Tequatl Rising - September 17th

[Zephyr Storm]

I’m all for some more challenging content, but I have a feeling this is going to backfire on them hard. You can’t make a playerbase that has grown accustomed to "whack a foot’ for over a year suddenly do something that requires a alot of effort and skill, and then expect them to do it without complaint. To many people are use to being able to just show up, spam #1, and go afk until the chest spawns for them. You start requiring fights that need a certain number of people and then require those people to actually think and put in effort, and people are just gonna start saying “screw it” and not do it.

Simply look to the Temple events in Orr as an example. Anet updated them to be harder and actually require some coordination, and people just stopped farming them. Even with the update to getting ascended loot from them, they still remain contested a vast majority of the time. Why? Because most players want the easy way out. If there are events/bosses that are easier to farm than the revamped ones, guess what those players are going to do? Yep, they are going to farm the stuff that only requires them to be present and spamming #1. It’s a sad truth, but a truth nonetheless.

And I also have a feeling that after the hardcore players that WANT these tougher fights get the achievements from them or skins (especially the Teq fight), they’ll eventually stop doing them. Especially if it gets to the point where enough people stop caring that the events become impossible to do. Next thing you know, the world bosses will become just like the Orr temple events. Aka, only coordinated guild groups who take the time to actually do them will ever get them done. The rest of the time, people will just ignore them for an easier farm elsewhere.

I appreciate what Anet is trying to do with these bosses. Unfortunately, after making content so trivial for over a year though, I have a feeling they will accomplish nothing more than to kitten off a big chunk of their playerbase. While some will like these changes, I forsee a large number of players leaving GW2 over this. Sad, but true.

Don't hate on me for this. I welcome some of these changes and am eager to try these fights out. I'm just stating what I think will actually happen concerning the majority of the GW2 playerbase.

- - - Updated - - -

I wonder what is even the internal logic to revisit these bosses as new content. Like am I suppose to be thinking, "Gosh. I really want to see what aoe circles I need to dodge out of for the REVISED JUNGLE WORM!" and then proceed to this content area for... what?

This isn't really new content. I do recognize that it is a fair effort to revise many of these encounters, and a tip of the hat for the intuitive going through. Yet realistically speaking, what process of thought does the game design suggest to me to just go out and dodge more colored circles and glowing cudgels?

I dare say this is somewhat lazy development. Or at best, lackluster.

For once, I agree with you Fencers. Anet doing this now is kind of pointless to me. If the boss fights had been this way since launch, it would have been better and made more sense. But here we are now, over a year after launch, and Anet is just now deciding to update content that people have been facerolling for over a year? Only thing I see coming from this is more people NOT doing the bosses because they become less farmable than before. If anything, I see the champ farming trains becoming even more prevalent after this update (and after everyone as seen the new encounters a couple of times and decide it's not worth the effort of doing them all the time).

[Fencers]

Well, it is not a bad thing that the bosses & champs were redone. But like... how is that new content? Or perhaps better said, what is the motivation for you to log in this patch to do pre-exisiting events again?

Is there really a sizable portion of the GW2 user base that are sitting around thinking, "I'd log in to GW2 this month if only that dynamic event had more mechanics."

I doubt it. The goal of this short content cycle to create repeated interest in a horizontal MMO. Not sure if this is super effective from a development standpoint outside of SAB. So does seem rather thin content wise.

[Karizee]

Aka, only coordinated guild groups who take the time to actually do them will ever get them done.

Guilds are already planning strategies for this. That's exactly who this content is for - large scale, coordinated guilds that have been chewing through Guild Missions.

[zed zebes]

Well, it is not a bad thing that the bosses & champs were redone. But like... how is that new content? Or perhaps better said, what is the motivation for you to log in this patch to do pre-exisiting events again?

Is there really a sizable portion of the GW2 user base that are sitting around thinking, "I'd log in to GW2 this month if only that dynamic event had more mechanics."

I doubt it. The goal of this short content cycle to create repeated interest in a horizontal MMO. Not sure if this is super effective from a development standpoint outside of SAB. So does seem rather thin content wise.

It's rewards. Apparently, Taco Deluxe will offer the best RNG in game. Er, I mean loot.

I joke, but that's a problem ANet has made for themselves. They want to offer difficult content without putting better rewards behind it that the majority can't access. So it's RNG all over. They did say that Teq will have a chance to drop an Ascended Weapon with unique skins.

I think the rewards will be like Karka Queen but a might bit better.

[zito]

Guilds are already planning strategies for this. That's exactly who this content is for - large scale, coordinated guilds that have been chewing through Guild Missions.

1) A coordinated group of 80 people in a single guild is not reasonable or common
2) It will turn into a zerg event. You zerg the wall - you zerg the boss - you zerg the cannon - back to the boss. Just like it is now minus the zerging the cannon.

I've said this a million times, open world raid events are just zergs. They are in WoW, they are in Rift, they are in FF14ARR and it's stupid and pointless.

[zed zebes]

From what we've seen, zerging the wall is a bad strategy because it takes up too much time. It seems the time to kill and event timer are arranged so that success depends on wasting as little time as possible on the bone wall. Fast kills will have no bone wall pops.

[zito]

From what we've seen, zerging the wall is a bad strategy because it takes up too much time. It seems the time to kill and event timer are arranged so that success depends on wasting as little time as possible on the bone wall. Fast kills will have no bone wall pops.

There are like 4 cannons only 4 people can use. You zerg the wall, the majority of players will be zerging while a select few who were lucky with a quick click got to do actual mechanics.

It's boring, un-creative and lazy. They keep dancing around a real fix (which I've suggested many times) for some bull crap. It's just annoying.

[zed zebes]

If the cannons are doing their job, there won't be a bone wall. For the cannons to do their job, you need people split off to defend the cannons. To get health down, you still need people hitting the boss. It's designed to create three groups. Boss zergers, cannon defenders, and cannoneers. The wall is a punishment for failing that process. The timer is punishment reinforcement.

Do you really think all of that will be bypassed by zerging bone walls?

[zito]

If the cannons are doing their job, there won't be a bone wall. For the cannons to do their job, you need people split off to defend the cannons. To get health down, you still need people hitting the boss. It's designed to create three groups. Boss zergers, cannon defenders, and cannoneers. The wall is a punishment for failing that process. The timer is punishment reinforcement.

Do you really think all of that will be bypassed by zerging bone walls?

If you can kill the bone wall by zerging then yes, and that's exactly what people will do... You have your zerg group, which will just spam 1 or aoe on whatever needs to die and then the small group of people who actually get to do the mechanics.

From Anet track history I bet this update will change jack shit.

[rhandric]

If you can kill the bone wall by zerging then yes, and that's exactly what people will do... You have your zerg group, which will just spam 1 or aoe on whatever needs to die and then the small group of people who actually get to do the mechanics.

From Anet track history I bet this update will change jack shit.

Zerging doesn't really help with a time-sensitive event, especially once you account for scaling.

[zito]

Zerging doesn't really help with a time-sensitive event, especially once you account for scaling.

I find that counteractive to itself.

[rhandric]

I find that counteractive to itself.

Perhaps my phrasing sucks, but look at things like the invasions. If everyone was at a single event, then you wouldn't complete. Sure, the bigger part of failing the invasions is people farming the aetherblades, but if you're not spread out, you won't succeed. Same thing will apply here, if parts of the event are ignored, the odds of success are lowered.

[NightZero88]

Perhaps my phrasing sucks, but look at things like the invasions. If everyone was at a single event, then you wouldn't complete. Sure, the bigger part of failing the invasions is people farming the aetherblades, but if you're not spread out, you won't succeed. Same thing will apply here, if parts of the event are ignored, the odds of success are lowered.

They tried this with invasions, making it easier and faster if people spread out. The reason being is with fewer people you got less champions and that meant portals closed faster. The issue would have worked except for two problems. One, commanders. As soon as people zoned in they would run to the commanders and follow them. Issue two was you got better rewards from champions so people zerged.

I'd say this partially worked in keeping people spread out but the issue with tequatl is that it is all in one spot whereas the invasion was all over the zone. This helped turn a large zerg into a bunch of smaller ones but if tequatl is just in one area you'll just get a massive zerg like usual.

[zito]

Perhaps my phrasing sucks, but look at things like the invasions. If everyone was at a single event, then you wouldn't complete. Sure, the bigger part of failing the invasions is people farming the aetherblades, but if you're not spread out, you won't succeed. Same thing will apply here, if parts of the event are ignored, the odds of success are lowered.

1) people during invasions didn't spread out because they needed to, they did so by choice
2) There have been instances of the invasions being completed by one zerg
3) The invasion took over the entire zone, world bosses don't even take up a fraction
4) The main and only part of failing the invasion was champion farming or if scarlet got stuck in water.

There are mechanics you can't ignore by choice, when the wall is up you have to kill the wall and it's adds attached to it since there is nothign else to do. Problem is you will zerg the wall 99% of the time. There are limited amount of cannons compared to how many people are scaled for the event. Only a few people will get to do the lol 1 mechanic they made for the fight because they got a lucky click on the cannon.

This is how the fight will go. Zerg boss - zerg wall when wall spawns - zerg back to boss. It has a random aoe that puts you in water and adds you will zerg.

World bosses will always be zergs until they give a real god damn solution which they continue to ignore to try and make the world feel "alive"

[rhandric]

1) people during invasions didn't spread out because they needed to, they did so by choice
2) There have been instances of the invasions being completed by one zerg
3) The invasion took over the entire zone, world bosses don't even take up a fraction
4) The main and only part of failing the invasion was champion farming or if scarlet got stuck in water.

There are mechanics you can't ignore by choice, when the wall is up you have to kill the wall and it's adds attached to it since there is nothign else to do. Problem is you will zerg the wall 99% of the time. There are limited amount of cannons compared to how many people are scaled for the event. Only a few people will get to do the lol 1 mechanic they made for the fight because they got a lucky click on the cannon.

This is how the fight will go. Zerg boss - zerg wall when wall spawns - zerg back to boss. It has a random aoe that puts you in water and adds you will zerg.

World bosses will always be zergs until they give a real god damn solution which they continue to ignore to try and make the world feel "alive"

It depends entirely on tuning, and if the time walls stay up during a zerg vs using guns has an appreciable difference and the health of tequatl is balanced around it, it can make a difference. Of course, this could cause issues of gear tuning instead of mechanics, but if they simply make it so that the walls have a ton of health, but the turrets do orders of magnitude more dps than players (with both the wall health and the turret damage scaling with the number of players, so that if you use the turrets properly it always takes significantly less time dealing with the walls via turrets than zerging), the use of turrets and the following of the mechanics can actually be enforced.

[zito]

It depends entirely on tuning, and if the time walls stay up during a zerg vs using guns has an appreciable difference and the health of tequatl is balanced around it, it can make a difference. Of course, this could cause issues of gear tuning instead of mechanics, but if they simply make it so that the walls have a ton of health, but the turrets do orders of magnitude more dps than players (with both the wall health and the turret damage scaling with the number of players, so that if you use the turrets properly it always takes significantly less time dealing with the walls via turrets than zerging), the use of turrets and the following of the mechanics can actually be enforced.

...

read what I said again

[rhandric]

...

read what I said again

Oh, I guess I missed where you said some people would be using turrets...so in other words we're pretty much in agreement

[zito]

Oh, I guess I missed where you said some people would be using turrets...so in other words we're pretty much in agreement

Yes the majority of people will be zerging and a few people who got a lucky click off get to participate in the 1 mechanic for tequatl, which isn't even interesting. It's spam the cannons 1 attack at the wall till it dies, jump off and zerg the boss.

[Karizee]

Yes the majority of people will be zerging and a few people who got a lucky click off get to participate in the 1 mechanic for tequatl, which isn't even interesting. It's spam the cannons 1 attack at the wall till it dies, jump off and zerg the boss.

Ok, let us know how well that strat works out for you next week

[zito]

Ok, let us know how well that strat works out for you next week

It's the only strat, you failing to see it doesn't mean it's not there.

The only thing the majority will do is zerg because that's the only thing to do.