Persistent boss health.

[Faithbreaker]

I was watching a video today and they mentioned how a boss's health doesn't reset. This is the ONE thing I am concerned about with this game.

I love 5 mans. Some of my favorite moments in WoW were getting the heroic meta achievements and was excited at the prospect of "hard" 5 mans. But if you can just Zerg a boss how hard can they really be in the end?

What's your opinion on this?

And Anet please hurry up and release this game!

[Durzlla]

I was watching a video today and they mentioned how a boss's health doesn't reset. This is the ONE thing I am concerned about with this game.

I love 5 mans. Some of my favorite moments in WoW were getting the heroic meta achievements and was excited at the prospect of "hard" 5 mans. But if you can just Zerg a boss how hard can they really be in the end?

What's your opinion on this?

And Anet please hurry up and release this game!

they heal up extremely quickly if he leaves combat, it's like in GW1, sure you can just graveyard rush the boss until he dies, but you wont be able to kill ANYTHING if you do that for very long, keep in mind that if you die a lot your gear breaks, which will make you useless, AND that you can't repair without reseting the instance.

PS: I wish you couldn't graveyard rush as it is in GW2 where you can just keep going in after you die, IE you shouldn't be able to rez during combat until everyone is out of combat sorta thing like in GW1 (except everyone had to be dead)

[Faithbreaker]

I wasn't aware they healed up at all. It was a PC gamer video of the ascalon(?) dungeon. They kind of glossed over it. I guess if they heal that's a bit better. Although I'm in the camP that a boss should reset once everyone is dead and no zerging at all. Either way I'm very excited to run the dungeons. They all look very fun and interesting.

[Fencers]

I saw a video where it seemed possible to zerg open world content. As long as 1 person kept mob in combat people could respawn rush. Doesn't bother me terribly but I called it like 2 years ago that open world stuff couldn't really function any other way.

Vindication. So sweet.

[Lucky_]

they heal up extremely quickly if he leaves combat, it's like in GW1, sure you can just graveyard rush the boss until he dies, but you wont be able to kill ANYTHING if you do that for very long, keep in mind that if you die a lot your gear breaks, which will make you useless, AND that you can't repair without reseting the instance.

PS: I wish you couldn't graveyard rush as it is in GW2 where you can just keep going in after you die, IE you shouldn't be able to rez during combat until everyone is out of combat sorta thing like in GW1 (except everyone had to be dead)

Good thing we have "not pay to win" (TM) repair kits and resurrection orbs, eh?

This is a friendly warning. Knock off the "pay to win" nonsense. -Edge

[Ogretron]

You aren't going to get far if you try and zerg bosses down. Your gear is going to get destroyed quickly and you wont actually learn how to defeat the boss correctly. This is not going to be a problem in dungeons.

Good thing we have "not pay to win" (TM) repair kits and resurrection orbs, eh?

That's not pay to win.

[Jimusmc]

That's not pay to win.

that kid's a troll ignore em.

The same goes for other posts. If you think someone is trolling, report them and move on. Don't call them a troll, that's against the rules too. -Edge

[Lucky_]

I saw a video where it seemed possible to zerg open world content. As long as 1 person kept mob in combat people could respawn rush. Doesn't bother me terribly but I called it like 2 years ago that open world stuff couldn't really function any other way.

Vindication. So sweet.

I'm just hoping that as hype gives way to harsh reality, not too many promises will end up broken. SWTOR is still a sore spot with people playing MMOs in this regard.

[Deleted]

I'm just hoping that as hype gives way to harsh reality, not too many promises will end up broken. SWTOR is still a sore spot with people playing MMOs in this regard.

First logical statement you've made for a long time ;p.

In all seriousness, everybody needs to accept that GW2 will not be perfect - it's a fact. We don't know if by the time of the release they will fix:
- scaling of DEs (some scale way too fast, while other almost not at all)
- the speed at which DEs are repeating themselves (it's retarded to have 30min event where you kill centaur's commander and seeing him resurrected 5min later, there HAS to be some in-between-events that fill this nonsense)

Also, DEs (especially the elite ones) HAVE the potential to be very difficult and zerg-resistant. I really don't mind if your average DE you can encounter while leveling can be zerged or it's "bit too easy" as leveling in all games is.. stupidly easy. But! I would be disappointed to no end if the boss we finally summoned after 2 weeks of doing pre-required DE chains would end up being zerged in minutes :/.

[Fencers]

I would be disappointed to no end if the boss we finally summoned after 2 weeks of doing pre-required DE chains would end up being zerged in minutes :/.

What do you think would be a solution to this that doesn't make an encounter a pain in the ass?

[Deleted]

What do you think would be a solution to this that doesn't make an encounter a pain in the ass?

Uhm.. I want it to be a pain in the ass :P ?

Seriously, I would love the situation where GW2 is released and first massive elite DE would be unbeatable for few months, while guilds would cooperate with each other to work out the best strategy against it.

I like my PVE stupid during leveling. But without challenge or a goal after reaching max level it gets boring, so this time around instead of running after a staff that gives me 10 more agility I want to kill that dragon. And I want to keep killing those harder and harder bosses not because I have better stats, but because I'm better and better at the game.

[Fencers]

And I want to keep killing those harder and harder bosses not because I have better stats, but because I'm better and better at the game.

That seems sorta impossible design for public events. If the elite DEs were successively more difficult with no rise of player power, you'd reach a point where the majority of the public couldn't defeat the DE or would be a hindrance to successful DEs for those "skilled" enough to do so. Both of which are kinda against the goals we seen so far in GW2.

[Deleted]

If the elite DEs were successively more difficult with no rise of player power, you'd reach a point where the majority of the public couldn't defeat the DE.

That's the whole point. That's why they are elite DEs, they are not for friendly hur-dur-zerg, they are for properly organised guilds/alliances. Best thing is that good playing individuals, even without any guild can contribute to the DE and get proper rewards. Baddies will just die =].

or would be a hindrance to successful DEs for those "skilled" enough to do so.

Well.. the skilled ones like to be "hindered" - that's the challenge.

Both of which are kinda against the goals we seen so far in GW2.

If we take in to consideration that this difficulty setting would apply only to elite DEs.. nope it want be against the design goal.

[Fencers]

That's the whole point. That's why they are elite DEs, they are not for friendly hur-dur-zerg, they are for properly organised guilds/alliances. Best thing is that good playing individuals, even without any guild can contribute to the DE and get proper rewards. Baddies will just die =].

This kinda misses the obvious problem of escalation that such a system simply could not support publicly.

Well.. the skilled ones like to be "hindered" - that's the challenge.

Yes... I think you don't really get why it would be a problem if difficulty increased linearly but the % of players able to complete did not increase exponentially.

Also why difficulty would be unstable if say the encounter was appropriate for 2% of the population in an area but 40 others showed up who were not that 2%. You would potentially be creating a sort of lose-lose situation for both spectrum of players which is easily extrapolated.

If we take in to consideration that this difficulty setting would apply only to elite DEs.. nope it want be against the design goal.

Players are suppose to win most of the time by Anet's own statements; 60/40 win rate. Was there any wording that suggested elite DEs were exempt from this design goal?

[Merendel]

What do you think would be a solution to this that doesn't make an encounter a pain in the ass?

Two solutions off the top of my head. One have a player kill counter that triggers once the boss sends so many people to the graveyard. Obviously this would have to be relitivly lenient with open world content and need to scale up based on numbers of participints but once the threshhold has been reached it either ends the DE in a fail or causes him to enrage, wipe out everybody in the area and reset. Sadly this type of solution is rather too vulnerable to random bads screwing it up for everybody else.
Second solution would be add a persistant debuff to the player that dies and returns to graveyard so they cant effectively reengage the boss DE. I think wow had a somewhat similar mechanic with one of the world dragons pre cata but cant remember. Anyway if you die to the DE and release you get a 10 minute debuff where you do 25% less damage and take 25% more damage from that DE's mobs, this effect stacks and resets its timer each time you are forced to graveyard rush. Adjust the numbers as needed to discurage graveyard zerging as such a system would quickly make zerging useless.

[Fencers]

Two solutions off the top of my head. One have a player kill counter that triggers once the boss sends so many people to the graveyard. Obviously this would have to be relitivly lenient with open world content and need to scale up based on numbers of participints but once the threshhold has been reached it either ends the DE in a fail or causes him to enrage, wipe out everybody in the area and reset. Sadly this type of solution is rather too vulnerable to random bads screwing it up for everybody else.

Hm. Do you mean to make it an infinitely repeatable event then?

Or only so many attempts before reset? And how many initiations are tolerated before the event is officially over if so?

Alternatively, if you don't mean to have the DE be repeatable; what step would you take to prevent a public group dying too much and ruining the chance for everyone else?

How long would those looking for the elite event completion have to wait or what hoops will they need to jump to restart the DE?

This seems like pain in the ass design work. Not awesome.

Second solution would be add a persistant debuff to the player that dies and returns to graveyard so they cant effectively reengage the boss DE. I think wow had a somewhat similar mechanic with one of the world dragons pre cata but cant remember. Anyway if you die to the DE and release you get a 10 minute debuff where you do 25% less damage and take 25% more damage from that DE's mobs, this effect stacks and resets its timer each time you are forced to graveyard rush. Adjust the numbers as needed to discurage graveyard zerging as such a system would quickly make zerging useless.

Would the DE scale down if the same number of players are present but some have a debuff and some don't?

If those with a debuff are allowed to still participate in the DE after downscaling, would this not be graveyard rushing all the same?

For example, say the DE starts off adjust for 50- 20 die, 30 are left healthy. The DE scales down to 30 but 20 other people are still collecting objects, defending positions, CCing, splash healing/buffing, etc in a DE that is now tuned to 30.

Would you then only count a debuffed player as 1/4th of a player? Only scale down for every 3rd person with a debuff? What if the DE is at 4% till completion and 45 people die leaving 4 and 45 debuffed?

[Spellsword]

Well the thing is, if your entire party wipes then the boss will regen very quickly outside of combat but if at least 1 of your members manages to dodge all attacks and stay alive with his self heal then that gives the entire party an existing chance during that one encounter to down the boss, everyone else can spawn at the nearest check point and run back to boss and continue fighting. Personally I like this. Fuck wipes, although they will still happen. Mob health resetting is something that has always annoyed me so...

Wipes don't really bother me in GW2 anyway though, you spawn pretty close to the boss usually there's a checkpoint nearby from what I've seen in videos of catacombs dungeon and things are so simplistic you don't need to mana up or anything like that.. just run in there and start combat again.

[Lucky_]

Second solution would be add a persistant debuff to the player that dies and returns to graveyard so they cant effectively reengage the boss DE. I think wow had a somewhat similar mechanic with one of the world dragons pre cata but cant remember.

Some WoW world bosses typically inflicted a debuff on a player that they killed, that made them vulnerable to an AoE skill that they used. This skill had no effect on players who didn't have the debuff, and would essentially one shot those with the debuff.

[Merendel]

~snip~

I'm not particularly in favor if the first option I threw up there as I pointed out, and you did as well, it would be very very easy for randoms to screw it up for everybody. However to answer your questions on what I was meaning in that senario look at it like this. Event is started with 10 players (lets assume none join or leave to keep it simple) The boss scales to 10 players and has some abitrary number of players he can kill befor calling the encounter a wipe, lets call it 20 for this example. Keeping with those numbers each of the 10 players could die and run back once but if they all died agian (20 total kills by the boss) the boss would either enrage and reset or just get flaged as a failed DE and move off to the next DE down that chain path. Now in a real world example that 20 I gave would have to scale in relation to the number of players participating and a more apropreate ratio would need to be found but hopefuly that gets the point accross of what I was trying to discribe. Either way while it would work its a prety flimsy system as bad players can either mess it up to easily or they have to set the ratios too favorable to the point of it not being worth haveing the system in the first place.

For the second system agian numbers would need to be set to a point that felt right by the devs. Instead of 25% stacking they could just as easily set it to 100% at a single stack (aka you do no damage and are not participating at all). I only picked 25% as a point where you could still participate some if you died unluckaly and couldnt be revived but at a weakened state but the same system would also work as an all or nothing setup. I was not looking for a harsh system where you can not run back from the graveyard at all, rather one where if you repeatedly tried to do it you'd quickly reach a point where you couldnt effect the outcome of the event. How much a debuffed player counted to scaleing could be modified by their debuff so somone thats managed to zerg themself to not being able to do anything useful but still keeps comeing back does not harm the chances of everybody else. Colect type objectves would be a bit harder to deal with (modifying damage done is much simpiler) but they could make it so a debuffed player gathers something 25% slower or their handins count for 25% less than an nondebuffed player.

---------- Post added 2012-04-03 at 01:29 AM ----------

Some WoW world bosses typically inflicted a debuff on a player that they killed, that made them vulnerable to an AoE skill that they used. This skill had no effect on players who didn't have the debuff, and would essentially one shot those with the debuff.

Still basically the same thing, the player that died is effectively out of action as they'd just die again if they tried to rejoin the fight.

[jvbastel]

I want the Elite events in max level elite zones like Orr to be hard as hell. Sure there will be some problems, and frustration, but those events should not be zergable. Players who are not skilled enough to take them out will know to avoid that area soon enough.