Which mission deserves the prize for the worst design?

LOL I actually love that one, but I used to just pull the lot of them and nuke them to shreds, there's so many sweet spots to corner block the afflicted.

Raisu on hard mode can be a real pain sometimes. I always take Talon, and the hard part is keeping Talon alive until he does 'his thing'. OMG TEH SLIVER ARMOR PWNZ ME (cough cough).

Dunes of Despair, Frot Gate and the Wilds and any other Mission, where you need specific braindead Necro builds, only to be able to explore certain areas, which would be otherwise unexplorable, but are needed, to receive für Tyria/Cantha the 100% for Cartographer Titlte...

those things suck, and they should imo not count for the title, it should be bonus areas, which can be explored, but mustn't for 100% ...

Imo Players should receive when they have beaten a game so or so access to like 1-3 bonus areas, which would count for example for the explorer title by 1% per area, simple to reduce the braindead grind fest for 0,1%'s ...

Without Text Mod Maps, its nearly impssble to make 100% withpout help, you need then really to compare ever a 100% map with your own, which is lots of effort that you can make only with a good photo programm, like photoshop, which has not everyone, or simple not everyone has good enough comps for this in kind of cache (load up one 1048x7xx map and cache goes down quickly to 0) in browser, ya even when opened per program, ending in a PC falldown cause of not enough cache space,where you need like 2GB of Cache so that all runs smoothly, there you don't come far with 512MB ...

However, back to the missions, most ones of them ,that suck is Dunes of Despair, when you want to explore the the bonus ares, you must first find a monk player, that is good enough to keep the ghost long enough alive, so that you can go exploring the whole map around, the problem is, you need a bit help for exploring, or you will die only quick cause of lots of insicts which may pop up in your ways, then you must run through a little horde of enchanted weapons to come to the important bponus area which brings the important 0,7% what is quite big for such a little bonus area.

Frost gate sucks, cause there you have to find a way to kill rurik or one of his companions, only with some luck there will stand an ice golem attacking them and and killing eventually them, but when not, its very hard to lure it to the place so that it attacks them, because once u got the aggro, ice golem attacks only you....
But this necro trick is again the only way to come to the road where thoses npcs run on, which leads to a big corner that is otherwise unexplorable...

Then the Wilds, at the end, again you must use such a RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing necro trick, only to reach the place, where Evennia stands, by getting somehow the aggro of the spiders on Evennia in the hope they kill Evennia, so that xou could warp to her place ..that sucks ....

In Cantha, fighting Shiro, there you must hope, to get banned by him, only to be able to explore such a stupid island in the near, which gives some important points towards the canthan cartographer, which you need for 100%, when u get not there, the title is impossinle for you, because Cantha has so less place for failures, you really need to grindon this map everything to reach 100%....

The worst design?

It has to be that one in the fire islands where you have to get the bonus from the guy who is being spiked to death by a gang of titans.

Any that rely on keeping a stupid AI (artificial idiot?) alive to complete it, ones like Vizunah that rely on the build of a party you have no control over to be successful, ones like venta cemetary which for the bonus is just too long and boring adn my two personal hates - Divinity Coast as that bloody flashing thing always gives me a headache, and Tihark Orchard as the solo bits especially the mime guy are so bloody annoying to do (in fact this single mission will prevent me from getting protector of elona and the overall guardian title as there is just not enough time to type in emotes if you have to play one handed like I do because of disability).

Oh yeah and not just missions are badly designed - any game that requires you to re-do the same boring things over and over is badly designed (like not being able to get required points from just questing and missions, and needing to do repetative boring grind to get them just to give the game an appearance of longevity).

Gate of Madness, why does everything happened in Prophecies and Factions have something to do with Abaddon?

Isn't Shiro supposed to be imprisoned somewhere by the envoys?

Isn't the Lich's soul been used to power up the bloodstone?

Wrong!! I get masters all the time doing Jennur's with just heroes and henchies. Just follow the "avoid all harbingers" strategy on wiki. It works like a charm.

Use the "backdoor" trick. As soon as the mission starts, run past the turtles on the right and keep on going all the way to the south end of the mission. The turtles will stay safely put as you kill off the mobs one at a time and work your way back up to them. Then you only need to do the "first" fight with the turtles, one small fight with like 3 kurzicks total, and the final fight with the afflicted.

Method 1: Leave a monk - a bonder works well - to babysit the ghost while everyone else goes to kill the bosses. Not terribly hard with heroes.

Method 2: Run to meet the attackers as they arrive at the gates, kill them quickly, and then rush the generals. The attackers come in this order: E, W, S, E, S, W, small delay, W (boss). Then there is a large delay. You should go out the south doors and kill the bosses in their fort. One final group will spawn and attack the ghost (the wiki claims it spawns when you beat a fort boss). It's possible to kill the bosses and get back to the ghost in time. Even if you're slow, the ghost usually holds out long enough to finish the bonus, so you can just come back and do the mission (without bonus) later.

I'm going to go against the flow and say Dragon's Lair. I hate the design of that. Do the same level...... 6 times.... with different, boring negative effects! Sometimes I like dragging characters through Tyria again for the fun of it, and I'm so sad to get to Dragon's Lair.

That said, that is only from the viewpoint of re-plays. The first time you play it you're still all buoyed up from having completed your Ascension, and you meet Glint, get some elites and feel all excited. It's really, really fun ONE TIME.

I also dislike Aurora Glade's design; I can see what they were doing with it and it's nice to have something a little different, but it caused me so much pug misery in the early days.

Well Dragon's lair used to EAT the henchmen.

Youd zone and theyd walk off into a wall and disappear!!

GAH!!!

Not to mention Mhenlo has the audacity to say "I'm trapped on the other side!" in the cutscene...

I'd completely forgotten that- that used to make me qq even more. Always in mesmer-zone....

The best update ever would be to expand the whole auto-rez NPC concept to the rest of the game. Period.

I could go on for an hour detailing the most annoying missions. As far as the worst designed? That's a different topic altogether. Despite the fact that I love mastering Viz with 12 henchmen, I'd have to say any missions that required two teams. Good concept, shoddy presentation.

Mister O... Abaddon is (was) a god. I'm sure it wouldn't be hard for him to do that.

The absolute worst one was the one where you rescued Kormir, in the Moon Fortress Gandara. Kormir and that other person who was margrids cousin kept getting stuck. It took me exactly seventeen tries to finally unstick them.

I love that mission - the fast pace of slamming through your enemies made soloing it (without heroes or henchmen, other than Margrid) a true challenge.

Hmm lets see:
Arborstone: getting interrupted ever 5secs with constant dps from the rocks on your team.
Jennurs horde:Lots of margonites running back to kill your ally while you fight another group, and having to drop pieces of w/e to kill a nightbringer or we it was.
Gate of pain: Constant dmg on your party, super nukers which can taker out your party in one hit. gg.
Aside from that, any mission where you have to protect a random person or one that requires a hero (usually a crappy one like melonni) basicly sucks. Also a mission where you have to replace one of your oh so important skills with a "can of holy water" is annoying. Other than that, most missions in nightfall and some of the mid factions ones just are bad.

Isn't Grand Court the mission that takes a few minutes because you can just aggro the whole map and wipe it?

I didn't like the 2-team missions, personally. Not sure if it was because of the system or because I just found them dull.

Moddok Crevice: Dunkoro's "suggestions" are a problem, make getting Master's a pain at times.

Nolani Academy: Prince Leeroy. 'Nuff said.

Vizunah Square: Don't you just LOVE it when Mhenlo or Togo get stuck?

Factions
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Quote for truth.

I'd like to mention that Divinity Coast is still broken, and it's been this way since the beta days.

Vizunah square, when the 2nd team joins and leaves just for skillcapping is so irritating -.-

I remember doing that with my Water Elementalist.
I switched his Elite from Ward Against Harm to Mind Freeze JUST for those two.... and after dumping it on both of them (followed by Maelstrom and Ice Imp noises for sake of tradition) I just stood back and laughed (evilly) as my herohench mobbed them.
Easiest. Mission. Ever.
I don't honestly recall my Assassin having much difficulty with it either. I guess some classes don't have effective snares (Necro?).... but... well... Haven't ran into that yet.


QFT.
And the Krytan ones....
At least the Maguuma Jungle is a bit prettier than Kryta... IMHO.


Vizunah Square and Unwaking Waters are better than sex.
Just because occasionally Togo / Mhenlo get stuck in stupid places doesn't subtract from how awesome it is to rampage through hoardes of afflicted with an uber-group...


.... Kormir? You mean Varesh?


QFT.
Doppelganger is a joke.... a total joke.


QFT x10


Do you suppose the description on that mission will ever be fixed to account for the fact that you have to kill the mobs up the steps on either side WITH the harbingers?
The first time I tried to do bonus on that, and it took me long enough to get it right.... I ran up there with the Light... dropped it... and kited away quickly to avoid aggro.... ONLY to get a single sword for the mission and do a double-take because I thought I had done PRECISELY what was required for Masters. There is no describing how much that sucks. I've learnt better since then.

and my vote goes to: Bloodstone Fen, I simply hate the running back and forth with them dumb seeds to make some bridge, plus I always tend to get lost there somehow.

Another one I strongly dislike is Sunjiang District, but this is probably because I hate the looks of it plus, I also get lost here aswel

Well with 2 assassins, 1 hydromancer, 2 mesmers, 1 spiteful necro, 1 prot and 1 healer we did Moddok's Crevice. It still is a poor design. Another one which is not that hard except on the patience is Abbadon's Mouth. To wait for Leah whatever to walk around inside that Keep is just too dreadful. Great Caps there however bar the random spawns.

For those who found it so easy to do some of these, I would like to ask how many times did you try, or did you just read the Wiki before doing it?

That isn't half the trouble.
The real nasty thing about Sunjiang District is trying to get PuGs to come along and carry the Spear and the Urn.... one if you're a caster and two if you're physical attacker yourself..... The place is almost always empty, and those few people who are there prefer to just dance and ignore you.

leave spear and urn, pwn afflicted, never bother about the GOREDENGINE spear and the urn, pwn more afflicted, who needs the spear and the urn?

Bugger knows.
I've always taken them. I thought they were necessary for some part of the mission. You saying they aren't?

They aren't. They supposedly help. But I've done it with them and without them and haven't noticed that much difference.

They are not at all needed and this mission with a good balance of heroes is doable in 12 minutes easy. Again it requires a good knowledge of what to do. Having pushed 8 chars thru it, it becomes easy.

exactly, of course the spear and urn make the mission somewhat easier, but the mission is already easy as pie so you really don't have to bother with them.

Oh well.... I'll probably just continue as I have done anyway.
I'm a roleplayer. I feel it rather disrupts the feel of the Factions storyline to go to the trouble to get the spear and the urn and NOT take them to fight Shiro.
Besides... I like controlling PuGs occasionally.... when I can actually gather them in the first place.



... Oh who am I kidding?
I'm a lazy bastard.
If I can't gather a PuG then I'll pretend to take the items.... in spirit....

Okay lol, be a roleplayer, just note that Shiro cheats ^^

I can cheat too.

*Critical Agility*

Run a normal team.

Kill all the mobs that attack the hero.

Leave 1 monk behind, charge the Fort and kill the three bosses.

Fun mission.

I herohench.
I've had difficulty trying to do THAT in Normal Mode. The very notion of trying to do what you're suggesting in Hard Mode frankly fills me with dread.

Besides... it is kinda fun to port through the wall.... run out into the bug-infested wilderness and have the herohench mysteriously teleport to the edge of compass.... at least in normal. The bugs would slaughter me in HM.

In HM, you either need to leave a monk behind or kill wurms or they'll own the ghost. There is more than enough in between groups to take out the wurms.
You have around 4 minutes after the mobs are killed to do the 3 bosses and their groups, which is quite enough time. Once you have taken one group out you'll have to send a monk back as it spawns another wave. Alternatively you could just leave the 3 bosses alive, clear their groups and just kill all 3 bosses at the same time.

I just don't like missions thats take a long time. namely Abaddon's Mouth, so ZzZz

Exactly how fast would the wurms 0wn the ghost?

I've done mission and bonus separately that way before in NM, and managed to down the bosses for the bonus, only for the ghost to be pwned by a wurm a few moments later. Didn't seem efficient to me.... I've managed just once (can't remember which char) to pwn the fort's enemies, followed by the wurms... THEN the bosses... and only just made it in before the time limit.... all without leaving a monk behind. It is usually too tight for me.



Then again, most times I've been through this mission it was for cartography purposes.... toward which end doing other than porting through the wall is just silly.

*Waves his now complete Legendary Cartographer flag*

Divinity Coast.

It's like learning how to monk for a bunch of lvl 10 whammos overextending and frenzy sigging.

Meh. the only mission the even halfway annoyed me was Jennurs. But I don't do things that half-way annoy me.

Sunjiang is easy. got masters in 6 mins something.

Pretty fast, and you won't have time after all the waves to kill them, you'll have to do them in between the waves. The one at the exit that leads to the generals you don't have to kill, that can't kill the ghost. There's 2 in total you need to kill.

When you get to that segment of the mission, deactivate all of your hero's attack skills just before running in to grab the tomes. After grabbing the first book place it by the alter -- not on it. Run in and retrieve the second tome and then place both books on the alters.

The dmg you take from the ghosts is easily out healed. And you don't run the risk of killing the sunspear ghosts that would void the bonus.