The Problem of GW2 PvE

[ControlBlue]

"There are two main problems that are universal to GW2 dungeon encounters. First: the mechanic that allows players to run back to the encounter after death. Second: no soft or hard enrage timers allow players to disregard dps maximization and autoattack their way to victory. The combination of these two poorly thought out mechanics is extremely frustrating to players who would actually like to differentiate themselves from the crowd and creates a systemic problem that encourages terrible players to gear power/toughness/vit, do terrible dps, and be rewarded for it with success."

I stumbled upon that post while browsing the GW2 Dungeons forums and I have to say that was the only that actually had a clue what was the real downfall of GW2's PvE, not just dungeons!

They used the absence of a trinity as an excuse to not have roles in a fight.

To put it simply, I suppose that they got so focused around the idea that they had to get rid of the Trinity that they decided to make PvE encounters purely "action", a bit like a FPS fight.

Then they went the "Action" route so much that they ended up with a "headshot" gameplay, one mistake and you are dead. How do you create a PvE challenge out of a gameplay like that? Runbacks! You make death a part of the encounter instead of an end to it! No problems if the effects thrown at you are lethal, you can come back right? Of course as a punishment for "failing" you take Armor damage.

I also think that the Downed mechanic played a pretty big role in convincing Anet that death was an acceptable mechanic to use, after all you shouldn't ever die even if the effects are lethal since you can be revived!....

Instead of a direct failure signal, Death becomes a mechanic to get you closer to failure.
The problem with that is that people don't like dying! For evident reasons and after decades of games telling you that dying is bad, you kinda get it hardwired in your head.

This end with two really bad things for the game:
- Encounters that need no coordination to down. All you have to do is survive. You have no enrage, no responsibilities, just keep moving and keep firing like in a FPS!
- Encounters that are infuriatingly frustrating because you have to go through that very very negative signal that death is, countless of times.

Personally, at first I thought PvE would be focused on "surviving" the attacks of the Big Bad Boss until your self-heal was off-cooldown. Supports would ensure that you could last a little longer without popping your self-heal, Controllers would debuff and control him, and the Damage would do.... damage, but still be responsible for their own well-being (no 'HEAL ME!!!'). You wouldn't need the Trinity to create tense and interesting fights.

I think the only hope for the PvE is to have encounter resets when everyone dies. It might seems like an horrible thing to do as it would make dungeons INSANELY difficult to complete!
Yep it would, IF the system is kept as it is.

Doing that change would force them to challenge people through a different mechanic than death and runbacks. They would have to use enrages, they would have to force roles and responsibilities, and they would have to fix the way aggro is managed.

It would also force them to bring those health bars back to reasonable proportions.

What do you think? Am I just being stupid? are GW2 dungeons and PvE encounters just fine?

[Bugg]

I think you should have used the Search function and troll on another thread, since there are plenty of them. And if you find the dungeons INSANELY difficult, don`t go there. GL.

[Fencers]

The quoted bit in the OP is kinda awful critique of GW2 dungeon encounters. Kinda built on personal & irrelevant reasoning. Sometimes difficulty and challenge are part of game's design premise. Many times, actually- most times, challenge and difficulty are just matters of player perception.

It's just basically a dude saying he doesn't like the design decisions. Not really why a system is faulty or in conflict with another system [bad design].

This end with two really bad things for the game:
- Encounters that need no coordination to down. All you have to do is survive. You have no enrage, no responsibilities, just keep moving and keep firing like in a FPS!
- Encounters that are infuriatingly frustrating because you have to go through that very very negative signal that death is, countless of times.

To address the OP directly:

- True enough. Intended though. GW2's combat emphasizes movement above all. Will never not be the case. ;p
- Graveyard rushing isn't intended. It's allowed so as to not stymie bad groups. Ideally players should only die occasionally. With practice, rarely.

[Zeek Daniels]

If you find yourself using the gys to your advantage it means your not really a good player or your group isnt really good. It doesnt mean that the death mechanic is bad for PvE.

As for it playing like a shooter i disagree. Just because you have a tank in WoW doesnt mean from a dps perspective you arnt just running around trying to survive while whaling on the boss or mobs your attacking.

[zito]

Graveyard zerging is for the people who can't do the dungeon. The fight itself is not the problem. If 1 person is holding the boss up while 4 others are running back it's just really bad gameplay on the 4 others fault.

[Deleted]

Sounds like cheesy design to me.

[draykorinee]

Sounds like cheesy design to me.

It is tbh, AC was all I could stomach, was my final turn off from GW2 pve.

[Deleted]

Haha, you can't have meaningful boss fight mechanics without the trinity. It just doesn't work that way.

GW2 is what it is: a faceroll game for super casuals who are bored with wow or don't play MMOs that often as to warrant paying a sub. Get on with it or quit, don't expect any known PVE guilds to change from wow to...lol...GW2 for pve.

[ControlBlue]

@Fencers: I agree that GW2 fights are really mobile and it is one thing I really like about the game, what I was trying to say with that sentence was that there was too much emphasis on movement and not enough on the more "RPG" parts like DPS, Sustainability, Defense ect.... (NOT saying there isn't elements of that of course).

Oh well, nevermind that, everything is fine in GW2 PvE, people should just stop being bad. Got it!

It's weird, it feels like I heard that in plenty others MMOs. Oh well, must be me.

Also, I disagree that a trinity is needed for boss fight mechanics, however roles are needed or else you end up with bare Action/FPS gameplay.

[barackopala]

Haha, you can't have meaningful boss fight mechanics without the trinity. It just doesn't work that way.

GW2 is what it is: a faceroll game for super casuals who are bored with wow or don't play MMOs that often as to warrant paying a sub. Get on with it or quit, don't expect any known PVE guilds to change from wow to...lol...GW2 for pve.

Good joke mate. this is just what I needed to start my day, a mindless post !

people so dumb, wanna play a casual role? how bout retpally-fire mage? those clases were EXTREMELY HARD TO MASTER!111
Nope, the whole game relied on not standing in the fire and then standing dpsing, competitive teams remain on their competitive game because they're good at what they do, look at DotA2 players, they didn't transfer to LoL, BW players didn't transfer to SC2 (it was mostly by force), what's your next argument, Q3 players on halo? Nope.

[Fencers]

@Fencers: I agree that GW2 fights are really mobile and it is one thing I really like about the game, what I was trying to say with that sentence was that there was too much emphasis on movement and not enough on the more "RPG" parts like DPS, Sustainability, Defense ect.... (NOT saying there isn't elements of that of course).

That might be so. But it's more a matter of there being too much emphasis on movement over other elements for one's taste. Not as a conflict of game systems.

Currently GW2 supports and executes the concept thoroughly. Anet desires for encounters to be chaotic, have random elements, for the downed state to be triggered often, etc. That is the intended design.

Valid critique is in how well Anet accomplish those goals and the core/supporting game rules those goals.

Not whether or not one "likes dying"- irrelevant.

Not how much of a challenge encounters are- irrelevant.

This sort of low criticism wouldn't fly in any other art & entertainment medium. Doesn't make sense in gaming either as a new art & entertainment medium.

however roles are needed or else you end up with bare Action/FPS gameplay.

Again, Guild Wars 2 definitely intends to lean toward Action/FPS gameplay than more strategic/tactical gameplay. It's almost a 180 in gameplay from Guild Wars 1- which was more of a co-op/strategy RPG.

They simply kept the fiction, design philosophy and business model of the original. Other than that Anet basically made an action/twitch based MMO more along the lines of Monster Hunter, Raiderz, Vindictus or DDO. Which is fine if one likes those type of games.

[Fencers]

The dodge mechanic, for example. I've touched on it several times and believe that unless it is brought into line, it will - if it hasn't already - create an arms race of sorts where players either simply become more skilled in evading attacks or build in such a way that they can do so, thus the encounters have to throw more attacks and bigger attacks at the players.

This is already the case in game.

It was apparent that most of scaling was based on this entirely. Which is a lazy & cheap out for creating an encounter. There is almost nothing to think about or consider in a higher sense in GW2. A contrast from the original games that I find most disappointing.

There's not a good equilibrium here, either the players can completely nullify a fight (Many, MANY boss fights already fall into this category and are woefully simple) or the fight is too overwhelming in clumsy ways that suggest the designers didn't know what to do other than "put more mobs there". (Many trash fights fall into this category right now.)

Agree on this too.

The lack of clarity in the encounters, see-saw difficulty and so on are majorly sloppy & inconsistent design. I think the QA for GW2's dungeons is partly at fault too- whoever ran the passes were goddamn awful.

[ControlBlue]

[...]
Currently GW2 supports and executes the concept thoroughly. Anet desires for encounters to be chaotic, have random elements, for the downed state to be triggered often, etc. That is the intended design.

Valid critique is in how well Anet accomplish those goals and the core/supporting game rules those goals.

Not whether or not one "likes dying"- irrelevant.

Not how much of a challenge encounters are- irrelevant.

This sort of low criticism wouldn't fly in any other art & entertainment medium. Doesn't make sense in gaming either as a new art & entertainment medium.


Again, Guild Wars 2 definitely intends to lean toward Action/FPS gameplay than more strategic/tactical gameplay. It's almost a 180 in gameplay from Guild Wars 1- which was more of a co-op/strategy RPG.

They simply kept the fiction, design philosophy and business model of the original. Other than that Anet basically made an action/twitch based MMO more along the lines of Monster Hunter, Raiderz, Vindictus or DDO. Which is fine if one likes those type of games.

I see your point. All I can say then is that I think that they made a mistake by having such a system as their PvE, it is my opinion but I think the fact that the PvE failed to attract any sort of massive audience (Twitch being an excellent way to measure that) and that many people openly criticize it, they validate it.

The design decision is well executed, but it was the wrong decision in my opinion.

Of course, it is their game, they are free to do whatever they want with it, if they care for feedback, well I just gave them some, that's it .

[Fiach]

I agree, the dungeons aren't very well designed, and the rewards are awful.

[Fencers]

The design decision is well executed, but it was the wrong decision in my opinion.

Yea, that's totally fair.

Though I am not sure this style of gameplay has failed to attract an audience. The game is doing quite well. I do however think that action/twitch based gameplay will likely be les popular among MMORPG players of more classical gameplay model in the genre; Everquest, Ultima, World of Warcraft.

Though I think Anet are okay with this- well, I don't think. I know they are okay with it because the developers have openly stated as such. Among the first promotions for the game some 4 years ago was Anet saying GW2 was a type of MMO for those dissatisfied by the gameplay model of establish MMOs. As mentioned above.

The phrase; "This isn't the game for you if you like X concepts..." is more apt with Guild Wars as a franchise than other MMOs. Arena.net and Guild Wars [series] are rather esoteric or otherwise quirky games.

It's more a game series of subtraction than addition, so to speak.

[Zeek Daniels]

I agree, the dungeons aren't very well designed, and the rewards are awful.

Dunno about you but the dungeon sets feel very rewarding for me. And imo the dungeons are very well designed.

[Fencers]

Some of the dungeon sets have stats sorta impossible to get otherwise. Pow/Vit/Tou is very hard to come by outside dungeons. Provided the stat weights are favorable to your build, the rewards are literally the best in the game.

Liking the look of the armor is personal. Meh.

[Sackman]

I stumbled upon that post while browsing the GW2 Dungeons forums and I have to say that was the only that actually had a clue what was the real downfall of GW2's PvE, not just dungeons!

They used the absence of a trinity as an excuse to not have roles in a fight.

To put it simply, I suppose that they got so focused around the idea that they had to get rid of the Trinity that they decided to make PvE encounters purely "action", a bit like a FPS fight.

Then they went the "Action" route so much that they ended up with a "headshot" gameplay, one mistake and you are dead. How do you create a PvE challenge out of a gameplay like that? Runbacks! You make death a part of the encounter instead of an end to it! No problems if the effects thrown at you are lethal, you can come back right? Of course as a punishment for "failing" you take Armor damage.

I also think that the Downed mechanic played a pretty big role in convincing Anet that death was an acceptable mechanic to use, after all you shouldn't ever die even if the effects are lethal since you can be revived!....

Instead of a direct failure signal, Death becomes a mechanic to get you closer to failure.
The problem with that is that people don't like dying! For evident reasons and after decades of games telling you that dying is bad, you kinda get it hardwired in your head.

This end with two really bad things for the game:
- Encounters that need no coordination to down. All you have to do is survive. You have no enrage, no responsibilities, just keep moving and keep firing like in a FPS!
- Encounters that are infuriatingly frustrating because you have to go through that very very negative signal that death is, countless of times.

Personally, at first I thought PvE would be focused on "surviving" the attacks of the Big Bad Boss until your self-heal was off-cooldown. Supports would ensure that you could last a little longer without popping your self-heal, Controllers would debuff and control him, and the Damage would do.... damage, but still be responsible for their own well-being (no 'HEAL ME!!!'). You wouldn't need the Trinity to create tense and interesting fights.

I think the only hope for the PvE is to have encounter resets when everyone dies. It might seems like an horrible thing to do as it would make dungeons INSANELY difficult to complete!
Yep it would, IF the system is kept as it is.

Doing that change would force them to challenge people through a different mechanic than death and runbacks. They would have to use enrages, they would have to force roles and responsibilities, and they would have to fix the way aggro is managed.

It would also force them to bring those health bars back to reasonable proportions.

What do you think? Am I just being stupid? are GW2 dungeons and PvE encounters just fine?

I don't think you're being stupid, I just think you like a different style of game. And I think Fencers described it best, in clear response to your concerns/stipulations. I imagine encounteres will come more complicated with time and are right now more basic to introduce people to the way GW2 works as a game. The game will evolve, no doubt, but where it sits currently is just fine imo.

[Azuri]

This guy here pretty much sums up my feeling on the current incarnation of GW2 dungeons. I'd rather he say it then me. I like this thread and hope it doesn't get locked since there are always going to be two sides to the GW2 dungeon/PVE argument.

Worth a read imo:

GW2 Dungeon Article Review

[Valeron]

traditional dungeons should have never been put into the game, that is where ArenaNet went wrong in my opinion.