Hard Mode Needs Fixing

I like Hard Mode's difficulty. It's just doesn't have enough rewards to make it worthy.

Yea, Hard Mode is not well balanced at all. I had some fun in the majority of Tyria missions. Some were pretty annoying and I did beat them by using cheap tricks (like luring the mob out of the spawn point for the vizier in Sanctum Cay and then killing them methodically).

I have just started doing some in Cantha and I am stuck at Zen Daijun for god's sake! How more frustrating can a mission be?

-Lots of overlapping patrol paths that have a tendency to converge on you AFTER you have begun fighting another mob

-Idiot NPCs (Togo, etc) that follow you around and prevent you from doing good luring when playing solo with hero/hench

-Same idiot NPCs that must survive

-Bloody timers on almost all missions

-Groups of 3 elementalist monsters that are devastating

-Bosses that do ungodly amounts of damage

Mix all that together and you got a mightily frustrating gaming experience. I had some fun in Tyria, but I think that its about it. Ill go farm Lightbringer points in HM, and after that it will probably be goodbye HM.

It is? I seem to remember Little Thom equipping wild blow, which means all the player has to do is interrupt. If you think that one is hard, you have a lot of playing to do.

And if you did bloodstone fen preflags, you did it before hard mode.

Now, why don't you take your henchmen of yours and try to beat the bonus on Dunes Of Despair on hard mode (mission too). Then, see if you can't tackle Sanctum Cay (mission too).

Aurora Glade (and bonus) is also another difficult one to do with tyrian henchmen, though I have proven this one do-able.

I want Herta to have Sandstorm on the island, also having Alesia with WoH instead of Heal Other would've helped in Northern Shiverpeak missions. That is pretty much all I want fixed right now. New skills would be nice, but it'll just make the thing too easy if they're too good.

After they fix the ATs, it would nice if they could look at hard mode again and make it the good kind of tough. Thought out skill bars (Blade of Corruption still have Shield Bash with no shield), secondary professions, balanced groups that are level 20. Not this lazy double speed, double recharge, double activation, 20 specced skilled nonsense. It makes their kiting ability stupid; playing as a warrior sucks when a speed boost isn't enough to catch enemies.

I would be happy with balanced skill bars and the double everything removed. And if Anet is too lazy to think about balanced skill bars to ask the community for their input on creating some skill bars. But given their track record on listening to the community like on the new HA mechanic weekends, it would just be a waste of forum space.

Hmm just fix the drops and the bosses and we'll be fine I think. Purple mesmer gear from every chest after buying 1.5k lockpicks just blows. Ele bosses doing 500 damage stopped being funny ages ago. When there's only henchies to play with (which sometimes sucks too, but isn't directly a-nets fault), I don't want AoE damage that wipes your group before you can even help it.

Lina should preprot whenever going into an area with heavy elementalists. I'm still trying to figure out how to get the bonus on HM Thirsty River when the 5x ele group wipes the party in one spike at the end.

Hooray for earthquake.

Dragon's Lair is only difficult if you don't bring interrupts. In fact I would say it's one of the easiest since 2 interrupts and wild blow will ruin Glint's day

Dunes is far harder

I started to hate hard mode when I tried vanquishing City of Astaladrim (of whatever its called). I tried every hero/henchman combo there is and it' just very frustrating. 2 Ruby Djinns just own. Even norgu isn't that fast to interupt and Jin's daze isn't helping at all.

The only thing I really agree with is the ridiculous one-shot-kill rit & ele bosses. Seriously, 500+ points of armor-ignoring (or after armor reduction has been factored in) damage every few seconds isn't fun in any way. It's not impossible to beat such bosses, I tend to keep them dazed and hammer on them, but it's annoying.

There is a precedent for reducing their damage output: the rit boss Tin Dao Kaineng on Shing Jea island was toned down. He used to be dishing out 300+ point spirit rifts, a rude wake-up call to level 15's like me...

As for the tomes I don't really have an opinion. Maybe they should drop more frequently, but it's not like you'll have a problem making 1000 gold to buy skills, or capping bosses, anyway.


On a different note: All of Tyria in normal mode except the three later titan quests is henchable, and *all* of Tyria in normal mode is ridiculously easily hero'able. Been there, done that.

I haven't done much hard-mode vanquishing in Tyria, but I did the earlier parts around Ascalon, and they're perfectly possible to hero. The only problem I encountered was endlessly kiting grawl healers.

If u want to get a prot spirit form her u have to damage your self
U could talk infuse health and infuse here, then she thinks u take a lot of damage and prots u.
Or u take grenths balance and infuse your self afther the boss spikes u…
Then u can go and tank what ever u want
(for the people that are taking this seriously: its just a joke!)

so you want to get rewards for grinding thru Guardian/vanquisher? whats next, getting paid for every .1% explorer?

I HAVE AN ANSWER
BECAUSE GUILD WARS IS DEAD


sry guyz i jus won this thred

I agree to AFC issues and the LFG interface.

But these are not problems related to Hard Mode alone!

Besides that, you ask for less damage on boss mobs, more drops of tomes and a really not that necessary extra reward for vanquishing.


I do not know the nature of WoW, but I returned to GW. Guess I prefer it "Sisyphean".

I just wonder: What is the stone that tends to roll down on you once you rolled it up the hill, to speak in the image of Sisyphus????????

Do you want a medal?

I'll echo this comment. As far as I am concerned the difficulty is just about right and I actually enjoy vanquishing a new area, but the rewards for vanquishing really are pretty pathetic.

What is the point of double XP and an additional XP reward for characters that already have a couple of hundred spare skill points?

The gold reward is also pretty worthless.. 900g for an hour's worth of play..

At the moment the rewards are irrelevant as I am going for the titles, but once the titles are obtained, there will be very little incentive to replay the maps.

Stupidly amped damage enemies are bad. That's the only major issue I have, and while counterable it just isn't interesting to play against; dwarfing the other passive buffs.

Less chasing more target rotation? Also, snares?

Sanctum is considerably easy in that all you have to do is stand where you trigger the spawns towards the Vizier and... not die... Even with hench, not too hard.

Dunes is a little trickier, not from difficulty, but because of time contraints.

Hard Mode will suffer from less people simply because doing the same thing over and over, just against enemies with bigger numbers, is not necessarily fun.

There are players playing hard mode (me for starters)...the problem is that with 3 continents and 13-25 missions each, the player base is spread out. Add in the fact that a lot of players in outposts are running normal mode, time zone differences etc, it can be near-impossible to get a hard mode group at times. When you do finally get a group, take a note of the names and call on them again for missions/vanquishing in the future. I managed to get Guardian of Tyria this way, and am now working on the other two continents. All you need to do is get your name out there and if things go well the invites will come in. I think there was a post on this website as well for players to leave their names......

pm me on guru

And I'll gladly echo that. At least, just after HM was released, vanquishing an area netted me at least 3 gold drops, and some tomes. Same goes for my friend who was playing along. Every chest I opened gave me a gold too.

Now, a few weeks later, I'm excilerated if ANY gold weapons drops after killing 300+ enemies, haven't seen a tome for ages, and the chests are giving me more and more purples.

This, combined with Gaile proclaiming 'there isn't an anti-farming code' makes HM a mere gimmick, only usefull if you want some new titles. Yay.

Come on Anet, get of your lazy bumm and give those monsters some real intelligence, usefull skillbars, and cut the cr*p with those speed and casting time buffs, which merely is an annoyance at best.

I think the monsters dont have better skill bars because the developers themselves do not understand the game! I mean Jesus Christ, let them have builds! speed buffs = empathy and ss tear right through them. casting buffs? gg backfire. I have also noticed the same thing with the drop rate reducing. I think its a big conspiracy. They are hyping GWEN to be more than it is, and they are going to try to release GW2 in hopes that people from GW1 will flock over by the masses because GW1 will be a trainwreck when GW2 comes out. Yay for a 2 1/2 year, $150+ beta test!

Pre-casting Shelter and Union makes a lot of Hard Mode groups in Canthan and Elona a lot easier. I am quite happy they made Razah easier to get because there was no way I was finding a ritualist at the hours of play I have.

Frustrating, but doable. Typically in those cases dies from hero/hench focus fire before it can do anything because all it did was run around.

In just 2 or 3 weeks of HM being introduced, i have...


...people are doing HM!!! You just have to be patient and find the teams.

The difficulty may not be amazing, and it may not be super intelligent to beat. Its also not easy, its just right. Its about having FUN, stop taking it so seriously.

When I started paying HM I was broke. I had no gold at all. I was trying to fund my Ritualists armor and finish off his 15k gear.

In just 3 weeks, I've made enough gold from HM drops (simply selling to the merchant) to finish off my Ritualists 15k armor, to dye it black and to buy Ragos Flame Staff for 60k for myself.

I estimate that is about 100k I've made in just 3 weeks of selling HM drops to the merchant. Exactly how is that not a reward? and exactly how am I making a loss?

Tombs... in just 3 weeks I have picked up 3 warrior tombs, 1 mesma tomb, 1 elite elemental tomb and 1 monk tomb.

I've picked up one passage scroll to FOW myself, and seen about 4 others drop for other playes.

I have picked up about 10-20 golds. Alot more then I ever got in the last 6 months of playing. And ive been playing 18 months. My wisdom title has increased alot.

I cant say I care. I dont cry at night, because farmers are effected. I've made nearly 100k, as I mentioned, in just 3 weeks of actually doing HM missions and selling items to the merchant.

If that isnt a good enough/easy enough way for you to make gold, then you have some serious issues.

I did ALL my HM missions in Tyria using PUGs. Most long before I joined my new guild only last week. So until recently I didnt have guildies to help me out. Yet I managed in a very short time using PUGs.

I expect your one of those players who shouts "LFG HM" in an outposts, then sees someone else shouting "LFG HM", but you dont invite them because you expect them to invite you and you dont want to be leader.

Well thats their stupid fault for leaving the game. I played WoW for about a month to take a break from GWs, and I soon came back due to bordem and lonelyless.

Its far harder to find PUGs in WoW then it is in GWs. Most of the content in WoW is solo-able. The only stuff you need PUGs for are dungeons, but because they dont effect the storyline (which it doesnt have), you dont have to do them.

You can play through the whole of WoW alone if you wanted. GWs is far better for PUGs.

Sorry, but your points are just completely unfounded. Aside from the farming one, which I just dont care about.

There are people playing but ... not only spread out over 3 continents but also split between vanquishing and guardian.

I do believe the rewards should be fixed my examples are

1. regular tomes should drop more often and should never come from a chest
2. bosses should drop a few more elite tomes and elite tomes should be the only type of tome to come from a chest.
3. I have yet to see a passage scroll anywhere - vanquished Elona and 1/3 of Tyria - a couple places in Cantha. These should appear somewhere
4. lockpicks seem to have stopped falling altogether? When I first started out I would see 1-4 drop for our party in an area and its been 2 weeks now since I have seen one drop for anyone.
5. Perhaps at the end of an area you also get a random item - an elite tome or passage scroll or xx number of special items - clovers, eggs, cupcakes, booze, sweets, an ecto, a lockpick, a random gift for completing an area or even a contintent (slightly bigger reward of course) - Like a thank-you gift from the people of the continet for helping them.
6. They can kill the xp bonus at the end of each area as it means very little to anyone that far in the game.
7. Put in a tome/scroll buying/selling npc for people who have vanquished or finished missions in an area set the prices slightly lower (for selling) and higher for buying than market value to start - 500-750 for regular tomes to sell and 1,250 to buy of course they would only have available what players have sold. The price on elites would be similar to runes but have a bottom price . I have absolutely no idea on price of scrolls - never seen one drop - don't know anyone who has and never seen one for sale so.....
8. Perhaps they could also put in an extra npc that would buy gold or rare items at 2 or 3 times merchant value as a reward for hard mode.

Some of these ideas would help to cut down on trade spaming too as more people could get a decent price for their items after completing parts of hardmode.

It was never about the rewards for me (it couldn't be because my luck totally sucks), it's about the challenge. This is way beyond a challenge tho, it's damn near impossible.

In the Ascalon area, there are lvl 20+ grawl with 2 monks in almost every group and you're only allowed a party of 4. Yes, I understand it's supposed to be hard, but this is just ridiculous. In the days before hm, by the time we got to foes of that level, we had parties of 8. Now, because it's hm, we're expected to beat these higher level, super buffed baddies? Yeah, ok.

Cant you make that exact same argument for gold drops in HM. The simple fact is that some people in the game are luckier then others, and you have good days and bad days.

Sometimes you cant get no drops for days, and then suddenly you get loads.

I've had 6 tomes drop (elite and normal), one passage scroll, countless golds and lots of dyes while doing HM. I've also seen party members go through an entire HM mission getting nothing but gold drops, while no one else did. Ive also had most of my lock-picks survive atleast one use.

I've also had HM missions where I get nothing exciting at all, except blues and purples. Its like anything in life; sometimes your lucky, sometimes your not.

You cant ask for the mechanics of the drop system to be changed, just because you have an unlucky streak. I bet within a week, you will do a mission where you get countless golds. Then you'l be happier then pie.

The HM drop system is absolutely fine.

I thought the same thing, but your bog standard warrior, monk, MM and ele (or other) can wipe the Old Ascalon missions in minutes.

The MM being the key one, because you need numbers.

I cant say ive ever had a problem with the grawl, me and Norgu take care of them easily enough. So the solution to your problems = Take a mesmer with you where ever you go. Mesmers have always been a real asset but they get highly overlooked, in hard mode they finally have the chance to shine

Although i havnt been everywhere in HM mode from the numerious places ive been in Tryia and Cantha ive not no real problems, and if i do fail or get wiped out i change tactics slightly and try again.

Hi!

What does Sysphisian mean?

Well im not to date with the latest lingo but according to wikipedia no such word exists so *shrugs*

I am not asking for more golds I do believe the gold drop rate is fine, same with rare materials - but the scroll drop rate, elite tome drop rate from bosses (not chests) and fact that regular tomes come out of chests in HM I think needs to be changed. Most of my post had to do with other things like adding NPC's and stuff not how lucky you are.

Sysyphus (cant remember exact spelling) was a guy from an ancient greek legend that ws punished for his sins in the underworld. He had to roll a rock on top of a mountain that was shaped like a pyramid. Needless to say that took an eternity (literally) because the stone rolled of everytime. Rolling the stone on the mountain was pretty pointless, but still he had to do it, as a punishment.

I did bring a mesmer, but how can you degen a monk, when there's another one healing him?

Powerblock one, backfire the other one and then degen/beat them to a pulp

Degen is bad, use domination skills; focusfire-backfire will break just about any mob. If you bring hard shutdown like mentioned above it gets even easier, but is certainly not needed.

To further expand on this point (which is right), you just don't have the time to sit around and wait for things to degen to death when everything has 1000 health.

Go for what is formulaic and has high damage numbers. It really helps if it's it's armor ignoring like hexes. I'm finding that dirty told SS, Empathy, Spoil Victor, Backfire, Soul Leech, etc spam is many many many many times more effective than Searing Flames simply because everything has too much health and armor to make elemenatlist nuking effective.

If you kill a lot of enemies in a very short time, your drops will be nearly not existing. Kill them one after the other, eg. with Splinter Armor instead of Shield of Judgement.

The problem with hard mode is that there is nothing to do in hard mode but grind titles.

Why would you bother doing a Hard mode mission if you dont care about Guardian title because you dont have protector title?

Unique loot would go a long way towards fixing this issue and getting people to actually play... Hard/Nightmare mode in Diablo gave less gold but better loot... athough that might just turn hard mdoe into farming spots and not help anything....

I honestly think that hard mode needs unique content: unique quests or unique anything else to do. As it stand now, all you can do is grind out areas that you already beat using, in many cases, the exact same tactics.

This is not Blasphemy. This is not Madness.
THIS. IS. HARD MOOODE!!
Be a real spartiat or stay at home.


Vainquished Tasca's end yesterday. Had a real laugh as we thought to vainquish this zone quickly.

I did bring a mesmer, but how can you degen a monk, when there's another one healing him?

You asked that above, the solution is you dont degen them you try other tactics like power blocking one (if ur using hers u can use lock on etc. or manually use the skill) and backfiring and mobbing the other.

so inother words u either need more firepower and/Or u stop or reduce the healing ability of the monks.

Zinger doesn't speak for everyone.

First of all, people are playing in hard mode.



My groups were almost always a mixture of fellow HM freaks from my friends list, new PUG members (many of whom ended up on my friends list), guild/alliance members, and heroes. No team came from only one source.

I've found Hard Mode to be a rewarding challenge - not in terms of bling, but in terms of the accomplishment and camaraderie that first hooked me on the game. I've made some new friends, helped some people out, become a better monk and started experimenting way more with my own builds.

Bling-wise, I'm satisfied. I think I made almost 100k from 25 missions, with an average of 2-3 attempts per mission. That's straight from the merchant and traders, no lockpicks or WTS involved. There's some stuff I kept for myself as well, instead of turning into gold.

I'm pretty pumped for Guardian of Elona as well. I might not even do Guardian of Cantha; I hate the way the timed Factions missions punish people for not being robots. But that's a Factions thing, not a Hard Mode thing.