Requesting an easier level of game play...

I am placing this suggestion here at the urging of a GW support agent. I do ask that if you don't agree - then please don't flame me. I'm not asking them to take anything away, simply add something to the game.


I understand that you have HM for those players who like to face the insane challenges head on, but what about those players who find the normal mode to be frustratingly difficult in areas? My husband and I play this game to relax and have fun. We have purchased all of the avalible campaigns for 3 seperate computers, and now we are coming to regret that decision as we spent alot of money on these programs, as you can well imagine. Guild Wars is an amazing game, hands down the best I've seen in graphics and story line in a long time...I just wish my game play time didn't leave me wanting to throw my computer out the window

Yes, people can pay to have "runners" get them through missions, but what fun is that? And it is no better, in my eyes, than using a program hack. The main objective in the game is to complete the story lines, and yes, I understand that the enemies get progressivly harder as time moves on - but not to the point where it takes the fun out of the game.

I understand that you don't want to give the characters the ability to power level to insane levels, but to my understanding this is more due to the PvP aspect and not the guild wars game as a Player v. computer. I wish there was a way for you to seperate the two.

I'm sure you probably get loads of mail from the people who want it made even harder... I'm just asking you to consider an opinion from the other side of the fence.

NM (And HM as well when you know what to do) are pretty easy.

I think the problem you might be having could possibly be inefficient skill bars or lack of proper tactics. This might be due to not having information of enemies etc. to prepare against or counter...

You might also want to consider how it isn't really fun to beat a game if its too easy.

I actually wonder what you experience as hard, because I don't have that much problems with normal mode.

QFT...why was this thread created again?

I didn't ask for any replies about opinions on my game play. I simply put this here as instructed by a GW support agent.

To be fair, NM only seems really easy after having done it a couple of times. I doubt anyone here actually finished THK the first time they ever tried it.

Nonetheless, I don't really think this game needs an easy mode.

Edit:
If you post something on a discussion forum, you can't expect everyone to agree with you. It would be pretty boring if they did tbh.

If you set up your heroes with good builds there's hardly any way you can fail NM. I promise that with more time playing, NM will get easier. A lot of it, honestly, is knowing what kind of mobs you're facing and proper flagging/pulling.

My suggestion is to keep playing, unlock skills, and start to set up your heroes according to the areas you're playing in. If you don't understand the kind of enemies in a certain area to help you set up proper skill bars, I'd suggest using the wiki to find out what's there.

Remember, blind is good. Minions are good, in my opinion minion bombers are better. Broad head arrow + epidemic = easy mode. Hexes are good, again in my opinion, degen hexes can be helpful in certain situations, but are generally not the way to go. Skills like aegis, shield of deflection, defensive anthem, ward against melee/elements, etc. are extremely helpful.

If you'd like some suggestions for good, pretty fail proof hero skill bars, feel free to PM me.

Point taken and I apologize for the gruffness in that post. My concern when the GW agent told me to do this was that - the people who enjoy the game harder would over run my suggestion and say that my request isn't valid. Though the agent assured me that wouldn't be the case, I was still hesitant to post this here as I've seen the way people are treated on GW when they voice their opinion on the difficulty.

Again - I'm not asking them to change normal mode, or hard mode. There are those of us who play to relax and while we enjoy a challenge.... we don't want it to be frustrating.

And just so it has been said - I'm a lvl 20 many times over (meaning I have so many skill points its just insane), The party I play with are also lvl 20 and we all have the ability to use heros - sometimes we do, sometimes we don't. We've had the opportunity to play with many other people who openly admit to finding the game difficult -so please don't think that my opinion expresses something that no one would agree with. I think many of the ones who do agree choose to remain silent because they know they will be ridiculed for stepping forward.

**Explodemyheart - I do thank you for the suggestions, unfortunatly none of the information is new to me. As for the wiki - It is my best friend at times. I use it often.

I'm curious, could you mention some areas you find frustratingly hard?

There are some areas I find annoying and unenjoyable (the entire Realm of Torment!), and some long missions have annoyed me by being loooong and easy but ending with a boss you had to know about and plan specifically for or you're well and truly screwed (Heart of the Shiverpeaks). But they're not really hard, just annoying due to poor design (IMO).

There are however some optional areas which are intended to be hard, and which indeed are frustratingly hard unless you come prepared for the specific threats you'll face, e.g. the Fissure of Woe, the Underworld...

maybe you should just stick to pre? I find that pretty relaxing

I think the best thing to do is post in Campfire asking for build help. Because honestly, if you and your heroes are correctly set up (which they obviously can be, because you've got all three campaigns) then you could just do nothing and let the henchies fight the whole thing in NM. High-end areas in NM can be quite hard, but not if you know what your up against.

Rather than making things easier, Raise your game! (trying to be positive

I don't think you should be having this much trouble in normal mode, or even many hard mode areas. Truthfully, they're not designed to be that hard, and 99% are easily henchable. A few things I'd consider doing is:

-If you're having this much trouble, I would suggest running a team of three monks and other high damage output characters, one of them being a tank that can hold some agro for you. I run three monks, two hero, one prot and one heal, and a healing henchman wherever I H/H, and I've never died in Normal mode with that setup, and only on occasions in hard mode. Fire elementalists are very powerful in PvE, as are minion masters and shut-down mesmers in a place with heavy casters.

-Check for build synergy on your bar and your teams bars. If you're running a setup that doesn't synergize very well you'll probably have a lot more trouble than you should.

-If you're having trouble with the monsters themselves in areas, switch builds to counter exactly what you'll be up against in that area instead of running an all around build, for example, if an area full of meleers is giving you a problem, Riposte and Blind are very good counters. For casters, a shutdown mesmer is very good to have, and only one is normally required to wreak some havoc on caster mobs and make them incredibly easy.

I like how Mazy put it. Instead of making things easier, improve your gameplay.

This is a topic (and a suggestion) near and dear to my heart. I have often felt at points in this game that (1) parts of it were too difficult and (2) there should be an easier mode for players who want to experience content without getting totally stomped.

However, over and over and OVER again I have found that the difficult areas become easier, the impossible areas become possible, and places I once dreaded to set foot in are now -- if not exactly as "easy" for me as for some other players -- at least accessible.

As examples from my own experience...

Temple of the Damned (Eye of the North dungeon). I went through this entire dungeon, finding it challenging but OK, my first time through and then got totally STOMPED by Murakai, the end boss. I mean, it just wasn't pretty. Talk about a "wake-up call." lol. Now, I bring a few interrupts and it's just fine.

Realm of Torment (Nightfall region). This place was the pits for me once, and I still think it's pretty dismal, but it is not nearly so difficult as my first few times there, even on characters at relatively low Lightbringer rank.

Vizunah Square (Factions mission). What a disaster. Every group I was in seemed destined to wipe. But eventually, you get to know what to expect and the whole mission turns into an absolute hoot, in my opinion.

Shards of Orr (Eye of the North "Masters Level" Dungeon). OK, I admit. This one for me is still pretty awful. But every time I go in there it gets easier and easier. That's just part of the challenge of the game.

The fact that I am (seemingly!) lagging behind virtually everyone else in this game and that what's hard for me is "easy" for everybody else doesn't alter the fact that:

"Impossible" --> "Difficult" --> "Just Fine" ... with enough time and experience and experimenting with different builds, Heroes, and skills. That's really what makes the game fun for me.

The game, in other words, already has a built-in "easier mode" for all its levels -- but this mode is only unlockable via time and experience.

If you find nm extremely difficult maybe you should look at finding some new builds, or failing that maybe a different game to play. NM isn't really all that difficult and if you put a good team together you should be fine.

I can certainly feel for you, Scarlet and understand why you feel the way you do. While I haven't necessarily run into major trouble from a personal level, it doesn't take much for me to realize that not everyone plays at higher levels. What one finds easy can be very hard for another. What one find hard can be thought of as easy to another.

To be honest, I wouldn't have much of an objection to having some areas toned down just a tad. I stress "tad". Or given a difficulty option a slight step below normal. I'm not quite sure how it would work, although I'd assume, to counter the additional ease they might remove certain loots such as Golds, or even chests themselves, to prevent the flock of farming. Opposite of what HM did in presenting new loot such as Lockpicks and Tomes. Sure, I'd have no issue with it at all if it could be balanced out properly.

However, in the meantime, I think your situation is perfect for how useful the wiki can be. Yes, I know some people don't like using it. However, don't think of it as a cheat. Afterall, you still have to do the work. It can help in the "Notes" in suggesting certain skills and approaches. Sometimes the small changes make big differences.

If you have used the wiki for tips, but still have trouble, don't hesitate to PM someone here on these forums, who you feel would not put you down, but would certainly gather up some guild members and be eager to assist you and give you some pointers along the way, I'd do so. There are plenty here, I'm sure, who would take some time to with you guys on an adventure and fight by your side.

If the games were easy as pie, you'd get no joy out of them.

Normal Mode is just like a Normal Game - there's easy parts and hard parts. That's how life works, both online and offline.

We don't have to dumb down gameplay (or waste ANet's time making a new difficulty) to meet the needs of people who need help with the game. Instead, they're supposed to learn how to improve.

On a sidenote, if I recall, didn't someone and his wife post a thread about an "Easy Mode" in this forum a few months ago? Is this the same person?

/sighed for easy mode.

many areas are a pain to complete within less than an hour, and even then missions should be 30-45 mins. 1 hour - 2 hours is very hard to do, connection issues, problems with sitting that long, or finding the time to game that long.

some areas of the game are very hard, and if you want to complete them you must use certain builds which really defeats the fun factor in using any skills you want. i would love to use any skills i want, but i must use the skills needed, which is lame.

i think with a lower gold drop and crappier items this could be done, when we wanna farm we can go NM or HM. but if we just wanna kill some really cool monsters or get through missions fast EM(easy mode) would be great.

i would love to play elite missions with reduced drop rates and lower gold amounts that drop just so i can play them. i only use heroes and henchies because i do not play How others want me too. so i do not play with players because they constantly try and dictate what i need to do.

i would also like henchies to be permitted in elite missions. or better yet, 7 heroes.

boss level cap in EM= 20
non boss encounter level cap in EM= 16
Only Bosses can have Elite Skills in EM
Mobs are limited to only 1 healer in EM
would make it alot easier.

reduce the amount of gold that drops
only bosses can drop max dmg items. (including greens)
superior runes do not drop in EM.
Gold Items do not drop in EM.
this way the higher difficulties are still used for farming.

this would allow players to enjoy the storyline and the elites without getting rich.
missions that require faction points or titles should only require half of NM requirement. this way completing tthose missions in NM HM still need the full requirement. no need to grind as long in EM but once you go for missions in NM,HM you still need to grind pts til you reach the current requirement.

also beating EM does not unlock HM.
You can not get Razah in EM.

this removes the advantages of EM over the others. so it will be about enjoying the storyline and missions, not a ez way to make money or short cut missions for special rewards, like razah.include non max rare skins for EM.

Just stop using mending wammos and you're fine.

until your hero forgets to remove bleeding and poison and you die.

^ Truthfully it's more a case of "until your pug monk forgets"...

Heroes rarely forget anything.

I understand where you're coming from, in that there are certain missions, quests and general areas (a few Realm of Torment areas are still on my "blacklist" of general avoidance lol) that are slightly off the scale when it comes to difficulty. However in general I have to disagree with your suggestion of an easy mode option, as the majority of places imho don't really need it and can be completed with relative ease by any player with a moderate level of experience.

Also some other things have to be kept in mind when fiddling around with the difficulty levels. It is all fine and dandy in a single player game, but as guild wars is an MMO you can't just go around and change the difficulty level of a given area without making some people very upset. Silly though it may be, some people will feel horribly undercut after they got all their X number of toons through NF only to discover that there is now an easy mode to beat Gate of Madness, etc etc. People require a sense of general equality. The idea of 'he did the same thing but with a lot less effort' may chafe for some.

Also there's another problem. If you give people the option to do an area in easy mode, some people may take it, some people may just insist on doing it in normal mode. However there will always be some people who take the easiest way out and then complain at the end that 'the game' is too easy. How many times I have heard the comment through local or guild channel that 'this game is too easy' after which silence usually falls when Hard Mode is mentioned.

I'm just trying to be realistic here. For some people I know even Hard Mode is not enough of a challenge, and in the end there will be far more people who want the game to be harder instead of easier, so I fear your cry will probably go unheard. I guess the best thing for you to do is to just accept that there will always be some areas of the game that require more concentration and patience than most and that on occasion you may simply have to accept that a particular mission or area is going to be somewhat less relaxing. In general I do these areas when I feel up to them and only then. When I'm feeling like I just want to relax I play a different character and go do something else, which is one of the reasons, besides my armor-buying-crazy, why I have so many different toons

If you have prophecies, the first 2/3 of normal mode should be fairly easy once you're level 20 (considering most people who did it the first time through weren't even 20 at those points). The last 1/3 is meant to be more challenging, requiring better teamwork and skill selection. Factions and nightfall all have some tricky missions, but for the most part you can cspace your way through all the quests (outside of the domains) with even henchmen. If you're referring to GW:EN being difficult, well, it's an expansion meant for experienced level 20 players. So obviously it is going to be harder than your typical Maguumba jungle experience.

Except how to echo-chain. *shudders* Horrible...

I beat THK the first time I played it. Before Factions was released (ie, no skill power creep). With a PUG. While using non-max armor and weapons.

and you were not even level 20. plus your eyes were closed the whole time.

Hello Holy Man,

Most of prophecies was okay, though we did hit the occasional snafu that was annoying and had to be repeated until we figured the best way to go about it.

We are currently dealing with GW:EN - and as previously stated, yes the party I play with are all level 20. The mission thats doing us in right now is called "Assault on the Stronghold" Looking at this mission at face value, it just doesn't look like it should be as hard as it is.

I can offer a general run down of the characters in our party. Maybe you guys will see something that throws up a red flag.

Human 1 - Ranger / Monk
* Gwen - set as a Mesmer / monk with 1 healing spell and 1 res spell.
* Jora -set as a warrior /monk
Human 2 - (varies, but normally Elementist / Monk ~or~ Elementist/ Necromancer
* Ogden - Monk
Human 3 (me) - Elementist / Monk - heavy fire spells, P. healing & 1 res
*Vekk - Elementist/ Monk - heavy on fire, set up much like me
*Ogden - normally monk / ele with most of his skills being party healers.



***Doh - I goofed on how I put down Human 2 - primary is Ele - he alters his secondary

NM, as a result of power creep, has already become easy mode. I can't imagine how they could make it easier, honestly, unless they just gave you a "kill everything" button. No, wait, that's Ursan Blessing...

Edit: Looking at your party build I see you're paying corpse heavy areas with no MM. Now that's just silly. Bring a paragon, bring some necros, the "holy trinity" is crap. If you want normal mode to be a cake walk, try Sab's three necro build or a UB team build or something. You can basically AFK and still win.

You don't run those all the time do you?

To be successful in GW it's all about changing skills, you should change build almost every new area, just go with the weaknesses of your enemies and defend against there strengths. For instance a fire ele is about as useful as a rubber band against Destroyers. Also, don't give your people who are /monk a healing spell. go rit and use death pact signet it's a faster res.

Have you tried Sabway?

I thank everyone who has taken the time to write something in this thread. It's giving me new ways to look at this.

Okay....I may have to duck from flying objects after I ask this - but as I thought MM was Mesmer/Monk....and you say I don't have one (which Gwen is) - it leads me to believe that I need to ask ....What is MM?

While we have all of the campaigns -we have only installed Propechies and GW:EN as we are trying to play them through one at a time - so the paragon isn't really an option at this point.


Hmm...Fire....not good against deystroyers. *makes note* ...that explains a few things LOL However on the mission we are on - we have not yet gotten to the destroyers - still trying to defeat the doofy Charr

I have this piece of advice to offer: planning ahead of missions and quests helps ALOT to make the difficult easy. Read Guildwiki and find out what to expect in a certain mission or quest, find out what kind of enemies you will be up against, what skills they use and what counter skills better use.
For example: if you go against raptors with an all physical group, you will cry in frustration due to their use of Critical Defences. An SS would chop them to fine pieces though in no time.
A place with many elementalists means you need to take alot of interrupts and so on and so forth.
If you are prepared this will make things MUCH easier.
True, that would take away some of the fun of exploring things on your own, but there are trade offs to be made at every turn.
Good luck.

[Edit] MM= Minion Matser = Necromancer that controls minions which act as damage buffer/damage dealers/running bombs

WAIT! Install them all at once, you need heroes from all over. You don't have to do them in the order you install. you'll get so much more out of this game if you use the resources of all three

....MM.. You're so gonna be flamed by idiots about that. An MM is a minion master. E.g. a Death Magic Necro who uses minions to command a big army. An example might be

[skill]Jagged Bones[/skill][skill]animate Bone Fiend[/skill][skill]Blood of the Master[/skill][skill]Verata's Sacrifice[/skill][skill]Heal Area[/skill][skill]Resurrection Chant[/skill]

that's just an example though.

I really suggest looking up Sabway

when hm came out it turned nm to easy mode

ony had missions are thk (not hard if you know what to do) GoP, GoM, last prph mission, forget the name

Okay - made an alteration to my above post - I goofed on one of the humans.

Can you get an MM out of a Hero?

Mazey - I thought to get Heros you had to do missions/quests in the individual games? If thats not the case - then heck....I'll install them all right now

Is there a good resource to look up enemies, their skill sets and weaknesses? I know Wiki has enemies and skill sets - but nothing on weakness unless you are up against a boss (in most cases)

good bars help making th game easier

you don't have to be an elitist to make good bars, check campfire for some nice tips

and imo skill sets/weakness: Except when doing an HM elite mission, I just take the same bar through all campaigns ..

Guildwars has a steep learning curve. There are tons of skills and counter skills, items and mods that make things better here and there. Little wonder wiki has 18,352 articles.

Heroes arguably make the best minion masters, especially death nova/jagged bones MM. There are 3 necromancer heroes in the game: Olias, Master of Whispers and Livia.
Ritualists can also make decent MM with skills like Boon of Creation and Explosive Growth they can become very deadly. Ask the Stonesummit Summoner if you dont believe me

Another thing I'll toss out for your guys opinions is all the humans have the elite armor from Marhans Grotta - they are all stacked with runes/insignia to fit the character and because of when we got them, they are infused. Before we bought it - we did some light research and AR wise - nothing in GW:EN seemed to be much better. And I'll be totally honest - I love the look of my armor

Yes, Heroes are great for MMing.

You do, but you get a few to start out with, and it means you can equip your heroes properly.

Look at their skills to see weaknesses. That's the trick. If you're doing Sparkfly swamp for example you'll see there's loads of melee. Therefore you want blind, weakness and Ward Against melee. Enemies don't have damage weaknesses per say, aside from the obvious ones, such as ice elementals are weak with fire, and undead are weak against holy

In the Charr homelands it's difficult to be specific, mainly because you face a lot of balance. I'd say counter it with your own balance.
Something like

Ele
Ele (with wards)
Monk (healing)
Monk (prot)
Necro (SS and Enfeeble)
Mes (Interupts)
Necro(MM)
Warrior (Tank)

You do realise you just need one copy of each game and you can install it on multiple machines in one house? If you bought more then one copy of each machine you may have wasted money!

I promise im not intending to flame, so it apears that way I apologise. But Normal mode is extremely easy! If you are having issues playing 90% of the content in normal mode I would suggest rethinking your builds or use some of the many tricks to make your life easier....

But a few tips to make your life easier....

1) Buy the bonus pack from the online store to get max weapons instantly from start.

2) Buy the core skills pack to get all normal skills from the all traders. This means any new pve or pvp character can buy any normal skill from any trader, even in early zones.

3) Since you have factions, take your character to the Canthan capital Kanang (or what ever its called) and get them max 1.5k armor ASP.

4) Buy GWEN (if you havent already), level to 10 and travel there and get 4 maxed out heroes instantly (or very fast atleast) to help you play the game!

But seriously! There are only few areas in GWs that come close to hard and those are the "Realm of torment" and any quests or missions in those areas (including the Domain of Anquish).

You might say Elite zones are hard too, but their not really. This game depends on only a few things to play it and to progess, whether it be NM or HM...

1) A decent build or atleast a familiarity with whats best to use and when.
2) Max gear.
3) A decent selection of skills to use (including some elites).
4) lvl20 heroes.
5) Maybe a good guild if you want to PUG!
6) Knowledge of the quest or mission (obviously from experience).

With those all in place you should be able to flaw 90% of the game easily.

Yes some missions are tougher then others, and some require PUGing more then others, but thats how it should be! If some areas werent tought, while most were easy it would get very tiresome!

I sympathise that you have issues playing. We all did or do when we enter new areas. I found prophercies, factions and cantha all hard when I first played them and GWEN was and still can be a pain to play sometimes.

But you learn the tricks and soon their extremely easy.

I now play mostly in HM because I find NM boring and not hard at all or a challenge. Yet about 2 years ago I found most areas in NM (before HM existed) to be hard and frustrating and I would scream and shout and complain.

Now I just look back at it and laugh at why I found it hard!

It just takes time and patience and dont be in a rush to do stuff. Take your time and takes missions and quests slow and enjoy it. If you rush things and expect things to take one attempt to complete you will be let down.

Some stuff can take 5-10 goes, and once its done you realise how easy it is!

Sorry but we dont need an easy mode! Plus that would require a lot of work for Anet to reduce the level of all creatures to match that and I cant see them doing it.

You do realise you just need one copy of each game and you can install it on multiple machines in one house? If you bought more then one copy of each machine you may have wasted money!

We spoke with many people who were playing the game prior to our purchase - they all said that while you can install it on more than 1 machine, you have to have the individual activation codes to play mulitple accounts.

Yes that is correct