtually immortal build. > > That's not a challenge though if the game over all (bar maybe a handful of encounter's) is so easy that it's beatable by a Ranger Pet with a character with no weapon no armor and using no skills/build at all. > > > @"Raknar.4735" said: > > Yeah, the issue at hand is that people don‘t realize people with varying skill levels play this game. So some might find story bosses easy, while they are hard for others. But instead of making up their own challenges to make the content harder for themselves, they‘d rather see an increase in difficulty to make it harder for everyone, including those that are already struggling with the story content like OP. That could lead to people not being able to complete the Story which should be accessible to everyone IMO (HoT pretty much proofed that, people still struggle soloing Mordremoth NM). > > The issue with the game is not that some people don't realise that players with varying skill levels play this game, it's that the games design fosters an environment where those skill levels vary to such a ludicrous degree that some players are literally 10 times more effective than others, given the same gear - since the game over all is so easy that it doesn't naturally teach players the even most basic game mechanics as they can simply be ignored, unless they go out of their way to teach themselves. > That leads to an environment where easy content is so easy it makes proficient players brains leak out of their ears, and challenging content so hard for others that it feels like smacking against a wall in frustration, creating a highly fractured community. > > The argument is not about making the game harder for everybody, it's about making it more engaging for everybody, through both a gradual increase in mechanical difficulty in tandem with fostering an increase in average player skill level by carefully and repeatedly engaging them with the games mechanics. > > Note: Sharp sudden increases in difficulty can be just as likely to drop engagement by some due to frustration than a complete lack of difficulty due to boredom for others, and both should be avoided. > To put it simply, the goal is to strike a compromise and to gradually elevate the average player skill level in tandem with content complexity as much as possible while alienating as few players as possible, to generate the greatest possible amount of satisfied and engaged players by keeping the player spectrum as aligned as possible. > > > @"Raknar.4735" said: > > I‘d rather challenge myself with personal challenges and restrictions that make the game harder only for me. > > Which probably works great in a game like Dark Souls, not so much in a game where AI companions can beat the game for you while you watch. > At that point it doesn't really matter how much you try to challenge yourself with subpar gear, builds, gameplay styles etc., since you literally don't have to play at all for a majority of the content and will still beat it. > Ranger pets don‘t scale with stats and have ridiculous stats. I‘ve still yet to see them beat the new story content solo. I‘ve also not seen someone beat them without a pet, without traits and gear, only a lvl 1 white weapon. The story of the game is fine difficulty wise. Dark Souls has the same issue with the 10 time more effective players. Varying player skill level is like that in most games. More so in skillbased games where you can‘t just outgear enemies. Anet never stated that the 10x power difference was comparing players with the same gear AFAIK. I bet the dps difference is largely because many players don‘t get how to effectively gear and choose good traits. Gradual increase in difficulty does mean making the game harder. Harder does not mean more engaging. Maybe it is for you, but others might find better story telling much more engaging. And the game has already been gradually increasing in difficulty. Just compare the outdated 2012 story which can be beaten by a pet to the newer releases. That said, making the story harder does make it more difficult for everyone. Difficulty should not be the focus of the Story, the story itself should be. Trying to increase the average playerskill by making the story harder is a fruitless endeavor. Hard games are a niche. There‘s a reason why in other MMORPGs the best way to beat a boss is to just farm better gear every reset, so that the mechanics matter less and less. There‘s already content that focuses on difficulty instead of story, which to no ones surprise has population problems and as a result of a small population a slow release cadence, because not everyone values difficulty as much as you do. Funny thing about Dark Souls i mentioned earlier: There are companions that can solo bosses. Challenging myself in GW2 works quite well, the same it does in DS and makes the game more engaging for me. And sometimes I can even enjoy the AI doing all the work, like farming Glints Challenge in GW1, or them beating the whole story for me. I could choose to just not use the AI, but I guess that wouldn‘t be a challenge ;) I guess it just doesn‘t work for you, but don‘t try to change the content others seem to enjoy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mindcircus.1506 Posted May 5, 2020 Share Posted May 5, 2020 > @"Astralporing.1957" said: > (by the way, for the most part, when people were asking for multiple difficulties, they usually meant a _lower_ difficulty option, not a hard mode.) Really now... We've seen a few of threads on this topic in the past two years and there have been a large number asking of us for some increased difficulty in LW/Story missions to give the encounters meaning. Feel free to consult the "people" you are speaking for and check. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mindcircus.1506 Posted May 5, 2020 Share Posted May 5, 2020 > @"Fueki.4753" said: > But rather than creeping up the amount and spamming of attacks and inflating the AoE fields(you're the one most at fault here, Scruffy 2.0), or impairing the play vision (looking at you, Fraenir), I'd like the difficulty depend on actual mechanics. Did you know that if you actually work the mechanics as intended in Scruffy 2.0 the AoEs are not an issue? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kharmin.7683 Posted May 5, 2020 Share Posted May 5, 2020 Yes, there have been threads asking for more challenging content. I don't think that there has been a "large number of us" asking for increased difficulty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mindcircus.1506 Posted May 5, 2020 Share Posted May 5, 2020 > @"kharmin.7683" said: > Yes, there have been threads asking for more challenging content. I don't think that there has been a "large number of us" asking for increased difficulty. There are a comparatively large number asking for it in this very thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Algreg.3629 Posted May 5, 2020 Share Posted May 5, 2020 well, one can hardly argue what another person feels, I can only give a counter-perspective: I don't feel that at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asum.4960 Posted May 5, 2020 Share Posted May 5, 2020 > @"Raknar.4735" said: > Ranger pets don‘t scale with stats and have ridiculous stats. Yea, I'm well aware. They are still just ranger pets. If they can do it, anyone can do it. > @"Raknar.4735" said: > Gradual increase in difficulty does mean making the game harder. Harder does not mean more engaging. I believe I've clarified my argument regarding this three times now already. > @"Raknar.4735" said: > Maybe it is for you, but others might find better story telling much more engaging. Believe it or not, Gameplay is part of the story telling of a video game. The term ludonarrative dissonance describes the issue that arises when they don't align. If a game spends hours on a story trying to build up a grand threat to the world which you can then defeat by activating auto attack and going afk, that's not good story telling as it cheapens the entire experience. Gameplay and writing go hand it hand and have to play together cohesively for an engaging Story experience. A godlike video game hero being tasked to kill some vermin in a cellar which are then brutally difficult tearing him to shreds is equally immersion breaking than a video game hero having to face a literal godlike being in single combat and sneezing them into the grave. > @"Raknar.4735" said: > And the game has already been gradually increasing in difficulty. Ofc it has, that's common sense design, so I'm not sure why this idea of gradually increasing difficulty is so controversial here. Pretty much every video game does, GW2 already does it. It's just been done very inconsistently and in ineffective means design wise to educate players on the game. > @"Raknar.4735" said: > That said, making the story harder does make it more difficult for everyone. And yet there is a difference between objective and subjective difficulty. Content C can be much more difficult than Content A should you jump straight from A to C, yet if you provide a well designed ramp up to it through out Content A and Content B, by the time you reach Content C, it can actually subjectively feel easier than Content A, even though it's objectively harder, since player skill has increased proportionally to the increasing difficulty or more. If the ramp is badly designed/inconsistent or not provided at all, players hit a frustrating wall when trying Content C, as is often the case in GW2 and where these complaints about Story difficulty come from. The answer to the cries about difficulty about Content C is then not to nerf and ruin Content C (jeopardising the quality of all future content as well), but instead to ramp up the mechanical complexity (aka difficulty) of Content B, to prepare players better for Content C. > @"Raknar.4735" said: > Trying to increase the average playerskill by making the story harder is a fruitless endeavor. That's just categorically not true. Ofc player skill level increases from Queensdale to Orr. Yet, if the entire game was like Queendale with mostly press F to water Cow being the gameplay, instead of the difficulty gradually increasing, player skill level would equally increase less. If you then left Orr as is, players would perceive it as suddenly unbearably difficult. Yet for newer mechanics such as Breakbars, and to some extend across the board with all systems, the early game (especially the leveling/core experience) doesn't ramp enough, and not consistently enough, to grow and prepare it's players for more complex content. > @"Raknar.4735" said: > There‘s already content that focuses on difficulty instead of story, which to no ones surprise has population problems and as a result of a small population a slow release cadence, because not everyone values difficulty as much as you do. The population problems, as even recognised by Anet publicly, mostly stem from A ) the lack of ramping up difficulty in the game*, and B ) the slow release cadence. *To quote Andrew Gray: > Raids are a trickier beast. They're a unique experience and community that we want to find better ways to support, the biggest challenge in creating more is the small audience they attract. **We gathered data to determine why, and the most common answer was that there is a giant leap in difficulty between raids and other endgame content, and there isn't anything to help players work their way up**. Aka, the designers are thankfully well aware that GW2 has an issue with lack of ramping difficulty and how to design it well, especially this far into the game with so much established content which already missed many of the opportunities to teach players the fundamentals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raknar.4735 Posted May 5, 2020 Share Posted May 5, 2020 > @"Asum.4960" said: > > @"Raknar.4735" said: > > Ranger pets don‘t scale with stats and have ridiculous stats. > > Yea, I'm well aware. They are still just ranger pets. If they can do it, anyone can do it. > Except they didn‘t beat the new content, just outdated 2012 content. > > > @"Raknar.4735" said: > > Gradual increase in difficulty does mean making the game harder. Harder does not mean more engaging. > > I believe I've clarified my argument regarding this three times now already. > You can claim it doesn‘t make the game harder, but it does. > > @"Raknar.4735" said: > > Maybe it is for you, but others might find better story telling much more engaging. > > Believe it or not, Gameplay is part of the story telling of a video game. > The term ludonarrative dissonance describes the issue that arises when they don't align. > If a game spends hours on a story trying to build up a grand threat to the world which you can then defeat by activating auto attack and going afk, that's not good story telling as it cheapens the entire experience. > Gameplay and writing go hand it hand and have to play together cohesively for an engaging Story experience. > > A godlike video game hero being tasked to kill some vermin in a cellar which are then brutally difficult tearing him to shreds is equally immersion breaking than a video game hero having to face a literal godlike being in single combat and sneezing them into the grave. > Yeah, it is part of story telling. Except I‘ve not seen someone kill Balthazar by afking. You would hate WoW and PoE, since vermin literally can kill the godlike hero. And they‘re able to in any Souls game. Yet I still think DS has one of the best stories in gaming. > > @"Raknar.4735" said: > > And the game has already been gradually increasing in difficulty. > > Ofc it has, that's common sense design, so I'm not sure why this idea of gradually increasing difficulty is so controversial here. Pretty much every video game does, GW2 already does it. It's just been done very inconsistently and in ineffective means design wise to educate players on the game. > Some people like a difficulty plateau. But if it has been gradually increasing, why are some players still advocating for even harder content for the story? It seems fine to me, and apparently some even have issues with the difficulty or hp scaling of bosses. > > @"Raknar.4735" said: > > That said, making the story harder does make it more difficult for everyone. > > And yet there is a difference between objective and subjective difficulty. > Content C can be much more difficult than Content A should you jump straight from A to C, yet if you provide a well designed ramp up to it through out Content A and Content B, by the time you reach Content C, it can actually subjectively feel easier than Content A, even though it's objectively harder, since player skill has increased proportionally to the increasing difficulty or more. > If the ramp is badly designed/inconsistent or not provided at all, players hit a frustrating wall when trying Content C, as is often the case in GW2 and where these complaints about Story difficulty come from. > > The answer to the cries about difficulty about Content C is then not to nerf and ruin Content C (jeopardising the quality of all future content as well), but instead to ramp up the mechanical complexity (aka difficulty) of Content B, to prepare players better for Content C. > So why are you trying to make story, Content A, harder? Content B seems to be Strike Missions, I doubt they will be able to lead a lot off players to Content C. > > @"Raknar.4735" said: > > Trying to increase the average playerskill by making the story harder is a fruitless endeavor. > > That's just categorically not true. Ofc player skill level increases from Queensdale to Orr. Yet, if the entire game was like Queendale with mostly press F to water Cow being the gameplay, instead of the difficulty gradually increasing, player skill level would equally increase less. > If you then left Orr as is, players would perceive it as suddenly unbearably difficult. > > Yet for newer mechanics such as Breakbars, and to some extend across the board with all systems, the early game (especially the leveling/core experience) doesn't ramp enough, and not consistently enough, to grow and prepare it's players for more complex content. > Breakbars are being added left and right, does it make players break them? Nope. > > @"Raknar.4735" said: > > There‘s already content that focuses on difficulty instead of story, which to no ones surprise has population problems and as a result of a small population a slow release cadence, because not everyone values difficulty as much as you do. > > The population problems, as even recognised by Anet publicly, mostly stem from A ) the lack of ramping up difficulty in the game*, and B ) the slow release cadence. > Slow release cadence is due to low population. We‘ll see if the ramping up difficulty is actually the problem and not that players just dislike structured low man instanced content, once the Strike Mission experiment is over. > *To quote Andrew Gray: > > Raids are a trickier beast. They're a unique experience and community that we want to find better ways to support, the biggest challenge in creating more is the small audience they attract. **We gathered data to determine why, and the most common answer was that there is a giant leap in difficulty between raids and other endgame content, and there isn't anything to help players work their way up**. > > Aka, the designers are thankfully well aware that GW2 has an issue with lack of ramping difficulty and how to design it well, especially this far into the game with so much established content which already missed many of the opportunities to teach players the fundamentals. Yeah, lacking ramping difficutly between story, open worlds, fractals and raids. That‘s why they added SMs. No reason so change Content A, just like there‘s no reason to change Content C. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Einlanzer.1627 Posted May 5, 2020 Share Posted May 5, 2020 I've long thought the living world stories are too punishing for solo players. I've long thought they need to pick an approach and make them either totally unsoloable or solo friendly instead of trying to have them sitting in an awkward middle space. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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