Difficulty Up! Quality Down!

Let me first say that this thread is writen with respect towards a great game and it's creators and the only reason that I troubled to write it, is because I care to see this game continue with the Superior quality that made me buy all of it's chapters and recomend it to a dozen more close friends.

I will like to comment the new update, that introduced the domain of anguish. The difficulty level in that particular place is illogical high and unfortunatly is not a smart difficulty, that someone could use his wits to find a good build, or demand a high level of cooperation from the players team. It is a blunt, stupid difficulty based on strong and numerous monsters.

This update revealed to me, that for the first time, something in GW was created out of the principles of quality. Showed that you run something quick, without a single good idea in it's structure, untested, and obvious time-pressed. Maybe you want to catch some deadline for the next GW chapter but this way you risk to compromise one of the best games ever in creativity, beautiness and support.

You might think that I am saying all this because I am one of those guys that don't like to get a hard time from a game, but I assure you is all the contrary. There is nothing I enjoy more, than a good challenge.
My first time in FoW and UW was a plaisant surprise.
Later on I enjoyed very much the Sorrow's Furnace update, not an elite place from the difficulty point of view, but was a state of the art creation, a game inside the game shouting that you care to create a high quality game.
Canta's elite missions were a real challenge and with the right cooperation and ideas (builds), one could resolve every time he/she entered.

I was expecting more from the Nighfall's elite or at least something equal to the creations before and what I saw was a total luck of ideas and creativity, replaced by more monsters a player team can handle, something that will keep us occupied until the next chapter maybe. Besides players find always a way to resolve.

Don't do this, don't sacrifice Nightfall's quality, because the next chapter should be out in 5 months. Work more on this chapter, make it perfect, convince me that you still care to produce the best game around, make me enjoy the game and not being frustrated by it and rest assure that I will support you like always I did, for the quality, fun and relax, you are offering to me.

That is my personal opinion of course, I don't mean to offend or harm anybody. This is a thread because I care and I want to continue play in the best game around.

Apologies for my bad english and thank you for your time to read this.

Haven't been there yet as I am still yet to finish the game... quite hard to pick up groups that don't suck (PUGs FTL). But I hope what your saying isn't true

I think people will find that after a few weeks someone will find some good strategies to use in this area. Aftewards, then the difficulty will seem somewhat less. I remember that the Canthan elites seemed really difficult at first before people started figuring out what to do. Besides, having an uber difficult area at the end, after the game, assuming that it can eventually be beaten, is not such a bad idea. READ: so long as overcoming the difficulty pays off appropriately.

Give it a few weeks. It hasn't even been more than a few hours so far.

EDIT: I'll admit that the masses won't figure it out. It'll take some elite players to do so. While I was in I saw very few people in there even wearing Lightbringer, much less very many over lvl 1 or 2. Most of the ppl throwing out their skillsets didn't even have gaze. As a warrior I was the one sitting at the gate using Gaze while someone was prot'ing me. There needs to be some LB elitism initially in order to figure this stuff out. I'm only a Mighty LB so I'm sure I'll be left out of that, but there need to be some lv 6-8 groups going in there and scouting around. Leave the level 1's and 2's behind for a while until the area is scouted and there's some intel. It's not that hard to get to level 4 or so at least. Most of them don't realize that LB is more than just gaze, as it reduces dmg against you and increases ytour dmg against them. A full party of 6-8 LBs should be able to make their way through there and develop some better strategies for the rest of us...

the DoA has been playable for like 7 hours! were u able to get through the canthan elites within the first 7 hours after gaining access to them? probably not.

4 words... patience and innovative builds.

I read the first paragraph and this is what I have to say :

you dont release a mission without testing it... get that straight
this is a elite mission, some can some cant
its not even been 24hours this mission is out... chill... its like saying "IF I CANT BEAT THIS GAME NOW, NEVER... SUICIDE"

2 words. Barrage Pet.

Another DAMN barrage pet place; except maybe this time you need ONE warrior to help tank the first group, and like 3 MMs. oh wait; thats half the team. 2 monks, and......2 rangers? :/

Quality down, difficulty in ESCAPE VELOCITY.

This mission isn't really that "elite"; all it does is spawn new strategies from a strict line up. Dervishes? Paragons? hahahahaha I almost crapped myself laughing. They're WORTHLESS here. So are ritualists, and mesmers, and assassins, and elementalists.

They have 10 classes and only 4 of them can actually team up to get far. /golfclap

Tactics, which is used in Urgoz's Warren and The Deep and required the funky builds, doesn't apply here. This is simply Party vs. Party. And that's impossible.

Factions elites were the same.

But when they opened, they weren't flooded with every Tom, Dick and Harry, in their shiny new afk farmed R8 and primeval armor without insignias or runes.

They were entered by the most hardcore players in GW, who used every trick in the book and farmed 20 million faction to hold the town.

DoA isn't "hard". But then again, neither is RoT. Or is it? The first time I entered that area I was getting wiped left and right. I now run that place with heroes for chests, loot and LB while mostly watching TV (no, not afk farming). While playing a monk. Yes, that's how easy it has become. Change in builds, change in gear, change in tactics, understanding of patrols, skills, effects, .... And one day, you realize it's so easy. Same with Shiro. Give me a PUG, and in 30 minutes, everyone has masters. Easy mission.

Wait at least 2 days before signing something off, and you might find that on the fourth try, things start going rather smoother, especially since others learn as well.

It's a little early to start calling DOA "too hard." But it's certainly obvious that it's at least "damn frickin' hard."

Like I said in my previous post, I don't mind the difficulty, but I do mind the lack of smart difficulty. Throw me a large team of overpower monsters and waiting for the players to come up with something (and players always come up with something), shows that this update wasn't in much care like the previous elite missions.
My post wasn't against the difficulty but the kind of difficulty. I don't want to wait a few weeks until I read from guidlwiki the build that solves everything. I want to work on an intelligent idea of a challenge and come out sooner or later, alone or with friends.
Many big bad monsters is not an intelligent challenge and is not something I was expecting from such a great team like anet (and I truly believe that they are the best in their work).

All this game has is "big bad" monsters. What you're asking is........well I have no idea. What the hell do you want, fire traps? All this game has is monsters; and the "newness" has been pushed to it's limits.

I suppose they could always incorporate complex math puzzles that can only be solved by 12 NASA scientists; but then that would make people hate Anet and force them to prank call pizza delivery guys to their office out of spite.

i think the quality is very good in this game maybe some missions are hard but if u try them again you think of new ways to do the certain parts

Play Smart is not just about good build, it's about many things:

1. Learn to avoid combat
2. Learn to avoid the take hit and heal up; and learn to prevent damage.
3. Learn to make enemy kill themselves.
4. Learn to take advantage of Environmental Effects in Realm of Torment

I like the new difficulty. I can't even remember when's the last time that it take me this much time to figure out strategy for the quests. I like to see henchmen in Gate of Anguish.

I'm not asking to be able to finish this misson in the first 7 hours of playing. Just to be able to get past the 1st group of mobs would be nice. Is that really to much to ask for ? Sorry but wasteing the best part of an hour to form a group that would of been able to beat any other mission in NF and then geting wiped in seconds is NOT my idea of fun. And lets not even mention the UTTER crap that we got when we managed to kill a mob. I was getting better stuff from mobs on starter island.

When I first played urgoz no i did'nt finish it but I managed to get some where and each time after that I got futher. Yes it was hard but we managed progress and could see a way to get further. Aslo the drops where amoung the best in factions. BUT its not the case here no matter what build or party set up we try its oh look we are dead in seconds. If we should be lucky enough to kill something and get a drop its some utter crap white weapon thats not even max. So really whats the point?

The only way you will receive a real difficult, changing, interesting challenge is to fight PEOPLE, not the computer's NPCs.

PVE will never ever ever ever ever get a challenge like that.

The most PVE will get is stronger monsters, more and more mobs, more overpowered monster skills and ridiculous fighting instances.

And guess what, soon enough it will be too easy.

What the hell are you on about? As someone said somewhere, it's a puzzle. Solve it ffs. Really not that hard, you have a million skills you can combine to get something utterly devastating.

And yeah, check the Campfire section. Piece of puzzle solved, need testers now.

The new elite is indeed quite difficult

However, I'm sure theres a perfect build out there waiting to be discovered to beat the mission. There's a lot to learn here.

Going back even further, this reminds me of the all the screaming and howling that went on when ToPK was changed over from Halls to what it is now. People were coming out complaining it was too hard.

It just takes a while to figure it out. They don't just slap something together and throw it at the community and laugh at us. It has been playtested, it has to be doable.

Yea, Noone is saying there won't be a build to complete it, their complaint is it will be another limited build that only contains like 3-4 classes using certain skills.

Which is of course is going to be true, every spot like this we have in the game is limited and hard to PuG unless you conform to certain classes with certain builds.

I just accept it.

at first im like >< because i cant get a team of a popular build to run through the missions in an hour to get my new rit, havent event got to the first castle yet >.>

i think its kinda cool that this mission, and the ai in it cant (from what ive seen so far) be made a mockery of.

might need some daze and interrupts on the ele spikers and prots for melee.
...overall good teamplay tactics

ty arena net for making this a fun new addition to guild wars