Hard mode?

i assume when you chose to start the mission you can chose to start it in hard mode, where you speak to the npc guy

What might be better is if you can not play the mission in hard mode until you have beaten it with a masters rating. Possibly even better is you have to have your protector title until you can even start on your guardian title. This would help keep the noobs from ruining the chances of people who are experienced. It would not keep all of them out but it would help.

HEY! If you're going through all the trouble anyway, how about a hard-mode presearing! Soloing the lvl20 river scales in that first quest without any skills could get a little rough... that and the 20-odd sand wurms infesting Pitney's field! *rawr*

I think Protector and Guardian will be TWO different maxed titles.

Here's my wildly-speculative theory: Guardian is designed to provide end-game content for those of us grumpy about favor-controlled access to UW and FoW.

Essentially, earning "Protector of <continent>" will unlock the "hard mode" for a given campaign. This is similar to the suggestion many people (including myself) have suggested for opening access to UW and FoW.

The Big Question: What does ANet mean by "hard" mode?

If they simply plan to throw hordes of high-level monsters at us, ala DoA, then I have no interest.

HOWEVER, if ANet is willing to make more advanced versions of the missions -- better monster skill sets, reasonable monster level, monsters with secondary classes, perhaps new objectives -- AND they also provide better loot, I'll be as happy as a warthog in a mud puddle.

Give me something that engages my brain, and requires creative builds.

I bet ANet demands you to be Protector before your char gets switched to HARD mode missions for this chapter.

The downsides I can already see:

* You are then in HARD mode, even if you just want to help some friends.
* Your other chars need to become Protector of Everything, too, if they want to play missions in the new "hard" mode.

Besides that, I would not put too much hope in this new game mode. ANet has often good ideas that they like to delivery half-baken or broken.

I hope when I play in Hard Mode, I will get triple gold drops, triple greens, triple chance of gold in a chest, etc., etc., etc. EVEN the possibility of UNIQUE greens, only for Hard Mode.

This is a very good idea. Have to complete the easy mode first then the hard mode will start.

Maybe this is the way we will get bounties again from sunspear scouts??

So what if you do hard mode and get Guardian first, will you then have to do 'normal' mode for Protector? I don't see how they would consider these 2 maxed titles.

That would be 'stuff unexpectedly fubared' - you know, you set out to do something simple like capping elite or finishing quest and it becomes nightmare for no aprarent reason (while it is complete walk in park the other day) with party wipes and goal one inch close but out of reach.

WooHOO! Hard Mode!

Now people wanting a challenge can shut the hell up.

Yeah, I try to play with people instead of bots myself. What's the point of playing an MMO otherwise?

We should get automatic credit for the Guardian title for getting Masters in a PUG. You people who hero/henchway everything are wimps who don't know what real adversity is.

Hard mode is a great idea. Fixes the problem of Guild Wars being way too easy.

Also takes a step in the right direction for fixing the problem of almost all the titles being grind-based. More titles like these that are not grind-based is great.

I posted something similar to this elsewhere, but does anyone else think that this is to try to infuse more multiplayer into the PvE community?

That is, the average player can use heroes/henchmen to effectively solo almost every mission and bonus in the game. Having a Hard Mode may make it very, very difficult to do so, which would encourage more teaming up with other players (e.g. the Deep, Urgoz's Warren, Sorrow's Furnance, etal).

Could be a very crafty way of meeting the cries of the multiplayer, but allowing the single player community to continue to do their thang.

henching thunderhead keep empty skill bar will mean something again, bloody finally

I wouldn't hold my breath on that one...

Especially given that most whines about the game being too easy are in actuality sad attempts at bragging. If every monster in the game got a one-hit-kill skill you'd still have people whining about how easy the game is as a backhanded way of screaming "See, I'm soooooo good!".

If the game gets hard people will whine about it being too hard.
If the game gets too easy people will whine about it being too easy.

So what the @#^$ do people really want?

PS. I want the game so hard that I get nightmares at night! I want it so ridiculously hard that for once all them so-called, "EXP PRO WAMMO LFG!" will shut their holes and learn to really play the game.

Thats the mapping into LA 1 with your chat turned on dot.

This "Hard Mode" in nightfall at least, may lead to the new sunspear title =O?