Curse

Sol Solus · Jul 13, 2011, 07:32 PM // 19:32

What are you hoping to see in phases 2 and 3 of WoC? Here's ways I think quests could go beyond simply killing large numbers of foes.

Initiate X could bring more to the table than his presence. He could give your party a Blessing of Purity:

Blessing of Purity
You do double damage to Afflicted and are immune to Soul Explosions.

He could also provide your party with an item that, when dropped, provides a ward effect:

Urn of Purifying Mist
Afflicted in this ward have -4 health degeneration and, upon death, explode violently, doing 80 damage to nearby Afflicted.

That would give some kind of rationale why the Afflicted don't come back afterwards.

Now that the Afflicted have become a cakewalk, the quests will have you mowing through hordes of them to... save trapped groups of <insert local faction here> and their bosses! The Canthan empire hopes to take this opportunity to negotiate peace with these factions as payment for their gratitude. However, after you save each group, they see the powerful new weapons you have brought and want to take them from you. Your powerups don't provide any bonus against these foes, so they are the real challenge here.

Outerworld · Jul 13, 2011, 07:34 PM // 19:34

I'm curious how making the quests easier will also make it more exciting.

Sol Solus · Jul 13, 2011, 07:37 PM // 19:37

By introducing variety. And, as stated, the other factions you save pose the real challenge.

Cuilan · Jul 13, 2011, 07:46 PM // 19:46

You could try out better skills and builds or even play with some people. I hear exciting things about groups.

Sol Solus · Jul 13, 2011, 07:51 PM // 19:51

I do play with people. I've done up to Haiju Lagoon in NM and HM with wonderful PUGs. What I'm addressing is the monotony of simple "kill X# of foes" quests, repeated over and over.

halfies · Jul 13, 2011, 07:52 PM // 19:52

meh, the only exiting thing they could do is not make all teh quests @follow the quest markers and kill 3 mobs'
which is what they said they didnt want to make gw2 like. if they have realized its boring why are they doing it for this 'exiting new content'

Outerworld · Jul 13, 2011, 08:03 PM // 20:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sol Solus

By introducing variety. And, as stated, the other factions you save pose the real challenge.

Adding 2x damage won't introduce variety, it will just make the quests amazingly easy.

Sol Solus · Jul 13, 2011, 08:13 PM // 20:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Outerworld

Adding 2x damage won't introduce variety, it will just make the quests amazingly easy.

What I had in mind was huge numbers of Afflicted dispersed all through the map, and the groups you have to save having timers before they're defeated, causing you to lose the quest. So it definitely wouldn't be easy.

Outerworld · Jul 13, 2011, 08:31 PM // 20:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sol Solus

What I had in mind was huge numbers of Afflicted dispersed all through the map, and the groups you have to save having timers before they're defeated, causing you to lose the quest. So it definitely wouldn't be easy.

That's fine but you can do all that without the OP party buffs you're suggesting. I still wouldn't really call a quest like that "exiting".

_Aphotic_ · Jul 13, 2011, 08:41 PM // 20:41

You're trying to add variety by making things easier.
Make it DIFFERENT. Not easier.

Here's a potential fix:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sol Solus

Blessing of Purity
You do double damage to Afflicted but take double damage from Soul Explosions.

He could also provide your party with an item that, when dropped, provides a ward effect:

Urn of Purifying Mist
Afflicted in this ward have -4 health degeneration and, upon death, explode violently, doing 80 additional damage to nearby foes and allies.

Adding timers to WoC is mostly redundant. Any player who's gotten at least a little ways in should be able to complete it with relative ease (see Factions campaign for easy to Master timed missions).
If the timer is made unreasonably shorter, or set at a certain short length, you close up the possibility of certain builds being ran. Not EVERYONE wants to or KNOWS how to run a full damage/slaughtering build to finish quickly within the timer. Not EVERYONE runs tank and spank builds. Not EVERYONE runs ST Rit-No tank-MM-Panic-Ineptitude, etc.. An unreasonable timer would lead to potentially only *ONE* of these builds being viable. Survivability? Damage? and it will boil down to this: Speed?
Even if the timer is set reasonably, it becomes redundant, and hardly adds any depth to the WoC campaign in being timed. The fact that more than half of the Factions campaign was timed was more of a nuisance than it was worth. To take an example of what IS good, bonuses in Prophecies actually ADDED depth by means of exploring the ongoing events of other NPC's in the game rather than be reliant on timers.

Not to mention... if you had 2x damage while being timed, even in HM you could spike and kill the enemy monk, ritualist, and necro within a reasonable 10 seconds under the effect, making the mish go by extremely fast.

Oh- last I heard, the afflicted were cleared out of the Cantha.

Even if the Chalice of Corruption does spread this afflicted disease, it wouldn't be as epidemic as Shiro's spread of it, as the Am Fah attempt this in When Kappa Attack, and the Kappa are not prone on exploding upon death.

N1ghtstalker · Jul 13, 2011, 10:01 PM // 22:01

this gnashing of teeth difficulty ain't exciting
already hated the War in Kryta quests due to their insane HM difficulty and these afflicted are even worse

Sol Solus · Jul 13, 2011, 10:57 PM // 22:57

Thanks for the thoughtful and constructive input, Aphotic. Perhaps my vision of balanced variety wouldn't work so well, only making trend against creative builds worse. I think of adding variety as a give and take, in this case power and time.

I spent alot of time trying to make unique Firefight gametypes in Halo Reach. I would try things like making players massively powerful, but limiting their ammo, or limiting them to precision weapons.

Double damage explosions may be a better risk than time, but pure melee suffers enough as it is. I like the ward as a portable trap that hurts everyone though. It encourages a different kind of strategic gameplay.

Skyy High · Jul 13, 2011, 11:37 PM // 23:37

Eh, I don't think we're going to be fighting any afflicted in parts two and three. Methinks someone hasn't gone through the quests yet...

AngelWJedi · Jul 13, 2011, 11:50 PM // 23:50

i voted no only cause i didnt like the subjestions. i rather they added in cut sence more of a reward and other things i cant think up atm. xD

Reformed · Jul 14, 2011, 12:34 AM // 00:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sol Solus

What I'm addressing is the monotony of simple "kill X# of foes" quests, repeated over and over.

I have a better solution. Rather than have your character say things like "I should try to avoid as many engagements as possible. I don't want any needless bloodshed." how about just not putting the hundreds of gang members there to begin with? Giant overlapping patrols in a sea of bodies is the lowest common denominator of creating difficulty.

On a side note, making your group immune to the new soul explosions would make this a cake walk. Definitely not the direction they should be heading...

Xenomortis · Jul 14, 2011, 01:19 AM // 01:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reformed

Giant overlapping patrols in a sea of bodies is the lowest common denominator of creating difficulty.

I'm almost convinced that with all the broken shit players can bring these days, even with heroes, it's impossible to create difficult groups for 8 man teams to deal with, without making them huge or giving them ridiculous abilities. It is possible to create difficult scenarios but, short of defending a particularly fragile and stupid NPC, it's almost invariably going to boil down to insane numbers.

Steps_Descending · Jul 14, 2011, 01:20 AM // 01:20

I think the point of Act1 is to purify the afflicted to be rid of them. So while the execution is not the most exciting, I think that means Act 2&3 will focus on other things completely.

That's my understanding at least, if someone can correct me, please do.

Xenomortis · Jul 14, 2011, 01:24 AM // 01:24

I'm pretty sure they could have achieved that feeling without having 6 quests that are nothing more than chasing after groups of Afflicted.

Steps_Descending · Jul 14, 2011, 01:27 AM // 01:27

@Xenomortis last 2 posts :Even there, with the Titans, we heard of people saying they weren't harder than older quests. I guess that means the game allows for a team (4 man) that is only affected by the number of dmg-packets, or key niche skills (like kill every spirit in RADAR, short cooldown), or literally insane number.
Looks like the game allows for a litterally invincible-by-normal-means team.

And yeah, I'll agree with you. I didn't talk about that. Just saying the OP's idea might simply not have a place, after we do those quests, the buffs are no use.

gremlin · Jul 14, 2011, 02:21 AM // 02:21

What they are doing with winds of change and the wik that came before is introduce ideas they have for GW2 I think more than ever GW has become a playtest arena for GW2.
I don't have anything against that as I like variety but it would seem unlikely they will make alterations to the winds of change if its part of their game plan.

I like to think that many of the changes to the game that some of us thought unwise or at least strange were all part of the testing they needed to do.
How else could a game company get many thousands of players test a game for so long.

Haven't tried out winds yet but it sounds a little boring from the comments I have read, I only did wik more than once for the goodies and for the final battle the rest was not that worth while repeating.

Want to make winds more interesting, more randomness the outside world should change mobs and natural creatures change migrate develop new tactics etc.
A lot of that is probably impossible but it would be nice.