Domain Of Anguish

I haven't bother to PUG Foundry and after my experience yesterday, i've lost all desire to. Like I said, from my experience, the two most time consuming events in DoA is due to waiting for glyph sac MS to recharge and deaths/retreat-disengaging. Clearing the first room takes less than 5 min if you don't take any deaths. and we can usually clear the first mob in the second room without taking any deaths. We usually take a couple of deaths in the second room, but rapid rebirth/res chant (choose appropriately) + BiP allows us to fight through the death.

Again, Prot Spirit is your friend, lots of copies, one on each monk, ele, and bip. You can usually predict who needs a PS by looking for Gale and burning as usually a spike follows it. and proper spreading out. We have people keeping on eye out on key targets. "Meteor!" "Invoke!" "Gernade!" or "ACK AHHH!" usually signifies a powerful AoE coming down and is usually followed by 5 simultaneous PSs flying up on different targets (realise sometimes you will have to cancel your current action to get the PS up in time) When you have that many PS, LoD on the heal Mo and HP on BiP keeps all health bars up.

You can kill real fast and they're high levels that you gain XP fast and rapidly work off DP. At any given time, I don't think anyone's DP dropped below 30%DP except maybe the SS/Backfire N/Me. Again, our main source of damage wasn't MS and we didn't take glyph sac nor waited for MS to recharge.

In the third room, if there's a few ppl left, our trapper tanks while the warrior goes off to agro some more monsters before we finish off what we're currently fighting. We also keep more than the warrior and ranger on the otherside of the gate at any given time in any room. this is espcially true in the fourth room, since they like to run to the far end of the room if they break agro.

DP works against you especially during the second quest. is PS can frequently get shattered (but it's a good cover for Attunements). However, if you have too much DP, you'll die from PS shattering. If you managed to get there without too much DP, you can live through a shatter and usually get a PS back on before they can hit you again (and get healed) but this requires a high level of attentiveness. There's plenty of places to funnel or use corners to control agro in the last room. and You can usually fight more than 1 mob at a time if you can pull them to those key spots strategicly.

so the #1 way to reduce time is simply _Not Die_
the #2 way to reduce time is to not wait so long between fights.

@aohige: You just answered your own question...

Thanks.

Most of what you said are common knowledge if you can get this far.
I guess your last paragraph is all that really matters.
"the #1 way to reduce time is simply _Not Die_"

Btw, exp scrolls helps greatly when reducing DP.
If you wanna be cheap and not hand out CCs to friends, obviously


Well, those are the obvious time cut-down element.
However, 3 hours is rather drastic reduction, and hence, I asked for advice.

Yes, this is why it's better to get rid of said customers, and find those that like what you're offering.

Octoberfest isn't suitable for families with young children. So what do you do? Well, simple, you remove beer, so that small children will be allowed to participate. After all, they are the big market.

Customers need to, in most cases, learn to shup up and smarten up. If they can't even figure out which game they enjoy, so they only play one that they bought, not realizing they will hate it, then they can't be trusted with an opinion.

The trick here is, who to listen to.

Customers vote with their wallet. If they keep buying game on hype, then ignore them, and take their money. Let them whine. But do listen to those that enjoy the game. They are the ones that will leave if things go wrong. Those that buy on hype won't.

Also, companies on principle ignore people who say "your company will go bankrupt if you don't do this and that" or "me, and my 50 friends from guild are leaving because you didn't do this and that" or "I'm going to <competing product> since they have <a feature>". Maybe I should look up some internal memos for exact PR guidelines I have from years back. All proven in practice.

That is exactly the problem, as I said in my post:

My concern is with the attitudes of the average customer, which are potentially driving developers to make easier and easier games.

There's nothing wrong with easy games, the problem is when there are challenging parts of the game, that may not be required to play, those who are used to the easy parts complain. And I mean, very vocally. "If I can't beat it, it shouldn't be in the game".

I don't see a problem with having both easy parts and hard parts co-existing.
I believe the fact that the only Rt hero available requires gemstones from DoA is what makes the issue rather complicated, as he is not a cosmetic reward.

As much as I love DoA, and DO already have Razah... having a diffrent Rt hero easily available through factions campaign would be a good solution.
That way, DoA can stay as hard challenge for those who wish to take it up, and get people off our backs who call us names for liking the mission.

The challenge in game design isn't to appeal to the greatest sub-group of customers, but to as many subgroups as possible, while obviously not excluding rather large subgroups.

In my opinion, Nightfall failed miserably. There's the main storyline that's easy as dirt, and then there's the Domain of Anguish.

The storyline is nice, but many people don't want to fully play it again and again. Many people in fact want to take the character they played through the storyline onward to new challenges. But what's there when you're done? The Domain of Anguish, which (let's face it) is in its present form unsuitable for casual enjoyment.

There's a HUGE black hole between the end of the storyline and the Domain of Anguish, and that saddens me greatly. After playing through Nightfall, I had huge expectations for DoA when it was announced, because so many things in Nightfall felt so right. For many people, there's little to do in Nightfall after completing it.

Sorry I Didn't read through all 80++ pages on this thread, so if this has been mentioned.....

The problem with the DoA is that with Nightfall and the introduction of the Hero system, most players do not get any experience in a PUG. Therefore, you have the monsters to grapple with and the playerbase that is used to grabbing a quest selecting heros and henchmen and running out the door. This game is so chat-silent in most outposts it is scary. Now people are their own guild of one player surrounded by heros and henchmen who can't cut it in the DoA. I'm not sure how to overcome this though. I just don't think people who started playing in NF are comfortable or capable playing strategically with a group of people. Despite the drawbacks, I like PUGs and I hate listening to crickets chirp in most NF towns and outposts.

This isn't so much a question/comment/statement about DoA, but more a BiP necro in DoA question.

I have a BiP necro that I have almost got through Nightfall, I have always run her at 105 health due to the simple fact that with blood renewal or heal breeze or sometimes both I recover health really fast. However even with Prot. Spirit on is it considered "safe" to run BiP necro at 105 health in DoA, or due to all the spiking should I take her back up to 180?

Thanks for the answers, or lack there of, we shall see.

Easy games don't always equal "not fun" games. Some of the easiest games I've ever played are still very fun games.

For a GW example, consider Sorrow's Furnace. The first few times you went in, it was a little challenging-- maybe even slightly frustrating at points: trying to figure out how to keep Alkalar alive, trying to keep up with Stonefist, etc.

After the first few times through, it became uber easy. But it was still fun. You could lure monsters in the stone crushers for laughs. You could carry a gear around for a long time and throw SoJ on the target for laughs. Most importantly, you could get in and out in under an hour-- sometimes two runs in an hour. And you know what? 4 out of 5 times you would have something pretty in your inventory to show for it.

Some people might want to say SF wasn't fun. But the place stayed full for a long time. The place still has groups forming a year later.

DoA isn't fun. Period. It's really not even challenging. It's sadistic. It says, "Beat on me for hours. I will change my build. Beat on me for a few hours more. I will change my team. Beat on me some more until maybe, just maybe I make it through." And from what I've seen of the end rewards, making it through isn't worth the frustration. Apparently I'm not the only one because the place gets more and more empty by the minute. The only reason it has more than one district are the people checking it out, fresh of beating Abbadon. And you won't be forming a winning group with 9 out of 10 of them.

It's Anet's first real mistake in an addition, so I'm not bothered by it. It's just not fun. Easy was fun, when the rewards were plentiful and you didn't feel like you were wasting your time.

This is exactly correct, excellent summation.

So, where's our endgame content? DOA doesn't count. Anything that excludes the majority of players doesn't count.

I went through Nightfall and beat everything, except The Troubled Keeper quest, with hero/hench. If Nightfall-only players did that as well, then they will have a hard time conforming to playing with a pug. Like most, they will learn and adapt, as all good GW players should. And suprisingly, even though DoA is a win or die situation, there are those that are willing to help and try to teach others.

I was actually suprised when I first entered a DoA explorable. I decided to scout with my heroes a bit in each area. I just smiled as my heroes and I were wiped when I aggroed a group. Every enemy boss level (thankfully not with the double damage), mixed groups, and the icing on the cake...enviromental effects. Finally a place that actually deserves the title Elite.

Some view it as near impossible and too hard to waste their time, while others see it as a challenge and some are even breaking down the time it takes to finish areas to within reason. Everything ANet does is going to get mixed reviews, but I think this area is what most of us PvEers asked for....some challenge.

Even though each explorable area is do-able, imo there is one flaw to it. Yes, those dedicated to playing the elite areas more than one time through deserve to be rewarded, but the Armbrace of Truth seems to be a little out of reach to even those dedicated players. Some will say its the same as getting ecto and shards for Obsidian armor, but UW and FoW are multi-campaign places, and obviously no where near as hard. Every profession has a build to solo either one or both of those areas. It would be nice to see a gemstone trader or unless a reward for The Ebony Citadel of Mallyx is an Armbrace.

Still, I'm glad there is at least some challenge to Nightfall. *goes in-game and hopes gemstones drop*

This, I think, is the crux of the problem: many people don't find combat in GW, in and of itself, all that much fun. When you strip away everything else (as in DoA and PvP), only those who do like the metagame, and farmers are left.

The rest, when they complain it's too hard, it's not "too hard as a challenge", but really "too hard to bother".

How else do you explain the proliferation of running, AFKing, and quest item trading in GW? The level cap exacerbates it, but doesn't totally account for it.

I'm not sure what Anet is missing, because they've obviously put a lot of thought into the combat system, and it looks great on paper. But from Street Fighter to Diablo, to FPS, RTS and turn-based games like Fallout and Heroes of Might and Magic, GW is the first game I've seen where combat is actively avoided by the players as a fun activity - whether it's to take that wider turn around the mobs on the way to the next outpost, or the complaints about grinding for Sunspear points, and so on.

HAHA!! You just gave me the best laugh of the day!!


A lame and simple strategy with PUG group.
Make a group, play a bit, NOT TO BEAT IT, trust me, you wont.
Filter the good players out. add them to friend list
ditch the bad ones.
Form another group, filter more players.
when you find em, add em to friend list
follow the process till you get 7 players.

Call em all up, set up a time that suits you guys, make a group and play. You will go far enough, i wont say Beat it, but you will make it far enough. Find where you made mistake, dont jump right back into it. FIND YOUR MISTAKE. Form a strategy!
Once done, Change skills accordingly ( if needed )
Once done, Go back in, try to make it further...
Keep doing, and you will be able to do it.
Trust me, that feeling is one of the best feelings in game.

I have done most areas with PUG group
Took me, 3 hours for City ( IMAGINE WITH CITY !! )
Took me, about 2 1/2 - 3 hours for gloom ( WITH A PUG )
Foundry ( took us 6 hours ) we went EXTREMELY Careful, Breaks included.
I need to do stygian ( i know the quest.
First time, monk had err7,
second time, Our ranger leeroyed, OFCOURSE PUG.
well just have no time, exams are pushsing me against my books )

Darkest Elemantal.

Love all the assumptions in this. Just love them.

My friends list is nicely populated. Many of them (unlike me) are geniuses when it comes to creating builds. I'm sure they could create or modify builds that could handle DOA. So what if they did? I don't have five hours to complete one area, and neither do they. And spending all that time fighting identical mobs of ridiculously overpowered enemies, with no deviation in tactics possible and no room for error available, is definitely not fun. At best it's boring, at worst it's frustrating.

You're advocating that I put myself through hours and hours of frustration and boredom for one minute of feeling good? Sorry, when I want to waste my time, I have better ways of doing it that are fun the whole way through.

Actually, the mobs are different and variable.

And if you're a left proclaimed genius of creating builds, then why don't you come up with a build to clear the area and beat our Personal Record Time.

No point, what is to be gained? nothing, something to make you richer? not really worth the time and frustration & or effort, to see more interesting artistic places? none there drab and boring.

Please keep the bashing to a minimum.

(emphasis mine)
Please note that he said he was NOT a genius at creating builds.
Thank you for your time.

Actually, I don't think I ever made 500k and 150e in two days of farming.

Ohh shit, I just got owned.

I thought that post was by Sable Phoenix. Got 2 different people mixed up. I apologize.

Since he is not a genius in creating builds then his whole argument is null and void, especially that bit where he mentioned he has many friends who are geniuses at creating builds.

So what? Does that affect his ability at all?

Either he is good at creating builds himself or has easy access to good builds, or he doesn't. There is no middle ground. Bringing up imaginary friends for argument's sake is just lame.

"This outlines a significant problem in game design. Developers typically have no business incentive to make a truly intelligent or challenging game, because the majority of consumers simply will not appreciate it. If a game, or part of the game, requires appreciable skill - rather than merely time investment - to beat, most players will simply give up and claim it is 'too hard' and 'not fun'."

The time investment IS the reason people don't play DoA. Welcome to reality. ~_~

So your friends never share their builds with you?

Appraently you cannot make simple logical inferences.

Time investment is the reason your or I don't play DoA, sure. But reading over other threads in the past few weeks and standing in DoA listening to whiners, one major issue for the average player is party-wiping 5 minutes into the mission. This is significant because it is the average player that is fleeing DoA, and the average player that makes up the majority of the consumers.

so did they fix that bug for that door that isnt opening .

The fix is ready, but they are looking for new testers.
the old ones resigned when they were asked to go back in there to check if it worked.

I remember facing a Factions Ele boss for the first time and seeing an entire party get wiped. At the time I asked my guildies if this is what they came up with to make PvE more interesting for chapter 2 (damage multiplier and fast casting) what on earth they were going to do for chapter 3. And now I have my answer. Question is now, what are they going to do for chapter 4? If chapter 3 brought us monsters that do 3x damage and have fast cast, in chapter 4 will they also give them the "Natural Resistance" found in Chapter 1 that also halves all hex and condition duration, or maybe half damage taken, or maybe both.

I don't think of myself as an uber player or whatnot, but I have had plentyfull experience in all forms of both PvE and PvP, and have done pretty much everything there is do in GW a long long time ago. There is, however one thing that I will probably never do (unless they give a very compelling reason to do so), and that is DoA. This game has always been about skill, player skill, and the most beautyfull thing about it was the ballance. Everyone is level 20, everyone can have the same equipment, and everyone has 2 professions and 8 skills. PvE has always been easy, and for anyone that has had any active interest in serious PvP, it has always been bland. With DoA things have gone one step further in the wrong direction.

Why, why, WHY would you ever simply slap on a damage multiplier on a monster and leave it at that. The game has a very delicate ballance, and this only seerves to rip that ballance apart and render it useless. It's like taking chess and playing against an opponent that can move twice every turn. That's not a challence, it's masochistic, and if you were to ever actually try to compete against that, you would have to play in a totally different way that would never be viable in a normal game.

A few pages ago, someone was talking about kiting and preemptive protting and pulling back and a lot of other strategies. Amongst other things, they mentioned that they had 6 copies of prot spirit on their bar. Kitting in DoA is simply not an issue, because a monster should never, EVER get near you. Any enraged creature can kill off a monk in 2 or 3 hits, as such, you have no place near them. If for some reason you do go near them, you should NOT kite, because that only increases the likelyhood of someone else in the party getting aggro, or even worse, bringing back the effect of long cast AoE spells to the rest of the party. Manuevering there is done by one person, and one person only, the TANK. Shutdown is largely useless because all the creatures have an obscene energy pool, and fast cast, your only real option is straight up damage, and even here, not just everything goes. Logically, because of the Enraged ability, you would pick off and spike the creatures one at a time, to minimize the damage that can be done to you. Of course, the only problem with this is that all the spike skills are heavily regulated because of PvP, and going down the spike route guarantees that it will take you att least 2 to 3 times as long to do anything.
Oh yeah, the prot spirit, forgot about those. So, DoA is not an insult to GW because if you have 6/8 people with prot spirit, you die less? Newsflash, the way GW works, with so much prot, you should not die at all, period, unless shutdown comes into play, but then there is not much of that going around, it's just damage.
SO, taking is a necesity, nuking is a must, shutdown is a joke, and then you need healing. So we're back to the good old tank, nuke, heal builds... the only improvement is that people have just discovered prot. Amazing.

All that having been said, one does have to wonder, is the most ballanced skill in the game, Enraged, needed? Why do groups of larger than 8 monsters only have one monk? Why do some not have any monk at all? Why is is that each and every monster does NOT have a Rez Sig? Why is it that some monsters simply DO NOT have 8 skills on their bars?
Personally I don't really care about DoA, it has offered no incentive to do it except for the obscene price of titan gems which is slowly going down and will not be worth the time investment a week from now. What I am worried about is the long term health of the game. If every chapter simply adds another point to the damage multiplier of the monsters, gives them more HP and energy and regen, Two chapters down the line GW PvE will be a very, very sad affair.

This is not a UBERzorz vs N00b WHINEzorz issue, it is a trend in development that could have a very negative impact upon the game if it continues.

actually, there were plenty of people who posted beating these ele bosses with 7 henchment (not heroes) and an empty skillbar

Actually, lightbringer and cry were interupts taken, backfire was also used as a shutdown spike. We had some mix of AoEs (including SS) and spike damage. Kiting speeds up combat and reduces damage (instead of wiping, ressing, and restting), this includes monks. it's only when monks can't heal without kiting when it becomes a problem. Dervish and assassins can double hit. PS gets stripped by inspired/drain/shatter/descrate/ and whatever that dervish enchantment strip is. even with PS, if you stand still and let 5 people hit you with double hits at once, you're dead. the high number of enemies that hit for more than 10% of HP makes sitting and tanking, even with PS, impossible for squishy casters. not to mention the damage from AoE from casters, dervish, death blossom, etc that stacks on top of that.

They use alot of interrupts too, glyph conc mantra resolve may stop cry and power drain/ power leech. However, since power block disables your skill (instead of interrupts) you cannot concentrate through it. they also use arcane theivery and arcane larceny

How did you come by this information?

doesn't sound very trust worthy to me, I mean arenanet don't need to test with beta testers, they have there cheat keys I would assume, /killall for example kills everything on the radar that is an enemy target, or some sort of script to skip to certain parts.

Ummm.. I kinda read that as a joke myself, Salbat. Its makes me giggle maniacally to think of Alpha/beta testers too scared to go back in and check on mallyx.

And from what Gaile said about her own char, she can only teleport to certain cities, so the testers don't necessarily have cheat codes(Gaile explicitly stated they cannot spawn items in the live servers)

But that's just my two cents

But what's stopping them from using private servers?

Most likely they're just using the test servers(or whatever they call them) to make sure it goes well. But what happens when they want to stream it into the live server? do they normally test right after, or just wait for us to test it for them?

Oops, wrong thread.