Which mission deserves the prize for the worst design?

What you be talking about? I just redid it a few days ago mapping and I didn't even attempt to save the Chosen but I still completed the bonus. It's hardly that hard, it might pose some small problems in HM but even then I breezed through it

I found it much easier to just leave a monk back and blitz the bosses. The only trouble with that tactic is you have to be very careful when aggroing so as not to get a forgotten group + a pack of popup bugs. So long as you're careful with pulling, it goes pretty smooth.

SotiCoto : Herohenching this tactic is something I would never try in Hard Mode, because your defense simply wouldn't stand in a lot of cases (leaving a hero monk back tended to fail horribly, and mitigation is essential with one monk on the push). When I did it, I had 2 heroes and 4 humans. Although with consumables, it's probably easy now.

You may have played that mission a couple of times and never had a problem, and that's fine. I have played that mission many dozen times.

It is possible for both ettin groups adjacent to the 4th Chosen Villager to spawn on top of him because they have a random field of spawning. It is not possible to save him if this happens.

Please don't say "it's hardly that hard" in a discussion about game design.

So it's not broken then if I'm having it easy then?

It is possible for both ettin groups adjacent to the 4th Chosen Villager to spawn on top of him because they have a random field of spawning. It is not posible to save him if this happens.

Actually, to get around this, just flag all your hench/heroes to the area that the chosen is at. They'll run there, and the ettins won't spawn until you get close (or maybe they will spawn, but not attack the chosen until he becomes an ally. Not entirely sure how the game handles spawns). Just hang back till your heroes have time to get there, and then go in and help kill them all. Before flags, it was total luck that I managed to save the chosen after a dozen or so attempts. But I haven't had any problems since the addition.

Honestly, I never discovered U-map flagging until well after I already had Legendary Guardian, but that is a good point.

Maybe they should add an NPC to the outpost of Divinity Coast who instructs you on how to do this.

Again, let me repeat myself

"It is not broken if I've had no problems". If it was broken then (nearly) everyone would be crying blood and murder

i wonder why there are so many people saying modock crevice is hard(the part with the 2 runners)all u got to do is snare the right runner because there is enough time for a player to kill the left runner and kill the right runner before the snare ends,elementalist with 1 deep freeze will do the job ,if not what can i say mesmer with mantra of persistance and imagined burden for 40 sec or more snare,that is more then enough to kill the left runner then finish of the right one.

actually Gyala can be soloed mision+master heroes+hench as for the junundu i agree it does get old realy fast

Dzagnur Bastion is more annoying and complicated than "hard."

Zen Daijun sucks, they put level 8's (provided newbies don't do every single secondary quest to get a high level) in against level 12-14's, and later on you're a level 14-16 in level 20+ mainland. I don't like most of factions.

I did Vizunah alone once, I was a little wary at first but hey, you can't go very wrong when you have like 6 monks (2 heros, 1 hench, Mhenlo, and whatever the foriegn quarter hench side had)

I loved most of Nightfall.

I didn't like the prophecies storyline, and the missions were actually a little bland. They're a lot more fun to plow through them at max level though. I should try them on mode, haven't done that yet.

I think the bonus on ModdoK Crevice is the worst design, not because its tricky, but because Dunkoro is some sort of uber-wuss.

Don't go up that passage its spooky.
Hide behind the waterfall so the big bad kournans don't get you.
Hide again.
Oh, kill these guys before they bring their mates.

All I can say is that I am not scared of Kournans. Bring em on, Bring em all on.

And Dunkoro calls himself a "hero".

This is Sparta!

I liked the timed missions in factions. Encourages you to be more efficient at the task at hand. The bonus objectives in nightfall just seem out of place and not consistant with the storyline, and most of the time it made it very easy to get masters, providing you dont mind wasting time on something completely irrelevant to the mission.

Worst designs... Gyala Hatchery, oh, i had nightmares about it untill i finally managed to complete it.

And Gate of Madness. The problem with it is that it was very long, you waste nearly an hour of careful play only to be super-pwnt by shiro, who is much tougher to beat here than in factions.

Just because you've had no problems doesn't mean that a random bug that only occurs every so often doesn't exist.

That's like saying "I've never seen a penguin, therefore they must not exist."

Learn to think logically please.

Worst ones: Unwaking Waters + Vizunah Square

i hate those 16 ppl missions, you have no real control of what's going on in there. Plus, Unwaking Waters is very fun for melee chars -.-'

When it comes to design, i'd point very long missions, even easier ones
ie: Surmia, THK .. those are boring and way too long but at least you can hench the way thru easily unlike the other 2 above

I'm not sure whether to pick Gyala Hatchery, because the exploit is so obvious and makes the mission so easy, or Sunjiang District, because after running around doing errands for the Luxons and Kurzicks, their great ancestral heroes aren't even necessary to get Masters.

Most of the quibbles I have with Factions are just storyline-related though. By the time you get to Imperial Sanctum, Archemorus and Saint Viktor are useless, the Kurzicks and Luxons are providing nothing but henchmen, and Kuunavang (who you never heard about, ever, until Unwaking Waters itself) provides some useful skills but Spoil Victor and Spiteful Spirit are considerably more useful.

But then, if you got off the boat, headed to Raisu Palace and waited a couple months, it'd be a very short game.

Eternal Grove - I've done this with henchmen before. Not in hard mode, but in normal it was just a bit of a challenge, certainly not impossible.

the timed mission bonuses in factions are horrible. Never do that again anet!

Am I allowed to say all of them are badly designed?

I've seen that glitch happen off and on (Divinity Coast).

I agree with Spazzer to get the bonus on Devinitiy Coast is not that great as well as Thirsty Rivers bonus

I honestly don't get the problem with timed missions, just do em faster. As for Divinity Coast I've done it several times and never seen that bug happen.

Put my vote on Unwaking Waters. Its just so stupid that melee characters are useless and henchies/heroes get OMFGPIZZOWNED by Kuunie.

Also, as was stated earlier, Abbadon's Mouth bonus is stupid, and as a result one of the most pointless hours of my life. We pretty much cleared the map, and then someone in my party said "hey, lets do the bonus!" bad idea.. we go through the entire thing, only to have the ghost get schlapped in two hits by a wurm that we had forgotten. Gee gee there

/rage

I never said that, I said that because I have not experience it then it is not broken

And what I mean by that is broken would mean that you could never get the bonus but because some people evidently can (those with the Protector and Guardian titles to start with). The correct term is that you're unlucky

"Put my vote on Unwaking Waters. Its just so stupid that melee characters are useless"

That's kind of like the necs who played MMs all the way through Proph, only to get to the last mission and discover an almost complete lack of fleshies.

Fail @ levelling?

I'm usually level 17 by the time I get to Zen Daijun, and level 19 when I reach the Marketplace.
If the nubs don't do the early quests then of course they're going to run into trouble later on. It is their own damned fault. If they can't manage the Captured Son quest then they're going to have hell trying to get through Zen Daijun and the follow-up Attribute quest.
And basically.... anyone who isn't level 20 by the time they get to Vizunah Square is not going to get a shred of sympathy from me for their laziness.
There are only two quests on Shing Jea I would justify NOT doing at first given oppurtunity: The one with the fighting Yeti and Sensali (because trying to get it right is a royal pain in the arse)... and the Siege of Tsumei Village (because it can be farmed for dyes in normal mode, and with great difficulty farmed in Hard Mode too for Shing Jea rares).


I've done Vizunah Square with all characters.... and only a pittance of times have I bothered with other people. I've completed it twice when I got a group on the Foreign quarter side that ragequit... and one of those times they ragequit when Mhenlo was still up there fighting (and I had to run up to save his dumb arse when I saw the bloody Koreans vanishing). With a couple of Minion Masters the mission is a total walkover.... or with one Minion Master and a Minion Bomber (which is a viable option if one gets the Rit hero from EotN first)...


I agree... Prophecies is drab... and the Crystal Desert / Dragon's Lair usually is enough to put me off getting most of my characters to the Shiverpeaks.

Nothing however quite compares to going into the first Prophecies mission at max level and obliterating the entire Charr army (with the Unreal Tournament sounds active)! Aurora Glade is rather fun with a running build too. It is so hilarious to completely and utterly out-run the White Mantle despite their best efforts while flagging the heroes around to wipe out their forces.
But yes... what really puts me off is the Crystal Desert and Dragon's Lair....


Heh.... Pick better herohench then (Searing Flame spam, Bone Fiends & Interrupts FTW). I've never once lost at that mission, and every single time I've herohenched it.... AND my main char is melee (assassin). If you can't take on Kuuny herself then fight the afflicted hoardes instead and leave the dragon to the AI folk.


Some folks are smart enough to clear the area thoroughly first. Impatience and Abaddon's Mouth are not close chums. I agree it is painfully slow though... especially while trying to get the ghost through the complex. It speeds up a bit once she gets outside....

Yep, Moddocks Crevice. Stupid hints, still not got masters on it.
Vizunah is annoying when the other team is made entirely of brainless zombies who allow Togo to die before you get there.

Gate of Madness wasnt too hard the last time i did it. Just careful pulling at the titan rifts. Then a good cripshot or sintank to deal with Mr Shiro whilst the rest of the team deal with the, frankly pitiful, guards at each of the god shrines.

Imo the mission that deserves the prize for worst design has to be Vizunah Square. Relying on another team to beat/get masters on this mission is irritating. Mainly because half the time its filled with people who either afk/are just plain bad, or let the npc die on purpose by leaving just to annoy others. The other 50% of the time you get all npcs and depending on your build, might get masters.

Moddok is fun, I liked actually having to think what builds to bring.

I'm not sure how Arborstone got votes, considering that the effects of the Cathedral Collapse are almost negligible when you look at how weak the mobs groups are when you have an extra healer NPC and the the urn.

Personally I really disliked vizunah and unwaking. The missions weren't so bad, but the fact that you were pretty much forced to sync to beat it/get masters ruined it for me.

Vizunah gets my vote.
Mostly because it used to have many serious bugs that made completing it impossible if they occured.
I don't know if those bugs are still present.

Ahh yes, cannot forget the multiple bugs Vizunah had/has either. Here you can see there was at least 8 bugs in Vizunah Square, and it's pretty sad if they're still around.

Meh not to mention [wiki]glyph of concentration[/wiki], on an SS necro that's pretty awesome in there.

Well I guess the one with the stupid mime is such a test of recognition and typing skills. It is just another example of a badly designed mission. 5 mimes may have been fun, but as it is it is not fun.

Don't let them fool you, clowns, mimes and Big Bird aren't funny, they are bad for your head, ignore them and kill them when you can get away with it .

Oye! I guess the bugs are still there.
I think we have a winner.

I just rolled through it with 2 humans, 3 heroes, 3 hench, full other hench team. Didn't notice any bugs :s

Ego much?

It is possible for both ettin groups adjacent to the 4th Chosen Villager to spawn on top of him because they have a random field of spawning. It is not possible to save him if this happens. Seconded. I actually had to bring Gale on my monk to pass that mission in hard mode, which made for some interesting healing when we agroed the insects on the west side. It was fun to juggle that runner.Occasionally, I've had to go back for Mhenlo or Togo when they decide to stop and not move. Fortunately, they seem to want to get back to running if we talk to them. Unfortunately, running back can potentially cost you Masters.That concentration chant is pretty great, too.I think the NPC groups on the other side are buffed in Hard Mode, because these missions were very easy there.

There's quite a few nasty bugs that pop up randomly, and nothing you can do about them.

However, even on hard mode the mission is easy enough to H & H without too much trouble.

the most difficult misions for me to master in normal mode were Eternal Grove and Gayla Hatchery. I simply couldnt solo it with hero/hench. I had to bring in my partner to do both. It was still a close thign too. Keeping all that stuff alive in order to maset simply sucks. I dread to think how i will achieve them in HArd Mode.

Come to think of it i dont much like the idea of any of the Cantha missions in Hard mode and mastering them