Do we need a hardmode considering the side effects it might have?

(I realise we dont know the exacts about hardmode, but the speculation is that it will only meant be accessible after protector)

Im not completely against this hardmode idea, I just dont see the need for it. It seems another way for Anet to pander to the hardcore/elite-ist players who want everything to be near-impossible.

Considering we have around 5 or 6 elite zones throughtout 3 campaigns, I dont see a need for it.

It also seems a badly thought out way to try and get people to play old campaigns again (assuming they add this to old campaigns). Instead of adding new content, they simple add a hardmode button.

In my view once hardmode is introduced....

You'l end up with every mission area packed with lvl20 players (with protector), forming PUGs to do nothing except the hardmodes.

The newbie players who will want experienced players to help them will be stuffed. This idea of helping new players wont happen anymore, because newbie and experienced players will get segregated.

The bit which I see as badly thought out, is hardmode missions will be in low-end areas (I assume). They way its described, is that you will return to an easier mission, select hardmode and then it will be harder.

The problem with this, is that any newbie players in that low-end area wont get help from experienced players. The experienced players wont want to know. Theyl be busy forming PUGs for hardmode.

It will murge low-end areas with elite areas, and it wont work well. Its works having places like FOW, UW, DOA because only experienced players go there to form PUGs.

But with this hardmode in place, you will have experienced players and newbies both trying to form PUGs, and neither will want to join one another because they will want different things.

It will also further incourage this idea of elitism in PUGs. This idea that you cant join a group unless you have cookie cut build. Unless you use this set skill bar the way I say so, you cant join.

Missions areas will be spammed with "LFG for hardmode....no noobs!!"

And "LFG for normal mode.... please someone, anyone!!!"






As I said, I dont think its a bad idea.

I just feel its ill-thought out and it will have too much of a knock-on effect for the less experienced players.

We just dont need it when we have 5 or 6 elite zones throughout each area. Elite zones which will also suffer as less people play them to do the hardmode missions.

Look at SF. Its virtually dead there now. The more elite or hard areas we add, then less interested people have in the older areas.

We need to limit how many elite or hard areas we have, to maintain interest in them.




But thats just my view. I could be complete wrong about the hardmode as its all speculation at this point. It might work out fine and be great. Anet does a good job 90% of the time.

Thoughts?

And what different would it be from players who want Masters or Mish/Bonus VS those who only want to pass through?

i think hard mode is great concept. Don't start criticizing it until we know what it will be.

Elite missions from Cantha and Nightfall appear to me as a grind-fest, slogging through 2-4 hours of extremely high-leveled enemies, with a specific cookie cutter build. That's boring. UW and FoW are pretty cut and dry too with what you need to do.

I am looking forward to hard mode because I am hoping for a challenge in regular missions, where scenery is not the same for 2-4 hours straight and that any profession can play.

Agreed. For all we know, Hard Mode may require 3 Protector of XXX helping 5 low level/inexperienced puggers through these missions

So long as Guardian doesn't bump off protector and wreck my KoaBD I don't care. I'll still be doing normal level as well as giving hard level a go.

That's what I'm hoping for, challenging not in the sense of exploited AI, but a place where there is actually strategy and a lot of versatility, and where any profession could fit in.

Hit the nail.

Then all you'd see is

"LFP of lowbies so I can enter hard mode later"

Actually I think you're right freekedoutfish. Hard-mode could be a challenge for the older GW players, but I think it could have a side effect as well. As I see now sometimes mission outposts being filled with people who want bonus only, and well mostly they take beginners with them just to act nice. But what happens if we have hard-mode and those beginners can't come with them anymore? I think you will get a HA idea, "You need a rank" In this case the title "protector" to join in a team. :/

Personally for me it would be an nice challenge if there was an hard-mode, but I actually don't need it I like the bonuses already and a hard-mode would be a nice idea but not a need for me since I think it could have indeed that bad side effect as you have written down. But who knows, maybe the hard-mode will be made that way that it might even become better for those beginners.

I think a nice addition to hard-mode would be, getting low level players towads the end of mission + bonus without being left at spawn in a enviroment filled wit 20lvl enemies. In this case the low lvl people do there mission and bonus, and the elites have a challenge and actually help.

you got no idea how many bonus whiners I've wanted to STRANGLE.......

I can't see it been any different to what it is now...

You'll get groups forming who want Hard Mode. You'll still get groups forming who want Masters as oppose to just coasting through it.

Also how does high levels going to Ascalon matter? High levels going to Ascalon only ever did it for the Bonus, now they'll do it for Hard Mode. Just becuase you won't get low levels mooching off the high level who can practically solo the entire mission isn't much of a reason to speculate.

As for Gate of Madness Hard Mode. Aslong as i can still solo Shiro, i don't care

Because the hardmode is presumably only do-able by lvl20, experienced, players who have protector. It suggests the hardmode is going to very hard, otherwise anyone could to them.

Normal, masters and bonus missions are attainable by lower-experienced players and intended to suit the difficulty of the area.

Low-end area = easier missions.
High-end area = hard missions.

But hardmode = constantly hard missiosn designed for lvl20 etc etc etc.

The result is we end up with players in low-end areas spamming for "hardmode PUGs", while the less-experienced players cant form parties.

But as I said. Its all speculation and i could all be fine.

Let's hope "hard mode" means "hard for cookie cutter groups to succeed without including other classes".

It will be incredibly disappointing if hard mode reinforces the "cookie cutter" mentality that's currently prevalent in the harder mission areas.

Lol like thats going to happen Hard mode will end up just like most things hard in GW, dominated by certain builds. So it will probably go back to the time honored Tank, Nuke, Healer and MM.

Some Tryia missions suffer from taking ages to complete Hard mode would make this worse, Cantha Masters are generally very time specific which means changes to the difficulty must allow the time frames to be changed.

Not to mention missions already considered hard by some in hard mode would probably far exceed DoA in difficulty eg. Thunderhead Keep, Raisu Pavilion, Gate of Madness etc. etc.

I imagine too the Henchies would be extremely useless in Hard mode and possible heroes too. Which brings us back to PUGs.

Perhaps the only change to make Hard mode will be to disallow Heroes/Henchies so people would have to PUG taht makes missions hard enough on its own

I think Anet had a good idea with Hard mode but i dont think they will be able to pull off something that will be Fun AND challenging. But heres hoping *fingers crossed*

Maybe Hard Mode monsters will have a new skill set... such as a ranged blackout or a "Turn on your Master" skill (all minions turn on their master for 'n' seconds, then are un-mastered after that).

That would be ... interesting...

Why wouldn't they be able to form parties? Since you probably will need protector for hard mode, their will still be people from other campaigns and lower levels to make the normal mission group with, just as there are now.
But there will also be more level 20's that form hard mode groups.

Im hoping that Anet restores Elites to the earlier Areas in the Hard mode missions such as the Charr using Hundred Blades etc. but Knowing Anet they will Add a new monster Skill to the Mursaat called Squish "Target enemy Dies, if that target is infused that target only losses 99% hp" hehe

hard mode does sonud interesting though...
about what you said about low levels, we alreasy get this. Many people that are lvl 20 go back through prophecies and theres plenty of low levels that would want help

Considering we only have five or six, yes, we definitely need more high-end areas.

I hope you don't have to have Protector to enable Hard-Mode...

I only usually get Protector on the first character I run through a campaign, it would be drudgery to have to get the title on all of them just to try some of the hard missions under different roles.

I'm still waiting for "The World"

(JoJo fans will know what I'm talking about ;P)

Just a slight misconception that gets me every time. No, UW & FoW are NOT cut and dry. The temple of war and the ice wastes have become cut and dry out of lack of player imagination. that's all. If one was to try to conquer more than those two areas, and in one go, then it would take some imaginative planning to overcome all the various obstacles. I have met SO MANY people that think the entire UW is the smite run it's getting sad.

About the hard mode topic- i don't see how you can pass judgement on it before you know ANYTHING about it.

I have yet to see a low level mission that is unbeatable with henchies. If lowbies cant form parties, thats their problem. There are only a few missions in all 3 campaings that need real people to beat it.
Leave hardmode to the level 20's then. Its not that hard to get to level 20 as it is.

I like hard mode, it makes it worth wearing Guardian of unlike Protector of(I think). I also think that some on these forums are scared of losing their KoaBD...

heh missions in tryia are easy i can still do iron mines with henchies at lvl 6 with any character class

Why do I have this hunch that "Hard Mode" is gonna be a few extra mobs with higher levels. Instead of seeing a Lvl. 6 Charr, you'll see maybe three of them at lvl. 24. More Mobs...higher levels.

They better not cut any time down to get Masters in Factions or even the missions like Ruins of Morah or Grand Court in Nightfall. I don't want to see that you have to beat something in 2:00 to get Masters.

As I have said countless times in here, it is definitely ANet's way to repopulate the regions. When things start spreading thin, you do something to make people go back. It is also their cover up for their potential failed commitment of releasing a new chapter every 6 months or so.

I for one, am eager for the Hard Mode, but yes...I don't think it is needed. If people wouldn't rush through the game the day it comes out (just so they claim they are one of the first to beat it), there are plenty of things worth doing and challenging enough to stay occupied until the next game comes out.

what other than your speculation is ill thought out?
You start with we don't know what they are doing and finish with it's a terrible idea

freek out much??

By all means they should limit content for everyone so that people will be forced to play with you in old areas that have been done to death!

Hey,

need to limit it

You could tell us your reasoning you think it is a great concept besides slagging someone off because you don't agree with them.

To me this is the same thing with The Deep/Urgoz/town control BS that we got a hint of during faction preview weekend. Most everyone that sniffed out what they had in mind called BS on the system because it would allow only about 10 percent of the players to play the only end game factions has. What about the people that bought Factions only? Any casual player that bought factions only got screwed out of content royally. For a stand alone game it is severely lacking in any amount of depth and frankly, endgame content.

Anet basically said it was going to be awesome and not how we said it would be (mainly massive faction grind to be able to play 100% of the game we bought, the people ferrying taking advantage of it and so on), but guess what!? We were right and the system still sucks.

The OP has very real concerns, and I think his major concern is this: do we really need to segregate the GW player base further, do we need to spread it even thinner? In my opinion, hells no.

it is most likely a completely optional thing to do, with the only payoff being progress towards a title (input vs reward issue ftl)

what really strikes me however is that this is yet another example of how anet tries to confuse added content with just rehashing the same old stuff, except now it's hard! kinda lazy.......but then the downhill slide started quite a while ago

Hard mode? Try DoA, Gates of Madness, and UW and FoW. I don't know, the diffculty has been bumped up to hard on the later levels in NF and I'm sure that is the way to go in future chapters.

Or, you could give monsters [wiki]Verata's Aura[/wiki], or [wiki]Verata's Gaze[/wiki]. Since those are already in the game, and all.

Hard mode is not even in the game, yet. I prefer to reserve judgement until it is actually released. It will be entirely optional, anyway. Frankly, I find the idea of a hard mode intriguing. Players with a Protector title presumably know how to complete the missions already, and would otherwise not even be there. Hard mode gives them a reason to come back and play them again.

I can gurantee with 99% certainty that "Hard Mode" will just have mobs with about 22 or so points in each attribute. And nothing more, really.

Anything else would take too much effort to program.

All i do is pvp so go nuts with hard mode. Unless there's ultra rare weapons or special armor that can be acquired exclusively in hard mode I don't plan on ever trying it. Titles are irrelevant really. At least it'll give the pve crowd something to do when they've done it all and farmed everything to death. Worst case scenario people will ragequit and not do hard mode if they're getting owned all over the place.

We don't know if it will require Protector to unlock hard mode - we know that you gain guardian after getting protector and completing those missions again in hard mode. It could quite simply be there for people who have done that specific missions bonus/master.

This is very likely, IMO. I just can't see the devs going back and completely redoing all the Prophecies missions at this point. But taking level 6 Charr and making them level 28 (while adding a disenchanting mez to a couple mobs) probably wouldn't take much at all.

i just hope Protector isn't a requirement, mostly because it will greatly reduce the available players. Actually, I kinda figured one could do a mission on hard mode and have it count for both Guardian and Protector.
Thirdly, maybe hard mode could be unlocked on a mission-by-mission basis. Get Masters at Vizunah, unlock hard mode at Vizunah...and so on.

Come to think of it.....how can you make Chahbek Village (first mission of NF) "hard"?

Hard mode? I can't imagine most people would even play it considering that everytime there are skill adjustments, people whine about how hard it makes it for them in PVE.

I can already hear the calls for making hardmode less hard... That's the side effect I see.

give me lvl 24/28 charr at the great northern wall and shadow army in the gates of kryta and ill be one happy camper

If they offers a hard mode, they might as well offer a eazy mode too. Standard award is kind of like that already...so why do we want a hard mode again?

We just need to make master awards more difficult. or...

Hard mode = master award
Normal mode = expert award
Eazy mode = standard award

And make people able to choose it from the beginning.