Games For Windows Editor cracks under RoT pressure

Wow! You know, I won’t hesitate to call B.S. on Anet when I think they’re wrong. But RoT too hard? Okay guys, I’m a very average player…VERY average. Yet, I completed the game with a Derv using only heroes and henchies and completed it before anyone in my guild…which has over 90 members. I’m not bragging, it’s just a fact. Average players don’t have much to brag about. When I first got to RoT, yeah, I said to myself, “Crap! This is hard!” Then, you know what? I made adjustments and finished the game. I find it shocking that an experienced gamer would call RoT “too hard.” Is it more challenging than the rest of the game? Absolutely, but it’s supposed to be. Any gamer knows that a game is more challenging as you progress through it. Otherwise, it would be extremely boring. Could the rewards be better? Sure, but that’s not why I play the game. I play it for the story and the satisfaction of completing a challenging game.

I don’t read Games for Windows either, so I don’t know this guy. I DO read PC Gamer and it gave Nightfall it’s MMO of the Year award and one of its editors, Kristen Salvatore, loves the game. Maybe she can give this guy a few tips.

I did RoT with all heroes/hench on my Necro, and did it mostly so with my Monk and Dervish. It might be harder as one class over another, but it is possible.

No ones saying the game isnt amazing and none of the posters have said they didnt get through ROT and complete the game. I didnt like that zone as I mentioned, I hate it, its basically crap.

But I completed it with henches and heroes too.

But I still personally say its badly done.

/clap

all i had to say

I have been playing seince the start.

Im done supporting guild wars and im done supporting a company like anet.

Today i purchased world of warcraft after a nice free demo.. i got another thirty days for free and im having more fun now than i ever had in gw..


This artical is the truth. i had gotten burned out.. then came back to gw after about two and a half months.. but even then any need to play the game was gone..

Keep in mind the nightfall release was still relativly new.. only about a month or two under its belt..

guild wars has gotten stale to alot of people.. but it remains fresh to so many others..

one thing is for sure about this whole thing.. anet needs to learn to make a lasting game.

Because if they preach every chapter they make as a standalone game.. then they should have enough content to keep players busy and happy for more than six months at a time..

Some people say that six months is plenty.. but in a market driven by games like oblivion, wow, runescape, and whatever else... six months is just enough to pull in last place.

When NF launched, masses cried out that Shiro was impossible. People were, and still are, paying up to 50k to be ran through mission. On a few ocasions I even obliged. I mean, so much money for 20 minutes of a no-death mission.

It's same with RoT. Those that consider it too hard don't look why it apears hard.

Just like THK. Some players never could do that mission. Even after it got nerfed over and over again, some still couldn't do it. That doesn't make the mission too hard.

IMO he is just a raging noob

Why play in the realm of torment if he cant handle the mobs?

Guild Wars easily takes many months to complete. None of those I play with ever completed Factions until a week or two before Nightfall came out (with ONE character). For Nightfall, we're still taking our first characters through it, and are still in Vabbi. I would not doubt at all that we are in the majority.

Because it's true. Shiro is an impossibly hard encounter unless you take gimicky builds from the community. The average player in the average party, with a mix of the various types of skills from the game will have practically no chance of beating him. Instead, you need to join up with a party of all warriors with Wild Blow, or whatever it is, just go get by him. Where is there fun or real challenge in that? People like to play the game -- not be told how they have to play the game.

THK is a great mission. The only problem with it for most, surely, is operating under split conditions. It's a good think-outside-the-box mission, EXCEPT it actually still can be completed without reverting to gimicky andor cookie-cutter builds. I'd actually dare say it's harder since the nerfs, since the mobs never seem to go near the artillery range anymore.

You have to, to complete the game?

I think again there is confusion over The Realm of Torment and The Domain of Anguish.

RoT is an area you need to complete in order to finish the game. DoA is the elite area accessible only once you have completed the game.

I have finished the game on three characters (Ranger, Necro, Elementalist) and never found RoT to be overly difficult.

DoA however is another matter. Been there, tried that, didn't enjoy it one little bit, so I just don't go there anymore.

There is plenty more to do in the game, so I just don't do the one thing I didnt enjoy doing.

And what the hell are these quests good for? They aren't even tagged as "master" level quests, even though they're a hell of a lot harder than plenty of other quests that bear the "master" tag. No, they just give the standard 2,500 XP/200 gold reward. Oh boy!

I believe he is talking about side quest's

Do you rarely play, or do you just suck a lot? Likely the former, I'm merely curious.

Bringing a single skill--hell, you even have a choice of three (Wild Blow, Wild Strike, Wild Throw)--does not a gimmicky build make.

Hyperbole proves nothing, and is pretty worthless in a discussion.

My bad. Mixed up RoT and DOA. Corrected it

Actually the best and easiest way to do THK is to not split up but to stay upstairs near king together and attack bosses last unless he's a monk.

Monks have it easier that way and ranger can trap stairs. I never failed THK with that strategy.

Back to RoT now...

A very good point here is the lack of proper rewards...what is the point of an inscribed secret or those ancient artifacts or wahtever if it gets you the same as you get from the smugglers at the command post for those kournan coins. That was such a disappointment to find out. The DoA golds (be it at a ridiculous cost) are more like it if you ask me. RoT should've had that. Why do all my characters finish Elona and Cantha? Cause even after finishing it x amount of times I can still get a reward with my next character: an endgame green. Guess why half my characters haven't finished Prophecies...exactly, no reward.

And what do you get out of finishing the RoT quests? Nada, basically. Instead of throwing tons of rare skins out through the chests and occasional drops, why not get another cool one that you can actually earn...now there's a concept. I find the DoA ones very expensive...but I still want one. I find DoA unplayable so I will just save a lot of money/gems so I can get me an armbrace but I want it.

I think each area (in NF being Istan, Kourna, Vabbi, Desolation, RoT) should have golds like DoA that you can earn by doing the local quests. I don't mind having to do some effort for it but just give me a reason to do it.

I think it takes a tad shorter than that, 95% of the people I know have beaten the game with 3+ characters already. Half of this forum has or has beaten with at least one. So no I think you're not in the majority. I beat it in ..what 1 1/2 days? I could have not played hardcore and beaten it in 4, exploring and enjoying all the scenery, like I did after.

Shiro is laughably easy, I beat him as one of the first of 100 or so to make it that far right away, with just my heros and henchies, using Gladiator's Defense and Shield Stance and he went down, I thought nothing of it. Probably because I had RC Prot monk with me and 2 other monks, I don't know. But no he's not hard, people just don't always bring the exact right skills


I will go further to say that, it's not the difficulty of one mob in RoT, I beat the missions easily enough. It's the tight packing and you ending up having to face 12 monsters instead of 6, because they aggro into you. Granted I've come out alive in a few of those encounters, but it's nice easy, especially since...heros and henchies don't attack when the torment creatures use Call of Torment unless you're attacking and sometimes they don't even attack when you do. So it just gets really tedious after a while.

I cleared every area, except Domain of Fear because it's ridiculously hard with all the tight packed groups. There are over 9 groups right outside the entrance, in that open area there..all with patrol movements that aggro into another patrol and a nice little ele boss that can wipe your team in under 10 seconds unless you're prepared for it (if you have DP, one spell= your whole team annihilated). I barely made it past that, then you have more bosses and patrols that overlap, stupid idea in my opinion because they don't pull very good either, especially when you have a 11 second Mind Freeze on you.

So I tried that area with the UW/Tombs monsters. Even worse. The monsters pop up out of no where unless you know when it's gonna happen you can be messed up totally. You can barely aggro any of the MS casters (sometimes if they get off an MS, you're done for because herohenchies stand right in it) without aggroing another set and it's a big friggin hassle. Even with LB it's just too much to be exciting fun or even an area I want to go to ever again. I considered deleting all my other characters who haven't gone through this area which would be an extreme waste of money, so I won't do it. But I'm very tempted as I dread this place.

Domain of Secrets I clear that place while blind, at least the Margonite/Menzie area. When it comes to Titans, you'll die because Hero/henchies are so brilliant to run right up to you (if you're a warrior/melee) and they get annihilated by the Madness' aoe attacks. So yeah I think some things need to be worked out with that. On top of that the Madness are grossly overpowered. Mystic Regen, Mirage Cloak..and you can't hit them ever because they always have 15 Energy when they need it. I can only bring 3 hero's so a mesmer with Shatter or a necro with strip that can actually get the non covered Mirage Cloak (rare when it happens) don't happen and I cannot make room for a mesmer, which would be a waste of energy because as soon as you strip it, he puts it back up because he has unlimited energy I guess. On top of that it's a 1/2 second cast time or 3/4 not sure. But hardly interruptible on purpose. I get lucky with an LB placed at the right time or spamming interrupts..but that doesn't always work wanna know why?

Because in this area, things cost 40% more energy! So you'll be soon out of energy with your ranger, just as your monks are spamming to heal you from Titan's deadly AoE attacks. So yeah I like that area, but I get really frustrated when having to fight those Titans. Sometimes it's good, most of the time it's not.

Actually the best and easiest way to do THK is to not split up but to stay upstairs near king together and attack bosses last unless he's a monk.

Monks have it easier that way and ranger can trap stairs. I never failed THK with that strategy.

Back to RoT now...

A very good point here is the lack of proper rewards...what is the point of an inscribed secret or those ancient artifacts or wahtever if it gets you the same as you get from the smugglers at the command post for those kournan coins. That was such a disappointment to find out. The DoA golds (be it at a ridiculous cost) are more like it if you ask me. RoT should've had that. Why do all my characters finish Elona and Cantha? Cause even after finishing it x amount of times I can still get a reward with my next character: an endgame green. Guess why half my characters haven't finished Prophecies...exactly, no reward.

And what do you get out of finishing the RoT quests? Nada, basically. Instead of throwing tons of rare skins out through the chests and occasional drops, why not get another cool one that you can actually earn...now there's a concept. I find the DoA ones very expensive...but I still want one. I find DoA unplayable so I will just save a lot of money/gems so I can get me an armbrace but I want it.

I think each area (in NF being Istan, Kourna, Vabbi, Desolation, RoT) should have golds like DoA that you can earn by doing the local quests. I don't mind having to do some effort for it but just give me a reason to do it.

I think it takes a tad shorter than that, 95% of the people I know have beaten the game with 3+ characters already. Half of this forum has or has beaten with at least one. So no I think you're not in the majority. I beat it in ..what 1 1/2 days? I could have not played hardcore and beaten it in 4, exploring and enjoying all the scenery, like I did after.

Shiro is laughably easy, I beat him as one of the first of 100 or so to make it that far right away, with just my heros and henchies, using Gladiator's Defense and Shield Stance and he went down, I thought nothing of it. Probably because I had RC Prot monk with me and 2 other monks, I don't know. But no he's not hard, people just don't always bring the exact right skills


I will go further to say that, it's not the difficulty of one mob in RoT, I beat the missions easily enough. It's the tight packing and you ending up having to face 12 monsters instead of 6, because they aggro into you. Granted I've come out alive in a few of those encounters, but it's nice easy, especially since...heros and henchies don't attack when the torment creatures use Call of Torment unless you're attacking and sometimes they don't even attack when you do. So it just gets really tedious after a while.

I cleared every area, except Domain of Fear because it's ridiculously hard with all the tight packed groups. There are over 9 groups right outside the entrance, in that open area there..all with patrol movements that aggro into another patrol and a nice little ele boss that can wipe your team in under 10 seconds unless you're prepared for it (if you have DP, one spell= your whole team annihilated). I barely made it past that, then you have more bosses and patrols that overlap, stupid idea in my opinion because they don't pull very good either, especially when you have a 11 second Mind Freeze on you.

So I tried that area with the UW/Tombs monsters. Even worse. The monsters pop up out of no where unless you know when it's gonna happen you can be messed up totally. You can barely aggro any of the MS casters (sometimes if they get off an MS, you're done for because herohenchies stand right in it) without aggroing another set and it's a big friggin hassle. Even with LB it's just too much to be exciting fun or even an area I want to go to ever again. I considered deleting all my other characters who haven't gone through this area which would be an extreme waste of money, so I won't do it. But I'm very tempted as I dread this place.

Domain of Secrets I clear that place while blind, at least the Margonite/Menzie area. When it comes to Titans, you'll die because Hero/henchies are so brilliant to run right up to you (if you're a warrior/melee) and they get annihilated by the Madness' aoe attacks. So yeah I think some things need to be worked out with that. On top of that the Madness are grossly overpowered. Mystic Regen, Mirage Cloak..and you can't hit them ever because they always have 15 Energy when they need it. I can only bring 3 hero's so a mesmer with Shatter or a necro with strip that can actually get the non covered Mirage Cloak (rare when it happens) don't happen and I cannot make room for a mesmer, which would be a waste of energy because as soon as you strip it, he puts it back up because he has unlimited energy I guess. On top of that it's a 1/2 second cast time or 3/4 not sure. But hardly interruptible on purpose. I get lucky with an LB placed at the right time or spamming interrupts..but that doesn't always work wanna know why?

Because in this area, things cost 40% more energy! So you'll be soon out of energy with your ranger, just as your monks are spamming to heal you from Titan's deadly AoE attacks. So yeah I like that area, but I get really frustrated when having to fight those Titans. Sometimes it's good, most of the time it's not.

Tsk tsk tsk, and I thought Ryan Scott was one of the best writers at GFW (Formerly Computer Gaming World). The problem with Guild Wars PvE usually isn't the difficulty or monsters, it's the people that play the game. Sadly over 50% of the time I join a pub group I have the same horrid experiences over, and over, and over. People who are immature and draw parts of the human anatomy on the map and then leave after dying, monks who fight, people who don't listen, people who rush, ele's who take damage so they can set off some Flame AoE, the list goes on and on. While I am in a Guild there are times where I wish I could simply get on and do say, V-square (though I normally hate Cantha) with random people.

I think however that DoA is a little to hard as he says, for the little reward that you get. As XP does not matter in GW they should give you more items, or, say, more skills. Here's hoping that the high-end missions in chapter 4 are better.

The problem with this area has not been stated clearly so far it seems. The area is not that hard. But all the drops you can collect there are collectable drops or some money. Sometimes, if you get lucky, you'll have a 8-36 blue scythe.

But 3 skills out of more than a hundred skill repertoire does a pigeon-holed build make.

Hmm our own little Flame Wars. (Maybe thats what we should call these forums. "Flame Wars")

Please to disagree with someone is one thing but the just flame them because you can is another. How hard is it just to say "I disagree RoT is not that hard of an area to me."?

I have finished Prophecies with all my characters because there is a proper build up of difficulty leading to the end of the game and a proper game flow. I have only finished Factions on one character, because I hate the build-up and flow required to get to the end - the big city areas are packed with disproportionately powerful mobs and confusing paths, then you have to go around and do tedious quests in Echovald Forrest or the Jade Sea in order to get through the game. The only reason I did it the first time is probably because I already had the faction required from pre-release events.

wtf are you talking about?!? RoT has a party size of 8.

He does have a good point when it comes to the quests. The master quests in Nightfall aren't for the truly leet players. They're for people who want to use gimmick builds or to abuse it in some way.

Look at the first Master Quest in RoT. The quest is basically 'To The Rescue' in DoA without a good place to tank and no retarded NPC you MUST keep alive. The only reason why i bother to do it is because you can capture Jagged Bones from the boss without having to travel round half of Depths of Madness.

I'd have to say they really did flex there stupidity muscle a bit with RoT. The general sort of mob i have no problems with. But the 4x Rain Torment mobs are just retarded, without mass interrupt or protective spirit/Shelter on everything they'll deep freeze spike your entire team. A challenge is 1 thing but seriously... those mobs are barely even possible with a general sort of team.
They concentrate way too much on just loading enemies up with insane amounts of damage and limitless energy with maybe the odd ridiculous monster skill thrown in to make it actually fun. Instead of having good tactics or skillbars they just move in and rely on 'its them or us'.

hi

i have already posted in this thread, but the Domain of Fear is a map which is very easy to complete all quests in.

as i stated earlier you are given 6 extra henchmen in this area, thus making it very easy to fight 2-3 groups of monsters at once.

the only time i found this area to be a challenge was when i visited it for the first time with my ele ... but i learn quick! ... so the next 4 charactors that i completed the game with knew how to use the 'oddbodies' to there advantage.

.....

also why are there so many posts mixing the areas of Realm of Torment and Domain of Anquish up? .... these two areas are totally different, one is an Story area and the other is an Elite area.

lol .... some gamers will always be sheep and others will do the thinking for them.

I too got spanked my first time into ROT, but now, I can easily walk through this area with just nenchies. I pull out my long bow (Ia m a necro) and run back...

In fact the last time I had trouble is whe I went witha guildie and he kept "leroying".

I think the trouble some people have with the RoT is that the previous areas of nightfall are not terribly challenging with the possible exception of the Dune carvers who wipe through the minion armies

Its not like steeping foot into Kaineng city after noob island or LA...that was definitly a huge step up mid game

He's talking about using this quest to help clear the area:
http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/The_Oddbodies_%28Quest%29

While this is possible, it's clearly not designed to be the only way to clear the area.

Punctuation, grammar, then maybe your attempts at bragging about "thinking" can be taken seriously.

Just because you used information clearly stated on the wiki page to complete what is quite possible otherwise is no reason to start bragging.


Just keeping in line with the "Flame War" aspect of the thread.

....

nobody is bragging, as i stated already i learn quickly.

that link to the oddbodies page is the first time i have seem it, so no i did'nt get the infomation of that page, trial and error is how i have henched all missions.

like most gamers i learn from my mistakes.

Mmm... are those the quest that were added later? My first character never got those when I first arrived at the RoT.

"Throwing Uber monsters in front of players" is ALWAYS part of the game. You just don't notice it because the curve of difficulty is gradual. The reason that people find RoT to be difficult is because the curve at that part turned steep.

Out of the three games in the series, Faction did the best job in term of difficulty curve. The increase in difficulty of the game is almost linear. Prophacies had a sharp difficulty change when you first get out of post-searing Ascalon and arrive at Yak's Bend. This is where you first encounter the dwarves and find yourself doing significantly less damage.

What are you smoking? You start on an independent island, and quests included, you are lucky to make level 20 before you leave and as soon as you leave you are tossed at some of the most absurdly disproportionately powerful monsters in the game - Jade Knights. And that is discounting the surprise attack Am Fah and the auto-explosion on die corrupted critters.

The only way Prophecies' difficulty curve isn't linear is if you rushed through everything so arn't at a proper level or with proper items. In fact, the difficult curve is below linear, not on par with it because you easily end up out leveling the monsters of the area until you reach the desert.

RoT is quite doable with henchies, but IMO it's an annoying area where I go only when obligated by the plot:
- reward/time ratio is just no good
- graphics aren't encouraging tourism
And to boot, this place is dark. I hate dark places. Why do end-game areas have to be dark? The only not-dark end areas I can think of are UW, FoW and the Kaineng Palace, which incidentally are the only ones I'm still roaming.

I don't need help with that area. I beat it just fine and I'll continue to beat it just fine because I'm good. Granted what I meant was that it's ridiculously hard in the fact that if you make one wrong move you're gone. Those were also my first times there, so I was kinda ranting about that from then, now.

Hey,

I do like the 8 man squards, give you more fun when doing stuff..

Well, I read the post, not really a review. I don't really understand what the problem is. First time out in RoT with my first char through Nightfall, I got owned quite a bit. Then I adapted my build and my playing style to RoT, no more problems. Some areas of RoT are difficult, others are not. I'm a fairly mediocre player, but I could do most of Domain of Secrets with a Paragon and three heroes.

IMHO, the problem here is not with RoT. The problem is with this guy expecting everything to be easy. Just hit attack and watch as all the monsters drop dead. All games need some hard spots. All games have them. The blogger here is by my definition of things, whining ... and his slam against GW is completely out of place and totally unjust ... and just plain silly.

I play WoW too. Especially for a solo player, WoW has some really tough quests here and there, at almost every level. I would love to give pages of examples of how mean and cruel and vicious the WoW game devs are, but you be laughing yourselves to death at my expense. Can't have that. And you who have played EVE Online or other online games can think of examples from there too.

WOOOT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT =/


Come on, You think one persons opinion makes a HUGE difference? I don't like the Falls because its confusing, now that doesn't mean that its a bad place.

So what, he had a bad time, he should have had a candy cane =/

We get about 6 hours in a week together.

It's still a "you have to bring one particular skill" thing. Just like in that one elite mission you have to bring Rebirth (unless everyone has the self-teleport skills).

I don't agree with Ryan's assessment of the difficulty of RoT nor with his rage about all of GW just because of that one area. However, his blog does reveal an underlying problem with the PVE experience. The problem is how uneven the missions and quests are in quality/fun factor. At some point the designers decided to use overpowered skills/greater numbers/specialized monster skills/environmental effects or some combination of those 4 as the way to create challenge. Its a bad move as it only creates frustration. They started down this path in Factions and continued in Nightfall with the latest example being DoA (quite possibly the worst game area ever conceived).

Anet needs to take a step back and take a different route in creating PVE challenges.

Having just listened to the podcast, I have to say, that guy sounds like a goddamn weenie. He's played the game for hundreds of hours yet he never learned how to play it.

Now, if he had posted from the perspective of a casual player, for instance a player whose first chapter is Nightfall, I could understand. These casual players haven't had the time and hundreds of hours to understand the game well, and something that might be easy to more experienced players is probably excrutiating for them.

Ahh, so that's where she went. Salvatore used to work at CGW/GFW. Guess PC Gamer gave her a better opportunity.

I was thinking, this morning, about the RoT. I have a bunch of chars to still get through NF, but if I bother to take them that far, I'm not doing the side quests. I really can't be bothered. Didn't do them with my necro, who I pushed through in order to finish the game.

I think, as time goes on, and more of us have more characters, many will feel less compelled to take every character through each new game. In fact, my monk is sitting NF out, for now.