Guild Wars 2: The One Thread

[Meledelion]

Very few fights actually require any thinking at all. Even fairly complex ones only need each player to watch out for 2 or 3 mechanics for each 2 or 3 phases.

Exactly, at the risk of coming off as extremely arrogant (and not just elitist) I'll expand on this. As I said earlier, people take every role into account when they talk about raiding difficulty. Let's say there's 3 basic mechanics in an encounter. A taunt rotation, a move out of voidzones mechanic and lastly an anti-overheal mechanic which does AoE dmg equal to the amount you overheal divided over the entire raid. What people tend to do is say "Yea there's this fight where you have to keep track of several stuff: you need a taunt rotation, avoid void zones and you can't overheal!" and they forget that at most you'll need to watch 2things (voidzones + overhealing/taunting).
You expanded on this and went with phases where the same thing happens. Now imagine a fight with 3phases (+2 transition phases) where every phase has similar mechanics to the one described above, people now say "Yea you have to look out for like 15things!".

A while ago I illustrated this by using HC LK as an example.

On a similar note, I don't understand why people need VOIP for PvE content. I used to log into vent because it was required and then I'd mute it and have friends PM me if someone was talking to me. I even raided without DBM since the in-game timers became really good.
On vent the only thing that happens is someone says "go here, go there, watch this, stop attacking, start attacking, target this guy" which is information that's available to everyone.

Personally I dislike mechanics or fights that have one shot mechanics of any sort whether avoidable or not. I also dislike fights where you have a single point of failure, including so called burn phases which require that all of the group members be present.

OHK-mechanics are sometimes needed to make fights significantly more "complex" imagine a fight where there's a window to DPS a boss but in return you take 10% of the damage you do as reflects, if you use cooldowns here you can totally negate that mechanic so to avoid this you put in a OHK before this mechanic so that the CD's are no longer available.
An issue pops up when you rely solely on OHK mechanics since they don't actually increase difficulty/complexity on their own, add to this that you'll always feel (whether or not it's justified doesn't matter) like RNG got the better of you while when you use them as I said before it's easy to identify what you did wrong on a personal/skill level.

As you probably noticed I mention OHK -and burnmechanics in one breath. The reason for this is that both are meaningless on their own, think of Patchwerk as an opposite example to the one above.

I personally quite like burnmechanics since they make people think on how to execute a fight. I remember having issues with hitting the enrage timer every single time on a fight and we were stuck there for a week or two after which we dropped 2healers for DPS and we did it like it was nothing, the only thing that held us back was our inability/dislike to innovate.

To link this to GW2:
The problem with difficulty/dungeons/raids/... isn't that a-net has less mechanics they can use, it's their design philosophy: "everyone can do our content". As we all know this one-size fits all sort of approach never satisfies anyone, the OSFA overalls don't fit anyone and everyone would like some thing different but hey that's not the idea of overalls.
GW2 had this idea of in-out fighting which heavily uses OHK mechanics and "burn times", you deal dps (in) until the OHK comes (out) which can be very dynamic, fluid and fast. The problem is that there's no real burn time where there's a consequence if you don't meet a threshold. What happens is that people can ignore either the in or out part completely and you can take that quite literally since the difference usually comes down to ranging a fight vs meleeing it.

I would include better AI with the boss using things like avoiding player damage like running out of AOE or blocking some attacks and attacking perceived weaker players. I would also scale down the damage requirements if players die. Not fully, just a reduced amount. So losing a player in a 10 man group might drop the damage requirement by 8%. The rest would need to do better but it wouldn't be a situation where people should quit and start again.

The problem is that you can very easily take advantage of the AI in any game. Smart use of game-mechanics hardly ever is using special item X, it's usually stand here, stack/spread, ... If you're familiar with tank-wars there's a trick used by all top-scorers that takes advantage of the AI always wanting to go the shortest route, what you do is you make a very long labyrinth with an opening to your base and a short red-carpet like hall to a closed off entrance of your base. Once the labyrinth is full you delete the wall of the red-carpet hall and block of the entrance at the labyrinth and all the tanks will turn around increasing your time to deal damage (you can take this further by using multiple labyrinths and cycling through them all).

An example would be using skills that the AI would want to dodge to "interrupt" the boss' dangerous attacks (or vice versa).

For weak targets you'd have to hard-code specific profession targeting in which wouldn't be fun. Compare a mesmer to an ele for tankability. The mesmer has 2dodges, 2second evade on a 12s CD another immunity with distortion, blink, shadow walk while the ele "only" has armor of earth, teleport, mistform, arcane shield and rock barrier. So now I should always go for the ele which forces all eles to bring those skills.
A similar problem arose in GW which used a similar system based on pick-up items. If you were carying something of importance you no longer could use your (weapon) skills and every NPC would focus you, this turned into people stacking certain armor on one toon while the others raped the NPC's.

Your last Idea could lead to people intentionally dieing on certain parts of a fight. Imagine a boss with a bouncing attack which bounces to anyone within a distance of 10 kablamos. When you have 10people in that room it is impossible to stand in such a way that less than 4people are hit per attack (so it's 1person = target + 3 bounces) now if we let one person die (maybe a healer who we don't really need in this stage since less bounces = easier to heal) it is possible to only have 2people get hit (target + 1) bounce if you stand in a certain position. And after this phase you simply rez the sacrifice and continue.

[Lane]

Personally I dislike mechanics or fights that have one shot mechanics of any sort whether avoidable or not.

I agree, but it doesn't sound like GW2 combat is really set up for anything else.

I'm actually drawing a blank trying to recall one-shots I've encountered in MMOs prior to GW2. Does anyone have any examples?

[Arlee]

I'm actually drawing a blank trying to recall one-shots I've encountered in MMOs prior to GW2. Does anyone have any examples?

Iirc the Old Nef fight in BWL had a one shot mechanic if everyone didn't have special cloaks to counter it. Also, most boss enrages in WoW were set to one hit once they enraged... I feel like there are others I am not thinking of though.

[Karizee]

I agree, but it doesn't sound like GW2 combat is really set up for anything else.

I'm actually drawing a blank trying to recall one-shots I've encountered in MMOs prior to GW2. Does anyone have any examples?

Pretty much every raid in WoW.

[Lane]

O_o I did every raid in WoW up to ICC. I guess if they were present there wasn't as much issue avoiding them?

I don't really count enrage timers since usually if you didn't beat one it was game over anyway, it wasn't like that was avoidable.

[Valeron]

There were some special mechanics in wow that would one shot you if you weren't the tank. But I don't recall many of them.

GW2's combat sort of has to have this I think since everything is based on avoidance.

[Lane]

In reality - short of very large screwups - most raid mechanics don't actually one shot you. In WoW or any other 2nd gen "raiding" MMO.

That makes more sense. :P

[rhandric]

I agree, but it doesn't sound like GW2 combat is really set up for anything else.

I'm actually drawing a blank trying to recall one-shots I've encountered in MMOs prior to GW2. Does anyone have any examples?

There are a lot of mechanics in WoW that are one-shots to the target(s), if they're not properly handled (meteor effects, a lot of abilities against tanks) or avoided. For example, Chimaeron's Massacre, or Nefarian's Dominion, or Mimiron's Rocket Strike. I could list more, but at this point I think it's obvious

[draykorinee]

That makes more sense. :P

It does, we shouldn't feed Karizee :P

[rhandric]

Massacre didn't actually kill anyone.



You pressed "2" and broke out of it, and you had like 20 seconds to do it in. It really wasn't a killing mechanic at all, simply a limit to how many stacks of the buff you could get.



Now that's a legitimate one. They really were relatively rare.

Massacre was technically a 1 shot ability, it just had a mechanic to deal with it (making sure to get the guy out of the cage AND having over 10k health). Now, in theory, it never should one-shot anyone, but reality never matches theory.

And I brought up Dominion because yes, it had a way out, but if you didn't follow the mechanics, you'd die. Same with meteoring effects. Just like how, in GW2, one shot mechanics only kill you if you fuck up. Same deal.

I almost brought up Big Bang (and Ascend to the Heavens), but since the first was always survivable (with a major CD, at least), and needed to be, and the latter is the wipe mechanic, they don't quite fit.

[rhandric]

Yes, but the example is pretty absurd. It's like saying Lich King had a one-shot that could hit the entire raid if you all jumped off the platform. =/

No, it'd be like saying how Lich King had a one-shot if your friends didn't break you out of the Valkyre's fast enough

[Maefor]

1 shot mechanics are not "rare" in WoW. They basically exist with nearly every single heroic boss with a different twist. Either mechanics you must deal with correctly, or x dies, or simply stay out of Y, or you die, or deal with Z withing this amount of time, or everybody dies. You could do a check boss by boss on almost every instance past naxx (wotlk) and find plenty of these mechanics. Theyre just as common as in guild wars, if not more common

[Maefor]

Since we're talking about the lich king raid in particular....

Lich King: Frozen orbs. Kill them before they reach raid, or get knocked out and die instantly. Val'kyrs on normal and heroic, specially on heroic: Coordinate AoE stuns, and stack your group accordingly, or have 3 people die. The phase 3 frostmourne attack on normal: Massive heals on target, or it dies within like 2 seconds. The phase 3 frostmourne attack on heroic: Kill the floaty spirits, or they blow up the raid instantly if they reach it.

Sindragosa: The shockwave AoE proximity attack thing, stand near her, and die in 1 hit (heroic at least). The debuff you also had on heroic for casters. Get more than I believe 12 of them, and 9 seconds later you would blow up your raid instantly. Frozen pillars: Kill or have target die. Kill too fast, and your raid is unable to reset debuffs, and they also die.

Sleeper dragon thing: Abominations would die and explode, 1 shotting people on heroic. Move out of them.

The vampire dudes in the blood wing: Spread out for the empowered knockback thing, or you'd kill yourself and 3 others. DPS the falling orbs, or you'd also die, and kill your raid in the process. Have your shadow guy tank have at least 3-4 shadow orbs on himself before that boss got empowered, or you would get 1 shot instantly.

Blood queen: Spread out for the splashy attacks on flying phase, or die painfully.

Festergut: Handle debuff placement incorrectly and you would die when he explodes the spores instantly.

Putricide: Dispel disease at the correct timing, or at the incorrect place with the wrong target next to you, and watch them die within .5 seconds. Stack appropiately next to the green slime target, or watch people die left and right. Kite the orange slime correctly, or die painfully, and instantly.

Some of these are not "one shot" directly, but plenty of them also are. This is just with like half the bosses in 1 instance.

[rhandric]

The Val'kyr mechanic was designed to kill you though. Nefarian's mind control was never designed to actually kill anyone, and it never did unless you were AFK.

I guess we'd have to agree on a definition of "one shot kills" to have this discussion. Something like Rocket Strike is - to me - a "one shot kill" type of mechanic. Nefarian's mind control certainly isn't, and Lich King Val'kyr doesn't really seem to apply either, at least in my mind.

I'll agree that Dominion was never meant to kill you (at least, to a degree...considering the effect is to kill you, the intent is to make you break before you reach the door...they were also cruel and put the "spam" button on 2, and the escape on 1, so if your filler button was 1, you'd escape automatically ), and the Val'kyr's intent is to kill you in a save-able manner; I'll also agree that they're not technically one-shot kills, since you (or your raid) have control over their occurrence - but that same can be said about every one shot kill mechanic - if you fuck it up, you die immediately.

So yes, Rocket Strike is the definitive one-shot kill mechanic; the other ones we've discussed are borderline, but still have the effect, if not the intent, of a one-shot kill.

And for the record, I've seen Dominion kill people who were trying too hard to get that one last stack in that they didn't break in time...but generally that only happened once

For clarity: in my mind, a one-shot mechanic is anything that will, when fully healed, instantly kill you if not properly handled. Major boss attacks that can't kill you but will kill you from the combination of prior+major+after attacks don't count, while things like Blood Rage are borderline, and Rocket Strike is the definitive example of a one-shot mechanic.

[Meledelion]

Any fight with voidzones is basically an example but let's list some encounters from wotlk
In naxxramas that would be:
Faerlina
Maexxna
Heigan
Patchwerk
Grobbulus
Thaddius
Sapphiron
Kel'Thuzad

That's 8/14

Malygos
Sartharion

Brings the total up to 10/16 for wotlk t1.

Don't forget that cleave damage is a OHK mechanic too.

[Fencers]

I agree, but it doesn't sound like GW2 combat is really set up for anything else.

I'm actually drawing a blank trying to recall one-shots I've encountered in MMOs prior to GW2. Does anyone have any examples?

I can't think of any true one shot mechanics in 2nd era MMOs.

The closest I can recall are conditional fail states. Such as not being within a safe zone during an encounter AOE and so forth.

Within GW2 one-shot mechanics have to exist due to the combat system being what is classically Arcade in intent.

[Meledelion]

I can't think of any true one shot mechanics in 2nd era MMOs.

The closest I can recall are conditional fail states. Such as not being within a safe zone during an encounter AOE and so forth.

That's still a one-shot mechanic though. You can use the same principle in GW2 and say "well if you didn't stand in front of him you wouldn't have died" so that point is moot.

[rhandric]

I can't think of any true one shot mechanics in 2nd era MMOs.

The closest I can recall are conditional fail states. Such as not being within a safe zone during an encounter AOE and so forth.

That's the epitome of a one shot mechanic - you either pass, and live, or you fail, and die. Quite straightforward.

[Fencers]

That's still a one-shot mechanic though. You can use the same principle in GW2 and say "well if you didn't stand in front of him you wouldn't have died" so that point is moot.

It's not the same. The design is totally different. Especially when the mechanic is reoccurring- it is then categorically a fail state/conditional failure.

The only functional similarity is the player or agent is eliminated in a single instance of the mechanical occurrence.

[Svifnymr]

Any fight with voidzones is basically an example but let's list some encounters from wotlk
Kel'Thuzad

This is what I was thinking of as a OHK, no matter how much health/armor/resistance you have, when it goes off, you're dead.

Another side to the discussion on "Comparing GW2 to Raids", would be the downed state and ability to restore someone back to life.

- - - Updated - - -

Balancing and bug testing would take a long time, you could stick tequatl in to a raid and say here is a boss, but you have to design the instance, incorporate trash and storyline and add in some more meaningful boss encounters, adding one boss doesn't make a raid. Just because tanks/healers don't exist I would doubt that makes creating the raid any less challenging from a lore, balance, bugs point of view, they wouldn't hit a raid a month as far as I'm concerned.

Depends of course, lots of Raids don't exactly have "depth" of story. Trash, same thing. I mean, it's basically dungeon but scaled up.

But don't get me wrong, I'm not saying GW2 would crank out a quality raid every month or whatnot. I'm just saying they could probably match some others pace (1 raid every 4months or thereabouts) if they were geared towards that. I'd also assert that they could probably get Raidfinder difficulty if they instanced things without a huge problem.

But, none of that really matters either way, just an opinion and not the way Anet is heading. I haven't seen anything else about their "raid equavelent" for a while, so for all I know it may BE Tequatl.