To Arenanet and NCsoft.

If you have beaten the game don't bother replying to this thread.I would have to say it is about time too ease up on all the missions past Sanctum Cay that was a cat walk the rest aren't.This starting with the ascention missions and beyond to Fire Island there are possibly several falling behind the game myself included.I have lost confidence in taking on any missions with out winning it.I have done Dune,Thirsty River more time I care to remeber and Elona and I never win one of them even with good pug.I possibly several others aren't making any progress in the game and are fustrated.

There are those of us who are older as well and may have health problems.I am asking you to look at this from a human POV not a gamers.I have heard from some other older people in the game and they say the missions after Sanctum Cay are rough.We really enjoy your game please let us enjoy it more and on further note how are going to advance our chars. so we can play chapter 2 when it comes out?I hope you are traking our accounts in our progress through out the game so you know where we are and registration including beta.Thanks

I mean no disrespect, but I'm a little confused. Are you saying they should make the end missions easier for people who are older (I'm pretty old myself) or for people who have health problems? That I think would be difficult because how would you determine easier and then how does that affect other people. On the other hand I do get kinda tired of really long missions where you can't logoff until you've completed it..... I wish that could be changed.

maybe make the difficulty more gradual ?

or make a difficulty setting, like most single player RPGs have.

don't know, just wild ideas.

It's easy if you actually have a good build/are a good player, not saying you're not, some people get unlucky...

But if you're really stuck on a mission for that long, the game might be telling you something.

The problem isn't really the missions themselves, but random PUGs. It is a pretty well known fact that PUGs are by and large unsuccessful. This comes about because many people simply don't know how to follow instructions, and refuse to listen to more experienced players that can help them.

The best way of getting through a tough mission is to either take henchmen (better than 60% of players i'd say) or find a good guild and never worry about PUGs again.

wow...is this a thread asking to making incredibly easy missions even easier? are you freaking serious dude? There isn't a single difficult mission in this game...8 random skills and the ability to button smash will walk your way through PvE....

I feel the opposite, the beginning missions are a wasted chance at educating players and way too easy. You do horrible in the end because you've learned nothing about grouping and tactics by then, but you would if you had to try harder the whole time, believe me.

I've completed the game, so sorry for replying, I think one mission which might need to be made a bit easier is Iron Mines (IF you do with Henchies) - the massive disadvatage when you do it with henchies is that they don't get infused.... and spectral agony really tears them a new one, and there are quite a large number of Mursaat bosses at this stage....

I found Elona's difficult with PUGs - but with Henchmen, had no problem (this was before Lina was a henchie in crsystal deser too), it is the most difficult desert mission by far though - Dunes and Thirsty River I found simple. And Dragon Lair is a complete walkthrough too

The Shiverpeak missions I think are easier than Crystal Desert ones - some people found Thunderhead Keep difficult... personally never struggled, plus did bonus first time - may have been a bit of luck, don't know.

Missions on the fire isles... quite difficult, Abaddon's Mouth definitely the hardest I think, other two can normally be done with henchies...

About the health condition thing, I'm sorry but I don't think that should be something Anet should consider - proper gamers like a challenge, and Anet is obviously going to aim their game at... well, gamers, if the game is too easy they are going to lose their main market. Really think, with exception with Iron Mines with henchmen, difficulty is quite good

I have to post since PvE is still a joke.

Game winning solution for PVE: If you're having trouble with pugs, then START taking control if you think you're a good player. I form my own groups, grill the invites, and kick out anyone that brings Mending. If you still keep losing, maybe its time to adjust your strategies.

And if you have trouble with missions, then post somewhere around here for help on how to beat them.

I think the difficulty still has to be ramped up, especially in the beginning missions. They're so easy I've already lost like 10 guild members from boredom. They beat the whole game, and suddenly quit because its just a yawn fest. I managed to save one person by showing him PvP... but that's still pretty damn horrible when you just lost 10 potential teammates for PvP.

Also - I think another tutorial section needs to be implemented. Calling, following targets, watching your aggro bubble. This should come either before or after the PvP fight in pre-searing. If you fail any of the 3 steps, you don't get to move on to post-searing.

I just went to do Elona on my Monk to help a friend, and we got ownd mass in a PUG while trying to get the first Crys. I used Hench and we beat it in like 10 minutes, going VERY slow, because we were chatting half the time.

Fact: 80% of players are WORST than henches
Fact: 95% of Monks you meet are WORST than Alesia

Sad facts, but thats the population average. These people go to PvP and die in 5 seconds falt, wondering why their Wa/Mo or Sword Monk didnt own everything like it did in PvE

have faith in people man. there are a decent number of pve players with a little skill, its just that the problem ones are the ones who just dont listen.

thunderhead keep:
warrior: ele, just stand on top and fire the catapults thats all you need to do.
ele: ok, got it!

10 min later

monk: there are too many guys, i cant keep everyone up, why did this many get past?
warrior: ele, whats wrong?
ele: what do you mean?
warrior: why did all these guys get past?
ele: i dont know
warrior: werent you supposed to be firing the catapult on that side?
ele: whats a catapult?

Heh, I think you need sensitivity training...lol just kidding.

I was a little confused about this being that it really should be difficult near the end game. But then again I don't think people should be rushed for armor either.

I do agree however the first missions are way too easy and from the mindset of alot of viewpoints I see (not so much the OP) people expect to breeze through this game and get everything they want at any cost.

I do find it an annoyance to have to log off right in the middle of the mission (sometimes you need to go to work or eat dinner), or fail the mission because it is unclear what I need to do just to start over from scratch.

I would say the best solution is to have res shrines in missions after Sanctum Cay.Most or half players in game don't really like and bypass the missions.When you are as old as I am 40+ you are not as sharp or on ball as you used be although we are more patient.I take very mature attidude when playing the game no they need to be made easier.I know what certian guilds are up to as I listen to the PVP guilds.We have played this game by doing quests well I prefer them as I can take my time not in missions and there are res shrines in them.

In six months Chapter 2 will be out how many will be fineshed Chapter 1 and 6 months is like next week for me.

Off topic: Can anyone refresh my memory of exactly how hard the last mission of the game was?

I remember it being past 4am and me healing red life bars... that's it! no memory of scenery or anything else.. from memory, our warrior died a few times, but, that might have been the mission prior. Only memory I have is our ranger pulling a leory jenkins.. to keep us awake, and me swearing my head off at him for that one, promising to not heal him next time he did that.

oh, and we did finish the mission and I got some sleep at 5am so it can't have been too hard.

The mission, all missions from thunderhead keep onwards, were played with more or less the same group of people, most of who were parents, and a certain lack of artistic skills on mini-map was missing (which is a good thing) and we had common sense used with our warrior being the only one tanking and our ranger pulling.

Yes, the reason we were up that late is because we liked the group at thunderhead and decided to finish the game with it.

Back on topic: I think it's a sad thing that we have that many incapable monks that late in the game, for that matter, that many incompetent players.

Best idea is to make sure you got 2 hours for each mission, and being prepared to spend an hour looking for a decent group and discussing strategy before starting.

You seem to disagree with you.

Thanks for starting this thread. I should start by mentioning that I'm a seasoned gamer (mostly PC) for whom video games has been my primary hobby my whole life. I'm not a power-gamer but rather a scavenger, squeezing every game for all it has to offer. I also want to mention that my post is not meant to be a ranting, whining list of complaints, but rather constructive feedback from an average player's perspective. Anyways, I put Guild Wars down once my R/N reached Lion's Arch but then picked it up a month or two later when I found out a friend has been playing it. I finally reached the desert (I'm now at the ascension mission but have not tried it yet) and was shocked at the sudden increase in the mission difficulty. I had beaten every mission and every bonus up to that point, and it never took more than a couple of tries. Here are my two frustrating experiences with the desert missions, followed by some thoughts on why they were so hard:

First was the desert mission where you have to kill bosses in a fort for the bonus while the ghostly hero performs a ritual (sorry, I'm on vacation and don't have my strat guide handy - maybe it was Dunes of Despair?). The mission itself was easy (took a couple tries because my team didn't know what to expect), but the bonus was HARD. I spent the better part of a day joining parties and trying for the bonus (probably a dozen attempts) until I finally found a group that new a trick for beating it (the first time my necro secondary class was critically useful to a group).

The second one I had severe problems with was the time-limited quest where you run crystals (maybe Elona?). Took at least a good 8 tries to beat the mission and another half-dozen or more to beat the bonus. Again this took most of a day (I beat both missions during the recent 3-day holiday weekend), which - like the previous one - also involved sitting around begging to be invited into a group and then hoping they knew what they were doing.

I should also mention that I was again shocked when I played the quest where you run around with the ghostly hero attacking snake priests guarded by bosses (Thirsty River maybe?). Beat mission and bonus on the first try. STOMPED on it with an all-Ranger primaries party! This was perhaps the hardest of the desert missions to get into a party for.

Here are some of the things that frustrated me:
- This is the big one, and has been mentioned already in this thread. Many players were not team-players and would not listen or work with everyone else to try certain strategies, even when someone who knew what to do (and what NOT to do!) was trying to help everyone beat the mission. Sorry if this sounds prejudiced, but I noticed that W/Mo's seemed to be especially guilty of this - probably due to a combination of it being an overused class (highest percentage of characters) and a favorite of inexperienced players; it seriously got to the point where I almost refused to group with them because I knew there was at least an 85% chance that they'd run off and aggro all the monsters instead of sticking with the group to tank for spellcasters and ranged attackers (not to mention not carrying healing spells or at least a res signet). In Elona we had a W/Mo (or some W primary anyways) that decided to go off and run the quest himself while we were in the middle of fighting the boss guarding the second of the three crystals; as a result, half of the party followed him while the remaining three were stuck fighting the boss because they couldn't get away. Fortunately, the W later died from running off again while we were returning that crystal, and he decided to desert - this turned out to be the time that I finally beat the mission!
- I saw a lot of people deserting (warping back to town) during the mission, dooming us to failure. BUG: sometimes if people bail (log off maybe?) at just the right time when the group fails back to town, the AWOL player will become a permanent grey entry in the party. The only way to fix this is to disband and re-form the party - very annoying!
- A lot of group leaders are too picky about the class makeup of their parties when recruiting. I see many 4 or 5 person parties sitting in town because they want a Monk, while lots of non-Monks are begging for invites. I have also had great success in parties without Monks (or at least without Monk primaries) - my Thirsty River experience is an example. I know you'll say "form your own group" but the problem is that it's doomed to take many tries if I don't join someone else who knows the mission already; it also means having to re-recruit around 40% of the party every time I fail.
- Despite what some may say, I know a majority of people would agree that the desert missions themselves were just harder than the previous missions when played in the same way that I had been playing them up to that point - which is to say that I would join a party of all human players (except maybe for a healer hench) with someone who knew what they were doing and would stick with them until we beat it. I also consult my strategy guide when the leader gets lost.

On a side-note, I should add that I felt that the whole desert area of the game felt less polished and more disjointed than the rest of the game up to that point. Previously, quests would take me from town to town or town to mission, but in the desert I found that I had to use my strategy guide maps to run from location to location because there were no quests to point me in the right direction. I was supposed to just *know* that they were out there. I did later notice that the Ghostly Hero would give me a general idea of what to do if I talked to him in the various towns, but he should have assigned quests so that I'd have known to talk to him (most NPCs up to that point had little useful to say unless I was directed to talk to them in relation to quests).

There was also no explanation of how to use the desert teleporters. It seems obvious once you've figured it out or had it explained by another player, but it could have also been better handled (IMO) via an NPC tutorial or somesuch.

In summary, some of the desert missions and/or bonuses were much more difficult in my opinion, and I do agree that both the quality of players and the design of the missions were major factors. My guess is that during development the devs only tested the whole desert chapter of the game with teams of players who cooperated closely to beat the missions.

The problem with monks is, there are so many of them, and about 10% are actually competent healers. Furthermore, even if you are in a group with a monk, unless there is only one, there is no way of telling which one is good and which is bad! Ive solo healed FoW before, but I have joined groups that its actually harder to heal than that! Its so hard to tell whos good and who isnt. Even with /rank it is hard because of fame farmers (read: IWAY builds who never get past The Courtyard) and people who buy accounts on ebay (I know its there, and Im not going to bother looking for it).

HunterZ:

You managed to get all the mission names right for the Desert. Also, yes I'd have to say the bonus for Dunes of Dispair is quite tough even with a good group of players.

The missions aren't too hard all in all, but they really try to push the concept of team play in the desert to prepare you for the later missions and PvP. (it's amazing the amount of people in Thunderhead Keep that completely forget all they learned in the desert). It's even put into the story of it as well. The Elonians fell apart because "We did not trust each other. Not even our own kin." and put forth that you'd end up just like them, with bleached bones and as spirits in the wasteland if you didn't work together to achieve a common goal.

It takes more than just 8 random skills and the ability to button mash. Perhaps this mentality is the reason why you can't make it past it, or at least having a difficult time.

You and me both. I've completed the game 4x now. 2 El/Mo's, 1 Monk, 1 Mes/Nec usually played as a fast-cast minionmancer. With both El/Mos (playing support healer) and my monk, I thought I would have red bars burned into my retinas for days.

I wish there was a way to press a button and make everyone discuss something with fewer emotions.

Elona Reach: Seven tries.

Dunes of Despair: Two tries.

Thirsty River: One try.

Dragon's Lair: One try.

Ice Caves: One try.

Iron Mines: Two tries.

Thunderhead Keep: Three tries.


Now I can breeze through most of those missions after figuring out the strategies needed and honing them. Elona Reach, Dunes, Thirsty River, Ice Caves....Dragon's Lair...

Those late-game missions are easy as hell. Like others have said, it's teamwork or lack thereof that is going to determine success or failure. And that's one of the beauties about this game: the missions can be incredibly difficult, but that's only when you're on a team of complete and utter dipshits.

Honestly, I was expecting hell on earth based on a few choice whiners here...but how they managed to spend 8 hours on Elona Reach is beyond me. A good Necromancer works wonders.

The game is not too difficult. If not too easy, then just right. The major difficulty increases are exactly where they need to be, actually occurring during the start of each new "act."

Gates of Kryta, Act II, first experience with Smoke Phantoms.

Sanctum Cay, Act III, first experience with desert enemies like Hydras, Jade Scarabs, Forgotten, etc.

Droknar's, Act IV, Southern Shiverpeaks.

Ring of Fire, Act V, and we know what's going on in there.

There are gradations between those points, of course, but overall, that's how the game goes, I've found--and it's a very solid progression.

Too hard? Tone down the missions? How about adapt or die? lol

I dont think its the game talking.

First time I played GW it also took me ages to get through the Ascenscion mission & Thunderhead Keep because I didnt have a clue what constitutes a good party, I also didnt have friends yet that could help out on said missions.

you forgot to mention the part about being a warrior/monk. Me being a mesmer/monk gives me no ability to do that whatsoever. Lets all just tank.

The big changes that need to be made are to henchmen AI and infusion (just give them full infusion, they are already pretty stupid.) The henchman AI should not completely fall apart in certain missions (ring of fire is a good example where they run into every environmental hazard they can find.)

A few specific mission can use some tweaks too (ring of fire design is pretty dumb, players are heavily encouraged to just brute force the front door.)

Missions are made hard by the fact that most players are very bad. Having the henchmen be anything better than pathetic (which makes it really sad when they outperform most players) would be nice.

I also mean no disrespect to anyone, but the desert missions are hardly impossible to do and neither is any other mission in the game. I completed every Desert and Southern Shiverpeaks mission more than 20 times. To an experienced player that just have the right level of difficulty, IMO. Ice Caves and Iron Mines are even too easy, I think. Thunderhead Keep (the hardest PVE mission I think) is a walk in the park if you have the correct strategy how to approach it. Yes, this might take a few tries to find out (or a little search on this forum if you don't want that). There is one problem, though, which has been mentioned by other posters here as well: It is very hard to do for PUGs, since there are idiots out there who have no clue at all about the game or strategy in general. In missions like Thunderhead, guys like these will get you killed and since about 20%-30% of all players belong to that group, chances are that you will have one in your PUG every single time you try. I'd avoid PUGs in Thunderhead, Elona or Thirsty River if you have to chance to. Get a guild team if possible and fill empty party slots with henchmen.

If there is any problem with the game's difficulty at all, it's that the earlier missions are easy enough to give the idiot players a wrong feeling of safety. Those people arrive in the desert and still think they can play as dumbly as they want and still win the day.

Ok, unless this game got challenging we'd have idiots everywhere. We need to seperate the good from the bad, how would you like going into a PUG of people in Abbadon's mouth and most of them were too stupid to do thunderhead keep or ascension?

We all know that GW's PVE is somewhat shoddily designed. But the OP's comment simply highlights it.

It's typical of the sort of "die-reload" thinking that pc game makers fall into these days.

What they -should- have done, was make the missions easy to "complete", but add a range of optional bonuses of progressively higher difficulty for each mission. These bonuses dont affect your ability to complete the mission. (as opposed to the bonuses in current missions, which are a huge cause of death sometimes.)

This would not only keep players from getting stuck, which isnt fun at all, but it also makes the missions much more replayable, and rewards skill in a way that current missions do not.

Probably, that means having resurrect points in missions as well, so that when you try a bonus and die horribly you can change your mind and avoid it.

Or having the bonuses occur after the mission is completed. (eg. in Sanctum Cay, the bonus is "hold out for as long as possible before going to the ship". The longer you survive, the better your bonus. If too many members "die", it merely just goes to the cutscene of everyone going on the ship, dragging their "dead" comrades along. And then the mission ends successfully.)

Using Thirsty river as an example, this mission is the hardest of the ascenction missions (just my opionon). I think i tried this mission about, oh 10 times. Which is the most i have ever had to re-do a mission.

Basicly 1 or 2 of the people in the group i did it with would ignor calls and basicly attack / do what they saw fit to.

At the time my guild members were not logged on, so i looked for another guild team which i could join, Did it first time.

It really does pay of playing with a group of people who are familiar with each other.

Basicly from that point on if i couldnt get into a group that didnt speak to each other and work together i would leave that group. Ive done nearly every mission from that point either on the 1st or 2nd attempt, and am on the last levels now.

That is the most important key to succsess, picking a good group.

However saying that, taking thirsty river again.

The first part of the mission is to kill giants, which really is a piece of pie. I dont see why after you have got part this part, that you can re-start after that if you fail.

However i would not like to see more res points than that.

Having no res makes you more carefull, a good group wont rush in knowing that if they get it wrong then there done for, and your res signet really becomes a life saver.

If i knew i could res if i failed, well then theres really no penalty for simply rushing in there haphazardly and failing.

Just res and try again.

My father brought me up as a gamer and taught me this very important skill for games. I've been playing video games since before I could comprehend english. In fact, it was video games that got me to start reading as a lot of the earlier NES games I played were RPG's and had a nice lot of text to read through to understand how to play it and what's going on during it. We didn't have those fancy voice actors and big explosions to keep people's short attention spans interested you get these days.

Patience is always a virtue with anything. Many people who really know me say I am quite intelligent or wise beyond my years (21 years old atm), but I prefer to believe that it's those old fogeys everyone ignores have some important things to say.

If you're in a group at an outpost for a mission and they seem impatient, drop them. It will always be patience that will keep your team alive through the game. The youngun's, regardless of how headstrong they are don't know how to GAME.

Thirsty River is easy when your build is right using just henchmen. My W/N laughs at those Forgotten Ones trying to blind us all the time and "Shields Up" at Tactics 13 helps Alesia and Lina survive better. I brought several low-levelers (2 humans + 6 henchmen) through this mission when noone would take them since all you need is obviously "PRO TEAM LF EXP PLAYERS - NO NOOBS".

How did you manage to get 9 in the party? Especially from Crystal Desert where the max is 6 and the max in the game is 8?

Oohh *smites himself*

We were/are only 2 human players (including me), the rest henchmen. "Several low-levelers" means one of them in a round.

Thanks for pointing that mistake out.

Well I have to disagree with making any missions harder, ok some are fine as they are, but most actually need to be made more difficult.

Why?... Easy, when you can have an easier time beating a mission with henches then a pug, in my book they are too easy and even easier when in a good group.

Even some of the missions that require real people because of certain task to accomplish, aren’t too hard, they just require a tactic that the henches AI can’t handle.

As for some of the harder missions, well in my personal taste they still need a bit of tweaking on the harder side. I know it won’t happen, but I can still dream can’t I?

Just quick examples why in my humble opinion they should be harder:

Thunderhead keep: Just last night went trough it with 7 guild mates and a hench, yes we were also on TS, but that mission was way to easy. Our two monks had it so easy they even felt bad when a pet went down! Yes I do understand we had a good group and were working together, but we are in the later part of the game, I would think that team work and strategy would be required and expected at this stage of the game.

AB’s Mouth: Couple weeks ago, a guild mate and I decided to head in there to cap Fevered Dreams, we didn’t feel like bothering finding a pug for this and decided to give it a shot with henches. Well long story short, the maps on the boards were down, so we basically cleared the entire map and therefore almost finishing the mission.

Only then did we noticed that my guild mate took the wrong character in to cap the skill (we actually had a good laugh about that one). Since we had already done the mission with our characters we started goofing off and only then got killed.

Sorrows Furnace: Suppose to be the hardest thing in GW, Went in with a good pug that lost 3 members during the questing and still we finished all that we wanted to accomplish in there, found it too easy what can I say.

I do have a good understanding of the game, but am nowhere near the level of what we could call expert or elite players. I clearly don’t have the knowledge of an Ensign and yet find the toughest missions to be relatively easy.

As it is now, I’m not sure the pve aspect is actually challenging enough for longevity, I’m already finding too easy and as time goes by probably a lot more people will start feeling the same.

The toughest thing in GW is actually finding a decent PUG, I would vote to make that aspect easier, but don’t think it can be done…

Just my two cents.

Unik

I am an old cat myself, I wish I was 25 years younger and still had my reflexes so I could pvp with these younger guys. Yeah the missions are progessively harder expecially a couple of the new Titan missions. But the PvE is definiately doable on a high level for us. I think we are maybe better because we actually have the patience to develop a charactor. However if you are calling for a nerf I totally disagree with you. There is no reason for this, if you are feeling frustrated join the older gamers club they have a guild ingame maybe they will run though some missions with you. Don't embrass us older gamers by calling for a nerf thats not cool at all. Also, if your health is bad just be satified with what you can still accomplish. When the younger guys beat me so bad in basketball it took me a week to recoperate from the bruises. I had to join the other old guys and take up golf. Not nerf the sport I loved so much. Don't make a special interest group out of us, just have fun.

This is exactly what I am saying although out the game even in presearing how is was that.I would have to say just to get the over all mission over with it would would be nice to have res shrines or to the what this person is saying.It is either that or have quests in the mission as an option but still getting the same amount of points and XP.This is the only poster who has gotten to what I am talking about.I don't have anything against mission either give us an option or ease up on it.I just want to fight my doppleganger or mirror image and get these 3 mission over with so i can say I am ascended.

I will admit I have been run to the Draknors and been farming around there and such and I ran my 2 charactor up to the War Camp and went into Sarrows Funace now that not all that hard although I was useing henchies I just kept pulling and pulling.I was with a pug and they started to blame and I had to say stop the blaming as we lost a player going into the furnace anyway we didn't make it to far I was playing Monk at the time with Mhenlo.I could of taken some of the quests there but I didn't I figured to the best of my concious seeing as how I am not ascended even not infused I won't unitill then but I need something to get confidence about missions back it is like takeing a driveing exam say 15 times.

I never in my first post said nerf the mission just ease up on them and I am with a guild that is hardly active and appointed leader.I am a beta tester as well.When I beta tested I tested the PVP side of the game and it is fine right now a few things need fixing but aver all PVP is fine.I can fight it out in halls of heros and the arenas anytime if most of the player are PVPers nad know how do call target as I was doing lastnight and the missions don't do anything to prepare you for PVP as PVP has less grind except for faction.You could play in the PVP side easier than PVE.There was one person who said you have 8 skills on you bar well you don't as you have your SOC in of them.That only leaves 7 skills unless we went back to the skill charms.

wow, I think you are the first person I've heard saying formal PvP is easier than PvE...

I think Thunderhead Keep and The Northern Wall should be swapped over to keep ALL the idiots confined to one zone.

(and close the breach)