Heavensward Monster Difficulty /excitement

[Airinya]

I was reading through the live letter synopsis when I saw this:

"Many new dangerous looking monsters can be seen in Heavensward areas. We have seen many comments where players felt the A Realm Reborn areas were too peaceful as the monster placement in the areas were a bit too easy; however, the monsters in Heavensward are very strong. If you encounter two or more monsters at same time, you’ll either need to fight doing your best, or be prepared to run.

If you plan on stepping in areas such as the beastmen camps, and other dangerous areas, you’ll probably want to talk with nearby players to get through them."

I am SUPER excited about this. I also hope it gives players, who are interested, a viable chance to level off grinding in camping groups rather than just being forced to quest/dungeon grind. I really miss this in MMOs. I loved it in Everquest and FFXI and hope it makes a comeback here.

[Lokisama]

I agree I like this new level of difficulty just hope they won't give in to nerf the mobs after people start complaining about how hard they are which is inevitably going to happen

[AugustI]

Let's hope they won't be nerfed a few weeks after the release.

[Nalien]

Let's hope they won't be nerfed a few weeks after the release.

They'll be nerfed be default anyway, after you unlock flying and can just fly right over everything.

[Marxam]

I love it. The fact that I have to consider where I go in a world creates a sense of tension and respect for the land and enemies around you, which in turn creates more immersion and involvement to the lore.

I just hope they don't add echo to Alexander Raid. Since there is a story mode for casuals and Savage Mode for raiders there really is no reason other than P2W for getting gear in the savage mode and helps to preserve some of those mechanics for those casual people who want to experience the raid in its full glory. I'm tired of seeing clear sellers on pf and while I do understand the need to make money it really hinders farm parties when content is unlocked.

[MrLeonheart]

I'd temper my excitement because if they make overworld stuff too difficult, people who are bad at pressing buttons will have their progress stymied to an unacceptable degree.

[Hayward]

I'd temper my excitement because if they make overworld stuff too difficult, people who are are not interested in unnecessary fights for one objective will have their progress stymied to an unacceptable degree.

Fixed that for accuracy.

EDIT: I say this not because I don't want any rise in difficulty, but XI has taught me to be wary of difficulty spikes in enemies that don't allow for soloability in quests.

[Malzian]

I remember playing in XI going into places like the Yagudo fortress around level 15 or so trying to get a quest done (solo mind you). The whole trek was tenuous and nail biting, wondering if i was going to die and have to go all the way back... I never felt so accomplished as when I cleared that successfully. The same thing playing LotRO and slowly grinding my way through elite mobs and pausing in safe spots to recoup... I'm not saying this game needs this everywhere, but I wander in and out of Natalan and the other beast areas like it's a Sunday stroll in the park. Having one or two hard spots in an area can really make the world feel less like a theme park and more like a real world with dangers to face and overcome. Honestly, I think even sprinkling a few 'elite', slightly harder mobs in the current beast zones would be nice... It's annoying the only concern going through these areas now is "Ermagerd I got heavied on my mount again..."

[Akuryu]

There are 25 days until release...

Which means 25 days + 30 mins until the first "this is too hard" posts start to appear.

Any open world challenge will be nerfed. Fast. This community can't deal with anything that isn't mind-numbingly easy.

[Sapphic]

There are 25 days until release...

Which means 25 days + 30 mins until the first "this is too hard" posts start to appear.

Any open world challenge will be nerfed. Fast. This community can't deal with anything that isn't mind-numbingly easy.

Unfortunatly to true as evidenced so many times by all the cries of "too hard nurf nao!" posts. And I give em 15 minutes before :P

But:

Putting open world forced party content is only viable when enough players are doing it to get help to progress. Using an example to what many can relate. FFXI. before the last update getting parties for Dynamis was nigh on impossible parties where rarer than a honest politician, same with Aby. if you were very lucky you might find a raptor party , you had to solo most of the time. Assaults, no one was doing them, so getting past the assaults which needed parties where even more harder than dynamis eg the one where you have to feed the troops, get the mobs to do a certain attack to break the doors to free the prisoner etc. Salvage, Nyzul etc, etc where all the same. Those lamps :S

Same with WotG, ToAU, Zilart, CoP, only way you could do them is getting to 99 and geared enough (sparks gear is enough at ilvl 115) and soloing it.

Point I'm making is, is that old content becomes dead content and making it party only prevents new players from being able to progress. To be honest, if you had spent time running the content over and over and over to get your drops and after new stuff comes out, you wouldn't want to run the previous ones over and over and over to help someone else. So I can empathise with those who have left that content in the dust to move to new pastures.

I'm all for challenging content, I'm not so much for mandatory tough party content for normal progression for the above reasons.