PvE ... a bit too easy?

Ok, sorry long post.

Just getting to the end of Prophecies with a couple of my friends. We're on the last mission. We completed Abbadon's mouth last night. Went in with PuG ... disorganized ... someone aggroed whole map ... my friend got called noob for not going all healing on his monk. Left ... came back with henchies.

We then proceeded through the entire mission ... we don't have the best builds, we're not that good (I don't think). Our Monk is built for half smiting =). We pretty much aced it no problem. I'm not bragging by the way ... it isn't us, I don't think. The mission just wasn't very hard. The final mob ... the titan ... I think died in like 5 secs ... if that.

Now, I'm comparing this to WoW where I remember even the first few instances potentionally being really really hard. Bosses could kill you in like 3 hits. If you made a mistake, even in epic gear, you could die to a miniboss and not be surprised.

In GW, it seems like a group of good players, with good builds, that know what they're doing can pretty much stumble through most of the missions even taking a shot of vodka between groups of mobs. It's just that I go into these missions talking about strategies and what we should do and it doesn't matter as we can get through stuff just by taking ok skills and fumbling through it. Not that there aren't hard missions ... they're just few and far between.

Is hard mode a lot different?

Hard mode is less forgiving of mistakes, but you can wreck pretty much everything in the game with minimal effort with the right setup. You get bosses that can one-shot 6 members of your party at once, but prot spirit+good pull and it does 50 damage total before it dies.

Obvious statement I know, but PvE is only as easy as you make it really.

Hard Mode end game propheicies is much more of a challenge than NM, but if you know your enemies, and put together a decent team... it is relatively simple, yes.

HM is far harder, especially some stuff in the start of the game when you only have 4 party members. Now that you have beaten the game, give it a try. Also keep in mind that Prophecies is the first game. The next 3 games are significantly more challenging, even in normal mode.

I don't know that I would add "significantly" in there for Factions. I thought it was easier than Prophecies. NF, maybe. Some areas of NF can be quite tricky the first time through (dzagonur bastion anyone?).

Anyway, try vanquishing Lornar's Pass and Majesty's Rest. They're far less forgiving of unprepared teams. HM is where it's at though. When it first came out, I was thinking "why would anyone want the game to be harder?". Now, I don't want to have anything to do with nm.

Certain things have become easier because of new mechanics and skills introduced by the other campaigns and more experienced players hanging around.

I still remember how annoyingly difficult Thunderhead Keep was at the very beginning. there was no general team build running back then, as long as you had some monks. Because of the limited (well not limited but you know what i mean) skills available, you would only be awarded if you pulled off some good team work.

Yes, HM is much less forgiving and people will have to learn quick about luring and team builds. There are now gimmick builds that will bulldoze all areas even in HM as well.

Plus there are no more secrets or confusing missions which required the team of players to figure out or find themselves. Everything is now on Wiki.

All Good Gw Players Have A Handy Bottle Of Vodka

Most Of Prophicies Is Stupidly Easy.. Try Starting A Char In Factions The Learning Curve Is Alot Steeper.

And Yes....Hardmode Is... Harder

Markus.

In the update that added hard mode, they also made normal mode easier:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Game_updates/20070419

I think that the jungle in proph is harder than end game lol, especially in HM because your down 2 players.

I think Factions has the hardest missions even in NM some can be a pain (Eternal grove).

once you get to HM you will have to be a lot more careful with aggro and take off the smiting of the monk lol

you will find out later

Prophecies difficulty raise is extremely forgiving. The low experience quests are basically useless thanks to other campaigns. Once you turn on hard mode it's the hardest campaign to vanquish or finish for that matter. The low level enemies you roll past before will put up a good fight.

It's almost vise-versa for factions, nightfall and eye of the north. Yes, hard mode is harder but it's nothing compared to prophecies. With the Titles that boost damage/energy in eye of the north and nightfall makes fighting easier. Factions HM difference is almost not there. You can easily vanquish most factions with just heroes and henchmen.

Instances has nothing to do with GW story lines , they are meant to be a "tutorial" of each continent world . Things changed a lot from 4 years ago ; there were some last missions that you had to do without pve skills , heroes , stupid hench IA ( yes , far worse than now ), no henches flags and ofc , no NF , eotn or Factions skills .

That happens because of things i said before and the fact that those missions are old , any good player with 2+ years ingame can roll easy thru them in NM.

Now try HM .... some places are just the same but with 2-3 more lvl mob and ofc 33% IAS , cast and IMS but some old missions and dungeons .......

storyline missions are meant to be easy. try elite missions like underworld, fissure of woh, etc, and you mite not say the same. or even just wait until u get into eye of the north dungeons.

Now theres a fun idea for a competition... first person to vanq the area wins...gonna have to suggest that to my guild :P


But yeah pretty much at this point even hm isn't hard. It's all pretty much a joke if you have a coordinated team build and a clue about what your comming up against...

Over the years, ArenaNet has altered skills (which affects both player and foes) and the AI (which affects both henchmen, heroes and foes). These changes have tended, in most cases, to make the game easier. They have also nerfed a few bosses in the last two years.

There have been a lot of complaints on guru about making the game too easy.

EDIT: My mistake. I think the difference between NM/HM still stands, though.

HM kind of turns things around a bit; I found that vanquishing and doing missions in the Ring of Fire chain was actually easier than vanquishing the earlier areas, with their lower caps on party members. All those little level 6 and level 8 things you faced in Ascalon will be level 20+, and you'll still be in a party of 4. They'll also still pop up and try to eat your face.

Your experience will probably change depending on skill changes from Anet - any PvE change made will also affect monsters too, which can make things easier or harder to go through depending on how they made the change. The different campaigns also tend to have different levels of difficulty - Prophecies and Cantha are easier for me than Nightfall, and GWEN was scary when it first came out.

Just add some Discord heroes and it'll become even easier. Too bad you can't go afk while ur heroes vanquish the areas/missions...

normal mode = original game
hard mode = brand new mode introduced in 2007

so no... nm isn't any easier than the original, because it is the original

Try Domain of Anguish, hard mode, the Deep or Urgoz then say pve is easy, or try pvp but PLEASE keep the smiting skills far far away from pvp

Well if pugs tend to be pugs, good ones are hard and few to find. Go try hardmode before coming back and saying Nm is easy. Also if you want an added challenge don't bring any pve skills, those made the game way to easy. Even though though discord/spirit/gimmick team builts can roll through an entire area without use of those. So if you want somewhat of a challegen don't bring those either.

PvE is extremely easy if the group has decent builds and basic co-ordination. That's all there is to it, really.

Ah - I'm just checking official wiki here:

"After hard mode was released, normal mode was made slightly easier and later updates made it so that foes would respond more slowly to AoE. "

So yes, they did tone it down.

Admittedly there are also other factors for OP finding it easier, like power creep, but they did tone it down.

All they did was alter the mob AI.
They didn't actually make NM easier.
Quoting the wiki isn't exactly "authority" since the wiki is player maintained.

well technically, enemy ai didn't scatter to aoe in the first place. although, your right in that it did change upon the coming of hard mode (can almost be considered a revert), i don't consider this a "significant" factor in making normal mode easier, as aoe scatter was mostly implemented in the first place as an anti-farming measure.

^

I don't know, I've heard enough screaming about 'fix ROJ' and also about how the dratted fool ele cast Fire Storm and made the boss run off... but that's not for this thread.

Point conceded, my mistake; I will chalk it up to nostalgia and power creep. Even so, I think the rest of my post still stands.

Thanks for the responses all. FYI:

- I have started NF and I consider it to be a little bit harder so far, but doesn't seem significant

- I have tried some elite quests. My friend and I are trying to work our way through Sorrows Furnace. The level of difficulty here is a little more to my taste. We're not really coordinating builds or using gimmick builds so it is fairly hard. We have yet to finish the first quest we tried in there (unspeakable, unthinkable?) . I think we have it figured out now though.

- I do look forward to trying EotN and HM and vanquishing. Seems like those will require some effort.

- I suppose my point was more that I would expect a certain level of difficulty, even in NM from the last 3 missions in the game. I'm not saying that all of PvE is easy ... just that I would think those last 3 missions would be. So far it's not the case.

That may very much be due to power creep, really - stronger and stronger spells and skills coming out in later expansions, making it easier to pwn earlier campaigns. For one thing, you have the stronger skills that came out in those later campaigns, and the bosses won't.

Maybe I'm just a sissy newb but I don't think it's too easy. At this point, I don't even want to know what hard mode is like. (just my two cents)

With Discord necro's everything is easy.
NM , HM and UBERHM :P

GW PvE is a joke. WoW pve as you mentioned is much more complex and personally rewarding.

This said, GW PvP is 94783478 times more rewarding than that of WoW as it isn't based on gear. So if you get bored with pve try that.

You sir are making me LMAO. I'm almost to the point of doing a Roflcopter right here on my floor.

I don't understand that reaction. Maybe it's changed now but it seemed like in WoW PvE when I was playing it (assuming you were the level of the instance) you really really had to know what you were doing and play with some skill/planning or you were screwed. You had to have a somewhat balanced team and execute strats with some skill.

Granted, if you had a group that was decent and knew their role and the entire instance it was pretty easy.

Correct me if I'm wrong but in GW it seems like:

1. You don't need a balanced team really. A group of all warriors (for instance) could easily get through most missions.

2. You don't need to know any particular strat for a given area. You can pretty much stumble in and dps the hell out of everything.

3. You don't need to know a mission all that well to roll through it in one try.

4. You can make mistakes like crazy and still get through missions. An ele can nuke everything in sight and be fine if he gets a couple heals/uses some prot skills.

5. Boss fights are not the tense/difficult/longish affairs they are in WoW. Many end mission bosses die in like 5-8 secs of simple dpsing. Not to mention when you do kill them there is practically no chance at all of them dropping a really really nice item to upgrade your char or get some gold. I have never gotten a single drop from a chest or boss or mob in GW that I was excited about really.

Now, I will say that I'm still having fun and enjoying GW and I do really like the idea of being able to custimize and have different skill combos ... but I really have to say that the PvE aspect is not quite as good as WoW in some ways.

I'm sorry I have played a number of other MMO's and none of them had the versatility GW has. I have to ROFLMAO as well. I Would like to see some unique flashy gear for each of the classes, but versatility? GW ftw.


EDIT: After reading the above post I would have to say as far as Boss battles go you have a point. But GW approches things differently. The Elite areas are meant to be long hard areas like in other games Boss Fights. The down side is that with nothing new in the Elite areas they have become so familiar now some people have come up with gimmick builds that can speed clear them. Thats just the nature of a 5 year old game. I would also prefer well known areas in GW then having to get a 20 person party together to raid....only to have a Leroy Jenkins wipe the party.

PvE is broken, simple as that

I agree that versatility is nice in a way ... but you also lose something there. I remember in WoW one thing that was a gift and a curse was that certain classes are expected to do certain things. If you were a good priest/healer you were very valuable and people would actually need a good healer to do well. In GW this isn't the case. You never really see people saying "oh, we need a tank here or we're in trouble." At least with the content I've played so far you could literally take anyone. It sort of makes every role feel less important when you could replace someone so easily. Again, I can see how there are upsides to it as well ... just a thought.

The other thing for versatility: your character in GW isn't well defined at all. They can go from having 4 healing skills and being good at that, to having all dps skilils and being good at that. It sort of makes all the characters just these amorphous generic blobs that can be anything at any time a the drop of a hat. I can see how people like that ... but it does pretty much take any suspension of belief (IE this character could be a real person) and throw it out the window.

"Semara Tornal is a powerful sorceress that summons evil minions to fight ... wait ... no that was 5 minutes ago now she's a kind life giving healer that protects her allies from ... wait no ... sorry ... now she is a flame tossing nuker ... ah hell"

Given, it is a video game and all ... but that still throws me off a little.

Today's Zquest is the Deep. Not that I'd gauge it to be incredibly difficult, but go there, turn on HM, invite the first 11 people you see, and hit enter. Enjoy.

However, PvE is always going to be easy in basically every current MMO, due to it's static nature. Sure, the first few times you try something difficult you're probably going to wipe, and frequently. But it NEVER CHANGES. So you should know exactly what to expect up until where you failed the previous time. That knowledge is what makes PvE easy. Unless you're playing with idiots who don't learn and continue to make the same mistakes, then areas in PvE will become easier every time you attempt them.

Well... if you do well in a particular role, regardless of class, people are going to appreciate that. It's not that you don't need a particular role, I think, just that different classes can fill that role. Which I personally feel is a good thing - means you don't have to stand around waiting ages for that one last person to turn up. I've been in groups where you needed a particular role, and you could see something like four/five (if not more) groups all hoping for that one last guy to turn up.

Missions are missions there are some that are more challenging then other but by no means are you going to get anywhere with out some sort of backbone (Healers) in a party.

Most areas yes, Most areas in the game have no point but to kill to get from Point A to Point B. But when it comes to the Elite areas of the game, DoA, UW, FoW, taking one wrong quest at the wrong time or just remotely agroing something that you didn't need to can cause an instant fail or a complete party wipe and in theses areas there are no rez shrines once all die the game is over.

Not entirely true. Alot of missions to fully complete them include the bonus objectives and this take a tad bit of thinking to handle them + the mission objectives at the same time.

Again same answer as number 1 with the large number of skills available now due to 3 games + 1 expansion the number of possible combination's you can use are more diversified then before back in the Oldschool GW.

The game was never designed this way, some unique boss mobs have the chance to drop the unique weapon that are set to drop but other than that nothing spectacular. Armor all has the same stats, and weapons of 3 small mods that can be interchanged other than that GW was designed for skill rather than doing the same area over and over for better armor we get to do the same area over and over for better weapon skins.

4-8 players choose a specific set of 8 skills that work with each other and accomplish a common goal that's what the initial mind set of GW was.

But as was said earlier more skills more combination add more things to keep track of and Anet does a horrible job at balancing skills, instead they try to fix a gimmick they created but all they end up doing is creating another one.

GW is a farshot from want it once was, lets hope they learn something from it, if not GW2 will just follow in its footsteps and just be a remake with better graphics.

Now my comment about WoW PvE might of looked one-sighted but WoW's PvE as it stands today is worthless they have dumbed down the hardest instance and everything in the game to make it so the players with the least about of skill possible can complete them to get the high tier gear. Where at one time you could walk into a town wearing high tier gear and be respected and viewed as a superior now those pieces of armor or weapons have no significant value anymore. Blizzard Catered to the QQ Carebears leaving there Hardcore players to ponder the meaning of a challenge. Take a look at some forums and you can find post about how they are ready to move on to a new game. There are alot of people posting on Aionsource.com that they are moving over come September.

Now you should try and solo that mission. See how you go.