Curse

Hephaestus Ram · Nov 17, 2006, 05:08 AM // 05:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Karlos

Okay, I have been mulling over this for the past few days, but now I have made up my mind and I would like to see what others think.

I believe Nightfall is too hard for the average player. I am aware of the thread titled "Nightfall too hard" but this is not about Rihlon Refuge and what not.

I have finished the game twice already, and am convinced that the Realm of Torment (and parts of Desolation) are simply too hard to be enjoyable for average players. I do not understand this design by ANet and I feel personally that despite being a wonderful game, Nightfall will spell the end of the Guild Wars franchise in terms of popularity.

Just so that we are clear, I finished the game in 2.5 days. My elementalist has 18 Million XP over 2,500 hours. She has 6 titles maxed including Elonian Grandmaster Cartographer and Protector as well as the Skill Hunter titlethat cannot be maxed. So, I don't want any posts from any self-proclaimed experts about how I just need a little a little more experience with the game. I also would appreicate if those who have not finished the game hold their thoughts till they actually finish it.

The problem as I see it is that the Torment hordes are just too powerful when one considers the AI enhancements. This problem starts as early as fighting Hekets Kourna. If you're a caster and you play the high level areas of Elona, then you 've probably encoutnered the following situation with Henchmen/Heroes:

You attack a mob, their Warriors/Dervishes rush your casters and they kite like real pros. In a few seconds, the "smart" melee enemies turn their focus to... YOU. You're the only noob not kiting. So, they start hacking at you laying Deep Wound on you and Distracting Blow and you can hardly get anything off. So, you decide to kite.. However, as soon as you start moving, your henchies stop attacking and set out to follow you.

The solution in most cases is to "anchor" them using the hero/henchie markers. However, if you're constantly being chased (It's the worst when you are a monk), you have major problems calling and directing their attacks while you're running about.

This solution beings to fail in the Desolation and most certainly in the Realm of Torment. If you're not on top of it making calls, your henchies will not finish them off quickly enough and due to "Call to the torment" you'll end up with more bad guys than you started with. If you're a new player coming to GW from other games... You'll be like, what the heck is going on here?!

To summarize this case study, I feel the monster AI is ahead of the hencmen AI, and it shows very clearly in the Realm of Torment. It really takes the wind out of your excitement about the Hero system when you get to the realm of Torment and find yourself getting "pwned" left and right. Mostly due to elements not directly related to your skill with the game. For example, take the Domain of Secrets with it's delightful +40% energy cost. No way, should you run into a group of torment Demons with 3 Rain of Terror demons along with an Arm of Insanity who has Quickeing Zephyr. The math just does not add up. The henchie/hero healers WILL dump ALL their energy in the first 5 seconds of the encounter and your party will wipe soon after.

The way I see it. This kind of imbalance will cause much frustration. Soon the player community will split into the haves and have nots. Those who put up with/overcome this kind of frustration (5%) and those who do not (95%). On day 4 of the game coming out, there were already people in Torment towns offering runs to the different outposts because they knew traveling the realm was very difficult. This will not just be limited to running, soon acquiring items/skins from the realm will be the domain of those few who can put up with its challenges.

This is nothing like Prophecies or Factions. In Factions, large groups of Shiro'ken were a handful, but they were not in an entire realm. In fact, the only time you "had" to go through them, Kuunavang offered you uber skills. In Prophecies, the Ring of Fire is Pre-Searing compared to the Realm of Torment.

In closing, I feel the end game in Nightfall is too hard for average players, and I think it will turn people off from the game once they discover that it's the area with the most lucrative drops and that they cannot go very far there on their own.

I don't know whether I agree or not yet. I've been involved in a few
threads in "the other" elite forum where people are asking for
Prophacies and Factions to be nerfed because they're too hard.

While arguing with them, all I can think in the back of my mind is
"wait 'til the get to Nightfall, where almost everything is lvl 28. and
come in groups of 10". I've gotten to the point where I can do almost
all of the missions in the other two chapters with the henches, I
thought I was getting pretty good, but even with the heroes, I'm
struggling to survive in Nightfall.

I'll have to wait until I've finished it a few times before I can say for
sure, but I'm tentatively going to agree that it's too hard for people
that don't have more than a few hours a day to play.

Feurin Longcastle · Nov 17, 2006, 05:44 AM // 05:44

I recall a year ago I had immense trouble getting past THK, but now that I reflect on it I think it mostly had to do with poor equipment and skill choice. I haven't really found any area of GW too challenging since. (The 2nd last mission of Nightfall was difficult until I realized that going for the Masters made it infinitely easier)

I'm guessing that the people that don't have many skills unlocked on their accounts for their heroes, and don't have optimal equipment will perceive most of the Realm of Torment the way I saw THK a year ago.

Having said that, I hope nothing changes. I felt great when I finally overcame THK. If I breezed through Prophecies I would have felt a little cheated, I think.

realoddsman · Nov 17, 2006, 05:45 AM // 05:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ninna

I played Prophecies on release

I saw *many* people complaining (ingame) about
- Crossing the Dune (used to be only 1 monk henchie)
- Dune missions
- Fighting the Mirror
- THK
- the final missions of Ember camp

the game is almost 2 years old and many people are experienced GW players

- Crossing the Dune (used to be only 1 monk henchie)
then came the prot henchie, so nerfed.
-- Dune missionsplayer
prot henchie + gradual influx of all 20's with actual max armor (many people didnt bother gettin their max until that snow town. w.e it was called)

- Fighting the Mirror
nerfed at one point since monks couldnt kill their mirror.

- THK
nerfed once infusals were across the entire armor. Many nubs only infused 1 piece. Still a bitch though with retards and afk's though.

- the final missions of Ember camp
Nerfed once infusals were across the entire armor. Again, the nubs with 1/5 or 3/5 infused.

Quintal · Nov 17, 2006, 06:04 AM // 06:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Antheus

Ultimately, GW stands behind player skill design. Players that have skill will breeze through content. Nightfall is demanding. The only question here would be, whether players stick around for long enough to learn. Is GW really meant to be played from Prophecies onward, or are these chapters really playable as standalone?

I can't answer that, and veteran players can't either. But I do remember the times, when I considered Frost Gate an incredibly hard mission. and I feared going in there, let alone do the bonus.

So perhaps, NF is the same. I lived and learned, probably others will too.

I think you hit it spot on there.

Prophecies was a gradual build up and introduced harder and more complex chalenges at a good pace. Factions and Nightfall both toss you into the heat of complex battles with very little build up.

Now, this is great for someone who's played through prophecies and has some playtime under their belt, but for a new player starting in NF, they just don't get a chance to develop the required skills.

I've played since release, I have a friend who started with nightfall. Watching the two of us play, I was suprised at how I found my self just glancing at a mob and knowing what all of it's skills did and how to counter it, while my friend was just trying to beat it to death. Nightfall never teaches such things to a new player, I think this relates to the way you got skills in prophecies.. When you only get 2-3 new skills per mission you really have to think "Now what can this skill do for me?" Where as the Factions/Nightfall approach gives you a large list and you just pick things that sound cool.

So, as to the topic, I don't feel torment it self is too hard, but I do feel that Nightfall doesn't teach new players well enough to be able to handle it.

Karlos · Nov 17, 2006, 06:49 AM // 06:49

This is a side issue, but I agree with Quintal. I thought the "Dojo" in Shing Jea was a very nice idea to at least teach the players the basics of "interruption", "hex removal" and so forth. I don't understand why Nightfall has no tutorial beyond "Go talk to Dervish Expert, get two free skills, good luck!"

4thVariety · Nov 17, 2006, 06:51 AM // 06:51

It’s the eternal problem of new content. Should it be an expansion which requires you to master the content that has come before? Then Nightfall can’t be hard enough. Hell, then it was made to expand the top level content and the torment is still too easy. Kourna then should have Lvl28 Mobs.

Or was it made to be more of a sequel? Something you just pick up and play like any other sequel. (Madden 2010, Medal of Honor pt.815) In that case the difficulty is directed at “newbies” and casual gamers. The expansion for the existing players is in size only, not in quality.

Nightfall tries to be both and falls flat on its face. The pros cry out that it is not hard enough. The casual games cry out it is too hard; and for good reason as the OP pointed out. In the end it neither truly satisfies either crowd. Both game modes “Ultra-Easy” and “Fairly-Tough” are blended together. True, most of the problems derive from people playing with Hero/Hench, just as the OP did, but “hey, that’s the new superfeature right?” A solid human team will hardly run into trouble. No matter how crazy the AI gets.

Rakeris · Nov 17, 2006, 06:59 AM // 06:59

Good post Bobbbo Ob.

Even though I beat it all without to much of a problem on my dervish, I really dread it with my monk, I may just never do the finale missions/zones with my monk. As some of the zones where not so hard, as just stupid imo. There is a difference between hard, and giving the NPCs stupid advantages. I like difficulty, but how fun is it, when there are 3x as many of them, they are 8 levels higher and and hero/henchie AI sucks. With even half competent players I would wager it wouldn't be a problem. But there are so many problems with the hero/henchie AI that imo is what makes it hard.

Granted not all of the areas of course, some are fairly easy, others not so much. I hero/henchied every mission in NF except the last one. And needless to say, I didn't feel any sort of accomplishment after beating the boss....as he did nothing, and was easy to beat, we got a ragtag pug with only ONE monk. And we beat it in a tad over 15:00. Even though shiro could be killed in like 30 seconds...there was some feeling of accomplishment, instead of just FINALLY!!

But over all NF was a great game, and still is, I plan to do every quest I can find. But as I said, I always disliked games that instead of giving you a decent fight, they have to give the NPCs a stupid advantage, which imo, takes a lot of the fun out of it. Like instead of fighting though the realm of torment zones, I just ran though them. As fighting not only took 100x longer. A single boss could wipe your whole party...nothing like being hit for over 400 damage each attack. But even then, I wouldn't mind, it's the hero/henchie AI that annoys me the most, as if you do anything but stand there and fight, they start running around, which means they are doing nothing else...and a lot of the time they won't even use skills right, like you always have to tell them to use heal party...

Anyway, that is my 2 cents. =\

=HT=Ingram · Nov 17, 2006, 07:01 AM // 07:01

the simple fact you have already finished it twice, probably 3 or 4 times by now just proves to me that you really are not thinking when you say its too hard...

I actually enjoy a game that is not possible to finish in a weekend. but that is really REALLY rare. Nightfall is basically an Easy button for all previous chapters, and not too hard in and of itself. IDK why people think its so hard, other then they just don't like the game and want to complain on something, instead of playing it and figuring it out.

I'm sorry your having so much trouble. But it really is not very hard to either get a PUG to help you or use Heroes and henchies through the entire game. It really IS possible to do this if you so choose. But its no where near as fun as playing with real players who often make things more interesting just because they do things unpredictable.

Mr Jazzy · Nov 17, 2006, 07:23 AM // 07:23

The difficulty is not a matter of required skill, or techniques of the enemy monsters, but rather the contrast of the Torment mobs to past enemies.

Monsters in the past did not kite so well, deal so much damage, or have such high levels or armors.

If strong monsters like these were spanned across all expansions, then the standard of skill and playing would have been raised to the sky. However, Anet screwed alot of us over by changing the standard from mind-numbingly easy to actually challenging, requiring many facets of skill, micro, and focus.

I used to be able to PvE with my eyes closed, using only one hand to control my character and chat all at the same time. Now, PvE is intense. It's very serious trying to play in the Realm of Torment, and for me, playing serious in a not-so-serious game with shiny swords and make-believe monsters is not fun at all.

Just trying to classify this difficulty, and yeah it'll come off as whining, but i just providing the psychological standpoint. It's really not that hard, but when you compare it to the past, the Realm of Torment is a giant leap.

jackie · Nov 17, 2006, 07:24 AM // 07:24

All I can see here is players saying that they themselves don't have problems completing the game, but a casual gamer would propably have.

I spent couple hours tonight speaking with players in some 'bottleneck' places of NF about difficulty aspect of this game and instead of ranting about how hard it's to beat the 'identical twins', almost all players took it as a challenge and gave tips to each other etc. Spoil Victory ftw and what not.

This very same difficulty/annoyed by rant was introduced when people got stuck to THK,Pve-ToPK and other more not-so-easy-places.

History repeats itself - unfortunately in some cases.

Karlos · Nov 17, 2006, 09:18 AM // 09:18

Actually, it is because I have been observing other players (namely my guild) that I am this concerned. Everyone in my guild was ecstatic, Elona rocks. It's pretty, it's varried and it's creative. Vabbi is the uber cool. Desolation and the Wurms are a novel concept. The return of the Undead and super-smiting is always welcome.

However, ALL my guildies, the most skilled and the most noobish, ground to a halt in Torment. All of them wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. I am a PvE junkie, so I got my ele to do every possible quest there (except Hunting Abaddon cause Zhetuka is AFK). However, I have not had to help so many ACCOMPLISHED players through the game as I have in Nightfall. These are guys who, in Factions, brought ALL their chars through the game without needing any help.

I am also noting their general psyche, and they all pretty much seem frustrated with the Realm of Torment and want to have nothing to do with it once they get their end-game green. Even the possibility of getting an Elemental Sword/Nightmare weapon does not seem to justify going through that punishing experience. I can hardly blame them.

I think the concern is valid, especially with the reward being so pathetic. Now, if those demons dropped Diamonds, or Ectos.. Then that would be a whole different story. Then there would be a meaning to the difficulty. But to agonize through 5-10-15 demons just to get 2,500 XP from the Wandering Soul in the Domain of Pain is, well, lame.

Silentt · Nov 17, 2006, 09:30 AM // 09:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swamprob

For you, perhaps. To me, these games are just that. They come and go. I want to see the story, the graphics, the powers/spells/abilities and then move on. This is my 6th MMO, and I'm sure they'll be more. I have NO desire to go back and rethink a strategy to try to get thru a difficult mission or quest. I want to be successful on my first try, always.
Dying in a game, to me, always ruins the immersion for me. In most books, the hero does not die, ever. He makes it through the obstacles to the end, defeats the bad guy, saves the day without ever dying once. That is the game I want to play. That is what gives me gaming euphoria. I utterly can't stand redoing a mission or quest for the 3rd or 4th or whatever time. I have played some FPS games almost entirely on god mode just so that the storyline unfolding isn't ruined, isn't interrupted, by my character dying.
There is nothing wrong with enjoying a game the way you do, but your words don't speak for all of us.

This thread, and one other, have given me serious reservations on buying Nightfall.

Sorry , but if u do not have the necessary skill the play a game , just dont , dont ask for it to be made easier , ive henched all of guildwars and Nf wasnt any different , its pretty easy if done correctly.

Ps: if u want to improve ur gaming skill try playing pvp.

sabretalon · Nov 17, 2006, 11:22 AM // 11:22

It's all a matter of adapting to the situation. One of the basic skills most new players take long to learn is, know your enemy! Once you know what you are dealing with, you then build a strategy to deal with it!

I like the challange, I did when I got Prophecies as my personal challenge was to get all the way through without relying on others. In factions I challanged myself by getting through the game with an assassin! Then in NF I run with a Dervish, my core characters come over for a tour of duty but other than that not much else.

If the game was not a challenge then I would be bored with it! The only gripe I have is, on one hand ANET say they are against farming but on the other, they encourage it with the sunspear and lightbringer titles and the weekly events!

Ninna · Nov 17, 2006, 12:19 PM // 12:19

I agree Torment isnt fun
- but I didnt think ROF was fun either

did the ROF missions for my characters -- and got the hell out of there, never to return (unless I wanted a skillcap or help friends)

for me, ROF island is the *least fun* in Prophecies

as far as the resolution to Torment,
yes its standalone game but its also the final chapter to the trilogy

if nothing else, people will group more for Torment and not use heroes as much

even tho Torment isnt fun -- I dont want it nerfed

Jecht Scye · Nov 17, 2006, 12:24 PM // 12:24

This game is just fine. Seriously, people complain when it's too easy, and they complain when it's just a little rough at times. If your team has the combined IQ better than that of a rabble of untrained chimpanzees then it's easily beatable. End of Story.

justadude · Nov 17, 2006, 12:39 PM // 12:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Karlos

This IS about: Do you feel the end game difficulty would make Nightfall unenjoyable for average players.

I do not enjoy Guild Wars anymore due to the Gate of Madness mission.

I would also like to clarify that it is ONLY Shiro that has brought this about. The Lich is managable and the rest of the mission is good. However, I find myself not wanting to go through the mission only to lose to Shiro. In the end I find myself despondent and feel my drive to play slipping away as the frustration of reaching Shiro 10+ times with Hero / Hench and some verygood human groups only to lose, sometimes with Shiro two hits from dying.

I have had two of those close losses and the last one made me realize that no matter what, I will feel no accomplishment after beating this mission anymore. I, as stupid as it may sound, feel harassed by Anet and the design of this mission. The thought of going through it again with other characters really turns me off. The mission has become more trouble than it is worth.

Shiro and the Lich shouldn't even be in the storyline. They should be loses ends you need to tie up after beating the game.

I do not know what I will do. I guess I will wait a bit and see if I can motivate myself at a later date, but the fact that I sense no joy at the end of this is really making it seem bleak. I am close to quitting Guild Wars. It was not like this in the Ring of Fire or THK. I enjoy the Warren and the deep for the challenges they offer, but when I want that type of challenge I go there. Also the fundamental difference at Gate of Madness is it is only Shiro at the very end. It takes 20 - 30 minutes of coordinated fighting to get there and then you like a chicken in a den of wolves. It is a poorly designed mission in my opinion. The difficulty spike at the end is just to high.

Domino · Nov 17, 2006, 12:40 PM // 12:40

I enjoy the challenge

justadude · Nov 17, 2006, 01:04 PM // 13:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Domino

I enjoy the challenge

You see, I don't find it challenging anymore. I find it frustrating.

Not killing Shiro, or the mission, but both combined. Running over a bridge to kill Shiro and dying often was fine by me, but fighting 20 minutes to get there and then entering the volatile fight with Shiro is poor design to me.

Pandora's box · Nov 17, 2006, 01:14 PM // 13:14

I have nothing against challenges. Hard levels? ok. What I do object is the waste of time before the real work starts. Playing for an hour on 'easy mode' to find out everything happens in the last 10 minutes. And most probably the first attempts to beat the last part will fail. So you have to go through the whole story again. Thats pointless.

Alternatively I'd say make it so players only have to do the final test. When only the last 10 minutes of a level are a challenge, than the test should only be those 10 minutes. Skip the rest. Teleport the party to the spot, and let the fight beging. Fail? No problem! Players will be eager to restart since it only takes a short time to get to the same situation.

justadude · Nov 17, 2006, 01:22 PM // 13:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bobbbo Ob

...

fifty monsters that are twice as powerful as you characters are isn't a challenge. Its an atrocity commited on Video games! Most people are murmering "FINALLY!!!!!" after they get thorugh it. thats no sense of accomplishment.

-Guildwars, which takes pride in comparing itself to more action oriented games than MMO's, is not challenging, It is just annoying. Going through the same mob fifty times and dying fifty times is not challeging, because you still have to go through the other fifty mobs, fifty more times! And while Guildwars is not supposed to be grinding like WoW, having to go through the same repetitive mobs so you can kill it just to continue, is by all means, considered a Grind.

I agree. Should I get through Gate of Madness, I probably will just log out for a while without making a sound. It is just plain annoying getting to, then closing the 5 gates only to have a 'Wow, look at how hard this gets with Shiro!' slapped in your face.