Curse

freekedoutfish · May 16, 2007, 01:55 PM // 13:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zinger314

Why aren't people playing Hard Mode? Lots of reasons. But there are ways to fix these problems...

In just 2 or 3 weeks of HM being introduced, i have...

...people are doing HM!!! You just have to be patient and find the teams.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zinger314

Difficulty: Yes, Hard Mode is hard. But it's Hard for the wrong reasons: It might have just been called "You Must Bring Two Copies of Protective Spirit Here" Mode. There is no way you'll beat a large majority of the Elementalist/Ritualist bosses without a good Protective Spirit. The difficulty itself doesn't need to be changed; the PvE Sunspear skills might make Hard Mode easier. But could there be a little retweaking of the the bosses who deal 500+ damage Meteors?

The difficulty may not be amazing, and it may not be super intelligent to beat. Its also not easy, its just right. Its about having FUN, stop taking it so seriously.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zinger314

Reward: You have to go for broke in Hard Mode just to get something out of it. Legendary Guardian/Vanquisher or bust. After that...what then? Those titles need to hold a little more significance due to the difficulty involved. A small step would be to change the reward for Vanquishing an area to 10g per enemy, no EXP. Areas tend to have 200ish enemies, so it would be 2k per area. It's a decent Reward::Time.

When I started paying HM I was broke. I had no gold at all. I was trying to fund my Ritualists armor and finish off his 15k gear.

In just 3 weeks, I've made enough gold from HM drops (simply selling to the merchant) to finish off my Ritualists 15k armor, to dye it black and to buy Ragos Flame Staff for 60k for myself.

I estimate that is about 100k I've made in just 3 weeks of selling HM drops to the merchant. Exactly how is that not a reward? and exactly how am I making a loss?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zinger314

Hard Mode Unique Loot: How often do you see Tomes drop? Scrolls? Too rarely, for what they do. Tomes/Scrolls are basically a 1k gold drop. But keep in mind...THIS IS HARD MODE! Loot should scale accordingly! Permanently increase the drop rates on Scrolls/Tomes (I recommend atleast 5x. Seriously. Convience doesn't hurt the economy.) and people will be a lot happier.

Tombs... in just 3 weeks I have picked up 3 warrior tombs, 1 mesma tomb, 1 elite elemental tomb and 1 monk tomb.

I've picked up one passage scroll to FOW myself, and seen about 4 others drop for other playes.

I have picked up about 10-20 golds. Alot more then I ever got in the last 6 months of playing. And ive been playing 18 months. My wisdom title has increased alot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zinger314

Anti-Farming in Hard Mode: Gaile Grey said that the Anti-Farming code isn't in Hard Mode. I, among many others with personal anecdotes, think she is wrong. A confirmation of either event would go a long way in Hard Mode PR.

I cant say I care. I dont cry at night, because farmers are effected. I've made nearly 100k, as I mentioned, in just 3 weeks of actually doing HM missions and selling items to the merchant.

If that isnt a good enough/easy enough way for you to make gold, then you have some serious issues.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zinger314

LFG: Human parties can offer a huge advantage over Henchman/Heroes (even moreso if the PvE Sunspear skills are decent). Of course, it's hard to find people when they are spead across 56 missions, thus forces a reliability on H/H, Guildies. The only way to fix it is to make the Party Search affect the entire world for Hard Mode. Communities shouldn't have to have their own solution to this problem (although people such have Dralspire and Azarel STX have helped.)[/list]

I did ALL my HM missions in Tyria using PUGs. Most long before I joined my new guild only last week. So until recently I didnt have guildies to help me out. Yet I managed in a very short time using PUGs.

I expect your one of those players who shouts "LFG HM" in an outposts, then sees someone else shouting "LFG HM", but you dont invite them because you expect them to invite you and you dont want to be leader.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zinger314

I know many people have given up on GW's PvE due to its Sysphisian nature and gone to WoW instead (which takes a few months before it suffers from a Sysphisian nature). ArenaNet just finished with the ATS; can't they look at the PvE side of the game for once? (like maybe releasing the aforementioned Sunspear PvE skills which were intended to be released with Hard Mode a month ago?)

Well thats their stupid fault for leaving the game. I played WoW for about a month to take a break from GWs, and I soon came back due to bordem and lonelyless.

Its far harder to find PUGs in WoW then it is in GWs. Most of the content in WoW is solo-able. The only stuff you need PUGs for are dungeons, but because they dont effect the storyline (which it doesnt have), you dont have to do them.

You can play through the whole of WoW alone if you wanted. GWs is far better for PUGs.

Sorry, but your points are just completely unfounded. Aside from the farming one, which I just dont care about.

Ouchie · May 16, 2007, 01:58 PM // 13:58

There are people playing but ... not only spread out over 3 continents but also split between vanquishing and guardian.

I do believe the rewards should be fixed my examples are

1. regular tomes should drop more often and should never come from a chest
2. bosses should drop a few more elite tomes and elite tomes should be the only type of tome to come from a chest.
3. I have yet to see a passage scroll anywhere - vanquished Elona and 1/3 of Tyria - a couple places in Cantha. These should appear somewhere
4. lockpicks seem to have stopped falling altogether? When I first started out I would see 1-4 drop for our party in an area and its been 2 weeks now since I have seen one drop for anyone.
5. Perhaps at the end of an area you also get a random item - an elite tome or passage scroll or xx number of special items - clovers, eggs, cupcakes, booze, sweets, an ecto, a lockpick, a random gift for completing an area or even a contintent (slightly bigger reward of course) - Like a thank-you gift from the people of the continet for helping them.
6. They can kill the xp bonus at the end of each area as it means very little to anyone that far in the game.
7. Put in a tome/scroll buying/selling npc for people who have vanquished or finished missions in an area set the prices slightly lower (for selling) and higher for buying than market value to start - 500-750 for regular tomes to sell and 1,250 to buy of course they would only have available what players have sold. The price on elites would be similar to runes but have a bottom price . I have absolutely no idea on price of scrolls - never seen one drop - don't know anyone who has and never seen one for sale so.....
8. Perhaps they could also put in an extra npc that would buy gold or rare items at 2 or 3 times merchant value as a reward for hard mode.

Some of these ideas would help to cut down on trade spaming too as more people could get a decent price for their items after completing parts of hardmode.

Commander Ryker · May 16, 2007, 02:00 PM // 14:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zinger314

The Hard Mode hype has died down within a month of its release. There are very few groups LFGing for Hard Mode, therefore forcing Heroes/Henches and/or guild contact. I haven't seen a single "LFM Hard Mode" in the Alliance Chat in two weeks (I am in [SMS], one of the biggest PvE Alliances. Or just Racthoh and his posse, depending on your point of view.)

Why aren't people playing Hard Mode? Lots of reasons. But there are ways to fix these problems...

Difficulty: Yes, Hard Mode is hard. But it's Hard for the wrong reasons: It might have just been called "You Must Bring Two Copies of Protective Spirit Here" Mode. There is no way you'll beat a large majority of the Elementalist/Ritualist bosses without a good Protective Spirit. The difficulty itself doesn't need to be changed; the PvE Sunspear skills might make Hard Mode easier. But could there be a little retweaking of the the bosses who deal 500+ damage Meteors?
Reward: You have to go for broke in Hard Mode just to get something out of it. Legendary Guardian/Vanquisher or bust. After that...what then? Those titles need to hold a little more significance due to the difficulty involved. A small step would be to change the reward for Vanquishing an area to 10g per enemy, no EXP. Areas tend to have 200ish enemies, so it would be 2k per area. It's a decent Reward::Time.
Hard Mode Unique Loot: How often do you see Tomes drop? Scrolls? Too rarely, for what they do. Tomes/Scrolls are basically a 1k gold drop. But keep in mind...THIS IS HARD MODE! Loot should scale accordingly! Permanently increase the drop rates on Scrolls/Tomes (I recommend atleast 5x. Seriously. Convience doesn't hurt the economy.) and people will be a lot happier.
Anti-Farming in Hard Mode: Gaile Grey said that the Anti-Farming code isn't in Hard Mode. I, among many others with personal anecdotes, think she is wrong. A confirmation of either event would go a long way in Hard Mode PR.
LFG: Human parties can offer a huge advantage over Henchman/Heroes (even moreso if the PvE Sunspear skills are decent). Of course, it's hard to find people when they are spead across 56 missions, thus forces a reliability on H/H, Guildies. The only way to fix it is to make the Party Search affect the entire world for Hard Mode. Communities shouldn't have to have their own solution to this problem (although people such have Dralspire and Azarel STX have helped.)

I know many people have given up on GW's PvE due to its Sysphisian nature and gone to WoW instead (which takes a few months before it suffers from a Sysphisian nature). ArenaNet just finished with the ATS; can't they look at the PvE side of the game for once? (like maybe releasing the aforementioned Sunspear PvE skills which were intended to be released with Hard Mode a month ago?)

It was never about the rewards for me (it couldn't be because my luck totally sucks), it's about the challenge. This is way beyond a challenge tho, it's damn near impossible.

In the Ascalon area, there are lvl 20+ grawl with 2 monks in almost every group and you're only allowed a party of 4. Yes, I understand it's supposed to be hard, but this is just ridiculous. In the days before hm, by the time we got to foes of that level, we had parties of 8. Now, because it's hm, we're expected to beat these higher level, super buffed baddies? Yeah, ok.

freekedoutfish · May 16, 2007, 02:06 PM // 14:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ouchie

There are people playing but ... not only spread out over 3 continents but also split between vanquishing and guardian.

I do believe the rewards should be fixed my examples are

Cant you make that exact same argument for gold drops in HM. The simple fact is that some people in the game are luckier then others, and you have good days and bad days.

Sometimes you cant get no drops for days, and then suddenly you get loads.

I've had 6 tomes drop (elite and normal), one passage scroll, countless golds and lots of dyes while doing HM. I've also seen party members go through an entire HM mission getting nothing but gold drops, while no one else did. Ive also had most of my lock-picks survive atleast one use.

I've also had HM missions where I get nothing exciting at all, except blues and purples. Its like anything in life; sometimes your lucky, sometimes your not.

You cant ask for the mechanics of the drop system to be changed, just because you have an unlucky streak. I bet within a week, you will do a mission where you get countless golds. Then you'l be happier then pie.

The HM drop system is absolutely fine.

freekedoutfish · May 16, 2007, 02:08 PM // 14:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Commander Ryker

It was never about the rewards for me (it couldn't be because my luck totally sucks), it's about the challenge. This is way beyond a challenge tho, it's damn near impossible.

In the Ascalon area, there are lvl 20+ grawl with 2 monks in almost every group and you're only allowed a party of 4. Yes, I understand it's supposed to be hard, but this is just ridiculous. In the days before hm, by the time we got to foes of that level, we had parties of 8. Now, because it's hm, we're expected to beat these higher level, super buffed baddies? Yeah, ok.

I thought the same thing, but your bog standard warrior, monk, MM and ele (or other) can wipe the Old Ascalon missions in minutes.

The MM being the key one, because you need numbers.

Sophitia Leafblade · May 16, 2007, 02:09 PM // 14:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Commander Ryker

In the Ascalon area, there are lvl 20+ grawl with 2 monks in almost every group and you're only allowed a party of 4. Yes, I understand it's supposed to be hard, but this is just ridiculous. In the days before hm, by the time we got to foes of that level, we had parties of 8. Now, because it's hm, we're expected to beat these higher level, super buffed baddies? Yeah, ok.

I cant say ive ever had a problem with the grawl, me and Norgu take care of them easily enough. So the solution to your problems = Take a mesmer with you where ever you go. Mesmers have always been a real asset but they get highly overlooked, in hard mode they finally have the chance to shine

Although i havnt been everywhere in HM mode from the numerious places ive been in Tryia and Cantha ive not no real problems, and if i do fail or get wiped out i change tactics slightly and try again.

kippyieh · May 16, 2007, 02:15 PM // 14:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zinger314

... (which takes a few months before it suffers from a Sysphisian nature)...

Hi!

What does Sysphisian mean?

Sophitia Leafblade · May 16, 2007, 02:23 PM // 14:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by kippyieh

Hi!

What does Sysphisian mean?

Well im not to date with the latest lingo but according to wikipedia no such word exists so *shrugs*

Ouchie · May 16, 2007, 02:24 PM // 14:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by freekedoutfish

Cant you make that exact same argument for gold drops in HM. The simple fact is that some people in the game are luckier then others, and you have good days and bad days.

Sometimes you cant get no drops for days, and then suddenly you get loads.

I've had 6 tomes drop (elite and normal), one passage scroll, countless golds and lots of dyes while doing HM. I've also seen party members go through an entire HM mission getting nothing but gold drops, while no one else did. Ive also had most of my lock-picks survive atleast one use.

I've also had HM missions where I get nothing exciting at all, except blues and purples. Its like anything in life; sometimes your lucky, sometimes your not.

You cant ask for the mechanics of the drop system to be changed, just because you have an unlucky streak. I bet within a week, you will do a mission where you get countless golds. Then you'l be happier then pie.

The HM drop system is absolutely fine.

I am not asking for more golds I do believe the gold drop rate is fine, same with rare materials - but the scroll drop rate, elite tome drop rate from bosses (not chests) and fact that regular tomes come out of chests in HM I think needs to be changed. Most of my post had to do with other things like adding NPC's and stuff not how lucky you are.

bungusmaximus · May 16, 2007, 02:39 PM // 14:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by kippyieh

Hi!

What does Sysphisian mean?

Sysyphus (cant remember exact spelling) was a guy from an ancient greek legend that ws punished for his sins in the underworld. He had to roll a rock on top of a mountain that was shaped like a pyramid. Needless to say that took an eternity (literally) because the stone rolled of everytime. Rolling the stone on the mountain was pretty pointless, but still he had to do it, as a punishment.

Commander Ryker · May 16, 2007, 02:51 PM // 14:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sophitia Leafblade

I cant say ive ever had a problem with the grawl, me and Norgu take care of them easily enough. So the solution to your problems = Take a mesmer with you where ever you go. Mesmers have always been a real asset but they get highly overlooked, in hard mode they finally have the chance to shine

Although i havnt been everywhere in HM mode from the numerious places ive been in Tryia and Cantha ive not no real problems, and if i do fail or get wiped out i change tactics slightly and try again.

I did bring a mesmer, but how can you degen a monk, when there's another one healing him?

Sophitia Leafblade · May 16, 2007, 03:05 PM // 15:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Commander Ryker

I did bring a mesmer, but how can you degen a monk, when there's another one healing him?

Powerblock one, backfire the other one and then degen/beat them to a pulp

Avarre · May 16, 2007, 03:09 PM // 15:09

Degen is bad, use domination skills; focusfire-backfire will break just about any mob. If you bring hard shutdown like mentioned above it gets even easier, but is certainly not needed.

Spazzer · May 16, 2007, 03:18 PM // 15:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Avarre

Degen is bad

To further expand on this point (which is right), you just don't have the time to sit around and wait for things to degen to death when everything has 1000 health.

Go for what is formulaic and has high damage numbers. It really helps if it's it's armor ignoring like hexes. I'm finding that dirty told SS, Empathy, Spoil Victor, Backfire, Soul Leech, etc spam is many many many many times more effective than Searing Flames simply because everything has too much health and armor to make elemenatlist nuking effective.

Kashrlyyk · May 16, 2007, 03:20 PM // 15:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by VitisVinifera

Great Al, the workings of anti-farm is far from completely understood, but I think you are confusing 2 things: number of instances affecting drop rate (which most people dispute), and flags increasing as you overfarm in general (which I believe is the case).

I had a similar experience to yours: I 55/105 farmed the hell out of a few areas (dead swords, corsairs, gates of kryta), when I actually believed Gaile that there was no anti-farm in HM. Well, I got myself into anti-farm abyss, and it follows me to any zone I farm for the first time, whether it's a popular spot or not. I've tried hydras: nil. The Sandstorm Crags in Joko's Domain for Elemental Swords: not even a purple. And random places, looking for new farm spots that haven't caught on yet: still nothing.

If you kill a lot of enemies in a very short time, your drops will be nearly not existing. Kill them one after the other, eg. with Splinter Armor instead of Shield of Judgement.

Nekretaal · May 16, 2007, 03:30 PM // 15:30

The problem with hard mode is that there is nothing to do in hard mode but grind titles.

Why would you bother doing a Hard mode mission if you dont care about Guardian title because you dont have protector title?

Unique loot would go a long way towards fixing this issue and getting people to actually play... Hard/Nightmare mode in Diablo gave less gold but better loot... athough that might just turn hard mdoe into farming spots and not help anything....

I honestly think that hard mode needs unique content: unique quests or unique anything else to do. As it stand now, all you can do is grind out areas that you already beat using, in many cases, the exact same tactics.

glountz · May 16, 2007, 03:33 PM // 15:33

This is not Blasphemy. This is not Madness.
THIS. IS. HARD MOOODE!!
Be a real spartiat or stay at home.

Vainquished Tasca's end yesterday. Had a real laugh as we thought to vainquish this zone quickly.

Commander Ryker · May 16, 2007, 03:37 PM // 15:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sophitia Leafblade

I cant say ive ever had a problem with the grawl, me and Norgu take care of them easily enough. So the solution to your problems = Take a mesmer with you where ever you go. Mesmers have always been a real asset but they get highly overlooked, in hard mode they finally have the chance to shine

Although i havnt been everywhere in HM mode from the numerious places ive been in Tryia and Cantha ive not no real problems, and if i do fail or get wiped out i change tactics slightly and try again.

I did bring a mesmer, but how can you degen a monk, when there's another one healing him?

Sophitia Leafblade · May 16, 2007, 03:55 PM // 15:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Commander Ryker

I did bring a mesmer, but how can you degen a monk, when there's another one healing him?

You asked that above, the solution is you dont degen them you try other tactics like power blocking one (if ur using hers u can use lock on etc. or manually use the skill) and backfiring and mobbing the other.

so inother words u either need more firepower and/Or u stop or reduce the healing ability of the monks.

creelie · May 16, 2007, 04:06 PM // 16:06

Zinger doesn't speak for everyone.

First of all, people are playing in hard mode.

My groups were almost always a mixture of fellow HM freaks from my friends list, new PUG members (many of whom ended up on my friends list), guild/alliance members, and heroes. No team came from only one source.

I've found Hard Mode to be a rewarding challenge - not in terms of bling, but in terms of the accomplishment and camaraderie that first hooked me on the game. I've made some new friends, helped some people out, become a better monk and started experimenting way more with my own builds.

Bling-wise, I'm satisfied. I think I made almost 100k from 25 missions, with an average of 2-3 attempts per mission. That's straight from the merchant and traders, no lockpicks or WTS involved. There's some stuff I kept for myself as well, instead of turning into gold.

I'm pretty pumped for Guardian of Elona as well. I might not even do Guardian of Cantha; I hate the way the timed Factions missions punish people for not being robots. But that's a Factions thing, not a Hard Mode thing.