Feedback:User/Konig Des Todes/Post 6th Anniversary: Normal Mode and Hard Mode

I know everyone loves blowing shit up with super-powerful abilities. We all love that. But Guild Wars was created with the idea of "balance" in mind, so why is it so far away from that in PvE (at least) nowadays? As I see it, the main reason is as time goes on, the idea of how to balance things (there are many many ways to have such) - which is not inherently bad, except for when no one goes in depth to work on the old enemies. The old enemies end up staying the same while the players change. In essence, the new stuff becomes more balanced than old stuff, and as you go through the enemies as they were released, you can see where different balancing methods were used.

Even with keeping the same story and same pathing, PvE can be given a better replayability through various actions on the enemies themselves - spawns, builds, and so forth. Ideally, I'd love to see a cycling of enemy build, but that'll take a lot of manpower to get done, so in the meantime a non-mutually exclusive alternative - simple changes to normal mode and hard mode for those who find 7 heroes making the game too easy, but too lazy to work on making the game harder for themselves. Doesn't make the game harder overall, but more variable and requiring more thinking (e.g., capable of countering the idea of "set up 7 heroes, steamroll" while not being too powerful where you MUST have 7 heroes).

Normal mode changes
Normal Mode won't be getting a buff overall, but rather a nerf. It'll be made easier in most areas, but also harder in the older areas (read: Prophecies). Effectively, there's no need to change a lot of things, and this is mainly just to bring everything on par to the current idea of balance (which seems to be highly inspired by GW2's "everybody's awesome" philosophy).


 * 1) Enemy mobs which consist of level 15+ enemies would be given multiple profession groups consisting of half of the campaigns professions (Prophecies=3; Factions/Nightfall=4; Eye of the North=5).
 * 2) No mob in NM will have skills from non-campaigns (exclusion: Guild Wars Beyond enemies).
 * 3) Level 20+ enemies will have skill bars reworked to synergize with each other (e.g., stick a spirit spammer build on one, and stick painful bond on another within the same group).
 * 4) *Likewise, enemies will have 6 skills once reaching level 20.
 * 5) Rework enemy builds to equate the current philosophy of balance.
 * 6) Change the special traits of bosses and boss-like figures.
 * 7) *Bosses have the innate +3 regeneration and deals double damage, no matter the campaign.
 * 8) *Boss-like foes have +3 regeneration.

Hard Mode changes
The Hard Mode changes would be focusing around the idea of removing the "high numbers!" and increasing the quality. It's something hard to do and needs to be done thoroughly. Overall, these changes will not make Hard Mode harder, but rather more variable. It changes the difficulty from quantity to quality, while overall being the same amount.


 * 1) Change the movement speed of "33-50% faster" to "10%-25% faster" dependent on level. Levels 22-24 receive 10% speed boost, levels 25-28 receive 15% speed boost, and levels 29+ receive 25% speed boost. This is done so that breaking aggro becomes easier - strategetic play should be needed for Hard Mode, but being unable to break aggro ruins that at times, it merely acts as a double-edge sword.
 * 2) Alter enemies and their skills.
 * 3) *NPCs utilize skills from every campaign. Bosses are exempt from this.
 * 4) *Enemies can use any 10 profession as a secondary. Elite areas are given new enemies for the new professions.
 * 5) *All professions are viable to be within a group as well. This is not a requirement for all mobs.
 * 6) *Enemies' new skill bars would be designed compliment each other (all will share a common niche (ab)use - such as conditions, melee pressure/shutdown, etc.).
 * 7) *To equate the increase variety of enemies, they'd be more spaced out (like how the Black Curtain is during the War in Kryta).
 * 8) *Finally for skill bar changes, all enemies will have at least 8 skills.
 * 9) *Uniqueness. Keep each set of mobs from being the same, give certain affiliations and creature types something unique to them and only them. For instance, war in kryta mobs have multiple skill bars for the same name; likewise, the Villainy of Galrath (Hard mode) has enemies sharing the same model and name, forcing people to focus on weapon and skills used; then there's also the Titans and their splitting ability, creating a battle of attrition for those enemies. Stone Summit could be created to be more like the Slavers' Exile ones - be resurrection-maniacs.
 * 10) Alter the amount of Death Penalty gained per death to 5%; likewise remove the +50% experience. ATM, HM is a hit or miss - without dp-effecting cons, a wipe usually results in being unable to finish a particular group. The experience gain is removed for two reasons: 1) It'll lower the dp too quickly and 2) it's pointless except for lowering dp faster.
 * 11) If a harder version of a monster's creature type or affiliation has a monster skill, the lower level versions would obtain them. For instance Faction's mantids would get False Death and Parasitic Bite, and Prophecies charr would get Gloat.
 * 12) Alterations to bosses and boss-like foes:
 * 13) *Low-level bosses given expanded skill bars.
 * 14) *Bosses has innate 10 healing per second, has the "harder to interrupt" ability, and Natural Resistance no matter the campaign.
 * 15) *Boss-like foes have +5 regeneration and Natural Resistance.
 * 16) Duration consumables now last 50% longer.
 * 17) Alter Master of Magic so that it doesn't reduce attribute points (this skill nurfs HM enemies who have it).

The main point of this is to remove the gimmick side of it (I'm sure I'm missing stuff in that department), make bosses harder (most of them, especially in the low level areas, are jokes compared to the rest), and balance out the skill bars. The main difference between NM and HM would be the randomized builds.

The way Hard Mode is set up at the moment allows it to be very gimmicky, and the main offenders are that they're just not balanced - it's just higher numbers mostly. By reducing just a handful of numbers and balancing out the skill bars, and removing one of the two strongest capabilities of the players (the other capability does not need to be kept either), Hard Mode effectively can become harder without being gimmicky.

The reasoning behind increasing the duration of consumables as part of the HM buff is for the casual players. Casual players take longer than farmers or speed clearers and as such spend more money, therefore reducing the duration of the consumables will hurt casual players more than those who always utilize them. An alternative would be to remove use of them or to nerf what the consumables (specifically the unholy trinity) do.

Table of Difficulty
To help show the level of comparison difficulty I think should be ideal in the game, I've created this table: