[Spotlight Concept #4] Improve the Challenge of PvE

Random event definitely

or...if possible...random map

This 2 things are what makes Diablo 1 the best RPG ever made, even after all these years. All the quests in D1 is randomly generated; you'll have to play through the game at least 2 times to get all the quests. Map in it is also randomly generated, so every game is a new experience.

I like the idea of new challenging aspects to tyria and/or cantha. Especially in the sense of puzzles, because there is far too much hack and slash now.

I meet far too many canthans who come into Tyria and dont understand the idea of taking their time and thinking a mission through. They rush in head first and dont think about it.

But thats no fault of their own, its how they think a mission is done. Unlike in Tyria, where alot need thinking time.

Perhaps add new quests or missions that can only be accessed after/at a certain point which offer a LARGE amount of experience or a big reward at the end.

But aim those missions and quests at the more skill minded and suttle players.

• Maybe invole suttle placement of characters to unlock doors.
• Carrying of delicate items from one location to another.
• Escort NPCs accross vast distances.
• Collect a set number of items.
• Move around an area without agroing more then 3 or 4 creatures at a time. Fail if any or more then 4 members of your team die at all, regardless of whether others are still alive.
• Move around an area surrounded by larver or deadly water, leaving very little space to move.
• Quests or missons that can only be moved through using Traversal or a similer teleporting skill, which have creatures that can only be killed from a distance.
• Areas where agroing anything at all will ultimately cause your death as there will be about 50 creatures area.
• You could have areas where you have stampeeding (think thats right spelling) monsters and when your hit you loose health. So ele's would need "ward against..." to reduce the damage or warriors would create a wall to stand behind.
• Include machines like catapults and cannons.
• Have cannon fights to destroy targets before they destroy you from the otherside.
• Have quests or missions to collect more of a substabce then the creatures before a certain time is up (similar to challenges).
• Quests where if you kill too many creatures you will fail, but if you dont kill any, they will overwhelm you and you die.
• Quests where you have to walk through an area full of endless corpses while you go up against evil necromancers who rases endless minions and golems. Meaning a necromancer would either have to explode or exploit all corpses before they do.
• Quests and missions where partys split up and go down long seperate paths to meet up on other side. Each path uniquely designed for each profession. Or you break up into two's, meaning you have to rely on one member for a long time.
• Quests and missions where you face lesser dopplegangers throughout the entire quest. Not as strong as the ascended doppleganger, but a team is completely replocated and copies its other-half exactly for skills and points. When you kill one group, you are set on by another, then another.
• Quests where you face nothing by warriors, then nothing but rangers, then elementals, then monks etc etc. Might be good way to see whos actually better char :P!
• Now ive run out of ideas....
• [added] This idea may have already been suggested and its very similar to WoW. Allow certain boss's of certain professions to drop special high-level armor pieces with special stats in PvE. But they drop very rarly and only drop if your of that profession. They would be like greens, and couldnt be sold. These boss's could be at the end of these extra hard tactical quest and missions or they could just be in remote locations in tyria and cantha or they could only be accessible to fight once youve completed the Titan Quests (something which needs incouragement to play)

Precise, delicate quests which take time and thinking. Not alot of fighting and more tactics. Players would need to consider skills which benefit an entire team and not just themselves.

I know alot of those suggestions already exist in one quest or another in tyria already, but they could be expanded upon and enlarged or combined.

Maybe that would make the warriors re-evaluate their tactics, because these missions and quests couldnt be completed by just running head first into them and agroing everything in sight.

But I would just hope that any improvements to the PvE element, doesnt follow Anet's usual trend and just increase the number of creatures who can block or interupt.

"Less Mob (too many make it boring), but more Interactive and Interesting"

I agree with that aspect.

I was trying to explore a southern shiverpeaks the other night and I walked through a portal into the next section only to be met by about 20 creatures. Half of which were healing and two were minions masters.

To make matters worse, it was exactly where the res-point was.

I must have spent about 20 minutes ressing right in the same place. By which time I had about 20 minions to contend with and 2 healers keeping everyone alive.

It just takes the fun out of exploring and questing.

Undivine's ideas on crafting and collector weapons/armor is a good one I think. I too played EQ for what felt like ages; and while I wasn't a huge fan of the Epic weapons and the way to get some of them (my rogue's for example /cringe), they were still fun to do with friends and people you knew well.
Balth hit it right on though as well, those items must be made non-tradable. Even in EQ, people would farm or camp those needed items then exploit the need of the player and sell them for far too much.

spawnofebil... trying to figure out whether that was flamebait or a genuine suggestion. lol - in all seriousness though, PvP and PvE should not be mixed in a game like this. I can appreciate the occasional mix and match when done well, but the play styles are not at all compatible and the rewards needed for each playstyle are far too different. For example, I have 10k Balth faction and have no need to spend it on anything. Why do I have it, why do I care that I have it?
The first time I went through pre-searing to Ascalon and was pitted against another team I sat and said to myself (even as my team won) "well, that was dumb". The second time through, I was just with henchies so I got up and went to get a drink (afk'd it). It was an annoyance and "in the way" of what I wanted to play. By forcing PvP on people, you will create more afkers and leechers in the game. Many people do not like the PvP in GW. O'Brian even confirms this in his Feb 2006 interview in CGW when he states that they [Anet] now know that many players wish to only play the PvE.

On the idea of what works well and adopting them in to GW; I think GW would go a long way if it introduced more time sinks into the game. As was stated above, crafting as one; but also, for those that played them in EQ, the LDoN dungeon quests. These made a great addition to the core game and brought people back to rather "forgotten" areas and re-populated the older game worlds. And if no one has caught the basis of the "token" idea I stated previously, it's rather loosely based off of LDoN reward system. Best of all, it kept people playing together as those playing in certain regions were often found grouping with the same people day in, day out... and many were not guildies... in fact LDoN is the only thing I really miss from EQ these days.

I don't think a completely random map is even remotely possible, but you could for example have ten different routes from A to B, but each of the routes have a 'failure' point. For example a collapsed bridge, an avalanche, an uncrossable swamp, a flood etc.. Only two or three of the ten possible routes are open, while the rest are closed off from random events such as the abovementioned.

I don't like the idea, both because I don't pvp much and I don't see how this would fit into the flow of the story. The academy in pre-searing can work, ok, but having to fight another team just to get into Lions Arch or to get my armour infused? That doesn't make sense.

My thought exactly.
I love Fallout. Best RPG ever to hit the PC market.
But that system is completely different from the GW system. In GW you can completely customize your characters, nothing is set permanently. If you choose a perk you won't be able to redo it later, and if you can't redo it later having it won't make much difference since everyone can adjust them to whatever missions you do.

But then again, that might make for an interesting option (taking examples from Fallout and Lionheart), lets say you can have these non-permanent perks. You could set them before a mission, just like you set skills. Everyone can have one perk, for example Stonewall (50% resistant to knockdown), Regeneration (+1 health regen), Sniper (arrows travel 20% faster or 10% extra chance for critical), Thinker (10% faster casting), Swift Learner (10% experience boost), Switfness (5% extra walking speed) etc.

No, I didn't think those very much through, and they're all unbalanced. That was just taken from the top of my mind

Great idea, I love it.

Now, for (yet another) list of ideas, I know some of it is mentioned before in this thread, and I will explain some of the points in more detail after the list.

• Enviromental changes
• Randomize mobs
• Mob AI
• Random events
• Better/more varied missions
• Other new features

Enviromental changes: Day/night cycles as it does in the real world, random weather effects based on location, 'monster villages.'
The first doesn't need any further explanation. Random weather would depend where you are. If you are in the desert it's perhaps 80% likely to be sunny, 10% lightly clouded, 9% for clouds and 1% rain. In the mountains it's 25% sunny, 25% cloudy, 25% snowy, 10% rainy and 15% lightly clouded. In the jungle 75% chance of rain, 15% of sun, 10% cloudy.
Just so it doesn't snow in the desert
If you've done the quest The Naga Source you'll notice they spawn near a ruined village which doesn't look like it's been inhabited by humans. I'd like to see other places like this where the monsters would normally live, they could contain a random leader, and a large cluster of the monster type that lives there.

Randomize mobs: Skillset, spawn points, boss locations.
I would like it if monsters came with a variable skillset, so a Charr Blade Warrior choose two of four skills at random. Now they use Wild Blow and Frenzy, but they could for example get those two and Sever Artery and Power Attack so they don't always use the same over and over again.
Monsters could also use more skills (face it.. you have 8 skills, they normally don't have more then 5-6) to make them more challenging.
Spawn points explains itself, same with boss locations.
All this would help reduce bot farming as well since it makes the mobs less predictable.

Mob AI: Behaviour and general stupidness
Great addition to the random skillset to help further randomize the mobs (also a great idea on its own for that matter).
I would improve the AI so instead of fleeing from an AoE attack they'll move closer to the casters (that's where they're going anyway since the aggro was broken). Rangers would speficically choose higher ground where available, casters would duck behind cover and use indirectly aimed spells, assassins wouldn't tank etc.

Random events: I mentioned the ruined bridges and such at the start of the post, read about it there.

Mission improvements: Objectives, features, different ways of achieving victory.
Gyala Hatchery is the best mission in the game. Not because you can cheat and use the backdoor, but because it's unique. It gives a completely new challenge which I'd love to see more of.
New feature to the missions could include having to solve puzzles, splitting a party in two or even three, strategic placement of resources etc.
Lets say a 8 man party is going to kill a big baddie in Nightfall. They enter an egyptian style tomb in the ground and have to find their way to the boss. The road ahead splits in two, and the party decides to split into 4 man teams.
As the team that went left progress, a door slams shut behind them, trapping them in a room slowly filling with water. The right team have to kill a group of nasties, then find and disable the mechanism that traps the left team within a certain time.
Similar traps may occur several times, but not all solved the same way of course. The right team may be required to unlock a puzzle to open a door for the left team and so on.
You could also have missions where you have to defend a castle or a fort. You can assign three 8 man NPC teams to specific points, while you could patrol around or help them. Doing this with NPC teams instead of players would remove all the annoyances you get in missions like Vizunah Square where you normally spend 20 mins getting a group, then the other side turns out to be one guy with henchies.

Since you're defending you should also have different pre-fight options, for example setting up traps outside the castle, extra fortifications, tower sentries etc. You get the choice of one of them.

Victory could be achieved by holding out for 30 minuites while waiting for reinforcements, or you could charge out and kill the enemy general.

Other new features: Blocked missiles, disarmament, pet AI
I don't like it that a missile (be it an arrow or a spell) hits the target you aim regardless of number of enemies between you. Friendly targets should be left alone, but a missile should hit the first enemy it passes through. This would open up for Broadhead Arrow as well, since it uses an extremely high arc and hits from above, not the side.

It would give an entire new skill line if warriors and/or assassins could disarm others. A disarmed character will drop his/hers weapon to the ground, and has to pick it up and equip it again to use it. The dropped weapon will, of course, only be available to the character that dropped it indefinetly. If you leave the mission with the weapon on the ground you can still pick it up in the unclaimed items box afterwards.

Pets should have an improved AI. They could run away (or to their master) if their HP drops below a certain limit or you could get new commands like Stay! to keep them at bay (has been suggested many times, I know).

Hope someone took the time to read through all that, longest post by far I've ever made. I know I forgot some things I wanted to put in at first as well, but I'll put them in later if I remember them.

Has anyone ever thought why PvE is all about damage output? Because the mobs are more powerful than us (lvl 24 - 28). PvE has become "who kill first is the winner" (that's why henchies can be so good since they can focus fire your target). This is trade off for dumb AI if we improve the way these AIs thinking, it would make it very hard. So we want AI to be improved, we need to consider in reducing their power and number.

Id say PvE has always been "who kills first is the winner". And henches do at times, do the job their asked to when a creature is called.

But I would rather sacrifice the dumb AI for some acceptable AI. Not hugely intelligent, but acceptable.

Ive found that the only way you can actually keep a henches attention on fighting the correct target is to constantly call the target.

I know it sounds daft, and it is frustrating and straings your hand after a while, but it does actually work and they do kill the target faster.

But you shouldnt have to do that.

Either it should take one call to make them all continually attack the same target until its dead.....

....or they should have enough intelligence to actually target the same creature themselves, until you tell them otherwise.

But then you have the instances when its not all fighting and henches will still ruing your game in some other way. (apologies, I wrote a nasty word and didnt realise and I got red-engined)

Ive had several times when my entire team has died. Me and henches. And you realise you havent ressed at a res-point. The reason being that one of your henches is about a mile behind you stuck between a tree and a wall, moving back and forth.

This could be after youve walked quite a distance into a remote area exploring, with no close towns or close res-points. The nearest one being 2 portals away.

Your only choice is to purposely move back to the nearest town, meaning it will take you another 15 minutes to get back to where you are.

Those are times when improved AI would help.

Sorry I wasnt clear on my previous post, what I meant AI was the enemy, not hench AI. Some suggest enemy AI needs to be improved because it's too predictable, static, etc. Given smarter enemies and insane power would make PvE alot harder (not that I dont like ... I'd say bring it on but to some people).

Right, a couple things I forgot earlier:

Customized quest items would make gameplay more as intended if you can't buy Altheas ashes or the letter, and it would remove scamming for said items.

Even if I would like more puzzles, even the simplest ones leave players baffled. After carefully explaining how the teleporters work to a group, half of them ragequitted after spending 10 mins working it out (note: I was dead quite far away and unable to help them).

This game has always, and will always, be about that. But if you want more tactics and more of a challenge, you could ask for more monsters with res skills and other little used enchantments like bonding skills, blood ritual, healing seed etc. to make it interesting. You could also ask for dual class monsters for more of a tactical challenge.

(yes, I know the AI needs a serious workover if a dual class should pose that much more of a challenge then a single class)

Wow. To make it better we just trash it? If pvp were interesting at all I would already be helping to beat other human teams. But when I help defeat human teams, I get no drops. There is a set number of opponents, Their levels are set and cant be over 20 while monsters can. (level 24-28). So I go kill ai controlled opponents and get drops, can cap skills etc.

I do however like the idea of being able to trade balthazar faction for money. As it is now, there isnt really any benefit in it for me. It states when i go to get something that I don't get anything it just "unlocks it" for future pvp characters. However this is something we can discuss in the "making pvp more popular" thread.

As far as making pve more interesting, How about a reason (in the story) that the guilds are fighting. In prophesies, we got together to face the charr, then in factions we got together to face the afflicted and shiro. Why do the guilds continue to fight. I thought the guild wars ended like a few years ago. What about having guild related quests. Say at a certain point maybe from lions arch or kaening, or somewhere that has boat access. There is a guy with an exclamation mark over his head, (if you are in a guild). and when you access that quest you have to do a mission or quest with your guild. This would happen in a preexisting map, but with different mobs. Like the titan quests.
This could give rewards that woulndt affect gameplay, of course. Like since you are doing this as a guild maybe completeing it opens up one of the guild npc's?

sorry but i agree with frickett here. throwing out PvE completely couldnt make it more interesting, it would make it non existant. making PvP count towards PvE sounds like a good idea but like frick said if i wanted to PvP, id PvP. i fight PvE because i like to fight AI controlled creeps that have diversity and challenge. I also think that guilds should have a bigger roll in the game. i mean come on the name of the game IS guild wars. im not really complaining i know the name is based on background information. however i wish that my guild could have specific things to do together instead of just in place of a PUG. yeah we could GvG but what does taht do for me???not much. quests or missions that would be OPTIONAL(obviously not every guild could do it. ie too few or too non active members) for guilds to access would be great. gives a guild that works together well something to strive for the key word in these missions would have to be DIFFICULT and i mean INSANE! the "elite" missions, not so hard after you get used to them. thats my thoughts

Isn't that more or less a Paradox? How could PvE more interesting.... if it was not there?

But anyway... a bit off the topic.. but I will try to write some suggestions for PvP improvments too (in future threads)

A lot harder.. somewhat, but read more over on my suggestions on making the mobs act ilke mobs.
Currently, all mobs act the same. Improving the AI and keeping with the current AI build, it would be more difficult, yet the same old boring encounters. Improve the AI in a way that makes mobs act like mobs. Undivine clarified my own words better than I did, when he said (loosely quoted) "Chkkr is like fighting just another mesmer, not a powerful creature".
If the AI were made to first understand a threat, then fitted into "mob classes" instead of players classes* we could both have a challenging and entertaining game.

Mob Classes:

Mobs shoud have classes all their own:
Creature: Creature mobs would be like the "fish" in Jade Sea, the "bugs" in Echovald or in the Crystal Desert. Minotaurs, Trolls, Ettins slightly humanoid, yet placed in creature due to their reliance on brute power vs intellegence. Mobs in this class should be all about power. Either power in numbers or power in strength. These mobs have little understanding of a threat untill they are hurt, but should have enough smarts to change tactics and target. Generally these mobs should just blindly charge the player(s) or swarm them, only retreating when taking massive damage (as in they are almost dead). As in nature, creatures should have far over powered attacks and natural defenses to make up for the lack of "smarts". Creatures should travel in singular set ups. All warriors, all assassins, all rangers, etc. No mixed groups as creatures in nature don't generally intermingle.

Humanoid: Tengu, Undead, Wardens, Charr, etc. These AI Mobs should have a slight understanding of "player classes" and should be able to coordinate attacks, perform interupts fairly well, and understand a threat before it hits them, should be able to avoid an AoE attack after a few seconds (not as smart as humans so aren't as quick thinking. Mobs here should also be armed with more powerful attacks and abilites not available to humans. A warden with a knockback and knockdown hammer swing for example (as mentioned above). Humanoids should travel in mixed groups as they have a basic understanding of healing, interupting and "nuking".

Human: Jade Knights, Am Fah, White Mantle, etc. These human AI mobs should be the toughest in AI coding, yet be perfectly balanced and as players, locked at level 20. Skills and spells are same as the players and they should come in well balanced groups. They should come with rezzes and a fully stocked skill bar with a good understanding of how to use each skill. They should also have two classes, not just one. This mob should understand a threat right away and (as we used it above) spells like SS, backfire and the like should cause these mobs to stop casting/fighting almost right away. AoEs should cause these foes to scatter right after the first dmg is counted.

This doesn't make the game more difficult, but does make it challenging in that each encounter with different mobs becomes different. Factions is really bad in that once you learn how to beat Jade Knights (which takes all but 30 seconds), you've pretty much beaten the game as each encounter usually comes with a healer, a nuker, a mesmer and the usual ranger and meleer. It's always the same type of battle. IMO anyway.

yeah the hardest the groups really get is when you have two healers. O NOS TEY HEALS TEMSELVES!!! really other than that its really very basic. (NO im NOT saying the 2 healer is really hard lol)

Alot of good ideas for PvE improvement, I will just put my 2 cent in.

I would like the assortment of enemies to come in developed groups of 6 or 8, simular to what your team is brining against them. Instead of trying to pull small portions of large masses of mobs, or trying to fight masses of dumb mobs with low support, I think the mobs should be arranged in teams simular to player teams. This would make the battles a little more diverse, instead of getting attacked by 3 groups of melee, healer, caster, we could have one group of 8 different classes. And what a difference it would make if teammed enemy mobs all brang rez signet if they couldn't bring rez..... what kind of team has rez only on the healers? Ok I can see if some of them don't have rez, but most of them should, expecially if they are dual class /monk or /ritualist.

The other thing that would make enemies more interesting is dual classes. It is kind of unusual that just about everything but the players have only one class, with much more original and diverse builds than NPCs.

But I think the biggest impact that can be made on PvE is terrain diversity. With something like climbing added to the game and terrains which require climbing and such of that nature, or sea travel and combat, sailing on ships and exploring the ocean would make a huge impact on the PvE experience.

Your talking about "human" mobs right? Cause if all the mobs came like this, it would be the exact same fight over and over again; and very similar to what the players in a PvP might come up against. I think we can all agree, that after seeing the same make up over and over again, it does get boring.

On Game Enviromental Immersions

• -More Ambient Sounds
  • I feel that there are not enought Ambient Sound bits. Those include things like howeling of wind, rustling of leaves, bird chiping, rushing water, etc. Adding those would make you really feel like you are there, audio wise atleast.
• -Henchman/NPC/Mob Shouts
  • I would like to hear Henchman or Mob (if it is human ) have voice sound bits. Where they would say things like "watch out!", "Its coming from behind!", "go for the Monk!", and such. Many game have this feature, and I found it help to make the NPC more believible, like they are a person in the game world, and not just a silent robot. Of couse, would add option to turn on/off, and those shouts would be somewhat situational random (to avoid them doing it too frequently and too regularly)
• -More Animal Life
  • Would add to the game if have more Animals. They could be small ones, and not necessary tamable or kill/attack able. Things like small bird, rabbit, frog, fox, bees, flys, etc. They could be just running around. It help create a more livly world, instead of a place just fill with hostle mobs. (can even have some mob interactive with them, like wolf trying to chase a rabbit and such)
• -Interactive Environments
  • Need more interactive enviroments. Things that are breakables, burnables, pick ups, turn on-able, throwable and such. Make you feel that the object are really there, and not just for eye candy. So Trees and vegetations could be chop down or caught on fire, add more crats or barrel that can be break open, rocks or boxes that could be pick up and thrown, gates and door that could be open, etc. They could have some strategy useage (like throw a stone for distraction and such), but even if they don't, it still help alot with the Immersions.
• -Enviromental Hazard
  • What would PvE be with out the evniroment playing part of it? Those could be weather effect, like Rain, which could reduce your Mini-map visiblity and make you walk slower, or snow storm, or sand storm, or Intense Heat, or Freezing Cold, etc. It could also come from the object in the enviorments. We already have some, like the spiky corals, tar, water, ice sheet, and more. Could expend on that, with things like Posion Bush, Tripping Roots, Tangling Vines, Healing Fruit, Energy Sucking Crystals (like the one in post-sear ascalon), exploding crystals, slippery rocks, and more.
• -Vegetations
  • It is part of the more interactive enviroments. I would want to see more plants that you can pick up, like the Ires in pre-sear. Of couse, they will have addtional use to them. I still plan to write a threa more about it late.

Animals first. In Tahnnakai Temple there are rats running around, that looks very strange since it's the only place in the game you have random critters, but it's a nice effect. I would like it if they did similar things for the rest of the game.

If you can pick plants, could it be an idea to let players make dyes from them? Pick ten red iris flowers, mix it with water and some mystery ingredient (available from merchant) and create red dye. Similar recipies for all other dyes, black of course being very difficult to get. Perhaps ten rare drops from the ring of fire and raisu palace.

I can't see much other use for plants in the game, except for salvaging for plant fiber.

YAY plant fibers!!!

anyhow if you check gamespots new post about nightfall, (sorry its long or else id post it here), then youll see that a lot of what weve been talking about here has coincidentally been put into the game mechanics of that title. you have bosses that change classes during a fight, traps, puzzles,etc.(read it im not gonna list everything lol)this report above all other things ive heard has made me REALLY look forward to the release. anyhow i thought it was relevent to just show that GW may actually have more interesting PvE in the near future

Make monster:
1. Have secondary profession
2. Have 8 skills and any other things should be similar with players (runes, attribute, etc)
3. Apply popular effective build: touch ranger, iway, boonprot, etc

To compensate:
1. Lesser number in group (less mobs in general)
2. Lower the level (having better build monster with insane power is almost impossible)

If healer mobs did a better job at healing and became more common/vital to mob groups that would be more challanging in its own. It would also open up more windows for PvE Assassins, seeing as when played by a pro their spike potential is nearly unbeatable. Thus the masses may reconsider when they realize it takes 10x longer to kill groups, when it could've been a short lived fight had the support mobs been taken out sooner.

Spawn randomness is a must: By the second or third go you can do most areas on auto-pilot.

Balance the AREA not the mobs: Currently it feels like you are fighting one AI PvP team after another. The early prophesies mobs had much more character than most of the factions/SF ones. So you see some humans over there – you know from experience that they’ll be a warrior band; but watch out because that band of frog-necros could wander by at any time and ruin your day. Make a balanced party of monsters the exception rather than the norm.

We need more room to move: The SF model, which was continued in Factions, was for dense monster pack spacing. This makes doing anything a tedious grind; over-agro is the only way to fail. Allow players more use of the environment and more room to run and explore between fights.

Shorter, high-intensity quests: There is a place for 3-4 hour high-end missions, but there should be a place for 30-minute high end content. The dragon festival missions are a great example of this; they just need a reward system. Randomness in these would be key.

I have many ideas yet some may be missunderstood if my english isnt Perfect enough.

Make a boss like creature in a mission that is over 15 meter large. Spellcaster and Only casters can deal whit it att first. Hide when it fires a deadly attack that kills you quickly. Then it will change to Imune to magic and Weak against melee. And after that i suppose a Runaway action.

Make some More AI for them and fix bugs.

I like the idea of splitting up as someone said on the first page. The Deep has a very breif period where you are split up into groups of 3 but after that its pretty simple.

Move Thunderhead Keep to the first mission outside of presearing. this way the game will actualyl prove a challenge and force people to use some common sense / skill...

I love the idea of split groups for missions and quests.... the key would be to split the group for much of the quest/mission area: maybe even make the split a suprise: you enter an area, take two steps, and the wall falls. 4 and 4 on each side, totally random--including the possibility that two monks will be on one side, and NO monks on the other.

How would a crew deal if they had no healers? Hmmm... we might see monk secondaries, or smarter builds to maximize damage. Such a split would require slightly smaller mobs--say, two enemies, lvl 24, vs. your 20s?

I also gotta give props to the suggestion for environmental effects--with the caveat that such effects provide a detriment for some classes, and a help for others. for instance:
what if in snowstorms, warriors faced knockdowns during tanking? say, every 5 seconds. at that point, monsters could jump aggro onto casters. Or, if they stay on tank, maybe monk could have reduced spell range? Eles on other hand, attuned to water, could see spike in damage, but reduced fire success. rangers could have reduced range, but increased avoidance of attacks.
In rain: Mesmers skill recharge time cut in half for skills in illusion and domination lines. necro spells cost double. (rain = life (symbolically speaking, right?), necros = death....). all ranger skills deal +20% damage.

In night: assassin skills recharge 2x faster. 'sins deal 25% more damage. monks, mesmers enjoy more armor. rangers deal 20% less damage. aggro range reduced? random traps in some areas can trigger larger enemy aggro (imagine a noisemaker trap set by yetis...?) Necro enjoys +1 to all attributes, wands/staffs deal +20% damage.

etc.... I think if the environmental effects in some way balance groups, that would be a good thing.

However, to prevent group creation which excludes certain classes.... time should be randomized. This might marginally affect "reality" of game, but would force players to deal with environment as it comes, rather than build groups specifically for it... witness the general exclusion of 'sins from many places, wammos in SF, etc...

There is nothing that brings random people together more than working together on a single project. There should be something in the community that everyone can contribute to. So here is my grand idea. Hopefully it could be used as a whole or in parts. Just try to imagine if this update were real.

New Update: Guild Wars Auction House Under Construction!

A new volcanic island has emerged from the waves near the battle islands. Masons from the Stone Summit have traveled there and decided that is would be the perfect spot for a new Auction House, but they need your help. Clay Bricks are needed in the construction and they can be found at crafters or at merchants. Collect as many clay bricks as you can and give them to the stone summit foreman on this new island. The Stone summit dwarves are working round the clock to get it done. The biggest contributors will be recognized for their help. - Arenanet.


Ok, now I know this seems grand in its scope but think about how fun it would be. It doesn't have to be an Auction house, just a building that would benefit PvE players. Everytime you login to the game the progress would be updated and you could actually see the building become more complete. Titles could even be given for those who contributed the most clay bricks.
How much fun would it be to have the entire community working together to create something that would really benefit us. Also, you could just add this to a current town. A new island was just an idea. There could be NPCs hammering and carrying tools. Making it look like a real job site.

Kurt The Quick

I have read through this thread and I definately agree; the PvE aspect needs work. These are some of my suggestions

-More divicult and strategic missions PLZZZ. The missions to choose from are simply--kill this, kill that, go here and kill that, hold them off while I kill that, and so on. Here are a few ideas of more interesting missions.
*Hold the wall type missions where you have to defend an area for a certain amount of time. Sounds generic but to spice it up each profession get specific jobs each for their own value and it modifies how you can approach the mission. In addition to the each profession gets there own "this mission only" skill that helps them with their job.
*Labyrinth type missions where teams get split up and the mini-map is taken away so u dont know where u are or if there are mobs coming up. Makes you move very carefully; slows down high-speed hack 'n slash a bit.
*Full scale war type missions. These would be fun. Each character is named a commander and can order their own troops and backup. The poit is so the characters can build their own force and work together strategically to capture enemy command points and kill key enemies to win the battle. Another fun aspect would be if you win or lose the war it affects how the story moves along.

-PUZZLES PUZZLES AND PUZZLES. I LOVE PUZZLES IN AN RPG AND CAN'T STRESS ENOUGH HOW MUCH BETTER THE GAME WOULD BE WITH MORE OF THEM. THAT'S WHY THE DESERT IS ONE OF THE BEST PLACES IN TYRIA!

-Now moving away from just the mission and battling aspect I would like to focus on more of what to do in free time. When I beat both Factions and Prophecies I had nothing to do in the game but wait 'til the next one came out. I tried pvp but after doing it for awhile it got repetitive. I would like to see more of player specialization in the game. Craftsmenships is what I love in an RPG. It also adds a new twist on trade because it would go more like this--The Tailor trades the Cook meat so that he can get his linen--that way useless drops can become necessities and it makes trading a whole lot easier. It also makes making money more interesting cuz in my opinion farming is just plain boring.

-I know Guild Wars isn't an MMO but I would still like to see player owned housing. Especially focusing on guild housing. Those are what I think would make the rpg aspect more interesting and replayable.

Here is a brief idea.. and as a 2nd part to the random and more divers mob.
The problem is that with random and more diverse mobs, because your character are still limited by your skills, you are fix, unable to change to meet the changes of nature. Therefore, it lead to a need for allowing player to change their skills in-map. Here is an alternative suggestion for it.

Camp Area
Camp aree are found in the exploration area (possibly in Mission too, if needed). When enter such area, you can change your skills (but with a "casting" time as well as a recharge time... so once you change it, you cann't change for another 5 min or so..etc) This allow you to change your skills for the different challenge up-ahead. It is not an outpost, so the instanize map will stay as it is, and not be reset, and you can not map travel to the camp area.

This allow dev also to easier control where a player could change their skills. They could place it off the main route, or in area more guarded area, or in a less populated area, etc. so to avoid certain abuse, such as changing build to run or farm etc.

Well, it is just a possiblity, a idea to play around with.

I think maybe when changing your skills you could pay a price of like 20% dp so it prevents ppl from just coming back and changing whenever the mobs change. I s'pose it could work with major consequences added to changing skills.

Well with all the ideas running around, I was just thinking. If we made PvE harder, it would be best if we made the missions harder no?

So yeah, I was thinking, instead of bonus missions or master's reward, how about like...3 part missions where completion of the 1st part is the only required part to progress in the story and this could be like...your standard difficulty now. You can then choose to continue on with the 2nd part where all the different ideas above could be put in (harder mobs, more mobs, diverse skills required etc.) and if you can complete this part, you get say...your protector title? (or some reward =p).

Then say if your group does complete that area, you can opt to continue with the final area where it would be really hard to fight and there could be all sorts of stuff like....interrupts and alot more monk mobs such that if you just go into a random PUG group, you'd never survive =P Anet could throw alot of stuff/ideas into the 3rd area and since its not needed to progress...they could put alot of stuff indeed o.o (Maybe like...Grand Protector title or something >_>; Cant think of anything better =P. But for those who don't like titles...well...something else could be in there =/)

This could also give some mission replay value...since like...after you finish a mission once, unless you're helping a friend...you won't really do it again I guess?


I was also thinking about PvE damage weapons...but well...its weird and would really make the game...different.

Sorta like.....
Longbow
PvE Damage : 18-32
PvP Damage : 15-28

Where you'll have the same max pvp damage...but more in pve? Makes it so farming is not all just for rare skins?

Anyway...I'm going offtopic =X

NOthing against you, it is just personally I don't want to see mission be harder. I got sick of Mission Stuck before, and really hate to do it again.
Make Mission/exploration area more divers, more dynmatic, more interesting, more interactive, but not necessary harder.

But I think it is good idea to have more than one 2ndary quest, which could be harder to complete. Also Multi goal and multi path and event changing mission would help.

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Also I don't like the differnt stats inbetween weapons for PvP and PvE. Maybe just have more "Y % more damage vs. X type of creature" weapon should be good enough for addtional PvE damage...
Also add to give mob more weakness to certain type of damage/elemental, and you would have a weapon that is better for PvE than PvP.
(like a Customize Fire Sword of Troll Slayer should give you a large bonus against icy troll.. etc)

Well the secondary bit was sorta what I meant, you don't HAVE to do the other parts of the mission, you would only need the 1st part to progress so its really up to you =P

Also with weapons, you can run into like 6 different kinds of monsters in 1 mission or area....you wouldnt really carry that many weapons would you?

I'm not saying like have a PvE Damage : 500-700 in the end, just like...a variation of +/- 5ish?

mm... i do like to play pve and i would like some differences in it but more challenging would pose a problem...

i for one dont really like pug teams because u can pretty much never do what u want with them, try eploring and get tons of messages WTF COMEON noob, guild teams give a bit more freedom but still...

henchmen ftw... an henchies really do suck...
tactical formations high ground, going behind hills to avoid arrows etc jst dont belong to hench bravado, i find this game a bit too difficult as it is since dp 60 ur party is wiped from tha land of the living in , say 10 seconds i think my record was...

deacreasing monk avilities might have been bonus for pvp since u can actually kill something without having to kill monk first but it does hinder henchway teams since u will allways be dp 60 at the end of quests... well perhaps a small exaggeration but still

nightfall might solve some of this if u can change the skills of ur hench but tha hench ai i think is the first id improve for pve pleasure

i dont wish to turn down all these great ideas here but do take hench teams into considearation as well

I also use almost pure hench teams if I'm not grouped with guildies or friends in game. So the suggestions I have made would take into effect the use of henchies. It all has to do with AI fixes and creating a more interesting game while upping the challenge. Lately, when I've had time to play, I have gotten to where I take only three henchies out with me to explore and have fun as it is very easy once you learn which foes to kill off first. Like I said previously, you know how to kill Jade brotherhood, you already know how to beat Factions mobs till the end.
Some suggestions are far to PvPish in thought for my tastes and would completely turn the PvE game into a Factions like bore from start to finish. Mob builds should not all be balanced groups... I would love to see where the mobs congregate and sit for 20 minutes LFGing...

One thing I have yet to see mentioned and I personally would like to see is singular very powerful and tough mobs, or loner mobs worthy of a massive fight.

Say instead of our friend the troll coming at you in small groups, you face one troll, maybe double in size with a constant trolls ungent (or better since the regen is natural to it) going. Give it dervish like attacks with a hammer or fist like attack swings and several knock back and knock down attacks. Give it several thousand health so it would actually take a good mixture of tactics from the players to take it down.
Just an example, but any number of new loner mobs could be made to be a singular challenge in many different ways. Make them so much a challenge that when you see one, you have to consider confronting it or not. Rather than just saying "that group might engage, lets clear them first".

speaking of tougher mob.

One post I read before complain about how high lv boss mob are too easy to take down with interuptions. This is mostly true, as they tend to use the skills that we the player is using, but it create somewhat less of a exicting fight, especially for a scenario of Boss Monster Raid (like in Lineage 2, with 1 real strong boss vs lots players)

One idea would be to have sperate targetable spot boss, that way each part will do certain action, making them less to fall from interuption. Another is the idea of Double Interuption, in wich in the course of casting their skills, because of their monster ablity, they need atleast two interuptions to stop.

And I hope to see better major boss fight.. the kind that take up the whole room and need special action to defeat them.. like in zelda.

jst a thought ... id like to c say <profession>'s challenge as in one on one...

a long area of solo play with lots of monsters but onlyin teams of 1..

possibly in larger groups where still only 1 could be pulled out then dealt with separately from the rest of the group, to give it a stalker like feel

between them some small groups of say 4 low lvl monsters... to give it some variety, also possibly some groups of 1 high level / midlevel + smaller minions ... that kindof thing that would still be doable as solo

we have this in pre searing but since noob times there is only a few places where u could really go only solo... i kindof miss that in higher levels

perhaps some double team challenges for the same kind of idea where u really had to put sec prfession into good use to get most of it ( i really had fun with the charr at the pre searing area where were the three bosses and like 30 charr dont remember the name of that area)

not much of a reward would be needed since u would get lots of drops from monsters since u would be in a small team + xp of cource

Sorta like targeting the mobs arms or legs to stop it from doing something? That sounds cool. I like that idea...

mm... interrupting legs would disrupt speed boosts, kinda nice idea to kill the arm to lessen its dmg an the other to lower its defence, then go for the head to knock out its magicks

Hammer to the knees of a giant 30 foot yeti... while the rangers and paragons shoot at the head and chest of the huge beast... hmm. A reason for truely balanced groups. Each class would have to work on a unique spot to finish off or bring the creature down to kill it off. Great possiblities here.

I was thinking about a seige game when this come to mind. It was mentioned before, but would be interesting to see a Mob Leader System.

Sometime in a fight (usually in a more scripted fight, like in mission), there would be a mob leader leading that group (can have skill more like paragons), which if kill first, could send that group in retreat, or in minor chaos. This could be done well in a seige like scenario, where you could "push back" the on coming wave or against a larger force. It is mean to add more interesting game play from the typicall "Must Kill them All" battles.

Along the lineof "Push Them Back", I would like to see more case where the mob would retreat and/or regroup it self. It could be done as a scripted event, or with trigger such as (if the group suffer 50% lost) or (if they are in a fight for X minutes), or (if their hp is in danger), etc. This would be more for the tight space fights, like in corridor, canyon, or gates.

Also another mob trigger action would to be call for help... A caller mob will call more monster around to joint the fight, even if they are not in aggro range. Or could have it run away, only to bring back a larger force. This is also to make player more picky of which mob to target and attack first.