Curse

R.Shayne · Aug 06, 2009, 01:43 AM // 01:43

Seven Heroes

Racthoh · Aug 06, 2009, 01:52 AM // 01:52

Hard Mode:

1. Remove the increased movement and action speed
The increased movement speed is negated by an Essence of Celerity, by which I mean the enemy just won't even bother kiting at all. If they do I've never noticed it, probably because things die way too fast. Without the consumable any melee characters get mighty angry when the soft targets begin to kite and you can't catch up simply because the game says so. I touched on this before in another post regarding this lazy method of challenge implementation, present in the Domain of Anguish hard mode through environmental effects. Forcing the melee characters to bring something to make them move faster or a snare doesn't add any sort of challenge, it would be the same as programming the AI to not use any hexes if I have a hex removal on my bar. While we're at it remove the need for Consume Corpse/Necrotic Traversal in Urgoz's Warren. Don't limit the already limiting 8 skills to a player down to 7 on one player just because the game says so.

2. Remove the additional levels/20 attributes tacked onto the enemies
This ties into the first point. Once you realize Protective Spirit is an awesome skill you realize it becomes even more awesome when hard mode makes enemies do even more damage. However you don't care that they're doing more damage because Protective Spirit still functions the same way on either difficulty setting. In fact all those extra levels do is increase the demand for skills that massively mitigate incoming damage, teetering the scale in favor of mandatory as opposed to optional. Creativity and innovation have a hard time staying afloat under these circumstances.

3.a 8 skills on every enemy skill bar
Tying into the previous two points as well. The enemies move faster, perform faster and hit harder, but unless you're vanquishing/missioning in areas with less than 8 people nothing really varies between normal and hard mode besides the aforementioned buffs. At least when you go to vanquish a 4 man zone the enemies receive an elite skill while in the vast majority of 8 man zones they play the same bar on either difficulty. If the only difference between hard and normal mode is the numbers then something is wrong, especially with the toolbox of skills available to us.

3.b Primary and secondary skills on said bars
Slaver's Exile and those Charr can do it so make it happen elsewhere's too.

3.c Some random element or balanced enemy group composition everywhere
Again, Slaver's Exile is the best example of there being hope for interesting PvE content, from an execution standpoint at least. You have to take into account the hard resses, the passive defenses, the prots, the heals, it's all there, and how you deal with is a matter left up to the player. It was nice to play a zone where some evidence of thought was apparent.

Hard Mode shouldn't just be something where the loot is better if you spend slightly more time beating on the enemies. Make the experience of it all worth something each time and not just the initial adjustment to the arbitrary number increase.

JoeKnowMo · Aug 06, 2009, 03:01 AM // 03:01

I agree with Racthoh on point # 3.

Make all the pvp maps/battles available as PvE missions.

Simath · Aug 06, 2009, 08:22 PM // 20:22

Bring back the Griffons.

Toxic OnyX · Aug 06, 2009, 09:58 PM // 21:58

new devs would be a good start

Sword Hammer Axe · Aug 06, 2009, 10:14 PM // 22:14

My compilation of ideas :P

Lishy · Aug 06, 2009, 10:19 PM // 22:19

I agree with Rac about slavers exile.
It was a really, really fun area, with the exception of Duncan who is near impossible with balanced and without specific counters.

Though the problem with slavers is that it's dead. Unlike uw/fow, it just isn't rewarding enough. And players sometimes find it too hard, especially since setup can be annoying since you need specific roles like fs. However, I can imagine it becoming more active once we have 7 heroes since setup would be easy and I can't stress enough that it is just a generally really, really fun dungeon.

stevedallas · Aug 07, 2009, 02:16 AM // 02:16

more expansive and instanced explorable areas with the same number of foes.

Ravious · Aug 07, 2009, 01:44 PM // 13:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Racthoh

Hard Mode:

<snip>

Which is why I believe it might not have been technologically feasible. I mean the devs would have to be absolute idiots to not consider the route you proposed when HM was being concepted. I doubt "lets have the mobs cheat" was really the first option on the table. EotN Charr and Slavers uses EotN technology. Maybe it wasn't possible without breaking too much to do the same for older campaigns areas and mobs.

Coraline Jones · Aug 07, 2009, 04:01 PM // 16:01

I still do not understand why people want Hard Mode to look more like Slavers' Exile. If anything, Slavers has become an ultra-cookie cutter team build format.

I fail to see how some characters can ever get into any party unless the party has an "open" spot where you could literally put anybody... I.e., it's effectively a run. I have a Paragon and I still cannot get into any Duncan the Black teams because nobody wants them. The team builds are so predefined that everybody knows what to run and everybody looks for specific skill bars because nobody wants to try anything else.

Ramping up the enemy difficulty does nothing but force the game into even more cookie-cutter builds and searches for skill/AI exploits. A game is pretty screwed up when if you don't run an exact build, then you're removed from the party. This is like saying that if you don't have a particular unlocked weapon in some PvP FPS game, then you can get vote-kicked. At the very least, I've never been thrown off any Team Fortress 2 server because I didn't have a Scout with a Force-A-Nature.

In my opinion, it's obvious that people are tired, bored, or frustrated with the game when Doomlore Shrine has become runner central and people advertise runs for just about any dungeon in Eye of the North. If people really found doing HM dungeons all that fun and exciting, then you wouldn't be paying 2K for endless CoF runs.

Greedy Gus · Aug 08, 2009, 01:58 AM // 01:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coraline Jones

I still do not understand why people want Hard Mode to look more like Slavers' Exile. If anything, Slavers has become an ultra-cookie cutter team build format.

I fail to see how some characters can ever get into any party unless the party has an "open" spot where you could literally put anybody... I.e., it's effectively a run. I have a Paragon and I still cannot get into any Duncan the Black teams because nobody wants them. The team builds are so predefined that everybody knows what to run and everybody looks for specific skill bars because nobody wants to try anything else.

Ramping up the enemy difficulty does nothing but force the game into even more cookie-cutter builds and searches for skill/AI exploits. A game is pretty screwed up when if you don't run an exact build, then you're removed from the party. This is like saying that if you don't have a particular unlocked weapon in some PvP FPS game, then you can get vote-kicked. At the very least, I've never been thrown off any Team Fortress 2 server because I didn't have a Scout with a Force-A-Nature.

In my opinion, it's obvious that people are tired, bored, or frustrated with the game when Doomlore Shrine has become runner central and people advertise runs for just about any dungeon in Eye of the North. If people really found doing HM dungeons all that fun and exciting, then you wouldn't be paying 2K for endless CoF runs.

Your idea of cookie-cutter seems to be synonymous with effective. If that's the case, doesn't having a perfectly viable normal-mode play experience mean you don't need to make hard-mode so predictable or simple that any unique snowflake build can have a chance there? You're also factoring in player interaction which can't really be controlled. No matter how well designed things are, there will be people who want to copy a certain preferred build, and its your choice to play with them or not.

Jetdoc · Aug 08, 2009, 02:04 AM // 02:04

An improved partying system that spans all towns, all districts, all campaigns.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kain Fz

7 heroes.
1234567890-=

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kain Fz

Also, 7 heroes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kain Fz

once we have 7 heroes.

And anything but that.

reaper with no name · Aug 08, 2009, 04:57 AM // 04:57

If I could have one thing?

Balance. This is the primary thing I've always wanted for GW. I think many of our desires utimately come down to this. We all want to be useful. I want to know that my dervish will always be useful; that no one else can beat him in whatever it is I've chosen for him to do (assuming it's something he's supposed to be good in, that is; can't have D/Es outnuking E/Xs). I want to see builds that make other professions obsolete (ER,SF,Scythe warriors, scythe sins) nerfed so that they no longer make anyone else obsolete. I want BALANCE.

If I could have two things? Balance, and removal of that damned grind to max out titles with genuine gameplay effects (what? I have to get HOW many points to max out my kurzick title?! Why should I have to grind for a year just to have maxed out benefits against Margonites?! What were they thinking?!). Leave the grind to the titles that don't mean anything, like GWAMM.