PvE needs to be harder! (Long post)

Here's my problem: Most of the missions are a breeze as long as your group knows the basics of pulling and staying back and not enough missions require careful planning of a group.

The only mission I still consider 'fun' is Thunderhead because of the end since its a little different from your standard mission. I even light the beacons just to make things a little more interesting for my group. I think I never had that much fun fighting off massive wave of giants and issuing commands quickly while under fire. I think I've beaten this mission 6/6 times in the past week to help guildies and other friends. It's a blast, and I want to see more 'seige missions.'

Unfortunately, after we fight off the initial wave, the mission just tapers off. One or two mobs just trickle in at a time and they're easily destroyed.

Alternative ways to beat a mission would be fun too. I got a group of rangers and warriors for Riverside, brought Alesia 'just for kicks' and we just ran through the entire mission. We would alternate dropping the scepter to throw off the mobs and that's fun too!

Here's my little suggestion:
1) Instead of mobs just running around and just casting random spells... I'd like to see mobs actually have certain strategies or 'builds.'

For example in FoW, there are mobs that cast lightning spells...
What I would like to see is mobs being silent for a couple seconds, and suddenly spiking a target (just like a regular air spike team.) We could always dumb down these mobs and have them wand the target so the prot monk on the team will know who to drop the prot spirit on... this would give a future PvPer prot monk some practice.

The only 'real' combo I saw from monsters was outside of Ventari's refuge, with mobs casting weaken and the thorn stalkers using stoning to knock down everyone. One of the uniques running around there used to have virulence, making things quite interesting and challenging.

2) Allow party members to see a person's skillset so we can comment and suggest changes. It's quite annoying when that supposed 'disrupting ranger' you asked for brought power shot, pin down, troll unguent over distracting shot since 'he wants to do more damage.'

3) Mobs that require disruption to beat.
Heal/tank/nuke still works too well unfortunately. The only mob I can think of that requires a tiny bit of disruption is Glint. There was some quest in Ironhorse Mines a long time ago with some juggernaught that required disruption.. but he got nerfed so bad you can just punch him to death. :\


Things like that could spice up PvE a little so a bigger focus on skills and team synergy in a group is required.

I'm just hoping future zones won't be a trudgefest of pull/kill/heal/ rinse repeat sort of deal.

Trying doing some UW/FoW, then tell me if its too easy.

Read my post. I typed something up about FoW. Those lightning mobs are so unsynched they're too easy to out heal and prot.

Fow:
Pull the shadow guys, nuke them. Done. Move to next group. Repeat.

Forgemaster quest - umm easier than Thunderhead?

In UW: Same process. There's just fewer mobs.

I agree. Fow and UW, the two "highest level" zones in the game, are basically a test of how well you can pull things without pulling other things. The skillsets of the monsters are disorganized at best, and they have little to no coordination. It's not hard to pull, and it's even easier to kill things after you have killed 23947293467924376 of them already anwyay. The level of difficulty in this game, on a scale of 1 to chess, rates about a 2.

Also, by the way, UW is not difficult. It's possible to run around and kill things there with less than 4 people. Don't talk about what you don't understand

Well, if you have a good circle of friends who are vets and beaten the game X times i can understand.

But, making the new areas more challenging for experienced players might become too hard in the end for some less experienced/causal players.

Just my two cents.

I'm a casual gamer and I find this game waaay to easy. It's one thing to be friendly to casual gamers (good) but it's another thing to make the ENTIRE game a cakewalk.

Hell, every single Mario game to date is tougher than this.

The first couple missions in Ascalon used to be much harder in beta... Anyone remember Rurik running like crazy and almost never giving you time to heal up? Now it seems like he was injected with Ritalin and he doesn't move around as much.

It's been so long, but there was also a snow mission that was taken out? It might actually have been Borlis Pass... or the difficulty was reduced so much that I can't recognize it anymore.

I guess it's a good idea they made the beginning missions easier to allow casual players to adjust, but this has gone too far.

Another suggestion is to add an OPTION for more in-game hints on how to complete a mission while in game. I see traces of it, especially at the end of the 1st mission that tells all players only one person has to make it to the end.

Without enough different challenges, 'casual' players won't improve. One of the issues I brought up is the heal/tank/nuke strategy, one step at a time, SHOULD NOT determine the 'difficulty' of a map. It just takes time. Killing one group of enemies pretty much guarantees you will be able to kill the next 100 similar groups provided you don't leave because of boredom.

An example of that is Snake's dance. Easy, but long and tiring to trudge through since all the mobs do pretty much the same thing. Although its an EA, I wish the mobs would do something else other than roll over dead after awhile.

What if the trolls decided to body block your group and let the ice golems start the ice spikes going? That would be pretty interesting to figure out a way to escape.



Again, I'd like to see mobs use some decent strategies, or different mission objectives instead of slaughtering one group at a time.

Ok guys... before you call this game easy... try going back and soloing them. You'll get through a bunch of the first ones that way... but eventually you'll get owned.

Sure you can say the missions are easy when you have all 6 professions in some form at your disposal and a good team weilding them, of course they will seem easy. Get yourself into an imbalanced team or with a bunch of people who don't seem to wield thier powers very well and it can go south very quickly.

I also liked Thunderhead. The race at the end of the first mission is fun, why aren't there other timed missions? Aurora Glade is interesting, the race against the npc who runs around putting crystals is intriguing, but the AI is so poor that all 3 times I've done it (all of my chars have finished all missions, and 2 have over 800k xp), the computer never placed more than 1 crystal.

An interesting thing to implement would be to have a mission timer: complete the mission in 30 minutes, or you fail. Forces you to be smart AND fast. Now both 1-mob-at-a-time-slowplay and Leeroying will get everyone killed. Of course the time limit needs to be tight enough to be relevant, but this is just an idea to make missions more difficult.

You have to take in account of new players. (not that I am one)

Yes, the first missions should be easy, no question. We (including myself) were all noobs at one time. But 20 missions later, you shouldn't still be a noob. FOW and UW should not be the cakewalks that they are. Basically, I'm just asking for "advanced" zones to not be as totally brainless as they are.

Then how come players a complaining about the grind to aquire skills to unlock.This game is not true mmorpg.The thing is we are all noobs untill thr 3rd or 4th chapters come out as this is not a classic RPG type of game and I don't like staying up till 2 ro 3 am in morning on weeknight getting my rear kicked in desert.

ok well someone mentioned Rurik so I'll expand a little on that. I solo through Ruins of Surmia for drops every now and then, only "taking" the prince along for the ride. He's wonderful at rushing ahead drawing mobs of Charr or Devouer after him while I'm out of energy and just trying to keep up. Its tough and exciting. I'll wipe out all the charr at the end before dropping the bridge for him though cause he just runs for the end. And people hate a runner. Well the prince is a RUNNER!!!! Anyway... since I use hench mostly due to lack of quality groups to end up in when I just want to explore or get items to sell... the game is plenty hard as it is. I'm loving it and don't really want to see things get to much harder.

We're starting to move off topic, but I would like to see this game require more strategy, instead of just heal/tank/nuke/yawn. Since you can just heal/tank/nuke pretty much all the way, the game becomes too easy.

Grinding for skill points is a different issue, please don't troll in here. We're talking about general PvE missions and tactics.

Another point I really want to talk about is disruption. In PvE, it's so pointless.. since there's almost nothing worth disrupting.

Also, how come all the mobs are single class? There should be some dual classers that attempt to use some synergy among different skills.

I'm hoping the "expansion" is a plethora of harder zones and missions. If not I'm probably gone. I've got to have challenge and by the time I reach level 20 I would expect to be worried about dying. Just about everywhere I go now I solo or just take the 2 healers and just pummel everything, even when there are large groups gathered together. I make the almost perfect pulls an if I overpull I'm smart enough to "sprint" away and watch half of them go back while the group I wanted in the first place comes gayfully on towards me.

I did a complete "walk" from Druids Overlook in a huge westerly circle to Quarrel Falls, then down to Ventari's Refuge and then back southeast again to Maguuma and didn't die once and slaughtered everything in those zones. Where's all the hard zones?? I was shocked to see how easy it was in the way out west. I find the most fun and challenge outside of Droknar's and also the Sorrow Caves Quest and Lornars pass, now those suckers are challenging with just henchies. But, it's only a handful. After players reach 20 there should be just as huge of a world of challenge as the regular world and I know it will take time and hopefully the remaining expansions will always improve the game and challenge for level 20 characters.

I wish there were a way to make the game challenging with a henchie group as well as a player group. Henchies aren't as smart a players, although many times they are. lol There are way too many zones though that are soloable without anyone or any henchies. Even those that are suppose to be high level zones. Not talking about those newbieish level 10 to 15 zones. But, really I guess if I want more challenge I could play with HUMANS more, they make a lot of mistakes and biatch and gripe and complain, I think that's why I play with henchies most often. lol

Since this game is instanced though looks like they could do it like Diablo/2 where after you beat (lets say ascend and are level 20) everything gets harder the 2nd time around and when you ascend again it gets even harder, just like Diablo did when you killed him after each time through up to a HELL level of Difficulty, that's what I'd like to see in GW's PVE game. And of course the loot gets phatter and has more stats and looks even kewler than that stuff out of UW. But, I guess casual players would whine cause they'd never get there and all the best loot people would want to buy would come out of these Nightmare and Hell levels of the game.

May I ask have you been to the Crystal Desert yet or the South Shiverpaeks in your first post you haven't mentioned that.That is the tough part of the game especially for a caster who thinks they can down 3 Hydras or StoneElementals forget it.I have tough enough time getting my Monk through and this with real players you need a Warrior to run you to all the spots and no killing.In the SouthernPeaks it is much the same way although the henchies are better oh the Jungle yes it isn't that hard for level 16 or 17 to go through but the desert isn't as wel the south peaks.

ok so the main missions are easy, im sure most casual gamers would breeze through most of them, but they should stay that way for new players.

How about making the bonus missions 2x? as hard, as you dont NEED to do them.

Stone elementals - *cry*
Evil things.

I'd have to agree with borkbork on this whole issue. PvE is very easy. I've only run the game through once, but I never had to try a mission more than once to complete it and now I've finished I'm wondering where the next challenge is going to come from...

Adding Timers to every mission would be a big help IMO, because then spending a lot of time pulling mobs and waiting to regen just wouldn't be practical. It would (as suggested earlier) add urgency to the game and make things more of a challenge. PvE is easy with unlimited time and the limited monster AI, but with a restriction in time even the dumb AI that most things have would be counterbalanced.

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Adding a timer to each mission would cause impatient people to rush even more and ruin the missions even more often than they already do.

I would like to see more missions with time limits....one thing that i would also find more amusing would be monks for the creaures ressing more frequently (i think i have seen it once or twice so i am not sure if they do now). I love alot of aspects of UW and FoW, thunderhead...aroura glade.
Missions within zones so mapping back for a reward is not an option....basically causing you to have to go over the map, and maybe between a few zones, or it resets. One thing i would also like as a personal addition, but I know most people wouldn't want so don't yell at me over this: more puzzles....things that require thought to do or to open. Also things that dont have that little green arrow and make you have to search. or missions that force a group to split up and defend different things.....

Whatever happens, no timelimmits. I hate timelimmits. Sieges with how much time is left is oke, but to make someone rush somewhere is realy anoying, especialy when you want to enjoy the scenery and maybe kill all baddys.

I alse think that you should consider that the game should not get to hardcore, because then it would simpaly not sell. I like a hard game, but then make it hard without timelimmits. Better AI, bigger groups of monsters. Something like that. But once more NO TIMELIMMITS *twitch*

Uh yes... I've gone through the desert and South Shiverpeaks. (I mentioned Thunderhead?) I'm pretty sure the desert used to be harder and you had to watch your step (especially in Prophet's Path) at the very beginning of release. See, that was fun since you had no idea how many jades scarabs would pop up when the ground started trembling.

Now you can just grab henchies and hulksmash your way to whatever outpost and not even have to think twice about it. Including 3 hydras.

On the issue of time limits... Elona had 30 minutes, and it does teach you to keep your cool when the timer's running down. That was also plenty of time to finish the mission.

If future mobs won't just walk around, stand there and let you slaughter them.. It'll be nice to see them fight back in different ways, or actually attempt to run away from us!

in my guild, everybody hated me when i was preaching about aggro managment (as i call it), and got really serious about it. Now everybody knows how to use the AI of the enemy mobs to their advantage, and when i am on TS -just listening- i hear them using the tactics i suggested. and i hear them loving it.
(well i only gathered the ideas and laid out a general strategy, but the training and all the necessary improvements were done by the guild.)

there is a downside: for instance in UW our tactics work so well, people fall asleep. that is no joke.
europe got favour mostly late nights.
And if you just gotta be disciplined and not really fast and creative, because all the work has already been done in the planning phase, PEOPLE REALLY FALL ASLEEP. especially the healers...
i cant even imagine, how boring this must be for hardcore pvp veterans.

do you know what i do against it? i aggro random mobs, and basically do leroy jenkins stuff just to create a more "pvp like" chaos, and get some tension and training back. (and so the circle closes. back to the start, playing like a n00b. they already call me "Rushing Monk")

sometimes i wish we had areas were enemies would be more equal in level and number to us, but play a bit smarter. dont tell me "then play pvp"

maybe i am just sadistic and curious and want to see how well anet could REALLY perform in AI programming.

I remember hitting the desert 2 days after release, and oh man, was that walk to Augury a pain in the you-know-where. You would take two steps, and your 6-man team would get bumrushed by 20 scarabs. I ended up doing a full-out run with 5 other warriors or rangers, with the 5 guys with lowest life running around in circles when we almost go to the teleporter, and the guy with highest life activating it and running the rest of the way. Man, was that a great run. It was HARD, and it was fun. It was soon nerfed to the point of farmability (although they gave the scarabs some enchantment stripping with chillblains now, so they're no longer farmable again, but easily henchable).

Elona also used to be harder, with more mobs spawning after getting the second crystal, and a harder swarm to fight through to get back to the hero. I loved it. It's also been nerfed, but the time limit is still a good idea, although less of an issue now.

Absolutely. I pvp'd during airspike season as a monk almost daily, and man was it a challenge to heal and prot spirit the right guy, because if you were a quarter second late, you had to spend 2 seconds and a res sig. Monking against mobs that don't focus fire and use DOT is just way too slow paced to be a challenge at all.

I absolutely agree. I would love to see challenging AI that it takes more than 5 braincells to beat, without fighting against healball and spirit spam strategies. When Airspike was the FOTM, it was exciting because either you won, or you lost, and it was over in 30 seconds, and the most coordinated teams always won. Now it's just whoever can spam OathShot faster, and it just makes me sad.

What borkbork is advocating, and I wholeheartedly agree, is mobs with more intelligence. Not just more mobs. But mobs who run away, res each other, use skills that compliment each other (earthshaker + aftershock, anyone?), coordinate spike damage, and recruit other groups to help fight would make the game dynamic, interesting, and not just a brainless 3-step process (pull, pound, repeat). I of course have not thought of everything that could be done, but any/all of these would make the game more interesting and challenging for those who are looking for it.

Oh oh oh... I know... have three different "difficulty" levels where you play the same levels, just make all the monsters harder each time. You could call the first one NORMAL. The next one... hmm... NIGHTMARE! Then something like HELL. And add a World Event whereby an UBER RURIK randomly spawns....

Wait a minute... that's been done already? Nevermind.

If there were mission timers just think when the mission is over and you completed it you forgot to capture that skill.There are those of us out there that have other things in life when you are 38+you can't sit there play it like 25 year old.We have other things to do and some a parents.I have only been playing RTS games for the last 2 to 3 years.It may be a cat walk for you but for soem of us it isn't believe me I have seen it.The game is mostly meant for PVP anyway and that is fine everybody is on an even scale not in PVE.It is mostly about gettting through the game to get your skills and to go and play PvP and stick to it.GW is about PVP not PVE.That is why there are ladder guild.If you want challenge go play PVP either in the Arenas or the Halls of Heros.

yes ... underworld is ... (says the smiter)

and fissure ... woe is me ... all my lonely little pve azz has left islil ole woe.

i hear ya ... i htink that they made this game too easy (even fighting hell charr, and uber 1337 rurik of pwnascolonage) for the people just learning the game ... I am sure it cant possibly continue on this easy ... 15 hours what? on a 100+hour game? hmmm ... you know its easy when .... (or better yet, you know your a nerd when ...)

Haha, the Charr? I left Rurik to do his own thing the whole mission. He completed it by himself.

The later missions in the game (River, Thunderkeep) are perhaps the hardest and the most fun to play. The problem with many of the other missions though is just a simple get from point A to point B objective with a slight variances. Take Borlis Pass. Get from Point A to Point B while lighting torches along the way, then do the same thing after a brief intermission of monster fighting. Take Frost Gate, get from point A to point B while destroying catapults along the way so that Rurik can get passed.

Give the low levels something more exciting like a capture the flag event or even king of the hill on some of the early missions.

Maybe a difficulty setting can be implemented, if you are really looking for a challenge, then you can turn the difficulty to hard meaning that monsters get a speed bonus or have more attribute points or spells or something like that.

All the endgame missions are fairly easy.

I had a thread around here somewere were I suggested how to make the game difficulty better but I'm not sure were it is I will find it and post a link in here.

here it is: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/...ead.php?t=31832

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Thank you for your detailed post. Come to think of it most people find a mission hard because they don't have a diverse/good setup for their team. If you want a challenge, try doing these missions without a monk?

^^
I can do them all with no primary monk. And even most if not all of them with no secondary monks either with a good team

Now heres that link to my thread http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=31832

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What happened to the pendulum? Remember back in the testing phase, Gaile said that finding the difficulty level was a swinging pendulum. I think that the pendulum needs a kickstart.

One arguement is that GW is a pvp game. Those players only want to get through to level 20 and unlock skills. I believe that arguement is no longer valid, as they (pvp players) now have faction. They can unlock any skill/item by playing the game they like to play.

The other arguement is that the game needs to be easy for beginners. I agree. Then define a beginner. At what point does a player stop being a beginner, and the game can become more challanging for players? Do you honestly feel that the missions get harder as we progress? Some players argue that FoW and UW are the 'hard areas'. I disagree. Those maps (like every other map) is how well you can pull. UW is soloable, and FoW only takes a handful of players to work. Granted, those players must work as a team, so in that I conceed teamwork and communication are needed.

This is touted as a game of skill. Where does any pve player need to have mastered skill to play this game? Note that lack of skill does not equal stupidity. Yes, if you have Joe Retard in your group that rushes/agros/pouts and basically plays like most PUGs then the mission could fail. But that failure was not from a difficulty in the mission, but rather the stupidity of one player. Example: I have a guild mate that plays at different times that anyone else in the guild. He has taken 4 characters through the game using henchies. Yeah, this game is too easy.

Anet, if you are listening, please bring some sembalance if difficulty back to the game for the pve players. We love this game, and you are losing a fan base of dedicated players when you cater to players demanding 'easier' missions. Some would then argue that catering to the players wanting harder missions will drive away the new players. I (obviously) disagree. Those "new" players will get better as the game progresses, have more fun playing the game, and return for the expansion.

You can solo the entire UW ?

Also play without monks, you'll develop better character AND a better character

I can solo UW (all of it and do about half the quests) with my monk and do the rest of the game with a full team and no monks or monk secondarys.

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Some people (stuck in certain missions) will probably kill you for this topic :PPP

This will be my last posting in this thread but if you make much more harder there will be those that will pay a Kings Ransom to get run to Draknors Forge and get their armor.

I don't want to turn this into a 'forge run' debate, since there's another post about that nearby. One of the main reasons people rush to Droknar's Forge is because the beginning PvE missions are too boring and easy. There's just no fun and challenge now, even the first time through. Besides, forge runs are quite cheap.

Now, back to the subject of increasing the complexity of PvE... we need more maps or quests that don't involve bashing monsters from point a to point b.

The attune run in Aurora Glade is similar to a relic run in PvP. I'd like to see a similar map like that, but with an AI that actually gives you some sense of challenge. I usually just attune, and wonder: 'Uhh.. where's the white mantle...'

A chase map would be fun too, like the incoming Charr army at the end of the first mission. I understand the mission was nerfed so new players could adjust, but I feel the nerf went too far since I would never see the Charr show up until the end.

In a future map, I would like to see the enemy actually show up on my radar before I hit the end goal... or actually use some run skills to catch up to me. An interesting tactic that could come up: Teams might have to sacrifice some people to body block, and let a runner get through to the end.

In Elona, I seemed to remember mobs swarming out of the gates after the 2nd crystal, but after finishing it on a 3rd char, it seemed like the mission was nerfed so they just sit around and let you walk away with the crystal...