Nightfall and the future of Guild Wars

Okay, I have been mulling over this for the past few days, but now I have made up my mind and I would like to see what others think.

I believe Nightfall is too hard for the average player. I am aware of the thread titled "Nightfall too hard" but this is not about Rihlon Refuge and what not.

I have finished the game twice already, and am convinced that the Realm of Torment (and parts of Desolation) are simply too hard to be enjoyable for average players. I do not understand this design by ANet and I feel personally that despite being a wonderful game, Nightfall will spell the end of the Guild Wars franchise in terms of popularity.

Just so that we are clear, I finished the game in 2.5 days. My elementalist has 18 Million XP over 2,500 hours. She has 6 titles maxed including Elonian Grandmaster Cartographer and Protector as well as the Skill Hunter titlethat cannot be maxed. So, I don't want any posts from any self-proclaimed experts about how I just need a little a little more experience with the game. I also would appreicate if those who have not finished the game hold their thoughts till they actually finish it.

The problem as I see it is that the Torment hordes are just too powerful when one considers the AI enhancements. This problem starts as early as fighting Hekets Kourna. If you're a caster and you play the high level areas of Elona, then you 've probably encoutnered the following situation with Henchmen/Heroes:

You attack a mob, their Warriors/Dervishes rush your casters and they kite like real pros. In a few seconds, the "smart" melee enemies turn their focus to... YOU. You're the only noob not kiting. So, they start hacking at you laying Deep Wound on you and Distracting Blow and you can hardly get anything off. So, you decide to kite.. However, as soon as you start moving, your henchies stop attacking and set out to follow you.

The solution in most cases is to "anchor" them using the hero/henchie markers. However, if you're constantly being chased (It's the worst when you are a monk), you have major problems calling and directing their attacks while you're running about.

This solution beings to fail in the Desolation and most certainly in the Realm of Torment. If you're not on top of it making calls, your henchies will not finish them off quickly enough and due to "Call to the torment" you'll end up with more bad guys than you started with. If you're a new player coming to GW from other games... You'll be like, what the heck is going on here?!

To summarize this case study, I feel the monster AI is ahead of the hencmen AI, and it shows very clearly in the Realm of Torment. It really takes the wind out of your excitement about the Hero system when you get to the realm of Torment and find yourself getting "pwned" left and right. Mostly due to elements not directly related to your skill with the game. For example, take the Domain of Secrets with it's delightful +40% energy cost. No way, should you run into a group of torment Demons with 3 Rain of Terror demons along with an Arm of Insanity who has Quickeing Zephyr. The math just does not add up. The henchie/hero healers WILL dump ALL their energy in the first 5 seconds of the encounter and your party will wipe soon after.

The way I see it. This kind of imbalance will cause much frustration. Soon the player community will split into the haves and have nots. Those who put up with/overcome this kind of frustration (5%) and those who do not (95%). On day 4 of the game coming out, there were already people in Torment towns offering runs to the different outposts because they knew traveling the realm was very difficult. This will not just be limited to running, soon acquiring items/skins from the realm will be the domain of those few who can put up with its challenges.

This is nothing like Prophecies or Factions. In Factions, large groups of Shiro'ken were a handful, but they were not in an entire realm. In fact, the only time you "had" to go through them, Kuunavang offered you uber skills. In Prophecies, the Ring of Fire is Pre-Searing compared to the Realm of Torment.

In closing, I feel the end game in Nightfall is too hard for average players, and I think it will turn people off from the game once they discover that it's the area with the most lucrative drops and that they cannot go very far there on their own.

I dont see any issues

could say the same thing about it being a "turnoff" with the hardship of Prophecies, THK and beyond..

ThK is henchable, if you have the skill. And by henchable, I mean not a single death, easy cruise. The main problem with ThK was that it required rudimentary coordination which most hastily formed PuGs lacked.

Moreover, I would hardly compare "anything" in the Southern Shiverpeaks and the Ring of Fire to what's in the Realm of Torment right now. The difficulty is an order of magnitude higher.

I love the difficulty at the end, but precisely BECAUSE of that, I can see your point.
A lot of the more casual players will hit a wall at a certain point and just give up.
The final areas are all FoW level in difficulty with the added unfair disadvantage of the area environmental effects.
A great challenge to an experienced GW player, sure, and it makes that Protector of Elona title a thing to be cherished, but it WILL dissuade the more casual player.

Oh, a couple of tips for hero control:
Bind each hero flag to a key near to those you use for movement (or hell, even a mouse button). Kind of like how serious FPS players bind weapons to keys surrounding the movement ones. My hero keys are R, T and Y with my group flag being X.
You probably already knew that you could use the compass to place hero flags, but did you know that you can also use the "U" map? Very handy as it doesn't spin as the player changes facing.

My only real issue was gates of madness with Shiro, appart from that I also agree that the difficulty is above average, but no problem with that, but that shiro... I tried to beat him 15 times, only to have success at the 16th time. That clearly is very difficult

I'm confident that anyone who can hench THK can also hench Torment

but its more likely people will be grouping in Torment

first of all - could we get a bit of a SPOILER tag on the thread title?

to the OPs concern - i dont consider high difficulty a problem. i do consider it a problem if the high difficulty is a replacemnet for content, if one is stuck at a mission for hours/days and cant advance becuase it does not allow for mistakes and thus prolonging the experience without adding extra content.
i have no idea how this translates to the last missions since i am stuck at the general titles and i have no desire to farm that and without that i am unable to move on.

you can quest it

my 1st time thru Nightfall I did no farming at all (beyond picking up bounties as I quested)

you can easily quest 2500 Sunspear points
- Questing will take you longer tho

if you farm it, can earn the title in less than 2 hours in SW corner of Arkjok Ward

You keep responding as if the thread was about difficulty that I am facing with the game. As I said, I have fully completed the game with my ele, I have fully mapped the Realm of torment for the wiki with henchies. I can easily clear out the Domain of Secrets and Fear and Pain.

Personally, I would say the difficulty took out much of the fun playing with my monk, not my ele. My ele enjoyed her run and is very grateful for Invoke Lightning. However, this is not about my personal run and how I can get better at the game. I thought I had made that clear.

This IS about: Do you feel the end game difficulty would make Nightfall unenjoyable for average players.

I found NF to be quite easy, I wish it was harder, but when you have preteens playing I guess it can be quite difficult (I'm using sever artery on a rock!), I do agree that the torment mobs are tougher than the average mob in guild wars (I find the margonites are real joke, way too easy to kill), when you aggro 2 torment mobs you are almost certainly dead.

In my experience, a game is never hard indefinitely, I will agree with you that areas like the Realm of Torment were surprisingly challenging the first time through for me, but I remember when I thought the Ring of Fire islands were unbeatable.

sorry - weve talked about this on the other forum and they said the same thing. so i should be more precise - i include the questing into the term 'farming' since i dont have the desire to do it over and over and over again on multiple chars. (besides i have multiple issuses with NF - so lets just leave it at that )

I agree with you - doing the same quest (on diff chars) is same as farming

In my honest opinion it doesn't. The end game Nightfall is where it should be and where Factions should have been. Battles are difficult, require quick thinking and coordination. It gives the player the sense that the game is near an end and that all the difficult battles that he/she is facing and is to face will give them a far more better sense of accomplishment than the likes of Factions where all you really needed was a MM.

I think the question is if the average player actually wants to put any effort into playing the game rather than being hand fed directions and "how-to" guides throughout the game. I think the Realm areas teach you what GW has stressed all along. "Teamwork, Coordination and Strategy" Careful pulls, coordinated attacks on Torments and communication between everyone is what is at key and is the heart of Guild Wars throughout the Chapters that have come and yet to come.

No, I'm not an elitist and say something that all missions were too easy or whatever. I'll admit that I failed missions throughout the game because I didn't come prepared with the skills or my strategy for the mission was faulty. Now I'm going through the game again with a paragon then after that I'll go with my monk main.

I've known many who have returned to GW cause of Nightfall and they all love the chapter and the challenges that come with it. I've also known a couple of friends who have just started playing GW as Nightfall is their first chapter and I have not yet run them through any missions because things are "too difficult."

I'm not - I'm responding to you saying that this is a "turnoff" for the casual player

and I disagree because I feel that THK+ was no different

I'm sorry, I didn't find Prophecies hard at all, at least not after getting the basics down.

And looking back on the first chapter of Guild Wars after completing both Factions and Nightfall, the only reason I could see Prophecies being harder is the fact that you can't get max armor as quickly as you can in Factions or Nightfall, thus in later areas with large mobs it gets a bit overwhelming in terms of your defense. But it was still beatable, and I only had problems in a few areas. That was BEFORE we had heros. And to be honest, the ability of having heros makes Nightfall easier in some cases but extremely frustrating in others.
Earlier situations in Nightfall aren't too difficult, it's when you progress and are faced with a mob of enemies every 5 steps, and in between these mobs you have 'roaming' mobs.
I find it frustrating when you're trying to successfully take on two mobs that were unaggroable, and as you try to run away, you can't leave your henchies anchored or they'll aggro the roaming mob, so you make them all run. And because you're ALL running, you cannot be healed, nor can they, so you get walloped by 12-14 enemies, or more, and then have to face a roaming mob??????? This is particularly annoying in the Realm of Torment because literally every mob roams. Or some stupid mob of mandragors pops up every 5 steps.

That isn't to say that Nightfall isn't playable. Because it is. It just takes patience, but for people coming into the game with no prior experience, it could take forever for them to progress.
But then again, that's what it was like with Prophecies, and Factions as well. More specifically Factions because I found the mobs a lot worse in that chapter than in Prophecies.
I remember in Factions going outside Kaineng Center, or into Bukdek Byway or whatever, and getting destroyed. But now it's not that difficult having learned how to deal with them.
The same applies here. And in a sense, if it's going to take the new players a longer amount of time to beat the game, this means it will be a while before they ever face the Realm of Torment, so in a sense, going into such a place, players should know to at least prepare themselves. But it's hard to prepare for a place like Realm of Torment, because rather than fighting things, I find myself running to places a lot more because I want to flip out if I choose the latter idea.

Well i agree it is perhaps hard for ur average player but most people wont have a problem with it. As for saying the other chapters were easy, Prophecies had and has atleast 2 points taht are considerend difficult for average players, THK and killing glint but after some experience and soem build changes most people get by them. Factions had the shiroken which were normmay where u were gievn uber skills howve, if you explore outside Harvest temple you get no such skills and so the Shirken even in small numbers become a pain and even worse are they high level elementalist groups theres which ofen have Oni nearby to. I dont think NF is any more difficult than the other 2 campaigns each has its difficult spots but everyone adapts and makes there way through never the less

A good game is meant to be challenging - not a walk in a park. If a player isn't up to the challenge, then it's not game's fault.

To over come a challenge = rewarding = gaming euphoria.

I played Prophecies on release

I saw *many* people complaining (ingame) about
- Crossing the Dune (used to be only 1 monk henchie)
- Dune missions
- Fighting the Mirror
- THK
- the final missions of Ember camp


the game is almost 2 years old and many people are experienced GW players

It is only hard due to the average skill level of PuG players being very low. You have to take into account people improving and adapting to areas, and if it started off as easy for an average player then in time it would be almost mindless.

I hate to brag but it reminds me of when ToPK was first converted to a PvE arena, and the threads back then complaining about how hard it was. I found them most amusing after having completed it on our first run on the day it came out with a four man group.


Ok I love to brag about that, it gives me immense pleasure.

ohhh euphoria.. thats one of those cool words that you only get a few chances to use a month

awsome choice..

but on a more serious note i completly agree with you.

a game should be hard as hell near the end... i want to toss my pc out of the damn window from the game being so hard......

BUT if it is bullshit difficulty.. then we have a whole new problem and i get a tad pissy.... but the only things in the game that really are that to me have been the ai update, lag, and error sevens

oh and farming for sunspear points

For you, perhaps. To me, these games are just that. They come and go. I want to see the story, the graphics, the powers/spells/abilities and then move on. This is my 6th MMO, and I'm sure they'll be more. I have NO desire to go back and rethink a strategy to try to get thru a difficult mission or quest. I want to be successful on my first try, always.
Dying in a game, to me, always ruins the immersion for me. In most books, the hero does not die, ever. He makes it through the obstacles to the end, defeats the bad guy, saves the day without ever dying once. That is the game I want to play. That is what gives me gaming euphoria. I utterly can't stand redoing a mission or quest for the 3rd or 4th or whatever time. I have played some FPS games almost entirely on god mode just so that the storyline unfolding isn't ruined, isn't interrupted, by my character dying.
There is nothing wrong with enjoying a game the way you do, but your words don't speak for all of us.


This thread, and one other, have given me serious reservations on buying Nightfall.

I suggest you buy offline games then and select "Easy" option.

I henched all of NF with my Warrior and am halfway through henching it with my Nec. Sure these are easier than a couple other professions but Desolation is very henchable.

That being said I do see the OP's point that a player new to GW will be toast in Desolation. Just think of all the people asking "How does X beat the Doppleganger?" and the logjam at THK when the large wave reached them in Prophecies. There are going to be similar logjams here and I agree that many will just give up.

On the other hand (how many hands do I have anyway) you have to keep it interesting for the veterans and I think that is what Desolation was intended to do. Perhaps there should be more of a 'end game' feel before the Vortex and let that be en 'elite' area?

I only found the Realm of Torment difficult. Desolation did not bother me. I did not enjoy the Realm of Torment, I did most if not all of the primary quests and missions with a Human party, no heros and henchies. I do not want to go back to the Torment and I am going to have alot of trouble getting Torment greens. After NF, I went back to places in Tyria and Cantha that I once thought were hard and It now seems cake to what Ive seen in Elona.

fully agree and thats why I don't think Torment isnt all that different for a turnoff

the 1st year, Prophecies for new players had chokepoints for quitting too

I should make one thing clear - Torment is *not* fun for me

its less fun than the Canthan City

I agree with the first post fully. The Monster AI in Nightfall is above the Ai that the Henchmen have. The Realm of Torment is definitely too hard for the Average player. why?

I played completely through prophecies several times, and factions several times, and have completed Nightfall twice. While in Prophecies I am able to manage through the Shiverpeaks and those islands with some ease. In Factions, going through everything in there is fine with me too. not too difficult. Die a few times, and you learn to deal with the enemies.

Nightfall is a whole different thing though. ANET talks like the game has a smaller xp curve than in Factions, thats a total load. You can level to 20 quicker here than in Factions. But its not that hard. The consulate docks mission, yeah, its annoying if every character isn't at level 20. After that, its mostly easy. no problem dealing with those hekets, harpies, and other monsters. You will probably die a few times. The Desolation gets a little more annoying.

Annoying because Monsters Do Not Have Death Penalty (or it does't seem that way!), and those damn paragons in the Desolation keep reviving the other paragons, and you keep felling them a hundred times, when after the first time, you get no extra xp, or any extra items, so it is pointless. The Monks are also very annoying because they also revive alot. well, kill the damn monks. But wait. Paragons and Dervishes can revive too! so in the Desolation, you end up killing hundreds more monsters than you need to.

Anet's answer to this was the wurms, deal three hundred damage every few seconds, end of story, no more annoying res. but not all of us are going to be in the wurms for every waking seconds in the desolation areas, especially in the rocky areas.

You can still deal with all of this easily if you work at it, without dying, probably no problem with that.

The Realm of Torment though, not only are you dealing with mobs and mobs of level 28's, but those mobs have as many as 12 level 28's in them at once. You can't get through that! Kill the monk! the other monk heals. Attack both at once, effective, but then after killing them, they get ressed by another monster, then you have to kill them all over again. after the monks, go after the Devishes and Warriors. The Dervishes are easy, just take off their enchantments, but the enchantments have less than a second cast time, so less than ten seconds later, they put the same three that they had on, on again. The Arm's of insanity's aren't much trouble, but they actually are when there is six of them at once, and you have to constantly kill their spirits, which increase the cost of your skills which allready cost enough if you are in the Secrets area.

Thats just explaining it a tiny bit.

Abaddon was actually a Guildwars Letdown ,....again! Boss was the most damn awesome boss I have seen in a long time on a video game, but it is a letdown still. you just have to kill the monoliths, then attack Abaddon, Rinse, then repeat. Usually on any game, even Need for Speed, and Halo Even, you should feel a sense of accomplishment after killing the last boss. I felt nothing. I just said WTF! several times. that's it? Shiro was definitely tougher than this, and he could be killed in thirty seconds anyways, so he wasn't even that hard. I was thinking that a GOD would be a level 50+ total freakin badass that is nearly impossible to kill unless you are the most expirenced player that there could possibly be. I was hoping for something like this after the last twenty hours of the deepest hell I went through with the Realm of torment. But not really...



The three missions and several areas leading up to Abaddon were tough as heck though, I had 60% death penalty after almost every area and mission. and for the areas, I just said "screw it" and got my good ol' ranger running build and ran past everything instead of fighting them, using my henchies and heroes as bait. I don't mind dying several times. not a problem at all. failing as mission? not an issue. But failing the missions twenty+ times before you finally finish it then moving on is just stupid! Having 60% dealth penalty before you get past the fifth mob is just stupid! Its not challenging, its just annoying!


Now Anet is talking about an elite mission. Yeah right. the elite mission will be a twelve man team going against fifty level 30 monster's at once, and there will probably be no strategy involved.


fifty monsters that are twice as powerful as you characters are isn't a challenge. Its an atrocity commited on Video games! Most people are murmering "FINALLY!!!!!" after they get thorugh it. thats no sense of accomplishment.

-Metal Gear solid 1,2,3(on extreme mode) is a challenge.
-Half-life 2 is a challenge.
-Splinter cell is a challenge.
-Halo 2 on the hardest mode is easy compared to Half-life 2, but it is still challenging.

-Guildwars, which takes pride in comparing itself to more action oriented games than MMO's, is not challenging, It is just annoying. Going through the same mob fifty times and dying fifty times is not challeging, because you still have to go through the other fifty mobs, fifty more times! And while Guildwars is not supposed to be grinding like WoW, having to go through the same repetitive mobs so you can kill it just to continue, is by all means, considered a Grind.


The only callenging thing I see in Guildwars, is being the first one to beat the game after it is released ahead of the other three million players.

Someone in my guild solo farms in the Realm of Torment, so its not too bad. I don't think its that difficult to where people would ragequit the game. The Realm of Torment is supposed to be a plane of the god Abaddon, so some difficulty is expected. Fissure of Woe and the Underworld are of the same class and are even more difficult then any part of Torment.

I know its part of the story of the game and not a seperate area like FoW and UW, but I would think it makes the game far more rewarding to go through an area with some degree of challenge in order to beat the game.

those are units of the 3 chapters sold, not actual accounts. one account with prophesies, factions and nightfall has 3 "sales" counts in it. then of course there are those with multiple accounts.

but i digress.

i see guild wars as a niche game. designed by the devs as they want it to be and not as the market would like it to be. considering the enormous financial backing from ncsoft, they'll continue to do so.

I would, again, object to comparing FoW and UW to Torment. A rag-tag group of 8 players can do 25-50% of the Fissure without any planning whatsoever. Just each person doing their own thing in a competent way. A couple o fmonks, a couple of eles, a couple of tanks and you're okay. My ele got ALL the shards for her FoW pugging in the Fissue. I should know.

A rag-tag PuG would not even make it out the door of the Gate of Secrets. A rag-tag PuG would not kill 2 monsters in that HUGE mob across the bridge from the Gate of Fear (which leads to Healer's Covenant boss). It's not even funny.

As someone mentioned a few posts above, the feeling with my monk was not one of accomplishment, but one of RELIEF. Thank God I don't have to do this any more.

I guess i don't really agree with most of this thread. I thought factions was tough until i knew the maps and knew what to expect, i think the same applies here. Do realize there are some quest's (master quests) that you can grab that will greatly alter your feelings about a particular area. I think that has made a rather substancial difference in difficulty in the realm especially. Otherwise, without those master quests, it seemed pretty challenging but not overwhelming. UW is rediculously difficult with an unwarry group in comparision, where fow is mostly a walk in the park. If anything nightfall overall is on par with the other chapters IMO.

I just wanna say FoW and UW are more difficult, or should I say were. We've had them for a long time, we've figured out builds to best those places, so they seem easy now. Torment is new, we will eventually figure out builds to best Torment too.

There's a second route to that boss that's hella easy.

Wait a second. Are you seriously complaining that only those who are capable of putting up with challenges (and very modest challenges at that) would get a reward?

Isn't this rather obvious?

The irony of your sentence there is that you've so accepted the ease of the game so far, you don't understand the possibility that only people that are minorly capable in PvE are in this case deserving of the rather pointless rewards of it. Just because the rest of GW is Carebear Communism, with everyone getting everything without effort, doesn't mean that actual challenge isn't welcome.

Wait, cancel that. Torment isn't hard either. Neither is FoW, or any other PvE area.

My rag-tag group of henchmen crushes torment without a real problem. I think I know why you might consider there to be trouble for some...

Ho!


Ok, so let me be kinder. Let's have a look at some things.

Ahai! Hmm.... you're targetting monks first, which you would know (if you observed carefully) have incredibly weak healing (they're smite monks, primarily). They aren't even getting ressed, you're letting them be cloned!

You fuel the Dervishes by giving them constant mysticsm bonuses with enchant removal, when these enchants can be used to deal damage and it would be more effective to simply beat them down before they can use them multiple times.

If you meet 12 mobs, you've either double aggroed or let mobs duplicate.

You can res, so can the mobs. Interrupt them, or simply kill them first - both Renew Life and Signet of Return have a 6~ second activation time. It's pretty cool you're complaining about mobs being on the same level as humans.

You do know Junundu have reduced armor, and that's why you take so much damage. You also know you have limitless hard res, and a pack of 3000 hp characters that hit obscene amounts? There has to be something that actually slows you down.



Gentlemen, the difficulty encountered is often self-created. There were times when Elona Reach was hard. Now, it is soloable, or clearable with a small team of good players. The only regret I have about Nightfall difficulty is that Troubled Keeper wasn't made a storyline mission.

OK, so I'm about to get flames, but whatever.

Nightfall was EASY. In a sense that if you follow the priamry quests, the game itslef is EASY. As far as the followingof the actual game goes for the Primary quests, you DO NOT have to fight anything int he Realm of Torment you cna run right past most everything, except fro a few margonites (which are generally easy). RoT was designed for the Master Quests and for those people who look for a SF type challenge. but for the general gaming experience, it's relatively easy. There is NO NEED to fight the lvl 28 Rain of Terrors , etc.. they can be run past/avoided.

As far as the RoT missions go, they're easy, eevn at the boss fights, all you need to do i know how to move around and bring Degen spells with you and you're all set. I'm an average player, not better than most at all, and I beat NF RoT missions in 1 single shot.

For those who are complaining abotu difficulty, this is exactly why games for America and Europe that come rom Japan are "dumbed down" - Go to Japan and play a version of your favorite game, I bet you i's atleast doubly as hard as you're used to. They know casual gamers like stuff "easy" in the end, so when games are brought over/ "Americanized" they take alot fo the difficulty out. - PC games area bit different as most are made here in the US, but generally speaking yeah..

IMO, Nightfall is hard in alot of aspects, but for the story/primary quests, it's easy, you jus thvae to keep your eyes peeled and know when to make your move. Patience is a virtue in the RoT, just remember that.

I'm sorry, I believe you're wrong, I have been farming light bringer points with a seven man team and have Aggroed at least two mobs more than once without dieing. Admittedly I have not finished the game yet but so far I have not found a situation that was untenable.

I guess it's my fault for giving specific examples, but a lot of people are consumed with giving specific answers to specific problems. As I said, I finished the game and even maxed it's titles in a week, so while I do appreciate the advice and pointers, I think it is taking us off topic into how this or that can be done.

To summarize, I see that some people agree that the Realm of Torment is difficult to the point of not being fun and others do not. I find people who are saying the difficulty in Torment is comparable to that at the end of Factions/Prophecies to be taking an unrealistic approach. It's just not true. No matter how many times people try and make a case that ThK is anywhere near as annoying as the Domain of Secrets.

I recall when Factions came out people were always asking for help with Vizunah (I laugh everytime I remember we finished it with a party of 8 in the first few hours of the game and were thinking why the heck is this thing so hard). The same for ThK or Raisu Palace. However, I feel Torment is different. It's an entire realm that's hard and pretty frustrating to go through.

Thanks to everyone who gave input. I guess time will tell if this speculation of mine is true or not.

In fairness, in a PvP situation (where you'd reasonably expect everyone to be "on the same level") you're only trying to win the fight.

...In a PvE situation you're trying to win that fight without taking any casualties - or at most one or two - as you're then going to move on to the next group and don't want to be weakened by DP and/or walk around with blackened res sigs.

***

Oh, and I agree with Karlos' thesis. I had very little difficulty working my way through it on my own - the only setbacks came from first attempts & not knowing mission objectives, the usual stuff - but I've seen a lot of despairing casual players who have no idea how to push on through the Realm.

Most of them - in a panic - flock to the Holy Trinity builds that they don't actually understand how to use in the first place. They'll do everything they can think of to grind out a win (maxing out Lightbringer ranks, for instance) and still fail.

The problem is that the game requires fairly high-order tactical thinking at this point, and that's something that comes from knowing the game backwards. How would you expect someone on their first pass through Nightfall - if it was their first GW expansion - to properly judge the role of a Smiting monk's pressure-to-damage-mitigation value?

I'd have to agree with difficulty issues, but not from mobs being too tough, but from linear design.

For most part, many get stuck in one single mission, that they consider impossible. Be it THK, Refuge, or any other notorious missions.

Any mission can be overcome with good gear and teamplay. Many more can be made much more trivial with choice of certain skills. Winter, LoD/extinguish, MM vs. SS as apropriate, LB gaze, and so on. But no mission requires it.

A problem I would consider is that one often hears "I just want to pass the mission". To me, this sounds like players who are fed up, and just want to move on, but are simply assuming a passive stance of trying over and over until they get a lucky turn.

I was a strong supporter of Prophecies design. Running was mostly hated. But I felt it gave players opportunity to skip certain parts, and come back to them if they felt like it. For the same reason, I have several characters which haven't done all Factions mission, since they require that one particular mission, and that's it.

Nightfall, for an experienced player is not hard. But it does requires understanding of a full set of gameplay skills: kiting, positioning, damage mitigation, damage dealing, ... While doing the last 2 missions of NF with an on the spot PUG, while being a prot/healer, I found myself zoning out for seconds on time. Nobody was taking any damage, in a group with 2 dervishes as only melee. Yet some teams will wipe on the first group and there's no healing that will prevent it.

Ultimately, GW stands behind player skill design. Players that have skill will breeze through content. Nightfall is demanding. The only question here would be, whether players stick around for long enough to learn. Is GW really meant to be played from Prophecies onward, or are these chapters really playable as standalone?

I can't answer that, and veteran players can't either. But I do remember the times, when I considered Frost Gate an incredibly hard mission. and I feared going in there, let alone do the bonus.

So perhaps, NF is the same. I lived and learned, probably others will too.