How long is too long? (Instance / Boss fights).

[Ohoni.6057]

> @Mahou.3924 said:

> > @Ohoni.6057 said:

> > > @Daddicus.6128 said:

> > > Mordremoth in the mission? Boring. And, breaks nearly all of my rules (above). Balthazar where he kept beating you down and rezzing you got stale, but there was a point, so I'm OK with that one.

> >

> > Wait, when was one where he keeps rezzing you? All the times I fought Balthazar he'd only down me at the end of the fight when the story intended me to be downed.

> >

> >

>

> The second fight with Balthazar. If you get downed before you depleted his HP enough, he continues to rezz you with remarks on how the "fun" should continue or something like that.

>

> I should know a I'm an expert when it comes to dying against him, haha.

 

Ah. I just stayed out of the fire, that seemed to work.

 

 

[Menadena.7482]

As short as possible (a whole story step should be around 5 minutes for a solo average player unless they are doing optional achieves). I actually prefer non-instanced story steps, which seems much more open to me.

 

You should not come out of the first instance in the story with all your armor broken and feeling like you have had more than enough GW2 for the day.

[ReaverKane.7598]

> @Danikat.8537 said:

> > @blambidy.3216 said:

> > Instances aren’t long unless you don’t know what your doing. If you repeat the same stuff the instances aren’t long. The only boss that was long is mordremoth. Not even Balthazar was as long as mordrem. But doing regular story it’s not long.

>

> That's what I was thinking. Facing the Truth (the PoF story step where you visit Kormir's Library) took me at least 2 hours, because during the first part I had no idea what I was doing so the puzzle took a while to solve, and during the second part I wanted to fully explore the library, talk to everyone and listen to all the dialogue. I actually had to stop just after getting into the library and was expecting to need to do the puzzle again, but it turns out that story step does have a checkpoint so when I re-entered I was inside the library.

>

> When I did it again to finish off the last few achievements (I'd already found all the books) it took me about 30 minutes because I had a much clearer idea of what to do and didn't need to spend as much time exploring.

>

> It was the same with The Departing. The first time I did it the fight against Balthazar took ages because I was being really careful, trying to watch and learn his attacks, trying not to take too much damage and trying to work out what was going on since he'd made it clear before that he could kill me instantly, so there had to be more to it. The second time I already knew a bit about his attacks, and understood that the fight was largely scripted and it was just a matter of getting his health down, so I focused on that and it went relatively quickly.

 

2 hours????!?!?!?!

I was exploring every nook and cranny looking for easter eggs and didn't take that long...

 

From my experience, the fights never last that long, and i did most of it (everything except LS4) with Soldiers gear on my guard, so not all the damage.

I'm sure that when i do it with my mesmer i'll have to get gear from my ele or something since the mesmer is full minstrels and does no damage, but still i'm gonna go at it with full mins and i'll tell you how it goes.

 

Answering the Original question, i think, it depends...

Individual fights for solo instances like story ones shouldn't really last longer than 10-15 minutes with a decent build (can't really balance these for full heal builds, otherwise high dps players would finish the fight before the boss gets to phase).

And this is the crux... It should take that long for good builds, but as we can see from all the "anti-elitism" posts, a lot of people run around with very bad builds and think they're great and that the game should conform to their bad ideas instead of asking them to improve.

 

Having said this, the current times are just right as far as i can tell.

[Sithis.3564]

The time of the story instances is just perfect, enough to tell the right amount of story. PoF introduced checkpoints, so I do see a point in making them shorter. Can't imagine them to take 10 minutes.. it would be pointless to even make them.

[Randulf.7614]

I think half an hour is a pretty reasonable time slot given we've fed back endlessly about poor storytelling and length of instances has been part and parcel of that. The issues arise when there is a lack of checkpoints for DCing or when it simply drags on for no perceptible gain like the last instance of LS4.

 

I don't mind a concluding instance of an arc taking longer (Mordremoth, Zhaitan, Balthazar, Lazarus, Shadow of the Dragon), but something like Fahranur and Scruffy didn't need to be nearly as long as Hearts and Minds.

 

Overall, PoF and LS4ep1 showed for a marked improvement in instance time, but there are tweaks to be made still

[AliamRationem.5172]

Part of the problem is the vast disparity between builds in this game. I never noticed it previously, but when ANet gave the thumbs-up on DPS meters I was able to quantify that difference somewhat. It really surprised me, but generally I find that the majority of damage dealt is almost always generated by just a few players using high damage builds. In fact, I've been in smaller squads (10-15 players) where as much as 70% of the damage is being carried by a single player!

 

How much of a difference is there between high and low damage builds? From what I've seen so far, high damage builds will typically maintain 10-15k DPS (depends on the encounter), while most players in these groups are below 2k DPS.

 

Now think about what that means for story bosses. If I'm running my fun "do whatever I want" build, I might be one of those guys generating below 2k DPS (I'm not a damage junkie on all of my builds!). If the story boss takes the 10K DPS character 2 minutes, that means I'll be fighting the same boss for over 10 minutes!

 

That may account for some of the difference in opinions here. What is a perfectly reasonable encounter for a high-DPS character might be an ungodly long encounter to other players. Add tricky mechanics and the already-disadvantaged low-damage character might be even slower due to having to deal with the mechanics for 5 times as long or more!

 

I know players have been telling me this since I started playing, but I honestly never realized it was quite that big of a deal! With a meter it is all too obvious.

[Dashiva.6149]

I believe there is no hard and fast answers for how long story instances should be. It shouldn't take several hours of course, but it should have what is needed to be able to deliver proper narration without rushing it or dragging it out.

[Ayrilana.1396]

Instances took about 30 min on average in GW1. Some of them took longer, some less. It varied depending on the skill level of the player.

 

The first time you play a story instance, imwill be the longest. My second play through to grab the achievements I missed went much faster. I knew where to go, what to do, and what the boss attack patterns were.

 

If players are spending so much time in an instance, I’d say it’s due to their skill, DPS, or a combination. Other than a few instances, none really had anything that made them tedious and long by design.

[Ohoni.6057]

> @AliamRationem.5172 said:

> Part of the problem is the vast disparity between builds in this game. I never noticed it previously, but when ANet gave the thumbs-up on DPS meters I was able to quantify that difference somewhat. It really surprised me, but generally I find that the majority of damage dealt is almost always generated by just a few players using high damage builds. In fact, I've been in smaller squads (10-15 players) where as much as 70% of the damage is being carried by a single player!

>

> How much of a difference is there between high and low damage builds? From what I've seen so far, high damage builds will typically maintain 10-15k DPS (depends on the encounter), while most players in these groups are below 2k DPS.

>

> Now think about what that means for story bosses. If I'm running my fun "do whatever I want" build, I might be one of those guys generating below 2k DPS (I'm not a damage junkie on all of my builds!). If the story boss takes the 10K DPS character 2 minutes, that means I'll be fighting the same boss for over 10 minutes!

>

> That may account for some of the difference in opinions here. What is a perfectly reasonable encounter for a high-DPS character might be an ungodly long encounter to other players. Add tricky mechanics and the already-disadvantaged low-damage character might be even slower due to having to deal with the mechanics for 5 times as long or more!

>

> I know players have been telling me this since I started playing, but I honestly never realized it was quite that big of a deal! With a meter it is all too obvious.

 

They clearly have some work to do to balance out those high DPS builds with the lower DPS builds. Disparities that high should not exist.

[Solvar.7953]

I'd say about 30 minutes for an instance is about right. The most annoying aspect is the somewhat large disparity, and not knowing, how long it will take to do an instance. Its 30 minutes until I want to to go bed - will I finish this instance that quickly, or will those be one of those that takes 1+ hours?

Any boss fight more than about 5 minutes probably means it is getting repetitive, and you're just doing the same things over and over (there are some exceptions here, but not a lot).

Certainly ANet could actually gather metrics on this and actually determine an average. EG, collect the time people spend in an instance, and whether they were part of a party. Collect time on boss fights. Since they currently have some achievements based on time, one would hope that they could also collect that in non achievement form. If they find that people are taking 60+ minutes on average for an instance, maybe reduce boss monster HP, remove a mob of monsters from in it, etc.

 

[Ahlen.7591]

Something to keep in mind is that most GW2 players are very bad at the game (just look at the soul eater thread for proof), which means an instance may feel like it's longer due to low DPS or multiple downs, while when it is done by competent people the instances and bosses may actually be quite short.

[Ohoni.6057]

> @Ahlen.7591 said:

> Something to keep in mind is that most GW2 players are very bad at the game (just look at the soul eater thread for proof), which means an instance may feel like it's longer due to low DPS or multiple downs, while when it is done by competent people the instances and bosses may actually be quite short.

 

Possible, but again, story mode content should be balanced to be *completed* by "most GW2 players," however bad they might be. For those that find existing story mode missions "fast and easy," that's what challenge motes and optional achievements are for.

[Zedek.8932]

I am also average-skilled but I liked that the boss fight (of a random instance) took me like 10 minutes and became stressfull.

I, however, started gaming in the 90s with Ghouls'N'Ghost and games like this, so having several heart attacks because it's stressfull is a normal thing to me x)

 

The first real boss in PoF, that forged... don't know, war bot in that forged camp, was a fun boss to me. I was slowly getting through it, using The Cat [Rytlock] as buffer while I slowly went to the boss, hit him until my stuff was on CD and then played survival mode again. Just like in the console age back then. Not sure why an instance should be like 5 minutes as someone said. What is that? I am here to play the game, not to get pushed through it.

 

Excelsior.

[pah.4931]

Length (mostly) doesn't matter. Interesting and fun is all that matters. If it's just lame mechanics, there's no reason for the fight to last more than 3 - 4 minutes. If it's awesome mechanics, 10 minutes or more can be fine.

[Ayrilana.1396]

> @Ohoni.6057 said:

> > @Ahlen.7591 said:

> > Something to keep in mind is that most GW2 players are very bad at the game (just look at the soul eater thread for proof), which means an instance may feel like it's longer due to low DPS or multiple downs, while when it is done by competent people the instances and bosses may actually be quite short.

>

> Possible, but again, **story mode content should be balanced to be *completed* by "most GW2 players,"** however bad they might be. For those that find existing story mode missions "fast and easy," that's what challenge motes and optional achievements are for.

 

Which, for all we know, could be the case right now for all LS and expansion story instances.

[Rauderi.8706]

> @pah.4931 said:

> Length (mostly) doesn't matter. Interesting and fun is all that matters. If it's just lame mechanics, there's no reason for the fight to last more than 3 - 4 minutes. If it's awesome mechanics, 10 minutes or more can be fine.

 

That's actually a very good point. I would suggest that, if the encounter is designed well, DPS *shouldn't matter* all that much. It would mean that high DPS is extra insurance against the boss mechanics, but the most interesting part should be what's going on outside of some rotation. But once those mechanics are proven to be mastered by surviving them, there's no need to continuing to cycle them.

[Ohoni.6057]

> @Ayrilana.1396 said:

> > @Ohoni.6057 said:

> > > @Ahlen.7591 said:

> > > Something to keep in mind is that most GW2 players are very bad at the game (just look at the soul eater thread for proof), which means an instance may feel like it's longer due to low DPS or multiple downs, while when it is done by competent people the instances and bosses may actually be quite short.

> >

> > Possible, but again, **story mode content should be balanced to be *completed* by "most GW2 players,"** however bad they might be. For those that find existing story mode missions "fast and easy," that's what challenge motes and optional achievements are for.

>

> Which, for all we know, could be the case right now for all LS and expansion story instances.

 

It's possible that's the intent, but if the feedback is to be believed, they seem to be not quite there, with fights not being *impossible,* but at least taking a bit longer than players seem to enjoy. I mean, it's hard to say without scientific polling data, but it seems like an area worth visiting.

 

 

> @Rauderi.8706 said:

> > @pah.4931 said:

> > Length (mostly) doesn't matter. Interesting and fun is all that matters. If it's just lame mechanics, there's no reason for the fight to last more than 3 - 4 minutes. If it's awesome mechanics, 10 minutes or more can be fine.

>

> That's actually a very good point. I would suggest that, if the encounter is designed well, DPS *shouldn't matter* all that much. It would mean that high DPS is extra insurance against the boss mechanics, but the most interesting part should be what's going on outside of some rotation. But once those mechanics are proven to be mastered by surviving them, there's no need to continuing to cycle them.

 

Agreed. I tend to think that DPS should be de-emphasised in most boss-style content. It should be more about 1. *Surviving* a certain number of rotations, so show that you can do so, and then 2. *tagging* the enemy during periods where he's meant to be tagged. So long as you can manage both, so long as you can do the game mechanics aspects, then the damage you deal should be more or less inconsequential. Instead of having a traditional HP pool, it should be more of a series of hard stops, where he's impossible to damage during some phases, but then very easy to damage during others, but never enough to cause him to skip a phase entirely.

[blambidy.3216]

> @Taygus.4571 said:

> I actually agree with most of ye.. 30 minutes can still be a bit much to devote to one instance. .especially like someone else of you dc right at the end. That is so so frustrating.

>

> > @blambidy.3216 said:

> > Instances aren’t long unless you don’t know what your doing. If you repeat the same stuff the instances aren’t long. The only boss that was long is mordremoth. Not even Balthazar was as long as mordrem. But doing regular story it’s not long.

> May I ask exactly what "isn't long to you"?

>

> Most instances take me about an hour...not because I don't know what to do but becausE the npc's yap too much, walk too slow, and bosses can be Health sponges.

>

> I haven't played PoF yet but I've seen similar complaints about the instance length. And it's something Anet doesn't seem to think needs adjusting, sadly.

>

 

I wouldn’t really consider hot instances long. I think it’s regular time. I think what takes most the time is really the story in the instance. But iv had so much more things going on before that, a story instance is nothing lol. To me if you do a raid with vg when no one know what to do..... now that’s long. So maybe i had my long cake before. And map completion is longer. So I really don’t mind story instance being about 30-45 mins.

 

I will say this though. Doing hot first took much longer then the second time. Maybe if you wiki every episode to know before you play hot the first time, then the time will be much faster. But if u did it like me, u don’t know what to expect so instead of a 30 min instance. It will take 50 mins to complete (Just an assumption).

 

The next time you restart hot, tell me how long it really is when you complete it. Because now that I’ve done it the episodes are just not that long.

[Ashen.2907]

I am more concerned with what the instance entails than with how long it takes. Five minutes of mindless spam, or waiting for something to happen, can feel like an hour while an hour of engaging interaction can go by in a seeming blink of an eye.

[Jwake.7013]

I'm fine with boss fights being a bit longer then most other instances, with 30 minutes being towards the max range. For boss fights you kind of expect it to be a bit on the longer side so just be prepared going into it. Normally pretty easy to tell when one's coming up so I'm fine with it as it is on that side of things. I do think they have stretched it a bit longer then that a few times now which is I think a valid complaint though. As well as the opening to S4E1 seemed on the longer side, almost could have split it in two parts imo.

 

However remember it is hard to judge all players how long it will take them cause of skill and build differences. Its not just made for 'you' going through it.

[marelooke.9708]

Most raid bosses have an enrage of around 10min if I'm not mistaken. That seems to be a pretty good _upper limit_ for story bosses. And if that boss really needs to be obnoxious (or actually hard) at least make sure we can continue at the boss when we get fed up and quit (or just put them in their own instance entirely)

[Solvar.7953]

I do agree that keeping a fight interesting may be more important than length. But a lot of fights are bring it down to 75%, do something, bring it to 50%, do that same thing again, etc..

Another problem is that a lot of the story fights throw in some new mechanic, or try to tell some aspect of the story, while the boss is throwing down AoE that hits 75% of the available area and kills you pretty quickly if you are in it. Most of the time, I end up reading back the messages after the fight to see what aspect of the story I missed while that was going on. To me, that is not very good for what is supposed to be a **story** instance.

Last night, I did the precocious Aurene HOT story instance. I thought several of the parts (fishing, escorting wounded soldiers) was well done. But the slime part just got repetitive - 4 generators have to be shut down, and it just became a matter of killing a bunch of slimes to get Aurene to one, killing more to get her to the next one, etc. I'm not sure having 4 generators there vs 2 really added anything to the story, other than killing a bunch more slimes. And then the final fight really seemed to be waiting for the the timing for the special Aurene synchronized attack to show up, which while an interesting new mechanic, is once again one of those things your needing to figure out in the middle of combat (I need to get to the matching white circle, etc). That could certainly be explained a little better before the battle, and the timing of those a bit faster - once again, it seemed like a lot of that fight was just waiting for those to show up, as it wasn't clear anything I was doing to the monster accelerated that (which means if there is a way to make it faster, the story is doing a poor job of showing it).

So in this case, I think some minor refinements would have made it more enjoyable, not less. As I play, I'm finding the stories less enjoyable, and playing through them a second or third time even more so. It's almost to the point where I'd be just as happy for each LS chapter to just give us a new explorable area with no story attached, which to me points to some failing here on Anets part.

 

[Zaklex.6308]

> @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> Instances took about 30 min on average in GW1. Some of them took longer, some less. It varied depending on the skill level of the player.

>

> The first time you play a story instance, imwill be the longest. My second play through to grab the achievements I missed went much faster. I knew where to go, what to do, and what the boss attack patterns were.

>

> If players are spending so much time in an instance, I’d say it’s due to their skill, DPS, or a combination. Other than a few instances, none really had anything that made them tedious and long by design.

 

No, this is blatantly incorrect, GW1 instances had a range of times from perhaps 30 minutes to over and hour to complete(I'm looking at Thunderhead Keep specifically, and some of the ones in Cantha). It's supposed to be a step in a story, like a good book, chapters are of varying length, therefore Instances and Boss fights should be of varying length. Maybe they need to start telling players a suggested time so that people can decide if they have enough time in the play session to finish the instance and/or boss fight, since it appears people are unwilling to finish what they started. Guess that just reflects on society today.

[Ashen.2907]

> @"Zaklex.6308" said:

Maybe they need to start telling players a suggested time so that people can decide if they have enough time in the play session to finish the instance and/or boss fight, since it appears people are unwilling to finish what they started. Guess that just reflects on society today.

 

Not a bad idea.

 

I dont think that having less free time (I have been averaging 60-70 hour work weeks on top of family commitments, etc lately) to play reflects on society today as much as it does on an ever busier world (perhaps that is what you meant?)

[Taygus.4571]

> @"Zaklex.6308" said:

> > @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > Instances took about 30 min on average in GW1. Some of them took longer, some less. It varied depending on the skill level of the player.

> >

> > The first time you play a story instance, imwill be the longest. My second play through to grab the achievements I missed went much faster. I knew where to go, what to do, and what the boss attack patterns were.

> >

> > If players are spending so much time in an instance, I’d say it’s due to their skill, DPS, or a combination. Other than a few instances, none really had anything that made them tedious and long by design.

>

> No, this is blatantly incorrect, GW1 instances had a range of times from perhaps 30 minutes to over and hour to complete(I'm looking at Thunderhead Keep specifically, and some of the ones in Cantha). It's supposed to be a step in a story, like a good book, chapters are of varying length, therefore Instances and Boss fights should be of varying length. Maybe they need to start telling players a suggested time so that people can decide if they have enough time in the play session to finish the instance and/or boss fight, since it appears people are unwilling to finish what they started. Guess that just reflects on society today.

 

That would actually be excellent. This instance takes an average of 45-70minutes... I would actually be really happy with that. It would let me know how much time I need to commit and if I would have time for it that day or not.