10 replies to this topic

[Mystic]

It is pretty obvious that GW2 offers far more content than guild wars first installment - prophcies. How ever, there is one major difference between these games which i would like to point out and discuss - difficaulty.

Players who have played Guild Wars from its first installment, can understand and remember, that this game used to be hard.
It was mainly due to the lack of experience in the game, and lack of skill. Basically, the strongest build for warrioirs, for example, was a Wammo( healing warrior) which is now a ver unpopular, and pretty mich hated in todays Guild Wars( not 2 ).
Its not a lie - people were stuck on thunderkeep and ring fire for weeks ( and even crystal desert had its difficulties). Even a little bit in Factions early days, the was still difficult to some players.

Its hard to remember it now days, as when we look at Guild Wars, we imagine the experience with ALL the expansions, which eventually, and with time, simply made the game easy and unchallenging.  Also, there are the WoW players, who never experienced GW1. Anet knew that - and frankly - they had a very good answer to that issue - Hard Mode. It had an instant impact on the game - and it was successful.

Growing up, moving on - it is a very natural thing to do in life. You cant live in the past, and as a human been you seek new experiences and new challenges. Guild Wars 2 has been brought to the gaming popularity, and with it new issues.
We. Cant discuss them all in here, but we can fish one out and focus on. One of the issues is that, unlike the first installment in Guil Wars, this game is simply too easy and unchallenging. Anet had so far tried to give us some spoon with food so we will be busy (Southsun Cove zone which is harder than all of the current zones) but it is not the perfect, or full meal. It is not the answer. There are apparently more food cooking up for us in the february/january updates, but we cant take that for granted.

Now comes to picture an ancient solution that has worked - and maybe can work in todays game. Hard Mode can be an instant answer to this issues and will provide a huge extra playable
Content, without adding content. Similar to recycling.

It has many discussion to whether it can be implemented and work - one possible suggetion is a Vanquish, picking Hard Mode for example in Cursed Shore, and killing all of the foes and champions in the zone, triggering a mode in that zone that has no hearts or events.

So the big questions comes up - Could it work? And if so, how?

[Sheepski]

The major problem I see with having instanced/separate versions of the maps available to parties/people who wish to vanquish is that it pushes the already thinned out population into even more areas. We already see everybody in the new zone, fractals, dungeons and 2-3 end game areas, as well as my favourite hobby: jumping over fences in LA.

We need content that will draw people back together again into the current zones, rather than spread people out. On Gandara, Cursed Shore has become a wasteland recently since everyone's in Fractals, and the lower level zones have been that way since a week after launch really.

[Mystic]

Sheepski, on 13 December 2012 - 09:07 AM, said:

The major problem I see with having instanced/separate versions of the maps available to parties/people who wish to vanquish is that it pushes the already thinned out population into even more areas. We already see everybody in the new zone, fractals, dungeons and 2-3 end game areas, as well as my favourite hobby: jumping over fences in LA.

We need content that will draw people back together again into the current zones, rather than spread people out. On Gandara, Cursed Shore has become a wasteland recently since everyone's in Fractals, and the lower level zones have been that way since a week after launch really.

It is a good point, but has almosy ninty precent nothing related to this subject. In someway ( not entirely) it does populate the zones thought. But this isnt the issue i am calling about.

[Sheepski]

Mystic, on 13 December 2012 - 09:16 AM, said:

It is a good point, but has almosy ninty precent nothing related to this subject. In someway ( not entirely) it does populate the zones thought. But this isnt the issue i am calling about.

Well you asked: Could Hard Mode work? In which you detailed that you'd implement it as a different instanced zone, to which I say no it can't work because it'd be a death sentence for the game; dragging people even further out. In that situation it might as well be another Co-op RPG like gw1. Remember, no one will do anything in normal mode once they've gotten used to HM, especially as the HM rewards would have to be better to account for the extra difficulty.

It was a great addition to gw1, but wouldn't be suited to gw2.

[Sierra Echo]

Well the only thing I see as a good solution is:
A bigger downscale for bonuses.
So when you select hard mode you get downscaled more than usually, but
you get magic find,exp,karm,... boosts

[Mystic]

Sheepski, on 13 December 2012 - 09:19 AM, said:

Well you asked: Could Hard Mode work? In which you detailed that you'd implement it as a different instanced zone, to which I say no it can't work because it'd be a death sentence for the game; dragging people even further out. In that situation it might as well be another Co-op RPG like gw1. Remember, no one will do anything in normal mode once they've gotten used to HM, especially as the HM rewards would have to be better to account for the extra difficulty.

It was a great addition to gw1, but wouldn't be suited to gw2.

I still cant see any reason why not to, you still didnt give valid reasons why it wont work. I am not saying it  can, but at the moment i cant see it.
It is not like completing the zones cant be done without more players, and whydo you want reasons to go back to the zones so much? The zones are designed for a lone adventure while joining up with other players along the way and complete dynamic event, which so far works.
With Hard Mode it gives you three or more advantages: A reason to go back to the zones and experiencing them more than just leveling; A far greater challenge; More reasons to play in high levels ( meaning HM can only be accessible at level 80)

There is honestly enought reasons to level a character and the game's main focus is clearly not about character leveling ( unlike other MMORPG like Runescape, WoW) but rather focuses on the real experience where your journey is supposed to start, once you hit 80.

[Sheepski]

Because this is still an MMO. Therefore the idea is to play with other people. If I wanted to go into an instanced zone all on my own/with guildies or friends only, then I'd either go back to gw1, or play a single player RPG.

The fun in doing dynamic events is to meet and work with other people, even when farming/grinding them...

Yeah HM would provide more high level content, which the game may need, but this should be in open world, persistent zones, not individual instances, at least imo.

[Gremlin]

I did have this thought myself but no for the majority of pve altering the difficulty mode isnt possible.
It might be possible to gimp the player somehow to make the challenge more difficult but thats not quite the same.
That could still be offered as a stop gap I guess, selecting hard mode would drop the effective lvl of your character while boosting loot by some amount.

Dungeons and personal storyline could be repeated in a harder mode but thats about it from what I can see.

Hard mode in gw1 didn't come in for quite a long time so maybe something will be done in this game.if and when anet decide its needed to keep the game alive.

Edited by Gremlin, 13 December 2012 - 10:33 AM.

[Heart Collector]

What could be fun:

Phased "hard mode" world bosses aimed at guilds. This could be made to need a Commander trained player, giving guilds something to work for together until they can start.

Let's say you want to do "heroic" Shadow Behemoth. You and all interested players need to roam Queensdale to gather certain materials needed to create a sort of "summoning stone" for the heroic version. This livens up the zones as well as players need to do stuff in the actual game world. Then the people who have the stuff gather at the bosses spawn point and (maybe through the commander) create the "summoning stone".

They then phase out of the actual game world for the duration of the fight.

I guess it could be made to scale somehow, from 5 to, say, 25 people, though I'm not sure how that could work. Maybe apart from the usual hitpoints going up the abilities could change, e.g. the number of portals summoned etc.

Dunno about the rewards, I guess they could be unique skins and the like.

[raspberry jam]

Mystic, on 13 December 2012 - 07:13 AM, said:

Basically, the strongest build for warrioirs, for example, was a Wammo

Stopped reading there. Wammos were never the strongest warrior build. While it's true that stuff like teams of 8 Mending warriors holding HoH actually happened, that was because people didn't know how to play properly yet. W/E had the strongest warrior builds for Prophecies PvE, even if you wanted a defensively strong build.

[BLONDE WENCH]

Hard Mode could work for the Personal Story (& maybe Dungeons), but it would be like opening a can of worms for everything else.  How do you seperate people who want Hard Mode from people who don't want it, while in the same persistent zone?  The only thing I can think of would be to put a high level area like the Cursed Shore for example, on it's own server.  Then whenever you enter that area, your character would automatically get a free server transfer to the "Hard Mode World", & upon leaving, another free server transfer back to your original host.