Consistency in end of story arc fights.

[Graymalkyn.8076]

First off, I consider myself to be a casual, intermediate player. I'm not a noob, but don't have super-skills either. So this is coming from that perspective.

 

*******

 

Can we make the end of story arc fights more consistent?

 

Here's what I mean:

 

The Zhaitan fight is really pretty lame. You shoot at him with a cannon, not even using your own skills. I'm glad it was made so that a casual player like myself can complete the story without having to first form a group (often with people that don't know what they are doing, or are getting pissed at me because I don't). But it'd still be nice to use my own skills to beat him rather than simply pressing the 1 key repeatedly for several minutes.

 

Mordremoth: Tedious as hell. I don't even do it. I just stop at that point. Why? His 'minions' can two or three shot you, but it takes about 500 hits on his minions to take them out, so the pattern goes something like this: run, dodge, run, run, run, get hit for 40% damage, heal, dodge, attack, run, dodge, dodge, run, attack, get hit for 40% damage, heal, run, dodge, dodge, attack, run, run, run, dodge, look up to see one 'tick' off minions' health bar, etc., for 10 minutes or more. It's just tedious. The challenge isn't actually fighting the minion, it's keeping your interest in the fight.

 

Balthasar: I like this one. Yes, there is still quite a bit of running and dodging, but your attacks seem to actually have some effect. I think this one has a good balance. Although, that part where you've gotta drop thru the volcano...that's pretty tedious too. Last time I tried it (and I hope this was a bug that's been fixed) my bombs weren't breaking the chains and after around 10 minutes of gliding/dodging and having no effect on the chains, I gave up and quit that one too.

 

As a casual player, I believe the story fights should be soloable. Difficult, yes, but doable by players who may not have the greatest of skills. Certainly, outside the story (Dungeons, Metas, etc.) the monsters should require groups. That's pretty much the point of MMOs. But I feel the story should be soloable. Difficult at times, to be sure, but not so tedious that players just skip it. And I think a step in that direction would be to make the other two fights more like the Balt fight.

 

"But this is an MMO!!" you say. Yes it is, and I love the MMO stuff (Metas, Dungeons, WvW, etc.) as well, but I, and others like me, do the story solo when other MMO type stuff isn't going on, or when guildies/groups aren't convenient, or just to relax for a while.

 

That being said, I could see where the opposite could be cool. Make the last mission in each story be the completion of the respective area's meta event. Then make each of these bad guys be what is defeated in the Meta. This would give them a truly epic feel, and would be something that the player could still do without having to wait for a PUG, or for guildies. But it still depends on other players for completion of the story arc and that is, from my understanding, why they nerfed the Zhaitan mission a few years ago.

[Menadena.7482]

Yes, I get tired of the "but this is an mmo" argument. For something like a dynamic event, a dungeon, or whatever, fine, group up. Story steps should be soloable though. I have reached the point now after 'purple rain' where I will not even consider trying a chapter without a party, if we are going to be forced into instances those instances should be soloable.

[TWMagimay.9057]

They are soloable though. You just have to be, well, good at it. If you are not you can either do what I did and find somebody who's good to carry you through them or you can get good.

[Ameepa.6793]

They are all soloable. All stories are. You don't even have to be that good, you just have to have okay build and gear and most importantly understand the mechanics in the fights.

 

Almost every time someone is having problems with a fight, they are just missing some important mechanic in it.

[Khisanth.2948]

> @"Graymalkyn.8076" said:

> First off, I consider myself to be a casual, intermediate player. I'm not a noob, but don't have super-skills either. So this is coming from that perspective.

>

> *******

>

> Can we make the end of story arc fights more consistent?

>

> Here's what I mean:

>

> The Zhaitan fight is really pretty lame. You shoot at him with a cannon, not even using your own skills. I'm glad it was made so that a casual player like myself can complete the story without having to first form a group (often with people that don't know what they are doing, or are getting pissed at me because I don't). But it'd still be nice to use my own skills to beat him rather than simply pressing the 1 key repeatedly for several minutes.

>

> Mordremoth: Tedious as hell. I don't even do it. I just stop at that point. Why? His 'minions' can two or three shot you, but it takes about 500 hits on his minions to take them out, so the pattern goes something like this: run, dodge, run, run, run, get hit for 40% damage, heal, dodge, attack, run, dodge, dodge, run, attack, get hit for 40% damage, heal, run, dodge, dodge, attack, run, run, run, dodge, look up to see one 'tick' off minions' health bar, etc., for 10 minutes or more. It's just tedious. The challenge isn't actually fighting the minion, it's keeping your interest in the fight.

>

 

Unless you turned on Migraine mode they should not be dealing that high of a damage. Also don't pick Caithe because the Pale Tree can be pretty crappy especially if you don't have cleaving attacks. You should also be attacking while you are running unless you made the mistake of using action camera which is not very good for that sort of thing. Assuming you didn't pick Caithe for both the Eir fiight and Canach what you really want is CC. Ideally with relatively short recharge.

 

> Balthasar: I like this one. Yes, there is still quite a bit of running and dodging, but your attacks seem to actually have some effect. I think this one has a good balance. Although, that part where you've gotta drop thru the volcano...that's pretty tedious too. Last time I tried it (and I hope this was a bug that's been fixed) my bombs weren't breaking the chains and after around 10 minutes of gliding/dodging and having no effect on the chains, I gave up and quit that one too.

>

 

You need to scan stuff with the special action skill then glide into the energy thing and then hit the chains. The range on that skill is shorter than I would like with how you are bouncing up and down due to how gliding works in there. IIRC there is also a time limit between grabbing the energy orb and using the skill to break the chain.

 

> As a casual player, I believe the story fights should be soloable. Difficult, yes, but doable by players who may not have the greatest of skills. Certainly, outside the story (Dungeons, Metas, etc.) the monsters should require groups. That's pretty much the point of MMOs. But I feel the story should be soloable. Difficult at times, to be sure, but not so tedious that players just skip it. And I think a step in that direction would be to make the other two fights more like the Balt fight.

>

 

They are soloable. I've done that for pretty much all of them on every class. Most have damage oriented gear but still have a decent amount of sustain through traits or other class mechanics. Sometimes I have less sustain than intended because I forgot to change traits but still make it through. I usually through things with my reaper for the first run and warrior on the second to get to know the fights and mechanics.

 

> "But this is an MMO!!" you say. Yes it is, and I love the MMO stuff (Metas, Dungeons, WvW, etc.) as well, but I, and others like me, do the story solo when other MMO type stuff isn't going on, or when guildies/groups aren't convenient, or just to relax for a while.

>

> That being said, I could see where the opposite could be cool. Make the last mission in each story be the completion of the respective area's meta event. Then make each of these bad guys be what is defeated in the Meta. This would give them a truly epic feel, and would be something that the player could still do without having to wait for a PUG, or for guildies. But it still depends on other players for completion of the story arc and that is, from my understanding, why they nerfed the Zhaitan mission a few years ago.

 

That is sorta what is happening with Dragon's Stand. The way DS ends ties in with the last instance. They are supposed to be happening at the same time.

[zealex.9410]

every story mission up to this point is soloable.

[TwilightSoul.9048]

The fight against Balthazaar was, so far, the only "End of story arc"-fight that I enjoyed, I loved beeing able to switch between my actual Weapons and Sohothin and it was the first time I actually felt as powerful as I am supposed to be in the story. The fight against mordremoth was okay but there was one opponent that is just incredibly overpowered, those tiny little bugs that like to ruin all your efforts. (I haven't done the instance for a while now, I think some bugs got fixed?).

 

And then there was that fight against Zhaitan... boy was that disappointing. Everything in the main story line was slowly building up to an epic battle against an elder dragon and then we stand there on an airship and press 1 for 30 Minutes, killing a bunch of his minions until we can finally shoot some konfetti at him until he dies. Why exactly did we have to do that? As far as I know my Character has absolutely no experience in operating Airship Cannons - Did we really not have anyone more qualified for that job? It wouldn't have made a difference if I could've just stood on the ground and watched someone else shoot Zhaitan down while I sit there and watch and eat some popcorn. Literally every other fight building up to Zhaitan was more intense...

 

But anyway, the Zhaitan fight is behind us and the "Bossfights" have gotten a lot better since then and I'm already curious about what comes next. I love having some solo challenges especially in MMO's since they allow you to test how well you actually play - that's sometimes hard to tell when you always play in groups, you never really realize how much healing & boons you get from others until you've soloed something! Which is why I'm still hoping for Queens Gauntlet to return.

[lokh.2695]

"What is Casual?" Is a question of philosophical proportions. And whenever this or similar topics show up you can see this very clearly.

 

OP describes himself as a casual player, judging by how he sees his level of skill compared to others, maybe even taking into account non personal experience like forum posts or YT vids. For OP, the story missions are still hard to pull of solo and I believe OP.

I consider myself casual as well, seeing that I will never be in a speedclear guild or that I will probably never have max DPS in my raid group. There are far more skillful players than me out there, people with better movement/placing, better understanding of class or game mechanics and sometimes it's just ppl pressing that perfect rotation just a tad faster than I am capable. I consider myself casual referring to the people I've come to know in this game and judging myself "somewhere in the middle". But different from OP, I never had the problem that a story mission would not be soloable.

 

Some fights are hard for me. From the top of my head I'd say the Caudecus fight at the end of Head of the Snake, the Hearts and Minds fight with Mordremoth and the Fight against Lazarus at the end of One Path Ends are the ones I had most problems with so far. I did it, but in some of those fights, my toons were half naked due to broken armor and retries at the end of it.

 

Now, should we make things easier to make them more casual friendly? As I have staded above, you can't really put your finger on what level of skill or understanding for the game is casual. This makes tweaking difficulty very hard to begin with.

For me the difficulty of story missions over all is fine as I can solo all missions, did most of the achievements solo and got everything done in a reasonable amount of time. There's hard and challenging stuff from time to time but nothing unsurmountable. But I understand that this is my experience with the game and that others may still have problems with certain encounters. I'm not arguing to "git gud", however with growing experience as a player, content tends to become considered easier and less challenging.

In the end I'd argue that this is a MMO and even if the story missions should be tweaked to provide challenge for a single player, the nature of the game gives you rather easy access to other players that might just have the same difficulties completing a given story mission. Most missions become really easy if you bring a second person, I'm not even talking about a full team of five players here, just someone to tank the boss while you heal or someone to rez you when you're down can work wonders. The counter argument is of course, "I'm a solo player and I don't want to group up, not even for the 20min it takes to do the story mission". I don't like saying it but why chose a m_**M**_orpg when you are a solo player? No need to make a life long commitment here, no need to join a guild or install voice chat even. Ask for help on the lfg, there's a tab for achievements and story. Ask for help in mapchat, GW2 still has a great and helpful community, the helpful players are just not the most vocal ones.

[Feanor.2358]

> @"Graymalkyn.8076" said:

> That being said, I could see where the opposite could be cool. Make the last mission in each story be the completion of the respective area's meta event. Then make each of these bad guys be what is defeated in the Meta. This would give them a truly epic feel, and would be something that the player could still do without having to wait for a PUG, or for guildies. But it still depends on other players for completion of the story arc and that is, from my understanding, why they nerfed the Zhaitan mission a few years ago.

 

Precisely. The *personal* story is supposed to be, well, personal. Something you do for yourself, at your own pace, at your own leisure. It used to be Arah story mode with Zaithan, but having to group up with other people to finish your story just felt... bad. Forced. Exactly because you suddenly had to coordinate with other players instead of picking up the game whenever you felt like. A meta-event style would have the same problem. You'll either need to do it on the clock or even worse, go through the annoyance of finding a map in the correct state.

 

Being solo content also means the devs can do some pretty cool stuff in the boss fights, like what they did with Sohotin. So I'd say they fine as they are. Obviously, older fights seem quite outdated now. But it's not realistic to expect a rework on these. And honestly I'd rather have cool new fights with the new story rather than a facelift on the old ones.

[Khisanth.2948]

> @"TwilightSoul.9048" said:

> The fight against Balthazaar was, so far, the only "End of story arc"-fight that I enjoyed, `I loved beeing able to switch between my actual Weapons and Sohothin and it was the first time I actually felt as powerful as I am supposed to be in the story.` The fight against mordremoth was okay but there was one opponent that is just incredibly overpowered, those tiny little bugs that like to ruin all your efforts. (I haven't done the instance for a while now, I think some bugs got fixed?).

>

> And then there was that fight against Zhaitan... boy was that disappointing. Everything in the main story line was slowly building up to an epic battle against an elder dragon and then we stand there on an airship and press 1 for 30 Minutes, killing a bunch of his minions until we can finally shoot some konfetti at him until he dies. Why exactly did we have to do that? `As far as I know my Character has absolutely no experience in operating Airship Cannons - Did we really not have anyone more qualified for that job?` It wouldn't have made a difference if I could've just stood on the ground and watched someone else shoot Zhaitan down while I sit there and watch and eat some popcorn. Literally every other fight building up to Zhaitan was more intense...

>

> But anyway, the Zhaitan fight is behind us and the "Bossfights" have gotten a lot better since then and I'm already curious about what comes next. I love having some solo challenges especially in MMO's since they allow you to test how well you actually play - that's sometimes hard to tell when you always play in groups, you never really realize how much healing & boons you get from others until you've soloed something! Which is why I'm still hoping for Queens Gauntlet to return.

 

Many characters aren't supposed to be able to use a sword either yet they are still using Sohotin. I am not saying the Zhaitan fight is good but if you try to bring that logic into things then they have similar problems.

[TwilightSoul.9048]

> @"Khisanth.2948" said:

> > @"TwilightSoul.9048" said:

> > The fight against Balthazaar was, so far, the only "End of story arc"-fight that I enjoyed, `I loved beeing able to switch between my actual Weapons and Sohothin and it was the first time I actually felt as powerful as I am supposed to be in the story.` The fight against mordremoth was okay but there was one opponent that is just incredibly overpowered, those tiny little bugs that like to ruin all your efforts. (I haven't done the instance for a while now, I think some bugs got fixed?).

> >

> > And then there was that fight against Zhaitan... boy was that disappointing. Everything in the main story line was slowly building up to an epic battle against an elder dragon and then we stand there on an airship and press 1 for 30 Minutes, killing a bunch of his minions until we can finally shoot some konfetti at him until he dies. Why exactly did we have to do that? `As far as I know my Character has absolutely no experience in operating Airship Cannons - Did we really not have anyone more qualified for that job?` It wouldn't have made a difference if I could've just stood on the ground and watched someone else shoot Zhaitan down while I sit there and watch and eat some popcorn. Literally every other fight building up to Zhaitan was more intense...

> >

> > But anyway, the Zhaitan fight is behind us and the "Bossfights" have gotten a lot better since then and I'm already curious about what comes next. I love having some solo challenges especially in MMO's since they allow you to test how well you actually play - that's sometimes hard to tell when you always play in groups, you never really realize how much healing & boons you get from others until you've soloed something! Which is why I'm still hoping for Queens Gauntlet to return.

>

> Many characters aren't supposed to be able to use a sword either yet they are still using Sohotin. I am not saying the Zhaitan fight is good but if you try to bring that logic into things then they have similar problems.

 

I didn't say it was great that we were able to use Sohothin I said it was great that we could switch and use our actual weapons - we had a choice. But even with that logic, Sohothin didn't really have anything to do with beeing able to wield a sword, it was more about beeing capable of controlling it's power which we seem to be able to by fate, so it's magic came natural to us just like our bond with Aurene wasn't anything we had to "learn". A cannon on the other hand is something mechanical that actually has to be operated.

[Khisanth.2948]

> @"lokh.2695" said:

> Now, should we make things easier to make them more casual friendly? As I have staded above, you can't really put your finger on what level of skill or understanding for the game is casual. This makes tweaking difficulty very hard to begin with.

 

Words like "casual" and "hardcore" are practically useless for the purpose of discussing difficulty. It is much better to be specific. What is the base line abilities are expected to have? Obvious ones would be dodging, using your heal, don't stand in AoEs. Oh right ... also CCs because especially in more recent times because the fights have been relying too heavily on the breakbar gimmick.

 

Some fights are also counter intuitive. For example in the fight with Canach in Hearts and Minds the game tells you to use his shield but that is a terrible move.