Guild Wars difficulty - Guild Wars Forums

Horace The Great · Oct 04, 2009, 01:32 PM // 13:32

Hello,

For school (Game Design) I had to describe the difficulty of some games, how it evolves in a game.

Now I was wondering how does this exactly work in Guild Wars(PvE)? Is it just the level and the skills or is there more?

I hope you can help me out with this. I didn't play Guild Wars for over a year so it's hard for me to remember everything

silavor · Oct 04, 2009, 01:53 PM // 13:53

It's also the skill synergy and size of the mobs. In early proph, you usually find yourself against "groups" of one or two monsters at a time, and they only have two or three skills at most. But later on (especially in end-game Nightfall and EotN) the mob sizes grow retardedly huge, and they have lots of skills to work with, all of them usually synergizing well. Add on to that the henchmen you have to work with if PUGs aren't availible, with skill "synergy" such as Practiced Stance + Ignite Arrows, and I think you've got just about all the ways difficulty increases: Higher levels, better skills (plus monster skills, although PvE-only skills have balanced that out), increased skill synergy, and epicly failing allies on your part.

Edit: If you want to add in Hard-mode, there's also super-increased levels, increased attack speeds, increased movement speeds, increased armour ratings, and increased AI.

Eddie Frenzy Spam · Oct 04, 2009, 02:23 PM // 14:23

In terms of difficulty you're probably better off looking at the PvP side of things since there is a much greater depth to the PvP game. However it would be very hard to go into detail without having a good understanding of the PvP side of things yourself. Maybe you can ask around and get some useful information.

Killamus · Oct 04, 2009, 03:52 PM // 15:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by silavor

Edit: If you want to add in Hard-mode, there's also increased AI.

I dunno. AI seems just as stupid as ever in hard mode as in NM (Attacking through hexes like Empathy, lack of scattering (Takes 2-3 pulses, whereas a human takes 1 pulse) and not reconizing kill-yourself skills, such as Sliver armor.)

And as for skill synergy... Eh. To me, it seems as if Anet decided that monster A would be this kind of monster and added skills based on that. There's not much syngergy in bars until you get into the Factions elite areas (I really can't say that there is synergy in UW/FoW bars, every monster in an area is the same...) or DoA.

Chthon · Oct 04, 2009, 04:14 PM // 16:14

How does the difficulty increase throughout the game?

1. Stat pumping. Monsters get higher and higher levels, and the higher and higher armor, life, attributes, and auto-attack damage that come with them.
2. Stat pumping again. Monsters all get IAS, IMS, ICS, and IRS in HM. (And even higher levels too.)
3. Mobs get larger.
4. AI gets marginally smarter in HM.
5. Monster builds get better, both in terms of individual builds and synergies within team builds.
6. Monster builds increasingly feature skills that derive extra advantage from stat pumping.
7. Monster-only skills get more ridiculously overpowered.
8. Obnoxious environmental effects.

Horace The Great · Oct 04, 2009, 06:08 PM // 18:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by eddie the reaper

In terms of difficulty you're probably better off looking at the PvP side of things since there is a much greater depth to the PvP game. However it would be very hard to go into detail without having a good understanding of the PvP side of things yourself. Maybe you can ask around and get some useful information.

I don't agree with that. In PvP allot depends on the level of your opponent.
It's not like PvE: its starts easy and gets more difficult the further you get.

Thenameless Wonder · Oct 04, 2009, 07:23 PM // 19:23

Basically PvE stars out button mashing. You can kill/attack/use skills/move in any which way or order and you can progress through the game. After this comes getting new skills and capping your first elite skill. At this time some synergy is formed with your build (synergy with henchmen and heroes comes later). Also here is the point where runes are added. Soon after this point you begin to sync heroes builds and then heroes builds with each other and your own. After that point you load your own armor up with as many runes as possible and cap more leet skills. Focus-firing and calling targets follows soon after. The last step is basically super powerful bosses and AI that make you think on your feet, but high end PvE never gets that hard

. If you wanted to upgrade your heroes armor I would say that it is optional, I completed 4 different campaigns with 4 different characters of which none were upgraded, so ya it's possible.

Oh and by the way, right before high end PvE you will need to squire different weapon sets for different circumstances. Heroes probably don't need these though.

Bob Slydell · Oct 04, 2009, 07:44 PM // 19:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thenameless Wonder

Basically PvE stars out button mashing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thenameless Wonder

......but high end PvE never gets that hard.......

Sigh................

Thenameless Wonder · Oct 04, 2009, 07:49 PM // 19:49

It doesn't! As I've said I have completed all campaigns including EoTN with only my main character maxed out and runed. All of my heroes have had their basic weapons and armor. An exception to this which I haven't mentioned is the super leet areas; UW FoW Urgoz Deep. The UW and FoW is a peace of cake with the meta-builds. As well as the Deep and Urgoz. All you have to do is have understanding of your class/skills/path and its not that hard. Until permas get nerfed then people will have to think again...

Akaraxle · Oct 05, 2009, 07:19 AM // 07:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Horace The Great

Now I was wondering how does this exactly work in Guild Wars(PvE)? Is it just the level and the skills or is there more?

Difficulty in PvE is Big Numbers. It's contrasted by players with Invincible Tanks and, occasionally, Prots.

End of essay.

kedde · Oct 05, 2009, 07:29 AM // 07:29

In short, there's no challenge in gw pve.
That's how long it'll take for you to describe it.

Anyone who bothers to read the game manual, skill description and who applies real life logic to choices in the game shouldn't ever be having trouble with starting from scratch in the game.

Eddie Frenzy Spam · Oct 05, 2009, 05:57 PM // 17:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Horace The Great

I don't agree with that. In PvP allot depends on the level of your opponent.
It's not like PvE: its starts easy and gets more difficult the further you get.

Uhh..What?

How on earth do you conclude that the individual skill required to play PvP is dependent on the skill of your opponent?

The skill of your opponent has nothing at all to do with the knowledge you yourself need to know in order to actually play successfully. It's irrelevant how good your opponent is, if you play to your full potential everytime you will just beat them faster...

And if you think that High-End PvP is harder than High-End PvP then you obviously haven't played any High-End PvP. The depth of PvP is far greater than anything in the PvE side of things and thus there is more to analyse when presenting something based on difficulty levels in the game.

I Angra I · Oct 05, 2009, 05:59 PM // 17:59

the difficulty increase in pve is basically.. higher level monsters, more powerful skills, more of them, the further you go

for a simple explanation

Horace The Great · Oct 05, 2009, 06:20 PM // 18:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by eddie the reaper

Uhh..What?

How on earth do you conclude that the individual skill required to play PvP is dependent on the skill of your opponent?

The skill of your opponent has nothing at all to do with the knowledge you yourself need to know in order to actually play successfully. It's irrelevant how good your opponent is, if you play to your full potential everytime you will just beat them faster...

And if you think that High-End PvP is harder than High-End PvP then you obviously haven't played any High-End PvP. The depth of PvP is far greater than anything in the PvE side of things and thus there is more to analyse when presenting something based on difficulty levels in the game.

I think you don't really understand what I am trying to find out. I am trying to see how the difficulty level increases throughout the game. The difficulty of a game really depends on your opponents as well. And with PvE it's easier to find out.

And I've being playing PvP in the old days when I still played so I still know something about that too.

HawkofStorms · Oct 05, 2009, 09:23 PM // 21:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by eddie the reaper

Uhh..What?

How on earth do you conclude that the individual skill required to play PvP is dependent on the skill of your opponent?

The skill of your opponent has nothing at all to do with the knowledge you yourself need to know in order to actually play successfully. It's irrelevant how good your opponent is, if you play to your full potential everytime you will just beat them faster...

And if you think that High-End PvP is harder than High-End PvP then you obviously haven't played any High-End PvP. The depth of PvP is far greater than anything in the PvE side of things and thus there is more to analyse when presenting something based on difficulty levels in the game.

The individual skill to WIN at PvP is dependent on your opponent.

Top GvG players could easily go into AB and destroy everybody that goes near them (because the level of competition is so much worse). Now, obviously, the 4 guys from RAWR or whatever aren't "better" at AB then they are in GvG.... it's just the level of play of the opponents is so much worse that they would win more often.

Shadowmere · Oct 05, 2009, 09:33 PM // 21:33

Eh, I wouldn't listen to those saying there's no challenge in pve at all and if you can't beat the endgame missions after playing for an hour you suck, etc, so forth and whatnot. Most people with this attitude are just veterans who know the game like the back of their hand and forget that they had to learn all that stuff. It's the same reason so many say the game is dead, boring etc, but that's another topic entirely.

On topic I'd say difficulty in PvE is primarily based on the monsters' skills and the AI's ability to use them. However most of PvE utilizes the "bigger, tougher, faster" buff approach to increase difficulty. The farther you go in a PvE campaign the higher level and more numerous monsters become and while they do gain more skills as well they typically still just have a random smattering of skills and attributes meaning they still have to rely more on high levels, large mob sizes and buffs to present a challenge. Notable exceptions that show how deadly just giving the AI decent skill set ups can be, include a lot of Monsters in EoTN (Mandragors and Charr specifically).

So to sum that up there's a lot of factors that determine difficulty in PvE, but the main ones used are:
1.) "Hard Mode" style buffs and monster skills; giving a monster baseline stats that far out step players is an obvious way to make enemies challenging (but it tends to creates strategies that simply exploit weaknesses in the AI)
2.) "More and Bigger!" i.e. making monsters levels high above that of a players and making mobs include far more members than a player can bring.
3.) "AI Upgrades" Although not too noticable the AI in HM monsters is far more sensitive and aggressive than NM AI; Monsters scatter much faster from AoE, Monsters relentlessly attack healers in groups and melee are much harder to intercept/body block.
4.) "Better Bars makes Better Baddies" EotN monsters proved how powerful this could be. Monsters with bars that feature good synergy within the bar as well as mobs that synergize well makes monsters that while not as high level or buffed out as others become real threats that can take down players as well as super buffed out monsters could (better even)

Eskimoz · Oct 05, 2009, 09:38 PM // 21:38

the PvE in this game ranges from....

Haha this is pathetic

to

OMFG WE HAVE TO FIGHT THAT?!

Eddie Frenzy Spam · Oct 06, 2009, 07:24 PM // 19:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawkofStorms

The individual skill to WIN at PvP is dependent on your opponent.

Top GvG players could easily go into AB and destroy everybody that goes near them (because the level of competition is so much worse). Now, obviously, the 4 guys from RAWR or whatever aren't "better" at AB then they are in GvG.... it's just the level of play of the opponents is so much worse that they would win more often.

No, you're getting confused between the skill REQUIRED to win and the skill USED to win.

Of course skill required to win is going to be dependent on the opponent and the worse the opponent the smaller the skill required to win. However I very much doubt anyone uses the minimum skill required to win a game. People don't want to play long games vs bad players and therefore will always play to their maximum potential, eliminating the relationship between skill used and opponent faced.

With regards to the OP, that's fair enough I just thought you were looking at overall difficulty rather than how the difficulty progresses.

Oct 04, 2009, 01:32 PM // 13:32	#1
Horace The Great Lion's Arch Merchant Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: The Netherlands Guild: Lament of the Phoenix [LotP]	Guild Wars difficulty Hello, For school (Game Design) I had to describe the difficulty of some games, how it evolves in a game. Now I was wondering how does this exactly work in Guild Wars(PvE)? Is it just the level and the skills or is there more? I hope you can help me out with this. I didn't play Guild Wars for over a year so it's hard for me to remember everything

Oct 04, 2009, 01:53 PM // 13:53	#2
silavor Lion's Arch Merchant Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Canada Guild: Keepers Of Twilight	It's also the skill synergy and size of the mobs. In early proph, you usually find yourself against "groups" of one or two monsters at a time, and they only have two or three skills at most. But later on (especially in end-game Nightfall and EotN) the mob sizes grow retardedly huge, and they have lots of skills to work with, all of them usually synergizing well. Add on to that the henchmen you have to work with if PUGs aren't availible, with skill "synergy" such as Practiced Stance + Ignite Arrows, and I think you've got just about all the ways difficulty increases: Higher levels, better skills (plus monster skills, although PvE-only skills have balanced that out), increased skill synergy, and epicly failing allies on your part. Edit: If you want to add in Hard-mode, there's also super-increased levels, increased attack speeds, increased movement speeds, increased armour ratings, and increased AI. Last edited by silavor; Oct 04, 2009 at 01:56 PM // 13:56..

Oct 04, 2009, 02:23 PM // 14:23	#3
Eddie Frenzy Spam Krytan Explorer Join Date: Jul 2007 Guild: Old N Dirty [ym] Profession: W/E	In terms of difficulty you're probably better off looking at the PvP side of things since there is a much greater depth to the PvP game. However it would be very hard to go into detail without having a good understanding of the PvP side of things yourself. Maybe you can ask around and get some useful information.

Oct 04, 2009, 04:14 PM // 16:14	#5
Chthon Grotto Attendant Join Date: Apr 2007	How does the difficulty increase throughout the game? 1. Stat pumping. Monsters get higher and higher levels, and the higher and higher armor, life, attributes, and auto-attack damage that come with them. 2. Stat pumping again. Monsters all get IAS, IMS, ICS, and IRS in HM. (And even higher levels too.) 3. Mobs get larger. 4. AI gets marginally smarter in HM. 5. Monster builds get better, both in terms of individual builds and synergies within team builds. 6. Monster builds increasingly feature skills that derive extra advantage from stat pumping. 7. Monster-only skills get more ridiculously overpowered. 8. Obnoxious environmental effects.

Oct 04, 2009, 07:23 PM // 19:23	#7
Thenameless Wonder Krytan Explorer Join Date: Aug 2009 Profession: W/	Basically PvE stars out button mashing. You can kill/attack/use skills/move in any which way or order and you can progress through the game. After this comes getting new skills and capping your first elite skill. At this time some synergy is formed with your build (synergy with henchmen and heroes comes later). Also here is the point where runes are added. Soon after this point you begin to sync heroes builds and then heroes builds with each other and your own. After that point you load your own armor up with as many runes as possible and cap more leet skills. Focus-firing and calling targets follows soon after. The last step is basically super powerful bosses and AI that make you think on your feet, but high end PvE never gets that hard . If you wanted to upgrade your heroes armor I would say that it is optional, I completed 4 different campaigns with 4 different characters of which none were upgraded, so ya it's possible. Oh and by the way, right before high end PvE you will need to squire different weapon sets for different circumstances. Heroes probably don't need these though.

Oct 04, 2009, 07:49 PM // 19:49	#9
Thenameless Wonder Krytan Explorer Join Date: Aug 2009 Profession: W/	It doesn't! As I've said I have completed all campaigns including EoTN with only my main character maxed out and runed. All of my heroes have had their basic weapons and armor. An exception to this which I haven't mentioned is the super leet areas; UW FoW Urgoz Deep. The UW and FoW is a peace of cake with the meta-builds. As well as the Deep and Urgoz. All you have to do is have understanding of your class/skills/path and its not that hard. Until permas get nerfed then people will have to think again...

Oct 05, 2009, 07:29 AM // 07:29	#11
kedde Wilds Pathfinder Join Date: May 2007 Guild: Kaons Banned Fecal Super Team [Ban] Profession: Mo/A	In short, there's no challenge in gw pve. That's how long it'll take for you to describe it. Anyone who bothers to read the game manual, skill description and who applies real life logic to choices in the game shouldn't ever be having trouble with starting from scratch in the game.

Oct 05, 2009, 05:59 PM // 17:59	#13
I Angra I Krytan Explorer Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Napa, CA Guild: Inadequately Equipped [GeAr] Profession: R/N	the difficulty increase in pve is basically.. higher level monsters, more powerful skills, more of them, the further you go for a simple explanation

Oct 05, 2009, 09:33 PM // 21:33	#16
Shadowmere Wilds Pathfinder Join Date: Jan 2007 Guild: The Grim Squeakers [REAP] Profession: N/	Eh, I wouldn't listen to those saying there's no challenge in pve at all and if you can't beat the endgame missions after playing for an hour you suck, etc, so forth and whatnot. Most people with this attitude are just veterans who know the game like the back of their hand and forget that they had to learn all that stuff. It's the same reason so many say the game is dead, boring etc, but that's another topic entirely. On topic I'd say difficulty in PvE is primarily based on the monsters' skills and the AI's ability to use them. However most of PvE utilizes the "bigger, tougher, faster" buff approach to increase difficulty. The farther you go in a PvE campaign the higher level and more numerous monsters become and while they do gain more skills as well they typically still just have a random smattering of skills and attributes meaning they still have to rely more on high levels, large mob sizes and buffs to present a challenge. Notable exceptions that show how deadly just giving the AI decent skill set ups can be, include a lot of Monsters in EoTN (Mandragors and Charr specifically). So to sum that up there's a lot of factors that determine difficulty in PvE, but the main ones used are: 1.) "Hard Mode" style buffs and monster skills; giving a monster baseline stats that far out step players is an obvious way to make enemies challenging (but it tends to creates strategies that simply exploit weaknesses in the AI) 2.) "More and Bigger!" i.e. making monsters levels high above that of a players and making mobs include far more members than a player can bring. 3.) "AI Upgrades" Although not too noticable the AI in HM monsters is far more sensitive and aggressive than NM AI; Monsters scatter much faster from AoE, Monsters relentlessly attack healers in groups and melee are much harder to intercept/body block. 4.) "Better Bars makes Better Baddies" EotN monsters proved how powerful this could be. Monsters with bars that feature good synergy within the bar as well as mobs that synergize well makes monsters that while not as high level or buffed out as others become real threats that can take down players as well as super buffed out monsters could (better even)

Oct 05, 2009, 09:38 PM // 21:38	#17
Eskimoz Academy Page Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: My house Profession: W/	the PvE in this game ranges from.... Haha this is pathetic to OMFG WE HAVE TO FIGHT THAT?!