Curse

Ensign · Aug 27, 2007, 10:17 PM // 22:17

PvE has a static difficulty level. It's all a matter of what is accessible to whom. An encounter could be difficult for 20%, 50% of your players, but 10% of your players will still find it very doable. If you make something challenging for that 10%, you're effectively cutting that content off for the rest of your players. Look at DoA and the problems you get when you make really inaccessible content.

There are important balance issues in PvE, they're just based on different concerns than PvP balance. PvP balance is about fine tuning the potentials of different strategies against each other...PvE balance is more about normalizing the difficulty level of a given encounter and making sure that your content is accessible to lots of different types of players. For example, making sure that your dungeons are challenging enough that they aren't trivially power-farmed to saturate the economy, but not so challenging that your more casual players can't fight through one in a couple hours and accomplish something; or making sure that no class is either dead weight in a given dungeon or so strong that it trivializes everything else.

=HT=Ingram · Aug 27, 2007, 10:26 PM // 22:26

I actually agree with you Little Viking... For easy stuff like quests and even regular missions thats all well and hunkydorie... I just hate that THAT has become the Norm for people... And its even worse when it happens in HM cause the best rewards in HM comes when its a full player party... But people are so Dependant on NPCs for party members now that they do not know how to play in full player groups anymore it seems... IE the guy running off and dieing cause he is used to always follow NPCs that focus all on him instead of working in a party to accomplish things as a group.

I'll fully admit I use heroes and henchmen for the majority of my quests. but I at least make an effort to get a party for the missions... if after a few mins I see thats just not possible, or if I am almost alone in the area I go ahead and do it with heroes and hench just like everyone else. That option is there. so thats what you do. i understand that naturally, but that becoming the NORM instead of the Necessity is depressing...

Mineria · Aug 27, 2007, 10:58 PM // 22:58

Your correct Ingram, going out with a pug makes things different. But its kinda sad that some people leave after the first wipe, instead of continuing and learning to work it out as a group of only players.

Kain666 · Aug 27, 2007, 11:56 PM // 23:56

I love the difficulty level too. Not TOO easy...but not too hard either. And yes the henchmen are...hehe..."usable" now...i love to use mhenlo with my prot hero...they work awesome...

Crom The Pale · Aug 28, 2007, 01:12 AM // 01:12

Basically I'd have to say the difficulty level of most of what I saw in GW:EN was geared towards a pair of players using 3 hero's each.

However some of the master diffuculty quests were geared towards a full party, they were doable with hero's/hench but you needed a good set of hero's with the proper party build to do it.

Now I imagine that on Hard Mode quests like Orzars in the Battledepths where you need to fight off wave after wave of stone summit would be very tough and require a full party of live players.
Killing the Frost Wurms, a master difficulty quest, would most certainly require a full party of people on Hard Mode, but is still doable for a good solo player on normal mode.

Personaly I would have to say the range of difficulty in GW:EN seams just about perfect.