Chapter 4: an alternative to Brute Force ?

Introduction

After many days of fan forum whining (not to mention: who moved my cheese?) and a lot of ingame trials, experiments, and moderate success, the first 5/6 man cookie-cutter builds are being posted. Unfortunately I'm a little disappointed to see that my main opinion about the Domain of Anguish is still justified.

The brute force approach

Creating a competent AI is very difficult, especially in an environment as complex as GW's. Without an adaptative AI, the approach used by ANet on endgame PvE is brute monster force: skills so grossly overpowered that any decent player would steamroll the ladder with a couple of copies, environmental effects stronger than two elites (ex: Quicksand x 2, cannot be removed). Ironically, the most efficient way to defeat such a display of brute force is to exploit the AI flaws/limitations. I wonder if ANet designers will learn the lesson or if they'll keep increasing the difficulty in the elite areas of the next chapters.

History says they'll likely do the same mistakes. Old gimmick builds (55, 605, 3-man used to farm Urgoz) should have been enough to prove that the brute force approach wasn't enough to secure the game against hardcore farming, nor that it made the game more challenging. With the current AI implementation and endgame level design, being an 'elite' PvE player involves a big puzzle and a lot of AI exploit (more details below).

In DoA, we're often exploiting poor AI implementation (pathfinding, inability to see beyond aggro range...) to kill stuff despite their stupid brute force. Actually, the very concept of aggro is exploiting AI flaws. The same stands for rebuilding your skillset or mitigating damage with the specific skillset needed in a given area (ward/spirit/shield of X if you expect to meet X, and ward of Y if you expect to meet Y...). It's just a puzzle game with trials and errors. It takes a lot of time, and in the end, only a handful of smart and dedicated players will find the solution themselves. The regular player will just copy/paste the solution and exploit the AI.

In short, to be an good player in the elite missions you need mostly time and dedication (many trials and errors to find the cookie-cutter build, time needed to practice the best build/role, time to reach the final boss). Quoting Mercury Angel, it's difficult, but not challenging. It's like rolling the dice again and again until you get a 1. Once the solution (1/3/5/6 man build) has been revealed, it's no longer difficult, and you can farm all day with your cloned skill bar, and you can show off your elite gear. Whatever the original difficulty and level design, endgame content is all about playing a well-oiled preset machine. No storyline, no quest, no immersion. Just raw grinding for XP and loot.

Yet ANet proved in the past that whatever the difficulty level, we could have some challenging PvE content. That is so say, missions and quests where we need to stop and think strategy ingame (instead of just talking about builds beforehand), where we need to adjust a couple of skills (instead of building specialized/localized optimal bars), to use the map layout and the environment, to watch our radar, to split the team, to run back and forth... That's the big difference between the Domain of Anguish (brute force) and places such as Sorrow's Furnace (or the early pre-nerf incarnations of THK, Abbadon's Mouth and Aurora Glade). In the end, any elite area will be heavily farmed by cookie-cutter copycats, so why not make them more interesting in the first place?

An alternative for the next chapters?

In short, I strongly dislike this brute approach and I find it very player-unfriendly. If I want to solve a puzzle, I'll play with a puzzle. If I want to copy a cookie-cutter build and farm all day, I can do it in other games. A quick look at the general complaint about the DoA will show that there are many design flaws in the recent elite areas (lack of progressive difficulty, time needed to complete a quest, frustration of the average player, crappy rewards...).

Worst of all, this place was specifically design to disrupt the general strategy a regular player would use (and not just specific gimmicks or popular skills). For instance, in the margonite city the environmental effect will disable any energy-based attacker (add to that regular warrior and paragon hate). Another environmental effect punishes players for kiting which is a very basic and normal strategy. In short, the main engine behind the DoA difficulty is to prevent players from playing (remove their energy, damage them if they try to mitigate damage...). As a result, players are more or less forced to exploit AI flaws instead of playing the game. In my opinion the limit between encouraging players to adapt and change, and frustrating players needlessly has been crossed.

Although I'd tend to discard most of the whining, I'm convinced that the brute force approach is unoriginal, unexciting and generally unworthy of what ANet can do (and did in the past). Rather than asking for a nerf of the elite missions, what could be discussed is the general gameplay that one is expecting from the PvE content of the next GW chapters.

Long story made short, some old missions involved battlefield awareness, smart use of the environment (where to fight, using catapults, splitting the group...) as well as real time reactivity (timer, patrols), whereas the new PvE fashion is much more brute force oriented. Of course there are a few exceptions, but the general idea is that brute force is the key in NF. In pretty much all regular quests and missions, a solo player plus henchmen can brute force everything without sweating. In the elite areas, the difficulty is turned up and *monsters* and using more brute force. Little subtlety, direct brute force approach. As a result, the monster AI has a stronger impact, and the fastest way to win often involves AI exploits. Granted, players will always complain about the AI and they will always exploit it. But when the gameplay relies on brute force, AI flaws and limitations become more obvious and more problematic.

What I'd like to find in the next chapters is another kind of PvE content. More complex, more varied, more immersive, and more challenging. Actually the current design of most challenge missions is a good start. You're fighting against time and you're trying to avoid the slightest error against diverse (and most often balanced) opponents and situations. These missions are by no mean perfect, but I find them more interesting and challenging than DoA-like areas.

Arguably the biggest difference between most challenge missions and standard farming is that in a challenge mission you can hardly take the time to exploit AI flaws (aggro, pulling, tanking), you have to rush and kill. Your firepower and defense must be good, but oftentimes you need something more. At the slightest mistake, you're losing time and the mission ends. You generally need more ingame speed and adaptability (as opposed to skillset adaptability). IMHO it requires a very different form of PvE skill (less puzzle-like, and more real time). Unfortunately it's also much less popular due to the lack of rewards (who cares about a high-score lost in a remote outpost or about random hero armor pieces unlinked to your ingame skill?).

A long time ago, you could powerlevel everything (especially for farming) but there was some challenge left for the 'regular' players. The challenge didn't lie just in the monster force, but in the general mission/area/quest design.

One of the great features of Sorrow's Furnace was that even the dumbest player could enter and explore it and do easy quests. Decent or average players could do all quests (including Final Assault) with a minimum of thinking, and excellent players could farm everything in smaller groups. Whatever your profession, and whatever the role you wanted to play, you could find your way into SF, even if hardcore farmers took a bigger and well-deserved share of the loot with cookie cutter tricks.

With DoA-like elite missions you are drastically limited. Again, it's not a probem of difficulty, it's a problem of options and different game content for different players. Now it's mostly a brute force competition. Any area can still be powerlevelled with the right cookie-cutter build, but we lost most of the fun, originality, spontaneity and challenge in the process. Ironically, this brute force approach was supposed to keep endgame farming at bay (economy balance, blah blah...), and farming is now the cookie-cutter activity that is mainly encouraged in all endgame areas...

Conclusion

Once you've completed the storyline (for which the average difficulty is ultra low for newcomers), PvE is mostly about building your character (skills, items, aesthetic stuff, titles...) and personal challenges. The latter is basically nonexistent in GW, barring a few challenge missions or obscure/subpar farming builds.

Farming is also the optimal approach when you want to improve your character (need XP, gold, items). To limit hardcore farmers, ANet's solution is to turn the difficulty up. Unfortunately history proved that in GW you don't control farming with the difficulty button. In the end, the most rewarding areas will be heavily farmed by cookie-cutter copycats, so why not make endgame areas more interesting in the first place? Why not merge the two engame objectives (personal challenge and character building)? Why design PvE content to frustrate players and disrupt normal playstyles and force cookie-cutter builds and AI exploit? Do gimmicks have to be the main option for endgame PvE ?

The underlying question is: what is good endgame PvE made of? We're not talking about newcomers, or ultra-casual players, but about average or semi-hardcore or true hardcore players. The need is to provide insteresting PvE content based on skill and not just time. Skill vs time, seems familiar? Again, it's not just a problem of questing vs. farming/grinding, or casual vs hardcore. Any MMO needs hardcore farming options, the trick is not to kill the regular players' engame fun because of potential farming abuses who will happen anyway.

There is no best or unique approach to this question, but arguably the most important component of the solution is to better use variations on the word 'random'. The game needs random spawns, random monster group compositions, semi-random monster skillsets, and most importantly the game needs more and better gamble money-sinks to destroy the upper-end economic goods. An interesting side-effect of using random features is that it also increases the replayability for regular players.

I agree. That's all.

DoA is about not using brute force. All builds that do come out simply rely on nukers to out dps the enemies.

What they fail to realize, is that simple backfire will do and prevent more damage than 3 renewal/echo nukers.

Yes, DoA is hard. But the reason why it seems so hard, is because it's designed to not be doable by brute force. This is the gist of Scribe's summary of DoA. The area is specifically designed and populated in such a way, that the tank holding agro while nukers nuke aproach is the least viable of all.

Unfortunately, you've set DoA as an example of brute force, hence rendering all your arguments invalid. Everything except DoA is brute force (SS/MM/nukers). In DoA, that's just the least viable method, apart from trapping teams, which are abhoration by themself. Both of these still work, but there are better ways around it.

Very, very well made post. Agree with most of it.

Cheers.

/signed, I like it.

/Agreed and signed

I was really hoping that when DoA was to come out, it would consist more of smaller, but more challenging groups that would require diversity in team builds so that gameplay would be more dynamic and would allow people of all classes to contribute to the experience. What I have witnessed in DoA thus far is that it still largely consists of the wall and nuke tactic with a few variations in some areas. There may be more to this than I have witnessed since much of my experience was cut short due to finals in school. To go off on a tangent from that point, I also find it sad that I will likely have to adapt to a cookie cutter build to find a group when I get a good long chance to sit down and explore the area better. Hopefully A-net will see that what turns many people off from this area isn't the 'difficulty' of the area, but also other factors such as the huge investment of time required and the lack of variety in which one is allowed to use to combat the area.

Also I would compliment you on writing a very clear and well thought out post, such as I have come to see SoF as being known for.

Well put FrogDevourer, a very thoughtful post.

I do not and will not ever pretend to be an expert player. I myself have avoided the appropriately-named DOA apart from a couple chest runs and a couple walk-in-and-die attempts with some guildies and heroes.

I LOVE the challenges that the elite areas can present. But I see what you are saying; it's either you have the only possible right prof/build/AI exploit for the area, or you fail.

A leet group can do 1- or 2- or 3-person UW or FoW; they devise a scheme, test it out and do it to their little hearts' content. Even with a cookie-cutter build, it takes a little practice to get it right, and you do need to keep on your toes.

BUT at the same time, any casual non-leet guild or alliance group, or even a PUG can enter with a full group consisting of almost any prof combination, have fun, be challenged, use their heads and teamwork and make it through.

FrogDevourer = 100% right

Totally disagree with this.

Why write off DoA as a lost cause already instead of asking for a nerf?

It's well within Anet's capabilities to nerf DoA so that most players like it.

I don't see any logic in a sentiment like: "DoA is no good but instead of asking the devs to nerf it to make it fun and enjoyable for normal players, let's just write it off, not participate in it,and hope that the next Guild Wars game that you buy won't repeat that mistake."

While I definitely think missions like THK are excellent for their complexity, I disagree with the idea that Nightfall is all about brute force. In fact, I think part of the point of the chapter is to have a variety of different kinds of missions.

You have timed capture missions like Sebelkeh, and then untimed (although you still have to hurry) capture missions like Dzagonur - with both, you actually don't want to run around and pound every single monster into oblivion, because it wastes time. To catch both runners in Moddok Crevice, it usually requires a fair bit of teamwork (and often a few tries to get everyone's timing right). Jennur's Horde requires pulling groups into the best position to fend off patrols from killing the spirits. And then of course there's Tihark. You may or may not like it, but it's certainly not a grind mission.

Yes there are many pure brute force missions. But there's also a lot of other aspects sprinked through. I think if you want to suggest what should go into Chapter 4, you may want to look over Nightfall and give ideas based on what you liked about those missions.

I'm not sure this is completely on point to your original comment about DoA, but you generalized to Chapter 4 being entirely about brute force, so I wanted to hone in on that.

Agree mostly with OP's points. GW has many great ideas not fully utilized. For example, in addition to monsters and skills, all explorable areas can have "randomly" placed splinter mines/sentry traps, or random spotters calling catapult fire on player's team, so we don't know what to expect everytime we go outside.
Another way to add replayability is to have quests/missions tied to a global conflict, like doing a scouting or assassination quest inside enemy territory and have success/failure affect shift of the frontline. Anyway, GW's gameplay just begs more dynamic interaction and randomization. Right now every area/mission is just too predictable and boring when you go through it more than once.

I agree with most everything you said, except this. I do not like the element of time to be involved in PvE. This is introduced in Factions, and I along with many other players (I would even go so far as to say the majority of players), did not find it to be in the least bit enjoyable. Also, we need to keep in mind that most of GW players are casual players, and as such, they do not have the time or resources to do such missions that will not forgive the slightest of errors. If that's the case, it would only frustrate the casual player and make him/her wonder whether he/she bought the right game.

I agree that the AI leaves something to be desired, but has anyone maybe thought this is the way ANet intended for it to work? So that it's intentionally not adaptively harder, and that it remains casual-player friendly? Just my $0.02.

Probably not. The main engine in the DoA is brute monster force, and it's unlikely that ANet will change the core design of this area. Minor nerf could be done, but they're unlikely because players have already found and used cookie-cutter builds. This place is not for the regular players. End of the story.

The key word was "endgame".

Don't take me wrong, I just love the story, scenery and characters as well as most of the NF content in general. I'm just very very disappointed to see there's little content left for me after one month. Storyline monsters (read: regular margonites) are basically a joke in terms of difficulty and everything can be powerlevelled including the bastion or Sebelkeh or the Gate of Madness or Jennur's Horde (take your time and crush everything). There are indeed a couple of original tricks here and there (such as bringing two hero snares for Moddok Crevice) but most of the time you don't need to look back. As for Tihark, or the "theater" quest or the wurm quests, they're indeed fun on your first time there, and a good addition to the storyline. But their repeatability value and potential of endgame content is marginal.

Again I'm mostly interested in endgame content, not the regular missions. Endgame missions and repeatable quests are supposed to be hard and a little frustrating. They're not as casual friendly. Even if I somewhat liked the time-linked expert/master level in Factions, it was only interesting in a couple of missions. Timed quests and mission are one option but not the only one. One could imagine a strategic use of random spawns and random maze-like levels with nasty encounters. The key feature is basically to be pressured or to be forced to stop and think *ingame* and to be forced into real time strategy/adaptability (as opposed to build crafting on paper).

I agree with all points, except I sometimes entertain the notion that maybe DoA was designed as being a brute force map intentionally, as a means of having players identify problematic builds/exploits/AI issues for the developers. Your points clearly identify why it's infeasible to simply bring strong builds; one must take advantage of the AI by use of gimmick builds or exploits.

Call me cynical, but I see no reason for promoting the kind of play that DoA encourages unless it was for this purpose.

I don't doubt Anet's capabilities to change DoA. I doubt our abilities to convince them it should be changed. The phrase, "Its not a bug, its a feature," comes to mind. The area is working as intended.
Well, maybe not entirely as intended. But, at the very least, the brute force method was how the place was designed. Anet can be very steadfast about keeping there changes, even if they are unpopular with many people. I'll point to the AI changes as evidence of that.

Okay, sorry if I misread your post. For end-game areas, I agree. I think more creative areas would be a great asset to the game. However, we also need to take into account that some people like to farm, so I think ANet should (and does) provide areas for those players as well.

A bit of randomness could be great.

I love the whole idea.

Very well thought out FrogDevourer!

I couldn't possibly have said it better myself. I am, as i know you are, an avid and long time GW player who sees the new "elite" DoA to be incredibly dissapointing. Not only have they simply hit the difficulty button, but everything about teh zone is uncreative and uninspired. Environment graphics are badly textured with all too familiar looks to it, along with a rushed-to-production look to it. Monster skins are just recycled, renamed and made 10x tougher. And rather then add actual challenge, they simply nerf the incentive for play enjoyment through the overpowering environment affects...


To the following poster...

Congrats on making your own argument totally invalid. You say DoA is NOT about brute force? But, READ your opening line again. Your immediate example is that "all DoA builds" rely on nukers to out-damage (DPS) the enemy. Umm, in my book that is a word-for-word definition of brute force. You say all tahts needed is Backfire? Umm, have you even tried DoA yet? First off, Backfire is a single target damage spell. Secondly, without AoE from nukers your runs will be 10x longer as your team tries to take down one foe at a time. As it is, with the current Ai and aggro exploits, it still takes several hours to finish a zone/quest.

That is possibly THE funniest line i have seen in a long time...
You cannot honestly believe this yourself, do you?
So your saying that 3 meteor showers + all their other nukes going off on a mob, is LESS effective the a single Backfire spell being used? Even if Backfire was being spammed, you think its conditional damage is MORE effective then area wide KD from 3 sources every 3 seconds PLUS high AoE dmg PLUS the ability to spam other AoE nukes while they are KD'd? If you said yes to any of the previous, then i am simply at a loss for words.

DoA as an example of brute force COMPLETELY reinforces FrogDevourer's points. You say brute force is the LEAST viable method? I'm sorry but that doesn't even make sense. So being able to complete a quest in DoA in 4 hours using brute force and Ai exploit tactics is NOT as viable as taking 8 hours to complete a DoA quest using finesse and a non-cookie cutter builds?

I have yet to see an ACTUAL balanced, non cookie cutter build complete anything in DoA as efficiently or quickly as pure brute and Ai exploits. In fact, the ONLY balanced group i have EVER heard complete a DoA quest was ONE time from a guildy. It was reported as taking 7+ hours, constant deaths from all team members, constant use of Candy Canes to eliminate DP, and overall fustration. Sounds like fun, eh?

All in all the fact is proven 10 fold. Brute force is the only viable method that allows completion of anything in DoA to be done in a reasonable amount of time. That in itself remains to be uninspired, uncreative, unchallenging and incredibly dissapointing.

Anywhoo, the point of the OP's thread is well said, is supported well, and should be reflected upon by many...

Cheers!

Unfortuantely, it's where we have to go to get a ritualist hero

You go on huge rant wihtout providing any real argument from actual experience.

Yes, I've done DoA a lot.

Yes, backfire is the most basic single-target spell that makes it much easier. If you look at DoA group composition (not all, city and foundry of course, I never said it's a foolproof one-size-fits-all tactic, it's not cookie cutter after all). Stygian veil is an example of mission by far done easiest with 1 tank, 5 nukers, 2 monks. Gloom is something I still need to work on, but the teams I've been in included at least one mesmer, and at least one non-SS-non-MM necro.

I've been in groups with 3 SF/MS/Eles that couldn't overpower a single Ki healing. And any attempt to put more pressure on Ki results in spilled agro.

Put backfire on Ki, and you have just ensured that all mobs die several times faster. Put mistrust on eles. Use desecrate enchantments on dervishes, and a backfire to kill them even faster. Use warders and paragons to cut the damage your group takes by 4 times. Blind the rangers and melee, or hex them to attack slower.

This doesn't eliminate nukers. It changes the overall aproach to combat. Unfortunately, you just show complete inexperience with these concepts. Try it. You'll be shocked at how well such aditions work. This isn't about running another gimmick build that consists out of all mesmers. Or all necros.

This is all about complementing builds. Start with holy trinity build. Then add backfire, add blind, add interrupts, add daze, add enchantment removal, add hexes, add wards, and so on...

The reason why such builds are "impossible" or "don't work" is because they simply don't work by having everyone stand back firing nukes. They take positioning, timing and tactics.

Yes, the nuking is useless. It's pure damage. All brawn, no brain. It relies on all mobs perfectly sticking on tank, and the MS spike going off. What happens when one mob breaks agro? Party wipes, DoA is too hard, nerf it.

But I've long given up on any hope of more intelligent builds because of such arguments. OMG its not AoE it sux.

Unfortunately, asking for a build simply isn't enough. It's not all in build, it's in target prioritization, individual initiative, and above all, trying to learn. DoA is too hard is where it all ends. And getting a group that can run an alternate build is simply impossible. But bringing in nonsense like nuking ftw and DoA is brute force, when there's plenty of advice, even official one by Anet, to try and do something else, leaves little options for anything else. The groups that go in are simply trap/nuke. Let it be brute force then.

But above all, try the following: Go into RoT. Find one of those dervish titans (Pain titans?). Put backfire on them. Watch them lose 85% of their health in two attacks (PvE dervishes are spell based). Then combine that with echo/aecho/renewal, spiritual pain and desecrate enchantments.

Then look at mobs in City. And a common weakness soon emerges.

It's not a silver bullet. It's not a single skill gimmick build that will let you afk the DoA. But at least try something different before going balistic over the idea without even trying it and swearing to the holy trinity as being the only viable way.