Hard Mode: Necessary Elitism?

How can exploiting the AI of the final boss of the "elite" area by standing still ever get boring?

It's okay to not have fun if breaking the mechanics of the game is what it takes to get your team through the "hard" stuff.

As long as there is a Death or MM necro on the team I've always said that a bad assassin is nearly as useful as a good one. You either always have a potential lv26 golem or a member that really helps. Unlike the wammo, they die too fast to run around and aggro everything so they can not do much harm (and, of course as I stated before, an assassin that knows what they are doing is a pretty good asset to the team). Though "shadow step to random location" skills can be a real pain but most bad 'sins want to be in the middle of things, not running.

so basically when i want to find/meet ppl to do missions or have fun with i need to turn off local chat ? U R A GENIUS SIR .and why should i be limited to interact with only ppl in my guild and my alliance?
dont u relaize solving the trade spam in local chat is more important than catering for a bunch of noobs who think they are elite for spendin hours luring mobs and trapping.(and its mainly hardcore pve players who spam the chats.....and prob thats why u r bein so retarded about it)
if u want a chllenge try to do some missions with a smaller party......even solo it with a mesmer if u think your so pro....or go pvp and realize u r actually just a noob.

About the elitism!

What if I WANT to roll out a new char but try from the beginning on hard mode?

I would like to start out fighting harder fights than I had early on in the game!

As to people not wanting to join up with others who do not have protector titles! I have a few accounts and I have not got protector on all of them, I feel I am pretty much well balanced in a team. Yet some of you would not want some of my chars on your team as I have no protector title.

I'd like hard mode to be more like starting the game again from scratch but the enemy is 2 or 3 levels higher than the first time through the early stages and then up to 8-10 levels higher by the end missions and the bosses are level 35 in the higher levels. Also introduce several random pop ups, so that when you load the area you do not know where the pop ups are, they take you by surprise, just like playing the game from scratch!

Thank you, kind sir. I have to congratulate you on your keen sense of humor, as to take deeply serious my obviously not-so-serious answer to your as obviously sarcastic remark in your post.

I hope you know what problems a chat filter will pose. That's not a programming issue, but one of general meaning. You have to decide WHAT IS worthy of a punishment (because, frankly, most people will only truly react to a punishment a.k.a. ban - example: If you make WTB a phrase that the chat is checked is for, and move all those lines into Trade Check automatically, they will just put spaces in between. And no, I have NO idea what an amount of work that would be. The only possibility is to leave an impression: You are banned for x.) and it has to be decided what ISN't worthy.
So... is it a thousand times writing the same stuff in Trade Channel? Or is it posting on the local channel? How often? Once, twice, a hundred times? When is the right time to punish?
How would you solve that, so no innocent gets punished?
There ARE chatfilters, most notably anti-spam filters, in place. They are just rather lax, so they don't take out someone who just mistyped or was in the wrong channel.
And honestly, trade SPAMMERS are the only problem that I have with local chat. But maybe, that's just because I don't always try to meet people at Droks.

And, well... if you have met your new people, I don't think it's that hard to invite into team and then have a nice talk on team channel - apart from that I don't see how meeting "new people" is a necessary part of either "communicating" or "social", as both only imply inter-human contact but don't exclude known ones.

As for me "mesmer-soloing stuff" - so your idea of a "Social Game" is "sorry, friends, I want to play alone for a challenge?" - BRILLIANT.
I suggest, you just try to get to an outpost less crowded. Don't know how it is for you, but the only districts I would say: Yes. It is impossible to have the least bit of conversation (if only to invite the participants into a team to contine there) in would be most of the Droks (especially Int Dis 1), and Kaineng.

I hope, your wishes come true. I hope they do a serious, all-punishing new chat filter that reduces trade spam to 0 - and I hope you'll be the first innocent caught in it.

And, no, thanks. I'm a passionate PvE player. I like the cooperative over the competitive nature. And I don't solo stuff or do trapping. I just like playing with my friends (and - imagine - I met a large portion of those in GW! In Outposts! And we were able to communicate!), as in "Social Game". And believe me, I'm not one of those that *need* hard mode. I say it just would be fine to play things like the Ascalon Missions in Tyria with a Level 20 team. And maybe revisit even some of the "harder" parts of Tyria.

So, thanks for your quick shot in prejudice - really nice - and your generous try to enlighten me. I can only tell you once thing: Most probably all of your assumptions are wrong about what I am doing, what I am proud of or what I am trying to achieve.
I don't think I'm pro. I think I'm a decent player. I don't spam chat windows, I don't go "soloing" stuff, I don't lure mobs into traps hours long.
But I take this social game and play it. You may be right in one thing: That I'm a noob in PvP. You might be right, there. ABs excepted. I don't know how playing PvP will enable me to revisit low-level areas in Tyria.
Like, with my friends, you know? Like in: Social Game.

I foresee Hard mode being on of two things:

All creatures in every area of the map increased to lvl20+, re-skilled mobs, mroe mobs and bosses in Tryia given dual damage, like Nf etc. ones.

Alternativly it will be nearly the same as before except enemys will be a few lvls higher, and more mobs will be added and re-skilled.

The 1st option being the one that requires a player to eg. have had completed the campaign, or Protector title. the 2nd option being available to all players even freshly made one.

I also predict that hard mode wont be 'that' hard, since normal mode will return to older ai styles eg. lack of AoE avoiding mobs. Hard mode will keep the Ai improvements that made them smarter and hard mode will still be do-able with heros/henchies since the majority of players like to do things with them. It will be harder due to the increased mob lvls and improved skills but it wont be DoA hardness. Im sure some people will probably complain after a few hours - Hard mode isnt hard enough, but its far better that way than making the entire game DoA style and ruining the fun the game is meant to be.

Or, not disagreeing, they simply have to do stuff with them, as in Elona in some quests and missions. This counts double for the old Tyria/Cantha Missions with some AI-controlled protege, that had to be kept alive by any means.

I think elitism should be discouraged anywhere it can be.

Just ask your Guild to take you assist you in areas you need help, and if you dont have a guild, your missing out go get one, i know theres a lot of Guilds recruiting, ie. the one im in.

Elitism required = No (Elitism to me has taken a negative attitude independent of your ability).

Ability to play your character / build very well = Yes

I don't see a pressing need for TS/Vent.
I don't see all area's the "same" as DOA.

I'm expecting a harder version of existing missions, where the further along you go the harder it gets. So The wall in Asclaon hard mode should be much easier then beating the last mission on the fire islands on hard mode.

I don't expect DOA level multipled by the number of current missions.

I also don't expect to have some or most of the Hard mode missions to be done solo (as in 1-3 person party) and it will require hero/hench or human pug.

That's about my expectation as well. Although I like using TS. Maybe because it's easier than typing everything. Maybe because most of the people I play with are guildies, and most of my guidlies are RL-friends. So hearing each other is more... comfortable.
But generally: Yes. Don't forget that hard mode will affect the high level areas as well, though.

i cant wait to try it out, however Im not planning on playing with many groups
unless i have a wrong impression of what Hard Mode actually is.


as for elitism, theres always elitism, you cant do anything about it, just ignore it

Hard mode + implied mesmer changes = WORSHIP THE MESMER!

Our day will come!

I can understand your concern but I can assure you it will be reversible. When I first heard of hard mode I immediatly thought of Nightmare and Hell modes on Diablo 2. A lot of what makes up GW comes from that game. There are two main ways Arenanet can go with Hardmode.

1. You have to create a new character to play on Hardmode, and these characters can only interact with other hard mode characters. I think this is out of the question for many reasons. People don't want to start all new characters with an all new economy. It would also divide the community and most importantly friends who couldn't play with each other.

2. After reaching a particular goal in Guild Wars players will be able to access Hard Mode via toggle. How they do it I have no clue. They could make completely seperate maps but i'm not sure how that would work. They would definitly have to add special cartographer titles if that's the case.

I think they will do this:

The party leader will be able to select hard mode (possibly a check box on the party window). The party leader will receive an error message when trying to portal out of town if any members of the party cannot yet go out into hard mode areas. So all the towns and outposts will be universal.