Improve champion scaling so that events don't lose their challenge?

[Skotlex.7580]

These days I've been thinking of how some events are really challenging when you tackle them with a small team, yet they become pretty much trivial if a full squad shows up (case in point: Palawadan).

 

I understand GW2 is seen as a pretty casual game; however, trivializing content to the point that players just sit back and chill while hitting the loot piñata just.... seems wrong for the actual health of the game.

 

Shouldn't difficult content award better loot? Using large groups has the opposite effect: make content easier and rewards better (if you consider scaled in champions in events like the great hall).

 

What do you think?

[Skotlex.7580]

Personally I would improve champion scaling in two ways:

1.remove target limit from bosses, this would already significantly fix this issue, as I've noticed some bosses have devastating attacks that can be safely ignored when, say, ten players are hit, downed, and then revived by the rest of the nearby squad. If everybody had to do the mechanic, that would force players to actually react versus the challenge.

2. As the number of people increase, I would reduce the delay between attacks of the boss (same for their skill cooldowns), this would mean that dodging won't be enough alone to survive in large scales, and it would add relevance to the defensive stats, hopefully ending the mindset that all you need in PvE is berserker or viper gear.

[TexZero.7910]

The suggestions made aren't terrible.

I'd also just add on the whole, lower player damage as it's been continually crept up to absurd levels.

[kharmin.7683]

I don't like the way that the options are worded so I didn't choose one. However, I lean toward leaving things as they are. For those seeking more difficult content, they should do fractals or raids.

 

/me shrugs

[Skotlex.7580]

> @"kharmin.7683" said:

> I don't like the way that the options are worded so I didn't choose one. However, I lean toward leaving things as they are. For those seeking more difficult content, they should do fractals or raids.

>

> /me shrugs

 

I could have left them more neutral, would "yes", "no", and "meh" be preferable? :P

 

Also, this is one of the reasons I like playing late in the night, the metas don't get full squads, and I get to try them at a level that's really challenging and where failure is a very real possibility if people aren't pulling their weight.

 

I think it's a bit of a shame I have to really go out of my way like this to experience the challenge these events were designed for while most other players just brute-force it with a zerg. <_<

[Mackowidz.4629]

"I could have left them more neutral, would "yes", "no", and "meh" be preferable? :P"

 

Well, yeah, I mean, if you want your poll to be at least somehow accurate, you should make the options as neutral as possible.

[Arioch.6507]

No pie option, poll is invalid.

 

[Skotlex.7580]

> @"Mackowidz.4629" said:

> "I could have left them more neutral, would "yes", "no", and "meh" be preferable? :P"

>

> Well, yeah, I mean, if you want your poll to be at least somehow accurate, you should make the options as neutral as possible.

 

Well I did try to keep the wording neutral enough to not include some kind of bias. I could have written "leave scaling alone, how else will I be able to enjoy the game when all I can press is 1?" :P

 

At least I didn't think anybody would feel indirectly offended if they selected one of the choices.

[sorudo.9054]

i don't even use netfail.

 

but anyway, if you want champions to scale properly, also scale them according to solo players.

you want more difficult group play, i want less punishing open world events.

[Rauderi.8706]

Large groups don't necessarily make a champ easier. Players just have more insurance when more players are around. More healing, more people who can rez, way more buffs. But kill times are stupid-slow compared to 5- or 10-man groups.

Then there's the CC problem. Soft CC gets the screw job when scaling goes up, and not enough people know when to time hard CC to make bosses easier.

 

So, yes, scaling needs help, but probably not in the way that you think.

[Ben K.6238]

If players wanted a challenge, they'd flock to Serpents' Ire.

[Raknar.4735]

> @"Ben K.6238" said:

> If players wanted a challenge, they'd flock to Serpents' Ire.

 

Players try to maximise time spent / gold gained. Since open world rewards are pretty much the same things everywhere they stick to SW. If Seprents' Ire would be rewarding, more people would do it, and learn to do it correctly.

Same thing happened with tequatl when he was reintroduced. Lots of groups failed during the first weeks, then he became a free-farm after people learned how to do him.

[Skotlex.7580]

> @"Rauderi.8706" said:

> Large groups don't necessarily make a champ easier. Players just have more insurance when more players are around. More healing, more people who can rez, way more buffs. But kill times are stupid-slow compared to 5- or 10-man groups.

> Then there's the CC problem. Soft CC gets the screw job when scaling goes up, and not enough people know when to time hard CC to make bosses easier.

>

> So, yes, scaling needs help, but probably not in the way that you think.

 

there's multiple factors involved, for sure. Soft CC also needs help and there was another thread about it.

 

My suggestions where made based on my personal observations on bosses like awakened Iberu or justicar Hablion. when I am alone, or with a small group, these bosses hit really hard and it might be a challenge to just remain alive. Yet, when the event gets crowded, I don't even get hit most of the time. And I know that this is related to target limits: Iberu often does an aoe attack that knocks back players and has this huge red circle tell so you can dodge. When the event is crowded, I can see several players being flung around, yet I don't get hit at all: thus I wasn't affected despite being standing in the warning area (and no, I don't randomly have stability, I had no additional boons as I was at mid range from the boss).

 

The kill time becoming stupid could be because of the "spam 1 warriors", people who are lazily playing and not pulling their share of the contribution to the event. Feeling no danger while sheltered in a zerg can enable them to remain that way, completely oblivious of any mechanics.

 

> @"sorudo.9054" said:

> but anyway, if you want champions to scale properly, also scale them according to solo players.

> you want more difficult group play, i want less punishing open world events.

 

well, that already exists: it's the difference between regular events and group events. The latter are designed for a minimum of five players. Even though they could have made all events scale from 1 and up, ANet decided that some events warrant getting additional help to be done.

[Hannelore.8153]

Scaling is broken across the board.

 

Players are too powerful in lower maps, and cut through even champions like a hot knife through butter, and solo players feel too weak in high level maps while zergs feel too strong, able to trivialise any encounter by pressing just two keys: 1 and F.

 

ArenaNet needs to revise the entire scaling system,for players, events and rewards.

 

One thing that would help is to normalise it. If we go by their past design principles, they probably have a dozen different systems for managing all of this, and in many other areas of the game (like with equipment and traits), those systems have been merged (normalised) to have a consistent behavior, and the various scaling mechanics could probably benefit from being normalised in this way too.

[mauried.5608]

The problem with the above type of posts is that its assumed that every player in the game has exactly the same skill capability as every other player.

The obvious example of this is the phrase "challenging content".

Challenging for who ?

Some content will be easy for some players and impossible for others.

The aim of a MMO is to provide fun and entertainment for everyone , not just for a small subset of the player base.

The system as it stands does a fairly good job of achieving this.

 

[Hannelore.8153]

> @"mauried.5608" said:

> The problem with the above type of posts is that its assumed that every player in the game has exactly the same skill capability as every other player.

> The obvious example of this is the phrase "challenging content".

> Challenging for who ?

> Some content will be easy for some players and impossible for others.

> The aim of a MMO is to provide fun and entertainment for everyone , not just for a small subset of the player base.

> The system as it stands does a fairly good job of achieving this.

>

 

Player skill doesn't matter in zergs.

[Raknar.4735]

> @"Hannelore.8153" said:

> > @"mauried.5608" said:

> > The problem with the above type of posts is that its assumed that every player in the game has exactly the same skill capability as every other player.

> > The obvious example of this is the phrase "challenging content".

> > Challenging for who ?

> > Some content will be easy for some players and impossible for others.

> > The aim of a MMO is to provide fun and entertainment for everyone , not just for a small subset of the player base.

> > The system as it stands does a fairly good job of achieving this.

> >

>

> Player skill doesn't matter in zergs.

 

Serpents' Ire and TT don't work without coordination.

[BlueJin.4127]

I don’t know... with all the visual clutter, I wouldn’t want anything to be challenging when I can’t even see the enemy. Not only that, majority of the time, it actually takes longer to kill the more people there are, so I’d like the opposite of what the OP wants.

[lokh.2695]

As much as I'd like an improvement, seeing how ppl fail at dodging, pressing more than 1 skill or stepping out of scary circles in post-core content, I doubt a harder difficulty would find many enthusiasts among "the average player".

Scaling works fine in general and the later content is more challening, so I'm fine with the status quo. Never touch a running system.

[Skotlex.7580]

Well, I do toss around the hypothesis that lazy players don't learn because they don't need to, just run in the safety of a zerg.

 

Remember champion trains in Queendale? That's the sort of experience that would train a generation of lazy people who don't need to even use their skills.

 

Maybe having core Tyria events be so easy is keeping most players at their current level, since the game doesn't asks for more.

 

However, there's an interesting point to raise: is it really alright for scaling to break down so much in the name of inclusiveness? Do we want large meta events (like Istan is, technically an open world raid) to be "accessible" for people who can't do much more than random clicks? Many of these events have a significant difficulty setting... which just fails against a zerg.

 

Granted, there are some issues like lack of visibility in zergs, but that's something that should be addressed regardless... artificial difficulty due to lack of visibility is no replacement for poor scaling.

[Khisanth.2948]

If only ANet went with their original plan for event scaling instead of what they described as the bad approach. :/

[Skotlex.7580]

> @"Khisanth.2948" said:

> If only ANet went with their original plan for event scaling instead of what they described as the bad approach. :/

 

what? Could you explain?

[mauried.5608]

GW2 is a MMO.

Anet dont define what is required in order to play the game, and they especially do NOT define that only skillful *whatever that means" players are entitled to rewards for doing something.

All MMOs are like this.

Its a game simply to provide entertainment , not to promote elitism.

 

[BunjiKugashira.9754]

If you want to make Champions more challenging for large groups, you first have to make fighting them skillfully possible. The Champion must not be hidden by visual effects, all his attacks have to be clearly visible and fps must be above 20 on the average GW2 rig. THEN we can talk about making their attacks punishing.

[Master Ketsu.4569]

Zerg wars 2