Sometimes I feel LW chapter bosses aren't designed for solo play

[kharmin.7683]

> @"mindcircus.1506" said:

> > @"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.

 

Are there? Or are there just the same few people with multiple replies? Regardless, in my opinion, that doesn't constitute a large number when compared to the player base as a whole.

[mindcircus.1506]

> @"kharmin.7683" said:

> Regardless, in my opinion, that doesn't constitute a large number when compared to the player base as a whole.

Source for your numbers?

 

[kharmin.7683]

> @"mindcircus.1506" said:

> > @"kharmin.7683" said:

> > Regardless, in my opinion, that doesn't constitute a large number when compared to the player base as a whole.

> Source for your numbers?

>

 

I don't need a source. I said "in my opinion" which is not a statement of fact. Where is your source that these requests DO constitute a large number of the player base? That was your point; you ought to back it up with empirical evidence not rhetoric

[Skiravor.1257]

Almost all of these boss encounters make for very uninspired play.

 

You have to learn some foolish dance moves, follow the steps, repeat the same steps multiple times, finally finish.

 

I dont like boring choreographed play, its why i dont raid, as well as the whiney ocd people who do raid are best avoided.

[Smoosh.2718]

Personally i think some of the story bosses are just too... easy.

 

Learning how to fight a boss is actually a really fun thing in games. I would actually love to see more bosses that destroy you multiple times before you work out the mechanic on how to beat it.

 

I really do not want a 1 simulator for story bosses.

However it would also be nice to see content that does require 2 people+ for an instanced story mission, would bring the MMO back to the RPG.

[Cuks.8241]

Ever increasing difficulty, learning, finding a solution and finally beating a boss is the basic concept of computer games. Off course you have to learn the "choreography" of a fight. I mean sure they could make fights more unpredictable, which would be great in my opinion but that would make them even harder.

 

If everything is just a walk in the park it is not a game anymore.

[thepenmonster.3621]

> @"Skiravor.1257" said:

> You have to learn some foolish dance moves, follow the steps, repeat the same steps multiple times, finally finish.

>

 

I have mastered my build! I'm ready to show my skills to the world.

 

"You gotta throw rocks at 'im!"

 

What?

 

"Rocks. There on the floor. Only rocks work."

 

O-okay.

 

"PSYCHE! The floor is on fire!"

 

The hell?!

 

"Double PSYCHE! 25 second chill!"

 

For the love of...

 

"Now do this six times in a row."

[battledrone.8315]

> @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > @"Fueki.4753" said:

> > That is an issue that should be dealt by overly strong players taking of their gear or simply holding back, not by artificially inflating things and making it harder for anyone.

>

> You do understand that Season 3 requires Heart of Thorns and Season 4 Path of Fire right? I'm not sure why a fight in either season's content should be considerably easier than any of the fights in the expansions themselves.

>

> > @"Fueki.4753" said:

> > Why should the average players (who are the vast majority of the player base) be forced to get better

>

> Are you saying that the vast majority of players didn't finish the expansion content? This would certainly cause concern but I doubt that's the case.

 

perhaps thats why they didnt want to make more expansions at all? they only made the announcement after the forums lit up...

i barely finshed the core game on a couple of toons. never got close to that in the expansions

[battledrone.8315]

> @"Cuks.8241" said:

> Ever increasing difficulty, learning, finding a solution and finally beating a boss is the basic concept of computer games. Off course you have to learn the "choreography" of a fight. I mean sure they could make fights more unpredictable, which would be great in my opinion but that would make them even harder.

>

> If everything is just a walk in the park it is not a game anymore.

 

that would actually make it a game for me. if you want me to do work, you would have to pay me.

[maddoctor.2738]

> @"battledrone.8315" said:

> > @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > > @"Fueki.4753" said:

> > > That is an issue that should be dealt by overly strong players taking of their gear or simply holding back, not by artificially inflating things and making it harder for anyone.

> >

> > You do understand that Season 3 requires Heart of Thorns and Season 4 Path of Fire right? I'm not sure why a fight in either season's content should be considerably easier than any of the fights in the expansions themselves.

> >

> > > @"Fueki.4753" said:

> > > Why should the average players (who are the vast majority of the player base) be forced to get better

> >

> > Are you saying that the vast majority of players didn't finish the expansion content? This would certainly cause concern but I doubt that's the case.

>

> perhaps thats why they didnt want to make more expansions at all? they only made the announcement after the forums lit up...

> i barely finshed the core game on a couple of toons. never got close to that in the expansions

 

You mean they don't want to make expansions because players haven't finished the current ones? That's a rather far stretch considering they released a second expansion. And besides, the content of the seasons wasn't/isn't "core game level" either, and some bosses are over-tuned (see OP) you'd think if the core was the best challenge level they'd release content similar to that and not release expansion/seasons for 5 years that hurt their game. After all they do have data and use analytics that would tell them if the players had such difficulties with the expansions.

[battledrone.8315]

> @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > @"battledrone.8315" said:

> > > @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > > > @"Fueki.4753" said:

> > > > That is an issue that should be dealt by overly strong players taking of their gear or simply holding back, not by artificially inflating things and making it harder for anyone.

> > >

> > > You do understand that Season 3 requires Heart of Thorns and Season 4 Path of Fire right? I'm not sure why a fight in either season's content should be considerably easier than any of the fights in the expansions themselves.

> > >

> > > > @"Fueki.4753" said:

> > > > Why should the average players (who are the vast majority of the player base) be forced to get better

> > >

> > > Are you saying that the vast majority of players didn't finish the expansion content? This would certainly cause concern but I doubt that's the case.

> >

> > perhaps thats why they didnt want to make more expansions at all? they only made the announcement after the forums lit up...

> > i barely finshed the core game on a couple of toons. never got close to that in the expansions

>

> You mean they don't want to make expansions because players haven't finished the current ones? That's a rather far stretch considering they released a second expansion. And besides, the content of the seasons wasn't/isn't "core game level" either, and some bosses are over-tuned (see OP) you'd think if the core was the best challenge level they'd release content similar to that and not release expansion/seasons for 5 years that hurt their game. After all they do have data and use analytics that would tell them if the players had such difficulties with the expansions.

 

and if it worked as planned, you can bet , that they wouldnt had put them on ice. a business wont make any changes, if their products are doing well.

the second expansion was ½ price and easier too.

i guess it was the same analytics, that gave the okay to the "no expansion" approach

[Astralporing.1957]

> @"battledrone.8315" said:

> i guess it was the same analytics, that gave the okay to the "no expansion" approach

It's extremely likely that the "no expansion" approach wasn't tied to any specific analytics data at all. It was tied to them siphoning off resources from GW2 to _other_ game projects. Projects that subsequently got cancelled (and those siphoned off resources wasted). And when they eventualy found themselves with GW2 only, and no other projects, they found out that they're 2 years behind shedule with expansion.

It's not like they specifically wanted a no-expansion approach. It was that they initially had no resources for an expansion, and later, they had to go with expansionless approach because _they had no expansion to give_.

 

BTW, there are some strong hints, that it wasn't only about GW2 (as a whole, not the specific part) giving them less and less revenue. It was also the (quite understandable) thought that they should not tie their future to only a single title... As well as a need of quite a part of the developer team to _work on something new for a change_.

They took a risk in order to expand their portfolio. And either miscalculated the cost to GW2 the gamble would cause, or they didn't prepare for the (obviously non-zero) chance that those other projects _won't_ pay off.

 

[maddoctor.2738]

> @"battledrone.8315" said:

> > @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > > @"battledrone.8315" said:

> > > > @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > > > > @"Fueki.4753" said:

> > > > > That is an issue that should be dealt by overly strong players taking of their gear or simply holding back, not by artificially inflating things and making it harder for anyone.

> > > >

> > > > You do understand that Season 3 requires Heart of Thorns and Season 4 Path of Fire right? I'm not sure why a fight in either season's content should be considerably easier than any of the fights in the expansions themselves.

> > > >

> > > > > @"Fueki.4753" said:

> > > > > Why should the average players (who are the vast majority of the player base) be forced to get better

> > > >

> > > > Are you saying that the vast majority of players didn't finish the expansion content? This would certainly cause concern but I doubt that's the case.

> > >

> > > perhaps thats why they didnt want to make more expansions at all? they only made the announcement after the forums lit up...

> > > i barely finshed the core game on a couple of toons. never got close to that in the expansions

> >

> > You mean they don't want to make expansions because players haven't finished the current ones? That's a rather far stretch considering they released a second expansion. And besides, the content of the seasons wasn't/isn't "core game level" either, and some bosses are over-tuned (see OP) you'd think if the core was the best challenge level they'd release content similar to that and not release expansion/seasons for 5 years that hurt their game. After all they do have data and use analytics that would tell them if the players had such difficulties with the expansions.

>

> and if it worked as planned, you can bet , that they wouldnt had put them on ice. a business wont make any changes, if their products are doing well.

> the second expansion was ½ price and easier too.

> i guess it was the same analytics, that gave the okay to the "no expansion" approach

 

By your own logic if the core game was doing so well, they wouldn't make changes to it with the expansions. How do you explain the drastic changes in the expansions then? You've expressed your dissatisfaction over the direction of the game in many threads, praising the "core game" and disliking everything that came after it. It's been almost 8 years. I'm sure following a certain path over a course of 8 years is based on some form of data and not as a way to spite players like you that enjoyed only the core experience.

 

Some food for thought now and more on the actual topic: the bosses in the Core game are also damage sponges, especially if you go after them at the appropriate level, with appropriate gear. If you finished the core game so many times you must remember the battle of claw island or the forging the pact mission where you fought some bosses with greatly inflated health pools (and no mechanics whatsoever) making them a very tedious experience. And they aren't the only ones, since the personal story lacks any meaningful mechanics in its fights, big health pools were the only way to make fights last longer. Even the 5 starter bosses have inflated health pools and are a challenge for the player to stay awake while fighting them. Yes, they are tutorial bosses they shouldn't be "hard", obviously, but they take a great time to kill, by doing almost nothing, all while hearing the npcs talking about them as if it's the end of the world.

 

tl;dr Damage sponges have always been a part of this game, usually there to pad the encounter time. Boring and tedious are the words best describing that part of the game. I guess Arenanet can go from one extreme to another extreme very easily. They upped the mechanical challenge of later encounters, but forgot to solve that glaring issue with the core experience.

[Astralporing.1957]

> @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> Some food for thought now and more on the actual topic: the bosses in the Core game are also damage sponges, especially if you go after them at the appropriate level, with appropriate gear. If you finished the core game so many times you must remember the battle of claw island or the forging the pact mission where you fought some bosses with greatly inflated health pools (and no mechanics whatsoever) making them a very tedious experience. And they aren't the only ones, since the personal story lacks any meaningful mechanics in its fights, big health pools were the only way to make fights last longer. Even the 5 starter bosses have inflated health pools and are a challenge for the player to stay awake while fighting them. Yes, they are tutorial bosses they shouldn't be "hard", obviously, but they take a great time to kill, by doing almost nothing, all while hearing the npcs talking about them as if it's the end of the world.

>

> tl;dr Damage sponges have always been a part of this game, usually there to pad the encounter time. Boring and tedious are the words best describing that part of the game. I guess Arenanet can go from one extreme to another extreme very easily. They upped the mechanical challenge of later encounters, but forgot to solve that glaring issue with the core experience.

Actually, of the bosses you mentioned, the initial starter bosses do not take "a great time to kill". They die really fast as long as you actually attack them (i mean, each single attack of the single damage skill you have shaves off several percentage points of their hps - you can kill them in like 10-15 autoattack swings tops). And while the Rotscale fight on claw island indeed takes a lot of time, it's mainly fault of the very mechanics you said aren't present. Specifically, his tendency to place poison fields in front of him (preventing anyone without range option from attacking safely), and, even more, his all too frequent 10 seconds long Fear proc. He may have a lot of HPs, but the main problem is that an average player will be simply unable to even hit him for a majority of fight, which slows things down considerably. At times when you're actually able to hit him, you can see his HPs decreasing at a really visible rate. It's just those moments are very infrequent in that fight, which makes his HP pool seem much bigger than it really is.

 

[Ashantara.8731]

> @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > > @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > > You are in luck. At about Episode 5 of Season 4 Arenanet decided to make story instances a real joke, a trend that continues to this day.

> > You may be playing different living story than me, because for me some of those cases you mentioned as being a joke are still way too annoying.

>

> Well annoying for you maybe, different players, different skill levels, different patience levels.

 

:+1:

 

> Ever since Joko died the story took a nose dive and has been a walk in the park for me.

 

Many of the story mission "fights" were indeed ridiculously easy.

 

> Outside some achievements that is, some of them provide enough of a challenge. But there is some hope, judging by the fight with Almorra, that this downward trend will finally stop, we'll see.

 

Agreed. There's hope. :)

[Astralporing.1957]

> @"Ashantara.8731" said:

> > @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > Outside some achievements that is, some of them provide enough of a challenge. But there is some hope, judging by the fight with Almorra, that this downward trend will finally stop, we'll see.

>

> Agreed. There's hope. :)

Ironically, Almorra fight was probably one of the easier LS fights in a long time.

 

[maddoctor.2738]

> @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > @"Ashantara.8731" said:

> > > @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > > Outside some achievements that is, some of them provide enough of a challenge. But there is some hope, judging by the fight with Almorra, that this downward trend will finally stop, we'll see.

> >

> > Agreed. There's hope. :)

> Ironically, Almorra fight was probably one of the easier LS fights in a long time.

>

 

You mean because you have Ryland's sword? I'm not sure how/why you found any of the Icebrood Saga fights harder than Almorra (or hard at all) but I guess difficulty is different for different players.

[Ayrilana.1396]

The Almorra fight is easy once you know the mechanics and her attack patterns. Sure it took a bit the first time that I did it but it was a breeze every time after that.

[maddoctor.2738]

> @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> Actually, of the bosses you mentioned, the initial starter bosses do not take "a great time to kill". They die really fast as long as you actually attack them (i mean, each single attack of the single damage skill you have shaves off several percentage points of their hps - you can kill them in like 10-15 autoattack swings tops). And while the Rotscale fight on claw island indeed takes a lot of time, it's mainly fault of the very mechanics you said aren't present. Specifically, his tendency to place poison fields in front of him (preventing anyone without range option from attacking safely), and, even more, his all too frequent 10 seconds long Fear proc. He may have a lot of HPs, but the main problem is that an average player will be simply unable to even hit him for a majority of fight, which slows things down considerably. At times when you're actually able to hit him, you can see his HPs decreasing at a really visible rate. It's just those moments are very infrequent in that fight, which makes his HP pool seem much bigger than it really is.

>

 

The initial starter bosses take a long time to kill given you only use a single skill to kill them. They could've been even faster to kill, after all they don't serve any real purpose other than being large sacks of health. Even 10 hits is too much for an enemy that does nothing, the flag poles of the Harathi have a similar challenge level and die much faster, so something between those two.

 

As for Rotscale, the poison field isn't a real issue most of the time, the damage isn't even high enough and you can bypass it with range, most professions do have ranged attacks. As for his fear, I don't call an unavoidable ability, that serves no purpose other to lengthen a fight, a "mechanic". Because Rotscale's fear only annoys the player, there is no danger of being killed while feared, there is no field or adds that might hurt you because you are feared, you simply lose control of your character and run away, only to run back and continue attacking the dragon-shaped flag pole.

 

In a sense most personal story bosses could be replaced by flag poles with large health pools, and make no difference to the fights themselves.

[Ayrilana.1396]

I don’t remember the starter bosses taking all that much time to kill even if you’re by yourself. Most of it is just knowing when to dodge certain attacks to not slow you down. I’m assuming that you mean the one you fight in the instance immediately after creating a new character?

[Astralporing.1957]

> @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > > @"Ashantara.8731" said:

> > > > @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > > > Outside some achievements that is, some of them provide enough of a challenge. But there is some hope, judging by the fight with Almorra, that this downward trend will finally stop, we'll see.

> > >

> > > Agreed. There's hope. :)

> > Ironically, Almorra fight was probably one of the easier LS fights in a long time.

> >

>

> You mean because you have Ryland's sword? I'm not sure how/why you found any of the Icebrood Saga fights harder than Almorra (or hard at all) but I guess difficulty is different for different players.

No, because she has a relatively slow and easy to predict/avoid attack pattern, instead of relying on aoe/cc spam like a lot of earlier cases where i usually end up getting hit/downed by things i don't notice, notice only after i got hit, or can't avoid because they're everywhere. Or, because i simply can't see much at all due to the game actively trying to blind me. Or, even more often, due to all of those things together.

 

[Dante.1763]

> @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > > @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > > > @"Ashantara.8731" said:

> > > > > @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > > > > Outside some achievements that is, some of them provide enough of a challenge. But there is some hope, judging by the fight with Almorra, that this downward trend will finally stop, we'll see.

> > > >

> > > > Agreed. There's hope. :)

> > > Ironically, Almorra fight was probably one of the easier LS fights in a long time.

> > >

> >

> > You mean because you have Ryland's sword? I'm not sure how/why you found any of the Icebrood Saga fights harder than Almorra (or hard at all) but I guess difficulty is different for different players.

> No, because she has a relatively slow and easy to predict/avoid attack pattern, instead of relying on aoe/cc spam like a lot of earlier cases where i usually end up getting hit/downed by things i don't notice, notice only after i got hit, or can't avoid because they're everywhere. Or, because i simply can't see much at all due to the game actively trying to blind me. Or, even more often, due to all of those things together.

>

 

Slow? maybe she was bugged when i fought her, but it was a pain to keep her one spot long enough to hit her unless she was doing her CC phase.

[maddoctor.2738]

> @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > > @"Astralporing.1957" said:

> > > > @"Ashantara.8731" said:

> > > > > @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > > > > Outside some achievements that is, some of them provide enough of a challenge. But there is some hope, judging by the fight with Almorra, that this downward trend will finally stop, we'll see.

> > > >

> > > > Agreed. There's hope. :)

> > > Ironically, Almorra fight was probably one of the easier LS fights in a long time.

> > >

> >

> > You mean because you have Ryland's sword? I'm not sure how/why you found any of the Icebrood Saga fights harder than Almorra (or hard at all) but I guess difficulty is different for different players.

> No, because she has a relatively slow and easy to predict/avoid attack pattern, instead of relying on aoe/cc spam like a lot of earlier cases where i usually end up getting hit/downed by things i don't notice, notice only after i got hit, or can't avoid because they're everywhere. Or, because i simply can't see much at all due to the game actively trying to blind me. Or, even more often, due to all of those things together.

>

 

Well at least she has some attacks to predict and patterns to identify compared to the previous bosses in the Saga which had very little of those. Which fight in the Icebrood Saga episodes (Prologue, episode 1, episode 2) had such an aoe/cc spam? And better yet which boss after Palawa Joko's death (which was my initial argument) had an annoying aoe/cc spam? Even the Fraenir of Jormag's annoying blinding blizzard is pointless unless you want that achievement of finding him quickly.

[maddoctor.2738]

> @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> I don’t remember the starter bosses taking all that much time to kill even if you’re by yourself. Most of it is just knowing when to dodge certain attacks to not slow you down. I’m assuming that you mean the one you fight in the instance immediately after creating a new character?

 

Yes I'm talking about the initial/starter bosses. I don't remember dodging any of their attacks, they barely tickle even in the unlikely event that they hit you. Those bosses are simple loot pinatas that you have to press 1 enough times to beat, while standing still. Maybe that's what made me think of them as damage sponges, they induced boredom and when I'm so heavily bored time flies much slower. Maybe I'll time the kill next time and be surprised at how fast it actually is, but it doesn't feel like that

[arooboo.5143]

It's been such a long time since I've done most of the early story quests so I can't really speak for those, but I can tell you that HoT and PoF thoroughly kicked my bum repeatedly as I worked my way through it. I really wanted to get into the story as it seems really quite deep and involved, but it's to the point where I kind of dread having to continue the story quests. As someone else had mentioned earlier, a challenge doesn't always equate to fun for everyone. I would be thrilled if they could add in a couple of difficulty options for the story mode so those who may struggle a bit more (like myself) can still get through it and enjoy themselves while those who need more of a challenge can choose that as well.

 

With all that said, I would really looove to be better at the game. There is so much I don't understand about the combat, and as a mostly solo player, I've never really had anyone I could bounce all my stupid questions off of. I've read plenty of guides, checked out threads asking how to improve, followed gear guides, etc, but I'm still rather poo. lol. So for now, I'll keep crawling through the Story quests and just hope one day things will finally click for me and I can experience the joy of having mobs and bosses melt before my eyes.