Guild Wars 2

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Vulpis.8063:

-snip- lv, thief

well this explains a lot. I’m not sure how good or bad scaling is for low level players in those new missions but you have to know that you get quite powerful once max. level. You don’t even need exotic gear imho to feel that way. Now think about how many players are lv.80 for quite a while now. It shouldn’t surprise you that these people (me included) miss the challenge they got when playing as low level characters. Not everyone wants to constantly reroll to get this feeling back.

Me, as a lv.80 player for a few months now, I can’t find a lot of challenging encounters in the open world anymore. Metaevent-bosses are a joke (spam 1) and this leaves a few very fun and difficult god-temples in Orr.

I tried thief once, it was a quite fun and painful (but fun fun fun) experience. It’s this risk-reward feeling going into the battles, doing a few melee moves and then moving out again. Dual-pistols felt a bit lackluster to me, but maybe I was doing it wrong.

I understand now that you must be frustrated trying that dungeon as a low level thief. I re-read your posts and agree, this could have been a dynamic event – but a lot of things should be considered then:

Just a minor thing, but I’m at cap (though most of my gear is still in the level 70-75 ranges), but am going through the lower-level areas. I’ve only poked my nose into Fort Trinity once (after swimming the long way around the island from the fort north of it…Pride, I think?) for the easy jumping puzzle there. Most of the 60+ zones I haven’t explored yet, though I supposedly have the level for it.

And the pistols—I tend to like ranged fighting rather than melee (Ranger/ele in GW1, Ranger-type in Rift (I forget what the actual class was named there), dual-pistol users in Champions, City Of, and DCUO…), and the bow doesn’t allow for the more-dakka of dual pistols, at least with a thief. Again, I need to practice my melee…though it generally gets my head handed to me again, and I tend to end up using point-blank pistols and then running anyway. Which doesn’t do you much good in a small space with 3-4 Veterans and an elite trying to pound you…

Vulpis.8063:

Just a minor thing, but I’m at cap (though most of my gear is still in the level 70-75 ranges), but am going through the lower-level areas. I’ve only poked my nose into Fort Trinity once (after swimming the long way around the island from the fort north of it…Pride, I think?) for the easy jumping puzzle there. Most of the 60+ zones I haven’t explored yet, though I supposedly have the level for it.

And the pistols—I tend to like ranged fighting rather than melee (Ranger/ele in GW1, Ranger-type in Rift (I forget what the actual class was named there), dual-pistol users in Champions, City Of, and DCUO…), and the bow doesn’t allow for the more-dakka of dual pistols, at least with a thief. Again, I need to practice my melee…though it generally gets my head handed to me again, and I tend to end up using point-blank pistols and then running anyway. Which doesn’t do you much good in a small space with 3-4 Veterans and an elite trying to pound you…

well I can’t speak for high level thieves, never got mine above 30 I think. I’m sure they can’t soak damage at lv.80 like warriors can, and you have rarely some bait-buddies.

The thing is: I think this thread is in need of some constructive ideas how to implement such content in the open world for future releases. Some (maybe a lot) people dislike dungeons, the need for grouping, the dependency of other people, group-members who don’t behave like that and leave you behind etc. On the other hand you have the development team which tries hard to create some decent encounters where group-coordination is needed (they managed to do so with the boss battles here), try to come up with great storytelling (love the scripts in there) + they have the experience that previous special events had huge problems (karka-lag for example).

I guess it’s not easy to come up with a solution while working on a tight schedule. Maybe it’s up to us to provide the team with some neat ideas. You know: ask not what your developer can do for you — ask what you can do for your developer

Forums are a great way to come up with ideas, we should do this instead of constant whining “I want a refund”.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

The thing is: I think this thread is in need of some constructive ideas how to implement such content in the open world for future releases. Some (maybe a lot) people dislike dungeons, the need for grouping, the dependency of other people, group-members who don’t behave like that and leave you behind etc. On the other hand you have the development team which tries hard to create some decent encounters where group-coordination is needed (they managed to do so with the boss battles here), try to come up with great storytelling (love the scripts in there) + they have the experience that previous special events had huge problems (karka-lag for example).

I guess it’s not easy to come up with a solution while working on a tight schedule. Maybe it’s up to us to provide the team with some neat ideas. You know: ask not what your developer can do for you — ask what you can do for your developer

Forums are a great way to come up with ideas, we should do this instead of constant whining “I want a refund”.

Indeed—as I’ve said elsewhere I had the knee-jerk refund reponse…and then immediately realized that the key thing that makes me so ill about this thing is that I’ve enjoyed the other 99.9% of the game greatly, that Arenanet has spent the lifetimes of both GW2 and GW1 setting themselves apart by getting away from exactly this sort of WoW-clone garbage, resulting in these mandatory raids being a major step backwards for them…and on top of that, knowing that unless I choke down the bile and do this raid-dungeon, there is no option whatsoever to gain access to the scenes after it, and that means I’m completely shafted out of getting the reward gloves (rendering all effort put into the previous stages worthless).
My view? If they’re not going to make the dungeon scale properly, at least put in some sort of option that gets you past it and to the actual story-ending scenes.

Heh…you know, before I logged in last night, I had been considering buying some Gems for the store. No chance in Hades of that now, of course—but if I’d done that first and then found out about the raid-dungeon, I’d probably be calling for a refund on that, at least. Which is rather sad, really—this has managed to completely kill any interest I have in either future Living Story or store purchases from here on out. Bad thing, considering that ArenaNet is on thin ice as it is in some quarters, due to City of Heroes.

I was a bit sad that there was a dungeon needing a group at the end of this story. I don’t like dungeons. Not very fun for me unless I was playing with good friends. I’m a solo player who loves the challenge. I did the Halloween event solo, Christmas event solo and was hoping this one I could do but I couldn’t. Got myself to the last boss after hours of playing and dying which was the best and frustrating time I had. Reaching the last boss alone was such a thrill. Couldn’t figure out how to keep the npc’s up and fight the bosses at the same time so I had to give up. Maybe 2 players could do it. Not sure.

Now even with all that said. I actually loved the dungeon. Very well made and lot of people loved the boss fights. I do love fighting with others in WVW and in the open world so I have no problem with social interactions when needed. Just don’t want to be forced. I have always loved the challenge of doing things solo which others need a group to do. Played in another game in raids years ago and got so bored of the same thing every week.

Being sad about the fact there is a dungeon doesn’t mean I want them to change it. I am OK not getting the achievements if I decide to not find a group. If those npc’s didn’t die so quickly maybe I could have killed one boss but then again I don’t know. Everyone plays games for different reasons. We all can’t have what we want in an mmo. Most of the solo players know this very well or they should.

I can’t really say I like this, the dungeon is nothing but vets being thrown at you with nothing else besides the weapon testing part and a room of ice. The bosses aren’t even an enjoyable experience since any class not good with range becomes useless. CoE and Arah is even more fun than this and less boring. Sorry, it’s just my opinion.

Just a note:

The implemented this type of content in the open world with the lost shores update. It was saddled with Massive technical problems. How big is too big in terms of “instances” versus “open world”

Your open world zones are instances, when they fill up, they kick you over to an overflow instance.

You could easily scale up this type of content in to 30-player or 100 player linear “instances”

In fact, the only thing that separates dungeons from the cursed shore event chains is the party size. Mechanically the level of difficulty is similar, but the larger your zerg is the less of an individual impact you make. This is why arenanet decided on 5 person groups rather than 8, 10, 12, etc. The fewer the player count, the more important the players are to the outcome.

The Ancient Karka event was very cool. It was all handles with open world style events. However, the massive number of people took all semblence of individual heroism and sense of accomplishment right out the window.

I don’t see why people haven’t considered that accomplishments shouldn’t be preordained or handed out freely. The living story isn’t your story, and it’s going to resolve regardless of your input. There are still plenty of people destroying weapons facilities. Adding an “easy mode” in order for lesser able players cheapens the story as a whole. If you’re not up to the challenge of what is, thematically supposed to be a very dangerous place, then you really shouldn’t be there. Those that went, and wiped, and killed bosses, and took their lumps and armor repair and time were the ones that drove it forward in the end.

Just because there is content doesn’t mean you should be able to solo it. You’re not asking for the Orr temples to scale down to a single player, are you? With attitudes like some of you it’s no wonder you have problems in groups. Pugging in GW2 for temporary content has shown me some of the most laid back and helpful pug members it’s ever been my pleasure to play with. We have a great community. The fact is that the finale was narratively and mechanically a logical conclusion to what led up to it.

Every piece of content should not be a hardcore dungeon, or an easy solo instance, or a jumping puzzle, or whatever type of content is your personal favorite. If there’s a type of content you don’t like, don’t do it. Do you complain that you can’t see the SPvP maps without actually playing the game type? That’s content that you’re not getting because you made peace with the fact that you don’t like certain types of play, and thus you won’t play them.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the arc in its entirety (despite the pacing) and for that matter I though that finishing the personal story with the Arah story mode made sense. You may not agree with my opinion, but I have a lot of unpopular opinions and I don’t lambast the game for not bowing down to my every whim. If I had my way jumping challenges would be part of the basic navigation of every area of the game. That’s not something everyone agrees with but you don’t see me petitioning or chiding the devs for the game not being exactly as I would like it to be.

Honestly, can you not make just four friends to do this stuff with every once in a while, out of all of the people you know in life and all of the people on your server? I’ll speak from experience when I say that all group content is immensely more fun when done with people you know that understand your playstyle, pace, and skill level. We have people in our group that aren’t very good. We don’t care. They’re friends. Heck, it’s fun dealing with the extra challenge of making sure they don’t fall over every three seconds.

TLDR – How about chilling out, and realizing that there will be parts of the game that aren’t your favorite thing?

PopeUrban.2578:

Just a note:

The implemented this type of content in the open world with the lost shores update. It was saddled with Massive technical problems. How big is too big in terms of “instances” versus “open world”

Welp, the game is called Guildwars so it should be tied in to Guilds, and it’s supposed to be an MMO (MASSIVELY multiplayer) so… how about each instance can accomodate a full guild? 500 people right? Too big? Okay what about a full tier 1 guild then. 50 people? Just thinking out loud.

The party size is what makes all of the difference. The reason they call it living world is because the whole map is one giant party with a size of whoever wants to show up. Dynamic events happen just the same whether 1 person shows up or the whole map limit show up. That’s massively multiplayer. Instances are pre-planned with a set number of players. That’s co-op multiplayer, as featured in every game with a multiplayer mode that isn’t an mmo. By making the ‘living story’ take place in instances instead of the ‘living world’ Anet are wasting what makes their game unique. The content in the dungeon is no different to what you get in dynamic group events, but scaled for 5 players only, meaning not dynamic at all.

The easiest way to see the difference in gameplay between an instance and an event is that in an event you don’t have to say LFG, you don’t have to replace anyone that leaves half way through and you don’t have to say ‘full sorry’ once 5 people are there. And if you want a real challenge the scaling on group events means solo isn’t out of the question.

So some of you are happy with dungeons which is fine. Some of you want dungeons set outside of instances. I created a reddit-post in order to collect some ideas how open world dungeons could be done properly… I’d love to see those of you who have good ideas contribute here: http://redd.it/1djdiq

it’s all about bringing some coordinated challenging gameplay into the open world outside of dungeons, but don’t forget casual players who can also contribute in a meaningfull and less stressful way.

I would have really enjoyed a a long chain event in the world that has a story to it. Perhaps something similar to the world bosses but with a larger set of ‘pre’ events building up to the main.

The new events added have been a welcome addition but none of them had any extra layers to them, a bit of a missed opportunity but I understand these things are probably hard to develop and implement.

Of course the negatives of the story impact being diminished with the event happening every few hours would be a problem. The dungeon does provide a very tailored and more personal story experience which is harder to achieve in the open world.

A new world event would have been very accessible however.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I’d love to see those of you who have good ideas contribute here: http://redd.it/1djdiq

For starters you should make a suggestion thread with the same idea on these forums. I don’t go to reddit to talk about gw2. In fact I don’t go to reddit period, and it kitten es me off when the devs decide to use it instead of their own forums. Please don’t follow their lead.

KorbanDallas.7389:

As for medical conditions, it’s unfortunate. If everything was catered to a super-forgiving state, the “hardcore” crowd would throw a hissy, and a lot of the player base would whine and complain about how easy everything is (which a good portion of the vocal side of the forums do already). The best thing for that is to have an understandable team to play with (again, any MMO is only worth playing if you have friends that play IMO), and a bit of patience when it comes to your capabilities (ie. Don’t get frustrated about deaths). As far as something like epilepsy issues, I honestly can’t even imagine what its like, so

As to the difficulty of this dungeon, took about an hour with a PUG for me, with one of our members being a level 44 and two having it be their first dungeon ever (and they actually probably did better than living than me till I finally got my groove on during the second half). Graphic/internet lag will probably be the end of a lot of people as far as jumping over the shockwaves I imagine, but I felt the overall “coolness” of the dungeon was top notch, and the final boss fight made me relive my Dark Souls days beatin up on Orns and Smough.

As someone with photosensitive epilepsy and a major shyness of PuGs and dungeons as a result, I have actually managed to do this dungeon, and found the boss twins an absolute nightmare.

One guy in the PuG had already made at least one run, the rest, I have no idea. So this chap tells us it’s important to evade, which in hindsight, was a bit of an understatement. Stuff is happening everywhere on the screen and my brain literally almost short circuits (this is pretty much how I’d describe a seizure if anyone’s interested. I was in no danger of this happening, but the condition does make light shows confusing to say the least). Said chap was a bit cross when the group wiped several times, which isn’t overly helpful (but he was seemingly the sort intent on running ahead for even the smaller encounters, and not gathering party before venturing forth, so perhaps not really a people person).
Each time, however, I think we did better at those bosses, despite wiping and the attitude from the one player.

Still, us people with conditions have those extra considerations to take into account before jumping into a PuG – simply put, dungeons are a lot to contend with, and you have much more responsibility to your team mates. I’m not always sure I can bring that – particularly with people I don’t know (and don’t what to have to spend so much time explaining how my brain’s broken and what it means in terms of dungeon play). Some people aren’t particularly understanding or caring even so. And that’s their prerogative, but if I have to PuG with them so I can see the end of something that has been personal to that point, then that’s landing on this side of crap. I mean, I’ve never run a fractal for that reason, but seeing as there’s nothing I’ve done leading directly to it, it’s not the end of the world.

But don’t get me entirely wrong. I’ve had some PuGs with some decent players, who appeared to have a sense of fun, team playing, and generally keeping their kitten together. It’s because I know there’s people out there like that I’ll continue, off and on, to try dungeons.

For now, I have my flamey gauntlets of goodness, and I never have to do another molten facility again (I hope, and this could lead us on to another issue, really). What would I like to see in future similar events instead? Two conclusions: one hardcore kitten dungeon, and one fluffy kitten dungeon, the former needs a (PuG) party, the latter does not (but can accommodate, much in the way the personal story did, until Arah). Yes, two dungeons for the price of one, not mutually-exclusive, but with the same end result of achievement and resolution in living story. Now, that would be something of a step in the right direction.

I see there are still people that don’t get what this thread is about.
Disappointed that F&F ends w/ a dungeon
No-ones asking for all content in the game to be soloable, or that dungeons must be taken out. It’s about questlines (in this case F&F, but I want to add personal story too as the same goes there) being soloable (so that we feel somewhat “tricked” into doing them) laying down alot of work, only to be faced by a forced group dungeon as a conclusion to the story we’ve been playing. If it had been a story that required a group from the start it would’ve been a “take it or leave it” and we wouldn’t have felt so cheated.

Joseph Skyrim.2470:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I’d love to see those of you who have good ideas contribute here: http://redd.it/1djdiq

For starters you should make a suggestion thread with the same idea on these forums. I don’t go to reddit to talk about gw2. In fact I don’t go to reddit period, and it kitten es me off when the devs decide to use it instead of their own forums. Please don’t follow their lead.

I created another suggestion topic last week in the suggestion thread here and the same on reddit. Got 0!! responses here and most of the people liked and discussed the thread on reddit.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/hybrid-of-Guild-Missions-and-Solo-progression/first#post1929686
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1db2vk/soloplayerprogression_idea_from_the_design_of/?sort=hot
no one reads those suggestions in the suggestion subforum

Ceridwen.6703:

. What would I like to see in future similar events instead? Two conclusions: one hardcore kitten dungeon, and one fluffy kitten dungeon, the former needs a (PuG) party, the latter does not (but can accommodate, much in the way the personal story did, until Arah). Yes, two dungeons for the price of one, not mutually-exclusive, but with the same end result of achievement and resolution in living story. Now, that would be something of a step in the right direction.

How about playing a dungeon from a different perspective? Imagine a group which choses to go the direct combat route + a group which choses the interacting combat route. So 5 players fight on a path and 5 other players are in the same dungeon, but on a different path where they can look at the battle going on and interact by using certain traps, fighting easier trashmobs,… so that they support the other team without running into them. (There was a coop-mission in portal where you could see your friend through a window an interact with him without being allowed to go to his path).

important note:
There needs to be some kind of grouping-tool for this in order to work properly, since it takes longer to find 5 people for the hard part and 5 people for the interacting part at once.

example:
Group 1 fights the boss in the arena
Group 2 is on a path above the encounter (similar to the dredge-fractal boss, but the whole group). On this path there are some weaker enemies + some traps which can support the group below. For example 4 harpoons, which cripple the boss if all of them hit the boss at the same time. The 5th player would have to keep mobs away from the gunners.

Something like that. 2 different modes for 1 dungeon.
There could be variations:
groups don’t have to wait for a group2, they can start the dungeon without. Or path 2 could be made for 1-5 players, making it possible to solo it easily.

Want constructive suggestions?

1) 5-man dungeons should be optional and separated from story progress. Preferably achievements too.

That is, you can still have a ‘I am uber hardcore’ completionist title track for achievements, with the dungeon with its own achievement, but soloists should be able to pick reasonable alternatives (similar to dailies) to get a “saw the story” souvenir event achievement.

If it’s not possible to downscale the dungeon with no/limited rewards, have a soloable 1-5 man group instance like Halloween, Wintersday and prior Living Story instances that errs on the side of easy for people to participate through the continuing ‘living world’ storyline that was advertised as a feature of GW2.

The harder dungeon can be a separate bonus for people who want the shinier rewards – recipes, jetpacks, etc. After all, there’s an alternate means to attain them too, from the TP.

2) Improve the upscaling of non-level 80s in dungeons

Possibly a heavy toughness/vitality buff – can’t blame them for not having enough stats when the gear they have to work with only has one primary or two stats at most. It might be interesting, if complicated for them, to temporarily unlock all their traits and skills similar to PvP so that they have a stronger selection of utilities.

It’s just too obvious that non-level 80s are underpowered compared to a full team of 80s, which has a tendency to lead to either exclusion/elitism, or at best, kind souls “carrying” or helping one or two through, while their contribution is limited by the game mechanics.

At the moment, I got no ideas for how to support/train players with slower reflexes or non-cookie cutter builds except via having a patient community willing to teach and wait for others (where the onus is on us as players – though an imposed 10 day time limit adds a lot of pressure on achievers to go fastfastfast), or having less punishing critical timing or ping-dependent mechanics (which may not be the goal of the dungeon designers.)

But decoupling the dungeon as a critical link in the story would probably help people self-select themselves out.

i completed it in what felt like a timely manner with only one other person and it was fun. it was also our first time in there and we were both unaware of what would happen. it was exciting and not tedious at all

the most challenging part was the champion fire elemental

MatthewMedina.5419:

Speaking personally, I hope you’ll join all of us on the Flame and Frost team and give the Molten Weapons Facility a try when it releases next week!

Nope.

Rubina.9482:

The thing is, some have babies/small kids. They play after they’ve put the kids to bed but there’s no way they can guarantee that the kids don’t wake during a dungeon run. Life happens.

Yes, I know all about young kids/babies, and have and do play with people that have such. I also play games with people that have on-call jobs, and way more active social lives than me – Don’t forget that in that quote you are responding too (Dakan.9463 as well) I do mention that the way to go there would be to have a good group of friends to game with, as they should be understanding of it. I’ve had friends have to disappear for upwards of half an hour while playing games much more fast-paced than GW before, but I patiently awaited for their return, or if they had to jet waited to do the content with them later.

Rubina.9482:

It’s only dungeons I have a problem with because they are typically faster paced and harder. You need to be more on your toes, react quickly/dodge etc. coordinate your gameplay with others -just the kind of things I find very hard to do with my condition. And people depend on me being able to pull my weight. I need to play the game at my own pace, which is why I keep away from dungeons. This has never been a problem with any other MMOs I have played, I just do the open world quests and events and keep away from the dungeons, -no harm done, still plenty to do =) In GW2 however we are forced to group up and do a tough dungeon to see the end of our personal story. That’s a problem. We are also forced to group up to do the last part of a story that up to then has been soloable. I just want to be able to finish what I started. To not have a finish to stories is very unsatisfying. It’s as if all I did was for nothing, it was all just a waste of time. And no, watching how it all ends on youtube as some have mentioned is not the same. I want to experience it myself.

Understandable, and again I highly recommend you get a group of friends to do such things with – although they are all labeled as “5 man dungeons”, it is entirely possible for a group of even 4 people to make it through – the trick is to be with people that are understanding (instead of the forum horror-stories style PUGs that are downright shameful) and don’t mind it if you do happen to go down. I had one friend/guild mate who after playing the first AC story mode was near-vehement about never doing dungeons again because they died so often and found it so hard – I got them to do more with the promise that overtime they would find it easier/more enjoyable, and low and behold they did. Most the other dungeons seem to be less “object” oriented (jump to dodge attacks for example) than the new Temp one, and more akin to a bit harder Open world content with just less people as well (granted, I’m missing the last two dungeons so far).

Dakan.9463:

It’s not a difficulty question! Nobody here said that the dungeons should be easier. I think everyone said they are well designed. It is solely an issue of party size. A smaller party =/= easier content. At least it should not, with proper scaling.

That was more oriented towards a very few of the people who said that they enjoyed the new dungeon, but found it incredibly difficult. Now, as for the party size, to some extent I agree, although all the dungeons were originally designed (correct me if I’m wrong, its a bit fuzzy) as the “challenge” content and the idea of 5-member teams. Because of that, some of them would be broken with anything less than 2 team members (the part in CoF where someone has to run and open the door while others stay in the specified areas). I am all for being able to solo content – Lord knows I solo’d 90 % of the original Guild Wars myself), but I can also understand that there are some mechanics that you are going to lose out on if they were to make them solo-able.

I do agree it would be nice to see some more advanced enemy scaling (making the lower level dungeons feel a bit more tuned towards level they are associated with for example).

By all means, feel free for both of you to respond back if I could help clear up my thoughts at all – I’m not trying to be a troll or anything like that.

Kript.3291:

Nightshade.1493:

MatthewMedina.5419:

With all due respect, balancing content like a story instance is completely different than balancing an enhanced jumping puzzle like Super Adventure Box, so for us it just wasn’t feasible to consider doing an “easy” and “hard” mode in this particular case.

Instead we focused our time and energy into making a really unique, polished and hopefully memorable encounter that enables any group of five to complete in roughly an hour. I understand that there are players who will simply object philosophically to this direction, and wish that all the content we create to be solo-friendly, but our company has always been focused around building an online world that encourages our players to play our game together.

For those of you who have taken the plunge and shut down one of the Molten Facilities, thank you so much for giving it a try and giving us your feedback. Hope to see you on the front lines!

Hi Matthew,

I happened to read your response on the thread concerning the disappointment some players felt regarding the dungeon-based ending for flame and frost. I had posted on that thread as well, and although I do not believe your comment was responding to me directly, I wanted to reply to a particular portion of it:

“I understand that there are players who will simply object philosophically to this direction, and wish that all the content we create to be solo-friendly, but our company has always been focused around building an online world that encourages our players to play our game together.”

Personally, I am not idealogically opposed to content that is not solo friendly. I personally enjoy encountering dynamic events in the open world and joining in on the battle! And you all have crafted such a beautiful world!

The reason I left the game centers around my personal feeling that although there is a great deal of content one may experience as a solo player in the game, I felt there was virtually no content that one could experience to its conclusion as a solo player: Personal Story, Exploration, Living Story for examples.

That said, I know that each developer has their own philosophy regarding development and I respect that you have clarified that philosophy and intend to stick to your guns. I was feeling very moved at my disappointment in not being able to complete those three portions of the game I had enjoyed so much, that I wanted to let the team know that I was experiencing that disappointment.

Regards,
Matt (formerly Skade Thordottir)

hhmmn you are ok playing with 100 players taking down Jormag but oppose the idea of playing with 5 players to take down the dungeon boss….

do you see your own contradiction?

No contradiction at all.

One is spontaneous grouping, no organisation involved.

One requires organisation, finding a group, and so on.

Anet i their manifesto said they wanted the first type of gameplay, but are increasingly delivering the second

Cameirus.8407:

No contradiction at all.

One is spontaneous grouping, no organisation involved.

One requires organisation, finding a group, and so on.

Anet i their manifesto said they wanted the first type of gameplay, but are increasingly delivering the second

Shall we take a look on the patches released since the game went live?
I can guarantee you that the vast majority of things that have been added/changed/whatever during all that time have been specifically to the first type of game-play mentioned.

Well I am disappointed that it ends in a dungeon I am just doing what I do with any content I don’t like, I just completely ignore it.

it would be nice if some live events ended whit meta events

Ice of Dragons.1637:

it would be nice if some live events ended whit meta events

Which would of course make it impossible for people with low-end computers or bad internet to complete it. And that is not even by choice, while the case with the dungeon is.

Vulpis.8063:

Joseph Skyrim.2470:

MatthewMedina.5419:

…our company has always been focused around building an online world that encourages our players to play our game together.

If that was really true then the game should have either been released with an in-game party dungeon finder, or better yet dungeons wouldn’t be limited to 5 man instances. Won’t comment on dungeon yet till I give it a try, but is this going to be the “standard” fare in the future? Ending stuff with a 5 man instance, so that we can play together but separately?

And funny, they do a great job with getting people to play together in the open-world events without resorting to forcing people to group. If anything, forced-grouping makes a good many people play together less, becuase they’re sick of being put into the position of having to group instead of doing if they want to group. Very important difference there.

Exactly. If dungeons could scale from 1-5 people, you would actually see more people grouping, not fewer. The arbitrary five person requirement is archaic and discourages people from doing dungeons and playing with others.

It also would have been nice, given how well the game scales, if they had designed some large non-instanced dungeons out in the game world. There are a few small mini-dungeons in the game and there is the instanced Flame Legion “dungeon” that scales to any number of players, while still being challenging and fun. The only reason we don’t have non-instanced and scaling dungeon content to a much larger degree is due to backwards, stubborn thinking.

There really are no reasons Arenanet can give us for the decision to make the conclusion to the LS a 5 man dungeon other than that’s what they felt like doing, in spite of, or perhaps because of, the fact that the choice would alienate a fair portion of the game population. (There seems to be a lot of passive aggressiveness towards customers on the part of a portion of MMO developers every where).

Ice of Dragons.1637:

it would be nice if some live events ended whit meta events

We saw how great that was for the Karka events!

lordkrall.7241:

Cameirus.8407:

No contradiction at all.

One is spontaneous grouping, no organisation involved.

One requires organisation, finding a group, and so on.

Anet i their manifesto said they wanted the first type of gameplay, but are increasingly delivering the second

Shall we take a look on the patches released since the game went live?
I can guarantee you that the vast majority of things that have been added/changed/whatever during all that time have been specifically to the first type of game-play mentioned.

Not really. Colin had said before release that they planned on increasing the number of Dynamic Events in the game world significantly over the course of the first year, with a doubling or tripling of DEs the target goal and the idea that they would have enough to rotate DEs in and out to keep the game world fresh.

We are now eight months in and there have been very, very few new DEs added to the world, (in fact, there are still DEs broken that have been broken since launch). If they had actually managed to deliver on those plans, most players who prefer not to be forced into 5 man groups for content would have plenty to do in an “Living World”.

Instead we got this “Living Story”, which was really just a lot of smoke and mirrors to try to make a very little content seem like some thing more than it was. Then, to bring the whole thing to a conclusion, (for content that needed a really satisfying conclusion to even justify the effort and development time), they decided to make that conclusion a five man dungeon! The entire event was open world or scalable instances, until the bait and switch at the end!

It makes no sense. Is a temporary, one hour dungeon going to mean anything to Dungeoneers? Of course not. All it does is rob everyone else of a satisfactory ending to a four month, content thin affair and that decidedly unsatisfactory ending just makes obvious how vapid the entire Living Story event really was.

IMO, the dungeon team should leave existing dungeons and world content alone and alternate between creating new Fractals and new dungeons. The rest of the live team should be working on Dynamic Events and Special Events and not touch Dungeons, period.

Better yet would be to have the dungeon team work on implementing and perfecting scalable dungeons, in addition to the occasional Fractal. WildStar is making dungeons that scale from one person up to raid sized groups. Given all the ability to scale content already in GW2, you can’t tell me that it would take much more than a surrendering of their stubborn insistence on 5-man content for them to allow Dungeons to scale for 1 to 5 people. If the current team isn’t capable of doing so, then maybe they need to find developers who are.

Fiontar.4695:

-snip-

Even though it’s quite rude I read a lot of truth in there. I also don’t get why the open world doesn’t grow in the dynamic event sector. It’s kind of disappointing.

PopeUrban.2578:

I don’t see why people haven’t considered that accomplishments shouldn’t be preordained or handed out freely. The living story isn’t your story, and it’s going to resolve regardless of your input. There are still plenty of people destroying weapons facilities. Adding an “easy mode” in order for lesser able players cheapens the story as a whole. If you’re not up to the challenge of what is, thematically supposed to be a very dangerous place, then you really shouldn’t be there. Those that went, and wiped, and killed bosses, and took their lumps and armor repair and time were the ones that drove it forward in the end.

Just because there is content doesn’t mean you should be able to solo it. You’re not asking for the Orr temples to scale down to a single player, are you? With attitudes like some of you it’s no wonder you have problems in groups. Pugging in GW2 for temporary content has shown me some of the most laid back and helpful pug members it’s ever been my pleasure to play with. We have a great community. The fact is that the finale was narratively and mechanically a logical conclusion to what led up to it.

Every piece of content should not be a hardcore dungeon, or an easy solo instance, or a jumping puzzle, or whatever type of content is your personal favorite. If there’s a type of content you don’t like, don’t do it. Do you complain that you can’t see the SPvP maps without actually playing the game type? That’s content that you’re not getting because you made peace with the fact that you don’t like certain types of play, and thus you won’t play them.

Did you even bother to read back through what you wrote before posting it?
Basically, what you said boils down to ‘If you’re not going to be a WoW-style raider, you should shut up and get nothing whatsoever, despite content presented as playable and completable by all players.’
I don’t have any interest in seeing sPvP, PvP, or WvW maps, becuase I don’t play those modes. And conversely, none of those have any connection or impact on the modes I do play, so that’s all good. I don’t know what ‘Orr Temples’ are offhand, but I’m presuming they’re either one of those or a dungeon. Again, no impact on what I do play. Dungeons are the same story—-with the exception of Arah, which I view with the same lividness as I do this Molten Factory dungeon.
If Living story had been presented as dungeons from beginning to end, similar to how the Destiny’s Edge story, you’d have a valid point.

The problem here is that instead of providing means for multiple play styles to enjoy and complete the content, only one style is being allowed to, while everyone else has basically wasted any time put into it. It’s not a matter of ‘favorite style’, it’s ‘Why am I suddenly being forced to play your, when nothing proceeding it requires it?’

Phoenix.8640:

Well I am disappointed that it ends in a dungeon I am just doing what I do with any content I don’t like, I just completely ignore it.

If I’d known that this was going to end with a raid dungeon as the only way to finish it, I’d have done the same. Unfortunately, this basically completely invalidates the previous months of participation in the event, which is what’s making people angry about it.

I really want to finish this story… but it says I should gather my friends to finish it… and I just don’t have any. I’m scared of strangers. But I don’t want to leave the story unfinished. What should I do?

lordkrall.7241:

Ice of Dragons.1637:

it would be nice if some live events ended whit meta events

Which would of course make it impossible for people with low-end computers or bad internet to complete it. And that is not even by choice, while the case with the dungeon is.

Very true, I still remember the whole Karka event going mad, not to mention all the beta events.

If I could choose between something that doesn’t work and something that works I will always pick something that works.

Then again, I have no problem playing any part of any game. (Thank god xD)

I too am disappointed that this ends with another compulsory 5-man dungeon, just like the personal story (which I have not finished, nor intend too). I’m amazed that the developers still do stupid things like this knowing full well that they are going to p**s off a lot of gamers. Why are they determined to FORCE this sort of gameplay on to people thus alienating us. I harken back to the GW days when I could do a dungeon with my heroes. I’m not against dungeons, but we all know it can be difficult to find groups. If you want to do dungeons, great, but don’t push solo gamers down that route because eventually we’ll go elsewhere or like me, reluctant to buy any additional add-ons in-case it’s all dungeon driven.

I played a dungeon, and it was 1st dungeon in GW2 for me since BWE (did not even finish a personal story), finished it in 1st run with no problem and have to say enjoyed it a lot. On Principe however, i have to say that i am disappointed indeed with them repeating same mistake as having dungeon on the end of personal story. There are a lot of different players, and for many indeed " running dungeons" is not quintessence of MMOs.

I am playing MMOs since early Ultima Online/Acherons Call, and i consider structured PvE encounters abomination of genre and basically a themepark chore. Before telling about “socialization” – i did probably more than most players in GW2, organizing things in a guild, WvW alliance and whole server, keeping contacts, organization, diplomacy, spying etc. on scale it was almost work when i played seriously. Getting 5man party is nothing as keeping contacts with dozens different guilds, organizing whole server and hundreds of players in WvW: it was monumental work and i loved all of it.

That said, when it comes to MMOs, i prefer the PvP aspect, thus spend absolute majority of my time in WvW. Now i returned after a break, playing casually and enjoying things i did not to at all all the previews stressy monthes filled with fights- pve, personal story, leveling alts etc.

There are two aspects of why i generally dislike dungeons:
1) First of all – pace forced by the group. I dont dislike PvE as such. I dont dislike partying with people. However in PvE i prefer to be all by myself, being able to move and explore in the pace i like, rather than being forced to run with a group in shortest path – which happens the most times. I play GW2 from work casually now, doing small stuff i can do with alt- tabbing and exploring the world as i like. I had no interest for any forced grouped content since release and still dont have now – i consider fractals a bad addition since atm its the only way to get better gear (though i hope wvw update will fix it eventually), guild missions bad design – since they force specific shedules and bigger guilds.

I did the dungeon, i enjoyed it – well done. However i would have no problem with Arena adding just another dungeon – there already is dozen i dont care about and dont even know the names of, as i am not interested in that aspect of game. Problem is, just as with personal story finale – its obligatory and unavoidable, if you want to finish the Living Story which i enjoyed so far.

2) While dungeon is fun, as are many things – i personally dislike the “raiding” , structured dungeons mechanics in MMOs as such, and can only pity people that think MMOs are all about “more dungeons and gear progression”. Adding dungeons to the game is basically the cheapest and lowest way of adding new content as it works exactly for the said paradigm. Its also bad decision to expand the game in that way, since eventually all the new dungeons and their gear become irrelevant and not visited by anyone (well, not a problem here since its temporary anyway). There are many many ways to make a fun game expirience other than adding more and more dungeons to the game – and living story is great illustration of it. Well… except for a fact that it ends with khm Dungeon.

Yeah have to add my voice to the disappointment, though I kind of expected it. Not here to say I’m going to quit or anything, but is it that much trouble to make it scale? Or at least fix the mobs so I can pull them without them giving up, wandering away and completely regening while I’m still hitting them? I got to the ice room thing just fine solo and had to give up once I realized that the mobs just got tired of me hitting them after a while and ran back in to where they started at. I actually enjoyed F&F immensely up to this point and now I’m sad that I have lost all desire to finish it out:(

Oh also the whole HP sponge thing…it’s one of the things that makes all of the dungeons aggressively unfun in general.

GuzziHero.2467:

And as we all know, PUG’ing dungeons almost always leads to pain.

I am of the opposite experience, all my PUGs have been nice. Granted I don’t do them too often, and have yet to try fractals and a few other dungeons, but other than that I usually meet chill folk.

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

I created another suggestion topic last week in the suggestion thread here and the same on reddit. Got 0!! responses here and most of the people liked and discussed the thread on reddit.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/hybrid-of-Guild-Missions-and-Solo-progression/first#post1929686
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1db2vk/soloplayerprogression_idea_from_the_design_of/?sort=hot
no one reads those suggestions in the suggestion subforum

Ahhh in that case carry on then. :P

Figured I’d contribute something here anyway… I think upping the instance allowance for dungeons to 50 would be ideal. Why? It’s the size of a tier 1 guild (it is called Guildwars right?). How much more awesome would it be to raid that molten facility with all your guildmates in tow? Note: the 50 people don’t HAVE to be guildmates and will probably be a guild or two + pugs, but at least the option to roll in with a large chunk of your guild is there.

A few changes to make this viable:

1 – Remove all WPs in the dungeon (or leave the one at the start but make it cost gold – literally, to warp). Rebalance spawn around that.
2 – Dungeon Chat Channel to communicate with anyone in the instance with you.
3 – Dungeon Entry change – perhaps the biggest and somewhat a copy of how City of Steam does it.

-Have a well marked area outside the dungeon door.
-People standing at the entrance get a little HUD showing how many people are in the “current” dungeon ie (10/50) etc. At any time they can opt to join in.
-Once the “current” dungeon gets to 50/50 or the group progresses far enough in, say 50% that little instance locks and the new “current” dungeon begins at 0/50.
-You’ll need to add things on the HUD for people who dc to have the option to reconnect to their instance or march into a new instance of the dungeon.
-“Locked” instances can only be accessed by people who left it – a last dungeon ID per acct would do. I think you already have this.

4 – Guild leaders should be able to buy Guild passes for influence which allows them one instance of the dungeon that is only accessible to members representing their guild (another option on that HUD when standing at the dungeon entrance).

Lastly a somewhat separate idea which needs more work:
You know how each dungeon has paths? Make one that actually runs concurrent. People need to progress in path 1 to open a door for those who open path 2, who in turn have to rush to unlock a cage where path 3 is trapped fighting endless mobs. The 3 paths don’t have to meet up ever (would be cool if they did at the end), but it would be nice seeing your compatriots racing/fighting on unreachable walkways in the distance. Ofcourse, can’t really do this (or you can but it’s a wasted effort) with the current 5 man setup.

I heard the dungeon is awesome and the best ever created and all what I heard from, I believe it. I guess it has more features and different zones as every normal dungeon. But I totally dislike the direction the dungeon or the living story´s end is going, so I’ll stay to my opinion and not going into the dungeon. I can only assume that it is the same random-group-throwing-in-dungeon system. Was the negative feedback from the winter festival dungeon (defend the dolyaks) not enough. After that desaster I’ll never going into any instance with that crappy pug system. either you can go with “your group” or guild or alone. And the saddest thing is a team worked hard on this dungeon and I appreciate it (I would be interesting in how long it was build) Because one Month hard work and then such a great dungeon going in 2 weeks into nirvana. I will not support that.

I have no problem with there being a dungeon just with it being the finish and required to go on. Oh by all means in a spontaneous world have a stop to group for a 5 man dungeon. Let there be dungeons, let there be lots of them, let there be good stuff to get in there. BUT, don’t let them be mandatory, don’t let them have things that cannot be gotten anywhere else like specialized crafting materials. That was one of the big reasons I quit WoW!

Wish this was actually solo friendly to those who are scaled up. I tried to solo with 54 elementalist and was killed 5/6 times? Before managing to take down 1 enemy and then a bigger meaner one came along and beat the stuffing out of me. It’s disappointing that this ends with a dungeon. I mean I don’t usually play the dungeons because most often the only people doing them are level 80’s. I feel like they don’t actually want someone lower than them tagging along.

The Living Story died.

I too am disappointed that yet another thing in the game will go into my “Incomplete forever” column.

Back to doing my daily and putzing around….

I agree that ending Flame and Frost with a dungeon isn’t as player friendly as other options might have been. Here’s my idea on what they could have done to please most people. Have several choices, including a dungeon, like we had in our personal story.

We were frequently given choices along the way. Do you want to join the Vigil, Priory, or Whispers orders? Each uses a different approach to dealing with the enemy. Do you want to enlist the aid of the Skritt, Hylek or Quaggan? You get the point. So why couldn’t we have had something similar in ending this story?

The Azurans are experts in underground matters along with new inventions. It would have been a good idea to enlist their aid and that of the Priory to investigate the Molten Alliance and their facilities. I envision an instance where you, the npcs and some golems head underground to sabotage the weapons/machinery. The instance would require sneaking past certain areas, investigating equipment, finding ways to access secret areas, etc. all without triggering an attack on your party.

So as a player, you could have chosen to follow the Vigil, head into the facility (dungeon path), and deal with the Molten Alliance head on. Or you could have chosen to go with the Azurans/Priory to sabotage/deactivate equipment (solo path.) At the end, there is a briefing with Rox and Braham on the outcome of the two groups. Anyway you get the point; I’m sure the devs could have come up with something really creative.

I understand that resources are limited and there may not always be time to create two options for players especially if it’s temprary content. But just something to consider for future story content.

Why wasn’t people that hate playing solo complaining about living story?, well because it makes sense!

I don’t like PUg’s and i am not much of a dungeon runner i have social anxiety and still i can get this done, i am also quite sick and have to sometimes afk right away and no one has yet to call me out on it because i make sure my group knows it, and Vulpis calling it a WoW raid is so far from this galaxy as he can be this place has nothing to do with a wow raid at all, it’s a challenging dungeon, it’s not hard, it’s not easy it is inbetween, and arenanet have always done it this way, in Prophecies you could not do Tomb of The Primeval King with Heros/henchman alone, in Factions you could not do The Deep or Urgozs with heros/henchmen/alone, in Nightfall you could not do Domain Of Anguish with heros/henchmen/alone, Arenanet have always encouraged people to play together against an enemy/nemesis.

And those who want to see the story and hate dungeons you have so many ways to actually see it withouth doing the dungeon, you do NOT have to do it at all it is free content for those who are willing to make an effort.

Why are you playing this game if you just dislike what arenanet do so much?, i don’t understand it, if a game or anything else was against my beliefs i would just stop playing it.

Also Arenanet, keep doing awesome content, remember there’s many millions online playing and having fun and the very small minority is jsut here complaining as it is with all official forums, majority = having fun in game, minority = on forums complaining about something they hate anyway.

Oh yeah and please keep it this way, we do NOT want heroes and henchmen again at all, they ruined most of the social aspect of GW1 we want GW2 to be a social game.

“Oh my god why are you giving me dungeon content that requires multiple people in an MMO? Jesus christ, give me SaB and more platform-style mini games please. Some jumping puzzles too.”

Get over it, dungeon runners haven’t had too much to get excited about content wise since release. Fractals of course being an exception. I’m just glad there is a new dungeon even if it is temporary.

To all those who refuse to do dungeon, I have one question for you:

Does this mean that you refuse to complete – or even do – the personal story, which similarly ends in a dungeon (Arah)?

I love jumping puzzles. I love open-world mini-dungeons that could be solo’d or done in large parties. I absolutely despise pugs and gw2lfg.com because they like to use the same boring tactics and run through as much as possible, which I don’t enjoy doing. But that doesn’t mean I’d ignore dungeons completely.

If I wanted to avoid player interaction, I’d just stick to my single-player games. And I do mean this honestly and sincerely: What is the point of playing an MMO if you’re going to avoid everything that requires playing with others?

A lot of people are taunting on this oddity, but it’s a legit absurdity that should be properly answered. I see it brought up a lot, but never answered except “it shouldn’t have to require player interaction” (dumbed down). But why not? It’s the entire purpose of the genre. I would normally hop on the bandwagon that says “if you don’t like it, don’t play it” but at this point it’s just something that makes me facepalm whenever I hear.

If you don’t want player interaction, or if you don’t want activities that require player grouping, then why just WHY are you playing a Massive Multiplayer online game?

I’m honestly befuddled by this aspect of your minds.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

To all those who refuse to do dungeon, I have one question for you:

Does this mean that you refuse to complete – or even do – the personal story, which similarly ends in a dungeon (Arah)?

I love jumping puzzles. I love open-world mini-dungeons that could be solo’d or done in large parties. I absolutely despise pugs and gw2lfg.com because they like to use the same boring tactics and run through as much as possible, which I don’t enjoy doing. But that doesn’t mean I’d ignore dungeons completely.

If I wanted to avoid player interaction, I’d just stick to my single-player games. And I do mean this honestly and sincerely: What is the point of playing an MMO if you’re going to avoid everything that requires playing with others?

A lot of people are taunting on this oddity, but it’s a legit absurdity that should be properly answered. I see it brought up a lot, but never answered except “it shouldn’t have to require player interaction” (dumbed down). But why not? It’s the entire purpose of the genre. I would normally hop on the bandwagon that says “if you don’t like it, don’t play it” but at this point it’s just something that makes me facepalm whenever I hear.

If you don’t want player interaction, or if you don’t want activities that require player grouping, then why just WHY are you playing a Massive Multiplayer online game?

I’m honestly befuddled by this aspect of your minds.

In answer to your question, Yes I have two characters that are through the personal story up to Arah. I also have 4 more that are around they start of the founding of Fort Trinity. I enjoy the personal story but none of my characters will complete it since I don’t want to do the dungeon. I enjoy the open world stuff since I can do with other people but I don’t actually have to party with them to complete the events. Now that been said I can see why Anet did it the way they did. I would be thrilled if it was changed at some point to not require a group but I am not going to hold me breath. I will just do what I do with all the time simply ignore the content I don’t like an do the stuff I like.

Explain how 5 players is Massive Multiplayer. Torchlight 2 is a single player game and I can play with more people than that.

Events already bring community interaction and as much as you like to pretend dungeons are more challenging, trial and error becomes equally as much of a faceroll the moment you find the correct sequence of actions, it’s still pveasy.

I personally don’t have problems grouping with people to do dungeons. I just don’t find them fun. To me they’re about as much fun as a torture chamber. I really don’t understand how people find them “fun” at least not the ones in GW2. Some people enjoy the “challenge” of a dungeon, others don’t. Now I haven’t done the flame and frost dungeon yet (I’m planning to) and everyone says it’s a much better design.

When I played LOTRO I was in a kin and did dungeon runs all the time. An incident came up over loot where someone got really upset and because I rightfully chose to claim my reward instead of letting that person have it, he kept taunting me in game to the point where I had to play a lot less. It was never the same game for me afterwards. That’s another reason I don’t care for dungeons.

A big part of this game is about dungeons. Even all the holiday events ended in dungeons. So those people who love dungeons can’t really complain. I don’t understand why one storyline can’t end without a dungeon or as I suggested above a couple of options for those who prefer not to do dungeons. Doesn’t it make sense for a company to offer a product that will appeal to the biggest fan base possible. I should think it’d mean more dollars in their pockets.

Massively Multiplayer does not necessarily = 5 man dungeon content. It can but there are many other ways players interact with each other such as guild missions. To insinuate that people who prefer not to run dungeons are somehow antisocial is a very stereotypical response from the pro-dungeonists.

The only thing I will agree with on some earlier posts is that if people don’t enjoy the content in this game they need to move on and find one that does meet their interests.

Phoenix.8640:

In answer to your question, Yes I have two characters that are through the personal story up to Arah. I also have 4 more that are around they start of the founding of Fort Trinity. I enjoy the personal story but none of my characters will complete it since I don’t want to do the dungeon. I enjoy the open world stuff since I can do with other people but I don’t actually have to party with them to complete the events. Now that been said I can see why Anet did it the way they did. I would be thrilled if it was changed at some point to not require a group but I am not going to hold me breath. I will just do what I do with all the time simply ignore the content I don’t like an do the stuff I like.

This is exactly what I meant when I said " I see it brought up a lot, but never answered except “it shouldn’t have to require player interaction” (dumbed down)."

You said a lot of pretty words, but you didn’t answer the question at all. You never answered why you hate partying in a Massive Multiplayer game. Only that you do, but you don’t mind playing with others without a party. And that’s another oddity I find – where’s the difference? What’s the problem with a party and not with just playing with the same folks outside of the party? I see none.

Coldtart.4785:

Explain how 5 players is Massive Multiplayer. Torchlight 2 is a single player game and I can play with more people than that.

Events already bring community interaction and as much as you like to pretend dungeons are more challenging, trial and error becomes equally as much of a faceroll the moment you find the correct sequence of actions, it’s still pveasy.

That’s actually what I was moonlighting in my post. Five players is less than what an MMO should be, yet you’re disdaining from that while doing content you can do solo with the chance of running into others, and say you enjoy running into others in that “chance”?

Difficulty is irrelevant in this matter atm, it’s about why you people are so disdaining from a party of five when you’re perfectly alright with playing in a huge zerg to take down The Shatterer (for one example), but also enjoy the solo’ing content of the game?

As it stands, it feels to me that you folks just hate the word “party” and refuse to do anything involved with it.

Hmm. Not sure if this edited properly. We’ll see. And cutting it due to the system complaining about length.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

To all those who refuse to do dungeon, I have one question for you:
Does this mean that you refuse to complete – or even do – the personal story, which similarly ends in a dungeon (Arah)?

Yes, actually…and ending the Personal Story that way makes even less sense than it does for the Living Story. I mean, right there in the name—Personal. Nothing particularly personal about a 5-man WoW-raid. That’s the other half of the reason I can’t even bother forcing myself to log in at all right now. What’s the point, when the only play style that apparently deserves any sort of reward for their efforts are the raid-runners?

Konig Des Todes.2086:

If I wanted to avoid player interaction, I’d just stick to my single-player games. And I do mean this honestly and sincerely: What is the point of playing an MMO if you’re going to avoid everything that requires playing with others?

A lot of people are taunting on this oddity, but it’s a legit absurdity that should be properly answered. I see it brought up a lot, but never answered except “it shouldn’t have to require player interaction” (dumbed down). But why not? It’s the entire purpose of the genre. I would normally hop on the bandwagon that says “if you don’t like it, don’t play it” but at this point it’s just something that makes me facepalm whenever I hear.

Seriously? I’m getting very tired of the ignorance, failure in reading comprehension, or possibly just brain damage that keeps this little fabrication going around and around.
People aren’t complaining about player interaction. What they are complaining about is being forced into 5-man WoW raids, when there’s a list of what, 2 dozen or more different kinds of events that GW2 has already in place, all of them scaling from 1 player to many?

What people are complaining about is what’s basically the Arenanet giving a large portion of the player base the middle finger, and sending the message that the only people that deserve to be rewarded for participating in the multiple months of Living Story content are the WoW-type raiders. In case you didn’t notice, there are no alternate paths to unlock the last segments of story content—and there are no rewards whatsoever other than the gloves that are only obtainable by doing those final story segments, which are themselves only accessible by doing the raid-run. If there was another method to get to see the rest of the story, such as a open-world event or a hard but soloable instance, people wouldn’t be complaining.
I will point out, BTW, that I’m very specifically saying that the dungeon should stay, but there should be additional paths alongside it. Removing the dungeon in favor of another method would be causing exactly the same problem just in another direction. Provide means for all play styles to enjoy the story, not just one.

It’s really sad when Arenanet fails at running an event in comparison to DC Universe Online, of all people—DCUO may be run by nasty, petty, money-grubbing people..but at least their events during the last year have been providing both solo and group activities.
(continued)
Edit: ah, there we go.