How sad of a state the PvE is in Guild Wars...

My guildie friend and I decided to do Hell's Precipice because we needed to do it (I was monk, he was tank), so we got a pug group to do it. We start off fine, clear the first couple of groups... then our other monk dies and decides to leave. The rest of the group decided to continue, because I was sure I could heal them all. Right after this, we get to the warrior boss, kill him, then one of the warriors decides to leave. We now have 6 people, but we decided to continue on. Then right after the warrior boss we get to the Necro boss, kill him, the necros cap, then one of them leaves (we was N/W and he was trying to tank @_@). Now we are down to 5 people, two tanks, and ele (who went afk after this, she only needed bonus for the protector titleh so she leeched it off us), and an SS necro. The one tank tells us it is now impossible, and soon after says he has to "go." So now we are really down to a tank a monk and an SS necro. We decide to carry on, despite the odds. We slowly kill away the groups at the portals, go get the bonus, do the bonus, then kill the portal wraiths. At this point I am suprised how well we are doing, no one is dying at all. We get to Rurik and somehow only manage to pull his group and kill them off slowly with my guildie tanking and using eviscerate and executioners axe, the SS using SS and spinal shivers, and me healing them both. Now comes to the part where we get to fight the Lich. It has been a while since I did this mission, so I couldn't remember how hard he was exactly. I figured him to take little damage, do lots of damage, and take a long time to kill. Instead, he takes a crap load of damage, does very little damage, and dies quickly. We beat it with 3 people for most of the mission. This made me think, "How sad is the PvE if the last mission in the game can be beaten with a random pug of 3 people?" The Lich reminded me of Shiro, except Shiro dies even faster. A good group can kill him in like 30 seconds. Seriously, these are the bosses of both games, and both are this easy to kill? I honestly think they need a buff, along with PvE in general. PvE only becomes a little bit challenging at Thunderhead Keep and afterward. Every mission before then is easily henched. IMO the only decent PvE in the game is The Deep or Urgoz Warren, and it seems that groups are getting much more efficient at those too. I know the game is mostly about PvP, but they could at least spice up the PvE a little bit to make it interesting. I enjoy a challenge more than I enjoy slaughtering easy monsters all the time, and I know more people feel the same.

Just thought I'd share this... I do have screenshots for proof if anyone doesn't believe, but I doubt this is even that amazing...

Shiro was a joke. For a master of disaster, he sure died easily. Agreed.

~prime

many complain about it being too hard, many complain about it being to easy. Bottom line is the real difficulty comes from pvp, the pve stuff is good the way it is considering how many bad pug's there are out there. I've been on both sides of the coin and it's night and day. There will be rare days where you can get a pug w/ts or vent, then it's just easy as pie. Besides i'm sure most people do not want to repeat the same dam mission 1000x and you are only a fraction of the equations so while you may be good........ well, e nough said

There is one more thing i'd like to add, i agree whole-heartedly about the leavers! That selfish crap is more annoying than anything I can think of and it happens at the worst possible times. Look it's simple, if you can't dedicate a few hours to do a serious quest, PLEASE, spare the team the aggravation. No one like being left high and dry! Besides, one day it will happen to YOU on a mission you really care about completing, so just don't do it!

Yes, but don't you think it would be true that people would adapt to the PvE if it became more difficult? Seriously, people would adapt to the environment if the PvE became more difficult, even if it required them to actually LOOK at skills and see what goes well together. I mean, this is the last mission, and obviously it could be done with henchies very easily. I believe that is pathetic.

BTW most of the leavers just joined to cap, which is just as lame... I mean go find a cap group or go with hench...

yeah about shiro...i simply can't understand why they would make the final boss so ridiculously easy

I wenty through Factions pretty fast, but eventually realized why. I'm a fairly hardcore player it seems and the game (according to Jeff Strain recent and ANet's earlier statements) is catered towards casual (a few hours here and a few hours there) players who may not develop the skill we have. The funny thing is that I originally bought the game because the media said it was a casual game that you can pick up and put down when you want. Of course my addictive personality got the best of me lol.

I think the PvE is geared towards that and will be moreso in the future. There's nothing really casual about PvP though. They did throw in a few hoops for us hardcore players like Urgoz, Furnace, FoW, UW, and The Deep. Keeping that in mind helps to understand why some of the rest of it is so short and easy for us :-)

You were around when they made the AI move out of AoE radius weren't you? You don't remember the 3000 page long petitions to put it back how it was, and how many people said they were leaving because of it? I'm all for making PvE difficult, but alot of players can't and won't adapt to change.

the only thing the AoE radius thing did was nerf elementalists. honestly, if they're going to make monsters flee, then the least they should have done was lowered the cost, recharge time, and casting of AoE spells, all of which are ridiculous

You want more of a challenge in PvE? Do Shiro with out the celestial skill given to you, still to easy solo it. You can go into an area, quest missions just take four people there ya go instant difficulty.

i agree most pve missions are easy but i think its fine. alot of ppl are henchy-ing 95% of missions and its up to them to decide how they want to play, right? u want some difficulty? do some monking for FOW pug... 2nd monk'll be 55-monk and will leave after the 1st death cos nobody got rezsig of cos, then u'll get ur difficulty and its fun to go urgoz with pug.... i dunno - cap all elites in factions with only henchy....

Shiro falls to cookie cutter rama, but he can hurt a balanced build. Also I think Raisu was the last mission, that mission is pretty hard. Oh and umm DOWN WITH STUPID LEAVERS!

That is actually easy. You can take no energy management in an 8 man FoW team and be the only monk, and still keep everyone alive. Unless your team does something really stupid like frenzy heal sig wammo who aggroes all.

You shouldn't think of the challenges in PvE coming from the enemies. They come from the players, just like PvP.

(in case it wasn't implied enough, I'm saying the noobs and leavers are what makes PvE hard)

Umm the reason for the anti-aoe nerf petition was it slowed down our farming. Hurt someones pcoketbook and they will bitch like hell.

wouldn't want the farmers to be unhappy...

I thought you were complaining for the fact of multiple leavers, untill you said you beat Hell's with 3 people! Good Job! How long did you need to figure out PvE is waaay to easy? ( That's why I always keep my presearing/shing jea armour to at least get some respectful challenge )

Guild Wars has been out for over a year. Do you think The Lich was that easy the first month GW was out?

There are lots, and I do mean lots, of people who feel PvE is much too hard. These are casual players who only get to play once in awhile. Based on some of the information you gave, I think it's a fair assumption to say that you are an experienced PvE player. You need to realize that acheiving a perfect balance that pleases everyone is impossible. Personally, I think Anet has done a respectable job with the difficulty of PvE.

Yes I was, and it seems to me that casters have adapted fine... i.e. only new players now bring fire storm, but this skill has its use at some places

Obviously not, because we 3 manned the last mission easily

Thx, and about a week into the game over a year ago =)

Respectable? With pugs you generally get 3-4 people who know what they are doing, and the rest who don't, yet PvE is so simple that it doesn't matter.

Actually, yes he was....Bringer Of Flames ftw, Tom

Nice Guild btw

I consider myself to be an experienced player, having finished prophecies 4 times with Protector title, and currently playing Factions. It's true that with a good team, like your own guildies, you can beat PvE missions fairly easy, but I still think some missions are pretty challenging. I can only finish those with a good (guildie) team. Playing it with strangers often results in above mentioned frustration / quitters. Playing with henchmen sucks in the South Shivers and Fire Isles. Believe me, I've tried. Apparently some people are so incredibly good at controlling the henchies, that Hell's is "easy". Ah well, I think it's fine the way it is. Tough enough. It's bad enough that I have to wait untill there's enough guildmates or friends online willing to help with tough missions to finally finish them, because I'm unable to do it with henchmen and get frustrated by quitters / noobs.

it is pretty sad when it hard yo play my favrite class in some aera, because your toon doesnot fit the cookie cutter builds out there!

To me, PvE in GW is bit too easy to give a proper challenge & I'm hoping there would come some great challenges in future chapters.

if you find it too easy why not just cut your group size down? More loot for you.

There are ways you can handicap yourself to create more of a challange, while if the game was too hard it becomes more difficult to let the 'average' player through.

Also you have to remmeber that a lot of people will not know what to expect during a mission. While if you know what to expect you can take a more effective build.

This game is way to difficult for me and this topic makes me sad.

Most off the players i encounter on these forums are experienced in both PvE and PvP. Thats why you gewt loads of these topics about it is to easy. But also consider the huge complaint trhead about the mini-missions of the Dragon Festival. Suddenly players got something new and needed to addept. That is the whole point. After you have addepted to the challanges in PvE it becomes easier(to even to easy to bother). The more experienced player will addept in no time because he knows his own character well and the skills he needs to use to tackle problems.

Yes this game was origenaly made for the average player, but as we all know the game is somehow addictive . For that this games scores good on the charts and gives enough challenge as it is. The more experienced player will seek out other challanges like making solo builds, making special builds to tackle missions/area's with a smaller group(to the extend of making it a service to earn some cash from the lazy or stuck player), running and so on.

In Pve the challange is made by yourself and the people arround you. This is what makes the game so much fun to play.

Most of the posters in the fansite forums are experienced players and hopefully Anet discounts their requests to make the overall game "harder". If the OP finds missions/quests too easy, that's fine, do them solo with a crappy build if you need more of a challenge. Then again, maybe you've "beat" this game and it's time to move on to something different.

Seems like Anet has done a decent job of providing challenges for the experienced PvE player with special areas like FOW, UW, The Tombs, etc. IMO the overall quests/missions are sufficiently difficult as they are now.

Smiters anyone?

Trappers?

Clearly, it takes true intellect to realize that playing with bad players means that you won't do well.

You can 3-man anything if you try hard enough. We've done it with FoW.

If you find it too easy i have some tips for you(ie. self handicap):
1. use a smaller group
2. use weaker armour(ie. starter armour)
3. use less of your skill bar (ie. only use 4 out of the 8 your have)
4. use weaker weapons (ie. starter weapons)
5. don't use all your attribiute poitns (only assign 100 out of the 200)

can't think of anymore right now might post some more. But it is easy to make the game harder just by handicapping yourself. Look at many RPGs out there that put challeges out for hardcore players (ie FF7, solo no material etc...).

Now do all the above and still say the game is too easy

I'll give 100k to the first person who can complete Prophecies naked and solo.

I'll get 7 guildies and we'll split the 100K
Anyway, it is against my principe to play nekkid. That is more for the average 12 years old.

Exactly.... the real challenge in PvE comes from ragequiters, leechers, noobs (I won't call them that in-game as I know we all are noobs at some point, but it's still something you have to deal with), and the total and utter lack of control over the mentally challenged henchmen.

For example, a couple weeks ago I was trying to do the Nolani mission with my newly created necro... I've never had serious problems with the mission (the bonus is another story lol), but this time people just could not seem to follow along with the group..... rushing forward to open the gate from inside and insta-die/get Rurik killed, not bringing res (I don't understand why people don't bring it on missions... it's a must!), or getting everyone killed and then leaving the game 30 seconds from a cutscene, where we would've been auto-res'd and able to continue the mission without him.

Until these things get fixed, and I'm not holding my breath, I think PvE is plenty difficult as it is.

I disagree with this point but manly because i have my own deffinite of n00bs

i beileve we where all newbies(newbs) at one point but only some become n00bs

heres my deffinitions

newbie - someone who is new to the game and is not used to the working of it but is willing ot learn from there mistakes, and therefore becoming a better player

n00b - somone who is unwilling to learn and still does the same annoying crap that gets the whole team killed, like lvl20's aggroing everything, my god you got to lvl 20 you should know that that doesnt work.

/rant over

lol

LOL

Fair enough... I didn't think to distinguish between the two.

I agree, so I still wonder why we are locked out of most of this content.

OT of the PvE leavers and such, this is why we need improved henchies. This will become more and more common with more chapters released as the population spreads out even more. Thus making the older missions more and more difficult and void of people.

I've tried for a week now to get a PuG (which I hate doing) just to kill Glint for the title on another of my characters. Ten tries now and each time the group has made it to Glint we have about 3 to 4 people left... even after requesting people that are there for the bonus an no caps, join. Most of the guildies I group with have taken to other games because of this and due to the fact that Factions just didn't keep their attention... so we need better henchies.

That is one of my major concerns for the future of GW PvE... it is much easier to handicap one's self (as mentioned earlier) if you find it too easy, than it is to buff yourself/a team of ignorant hench if you find yourself in an abandoned outpost because everyone is off playing the new chapter.

What you fail completely to grasp is that the last mission of both games isn't exactly the hardest of them. Who cares if you can finish the last mission solo, if it isn't the hardest one (and if it isn't even a hard one)?

You, like many people, "obviously" lack the concept of sample. One mission is not enough to claim that an entire game is hard or not. A single episode (you beating it with 3 people) isn't enough to qualify how hard a mission is or isn't.

If your point is, "the Lich is too easy to kill", I would agree with you - that's what you saw (and that has been mentioned for a long time now). If your point is "the Lich is easy so the entire PvE is too easy"...Well...Think again.

(Shiro is hard to kill, by the way, unless you have a Warrior in your group - his is the only Celestial Skill that makes it easier. Try to kill him without a Warrior and you'll see what happens - or even better, hench him as something that is not a Warrior and you'll see.)

Erasculio

In response to the OP, this game is largely designed to be able to be completed with less than a full party in many cases because people do lag out or have to leave mid-mission for whatever reason. Yes, you can complete all the missions relatively easy, but if you need a challenge, get a masters on everything. This is why they have this new system. It is designed so that people new to the game can still progress instead of banging their heads against a wall just because they don't have tons of experience with all the skills and how to use them. However it also leaves the possibility for veteran players to reach for a higher goal. This is also why there are Elite missions like Deep and Urgoz.

I personally would not want A-net to alienate new players or veterans, but pleasing both is never easy, nor is it ever perfect. If the new players don't like the game, it won't sell and A-net won't be able to continue to invest in it. If the veteran players stop playing, no one will stick with the game and further expansions won't be desired as much, thus leaving A-net being unable to continue to invest in it. The balance is what makes this game work.