Guild Wars 2

And the second part…

Konig Des Todes.2086:

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.

It’s not ‘Massive Multiplayer’, it’s ‘Massive, Multiplayer’. The Massive part is why I and a lot of other people play—other than maybe Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls and Fallout lines, there are no games with the scope and territory to match a decent MMO.

And again, you’re failing to understand what’s actually being complained about. People have no problem with player interaction—otherwise, all of those open-world events such as Champion spawns, the Maw, the Fire Elemental, and the like would fail miserably (and it’s pretty evident they’re doing quite the opposite—there’s been more than a few times I’ve been out in the middle of nowhere, not having seen anyone around and triggered a Champion event—and suddenly people are popping out of the woodwork for it). What people are complaining about is being forced into a WoW-type raid dungeon just to see storyline content when all the effort up until that point has been the non-WoW solo or completely informal open-world event grouping. One of the primary draws for both Guild Wars games is that you didn’t have to do dungeon raids just to complete the storyline—everything could be done either solo, or scale to groups running it by choice. There is no choice whatsoever here—you either do the raid, or you get nothing for all your personal work.

You know, there is a question I might ask you in return—if all you want to do is dungeon-raids, why are you here instead of playing WoW or DCUO or the like, who are focused on that kind of gameplay?

Gah. another one I have to split up.

Azzer.8137:

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

Yes, it makes sense because with solo content, there’s always the option of dragging friends along for the ride. You see, there’s that thing called a ‘choice’. By making the only way to finish the storyline be a 5-man dungeon, there’s no choice at all. Only one play style is allowed to have rewards.

Azzer.8137:

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.

Deep breath and a dose of decaf there, you’re babbling.
This is a 5-man raid, just like any of the many, many, many ones that are used on WoW.
And you’re comparing apples and oranges here. You’re right, you couldn’t do the side dungeons in GW1 with only a single PC—by the same token, you can’t do the Destiny’s Edge side-story dungeons solo. But you know what? That’s completely irrelevant.
You can do the entire Prophesies storyline from beginning to end with just Heroes and henchman.
You can do the entire Nightfall storyline from beginning to end with just Heroes and henchmen.
You can do the entire Factions storyline from beginning to end with just Heroes and Henchmen—and I’ve done this one personally, so kindly don’t try to give me any horse manure that you can’t. Taking down Shiro was how I got the last HoM points I wanted before switching over (not that I’ve bothered to use the Heritage gear much past my early levels. I ended up liking the Pirate amor—not the store town-clothes—styles a lot more).

Azzer.8137:

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.

Oh, do tell? Other than watching it from completely outside the game via YouTube, I’d really love to hear you tell me just how I can see the story without doing the dungeon (as the situation stands now), given that you only gain access to Rox and Braham’s events on completion of the dungeon. If there’s some other trigger to gain access to those, I definitely want to hear about it, since those are what fulfill the last requirement to gain a reward for the event, rather than the dungeon itself (especially considering that those achievements are blocked, having the dungeon completion as a prerequisite). If you can do this, I, and the other non-raiders, will be very appreciative….but personally, I think you’re full of it, and can do no such thing.
(continued)

(and part 2…)

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.

Simple—because with the exception of these two moronically-placed dungeons with no choice whatsoever, Arenanet has done an excellent job on the rest of the game, balancing it well between individual and group play. Plus, I’m not a coward or an idiot—if your dog takes a dump on the carpet, you don’t run out of the house and leave them and it sitting there, you grab the rolled up newspaper and correct their behavior. Given that Arenanet should have already learned this was a incredibly bad decision due to the reaction to the end of the Personal Story, I’m wishing I had a long enough newspaper to reach to the other coast so I could smack them while rubbing their nose in what they did. It’s very sad to see them do such a great job on 99% of the game…and then get pants-on-head stupid with a rather critical 1%.

Azzer.8137:

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.

You’re babbling again. And forgetting the portion that does just take their wallets and leave rather than complain and try to get things improved or force themselves to play when they’re not having fun.

Azzer.8137:

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.

Funny, people seemed plenty social to me. Of course, this does beg the question—why does being ‘social’ mean being forced into 5-man dungeons, when the various open-world events are doing a far better job at it?

For those of you who believe that all of us who do not like dungeons or PUGs should quit the game immediately (the standard response in this forum if you dare to complain).

There are many open world areas that have no “updates” since launch.
In fact, I could say MOST of the open world areas have had NOTHING added since launch.

Flame and Frost was a big exception. Open world people were, in essence, suckered into the story because it was …..GASP open world! Now we are stuck with yet another achievement that cannot be completed UNLESS we do a PUG and a dungeon.

Every update has had a dungeon. But for open worlders——nothing—-until Flame and Frost—-and for people who love a good story, it is as if someone stole a good book when you were at the last chapter.

And No, I have not done my personal story, I probably never will. I am at Arah. It is just another thing that I will never complete. The list grows ever longer.

Since when is a 5 man party considered a raid? WoW went from about 40 man raids to 15. Those numbers are higher than 5 and are made of multiple 5 man parties.
5 people is just a party, not a raid.

Yeah yeah, I know you hate partying and stuff so much but at least get your terms right when it comes to the difference between a party and a raid even if you don’t participate in either.

Tawa.3180:

Since when is a 5 man party considered a raid? WoW went from about 40 man raids to 15. Those numbers are higher than 5 and are made of multiple 5 man parties.
5 people is just a party, not a raid.

Yeah yeah, I know you hate partying and stuff so much but at least get your terms right when it comes to the difference between a party and a raid even if you don’t participate in either.

Alternatively, you could read more before posting. Setting aside the idea of the dungeon structure of Guildwars 2 dungeons being pretty much a raid-style due to house-cat sized drone baddies individually dealing the damage and having the durability of twenty-story ogre beasts (which is a disconsistency to the rest of Tyria strangely enough DOES contradict the ‘Living Wold’ factor they seem to almost live on when explaining the game in PR), many have outlined their reasons for disliking dungeons. Many of them irrelevant to partying up, and basic sociality (assuming that is/or works as an English word). Many of them not only party up on the field, but socialize in large groups and guilds possibly more then you do, for all I know. It’s very possible to have real reasons to disliking 5-man dungeon runs, due to the game-play style of those dungeons, while setting aside 5-man partying. To carefully reiterate for you: Some are saying ‘solo-friendly’, but others have other distinct reasons. And quite frankly, any of them more legit then most of the simpletons here will admit to, since they play the game socially already, and are allowed to not be your clone in interest. You and others already have a ton of lengthy dungeons to run. It’s not like they’re implying all your content should be removed. If you decide to read the posts rather then quick skimming, you’ll see that.

Azzer.8137:

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.

Well, I want heroes/henchies back because they made GW1 awesome. With heroes/henchies I didn’t have to wait around on other people to play what I wanted to play when I wanted to play it. And having heroes/henchies didn’t stop me from teaming with friends when they were available.

Bring ’em back, I say. Then I might try some of these dungeons – at my own pace, in my own time, and if I need to go deal with something for several minutes, nobody will be stuck waiting on me.

Tachenon.5270:

Azzer.8137:

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.

Well, I want heroes/henchies back because they made GW1 awesome. With heroes/henchies I didn’t have to wait around on other people to play what I wanted to play when I wanted to play it. And having heroes/henchies didn’t stop me from teaming with friends when they were available.

Bring ’em back, I say. Then I might try some of these dungeons – at my own pace, in my own time, and if I need to go deal with something for several minutes, nobody will be stuck waiting on me.

Yup. And having Heroes and Henchies meant having content geared for a full party that was actually doable, rather than being a complete roadblock to finishing a storyline.
Not to mention the Heroes (many of which you might notice have big statues dedicated to them in various parts of the world. ;-) ) were rather great NPCs in their own rights. I badly miss MOX, and Jora, Gwen, and Ogden…and heck, Vexx is the main reason I went Asura in GW2.
Too bad none of Destiny’s Edge or Rox or Brahwen or anyone else in GW2 seems to live up to their standard. :-/

Bring back MOX, at the very least. A lot of the art for GW2 seemed to indicate that Asuras would be able to get a Golem buddy…and Zojja has Mr Sparkles…but the only ones I get are time-limited elite-skill summons. Or am I just the wrong class to get one, as a thief?

Just logged in to say that I agree with the sentiment of being sorely dissapointed that ArenaNet has gone backwards in terms of content-accessibility in requiring us to do a group-based dungeon to finish off the story.

Something that I really enjoy about the game is that there are multiple ways to obtain items and gear. For example, one may do group fractals for ascended gear, or one may do pve on their own, or pvp on their own. This covers all bases and players, allowing them to play the game how they want.

On the other hand, this content forces people into group-based content. I don’t have any friends that play this game, and the game does not have a LFG tool so I am just out of luck. I was also sorely dissapointed they chose to end the personal story this way too, and therfore I have been unable to complete it.

Another flaw in this update is the addition of the molten jetpack. Many players, including myself, would like this item — but not only does it have only 1 method of obtaining it (without spending insane amounts of gold on the TP), it also is not a guaranteed drop chance so a player may do the dungeon 10 times and never get one. Then it will fade away never to be seen again.

I don’t know about others, but having content and items that I cannot access, and will never be able to access again leaves a bitter taste.

It’s an MMO; you are supposed to be playing with others. It’s not that hard to find a group… If you are really having trouble finding a group then use gw2lfg.com it’s easy to use and can get you into a group fast.

You could argue that they could have made it an open world event, but then again that would just be zerged like everything else and for many players that is just as mind numbingly boring as some players referencing dungeons. There aren’t even that many dungeons in the game (I personally like the ratio of instanced dungeon content to open world content; I like to do both and it’s nice that it isn’t just one or the other as it is in some online games).

Also, the item drop rate is a bit ridiculous for some items in the game; the rng can be absurdly ridiculous. However, I also don’t think that every item should be just handed out as consolation (although alternatives methods to rng are definitely welcome).

Suggestions to Anet:
While I think that Anet did a fine job with the Flame and Frost story arc, there are some things I think they could have done to make things just that much better.

I suggest that they provide an open world alternative alongside any content like the Molten Facility Instance in the future (so you could do the dungeon and/or you could do an open world event too; each would have a unique spin, but both would lead to the conclusion of the story arc). One example of something that could work alongside the Molten Instance, would be to have an large scale invasion event that players repel (maybe like a wvw sort of thing, but players vs the molten alliance).

Also, one design choice that would have been nice for similar events/arcs in the future would be to have the option to obtain a soul/account bound version of the jetpack by means of tokens (like the SAB skins).

I can’t believe you guys are making such a massive deal about a feature that is core in most MMO’s. A lot of people like dungeons and want more of them. It’s the end game in Guild Wars 2 and at the moment it is lacking a bit, if I’m honest.

As for the moaning about the drop rate, this is so silly. Items like these are desirable and aren’t going to put in your hands without you doing a thing. I agree with Sollith in that I find the open world events very boring, kill X amount of Y till Z happens isn’t exactly fun in my opinion. Or drop off X at Z. Or simply find things and press F. I’m just disappointed that this dungeon is temporary.

You can access the content, I could say I couldn’t access the rest of the FF because I don’t like events and I don’t want to touch them. As for the fear of grouping up with people (“oh no I have to interact with someone”).. If you let them know it’s your first time and you want to explore a bit, watch the cut scenes or whatever I’m sure they’d let you… the people that play this aren’t hatred filled speed running maniacs and I’m sure they could cope with an extra 10-20mins on their run.

I’ve already had my say here, but after reading several replies I thought I’d say a bit more. We’re complaining because a “solo” quest/mission/personal story can ONLY be completed by doing a dungeon and no other way. This isn’t fair, we are being FORCED to play a style some of us do not like nor want to play. The game is designed to be played either way, so please design it to be played either way for the benefit of us ALL.

Vulpis.8063:

5-man WoW-raid

That seems paradoxical.

A raid, by definition, is a zerg dungeon – usually, from my understanding, with 40 or so people. You cannot have a zerg with 5 people.

Want raids? Go fight against the Shatterer, Tequatl, Shadow Behemoth. THOSE are the GW2 equivilant of raids, not dungeons.

Dungeons are the GW2 equivilant of GW1 missions.

Vulpis.8063:

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.

It’s not any of those for me – it’s me never seeing people explain why they hate what they hate.

Even in your own post you never explained why you hate your so-called “5-man WoW raids”

It’s got nothing to do with the living story ending in a dungeon for me. It’s got to do with me trying to understand WHY you hate what you hate, because all you folks have given me is just “I hate it – I don’t hate open world player interaction, which is similar, but I hate dungeons.” It isn’t “5-man WoW raid” – and you constantly saying that dungeons are for “raiders” makes me wonder if you’ve ever did a dungeon.

Vulpis.8063:

And again, you’re failing to understand what’s actually being complained about.

Because, once more, people are not answering the question I’m asking. Everyone’s just saying “you’re misunderstanding” then saying “I hate it” when I’m asking why you hate it, what do you hate.

My wording aside, you still didn’t explain why you hate these so called (falsely so) “raids.”

Let me end with this: I hate the concept of raids myself. I hate zergs and large groups. It lessens, to me, the sense of accomplishment in playing when I feel like i’m barely doing any damage because there’s so many other people and whether I stand there or be active, things go away at roughly the same rate. However, I love dungeons – not because it’s group content (I love solo content more, more often than not), not because it’s more difficult, but because it feels more solid and cohesive – far more than the personal story – and it’s done in a way where me being active in the fight still matters.

We seem to agree, you and I Vulpis, in the dislike for raids. But dungeons are not raids. The Shatterer is a raid. Shadow Behemoth is a raid. Mostly thanks to that dragon timer website though and folks farming them, but they’re far moreso raids than the dungeons will ever be.

You could easily find out several reasons why people hate it if you spent a bit time to read the thread.

Nightshade.1493:

Greetings all,

Up until this point, I have been playing both GW2 and SWTOR. For me personally, I only have time to devote to one mmo and immerse myself in its universe and lore to the extent that I’m happy with. The developers at ArenaNet have crafted an absolutely gorgeous and detailed online world! Yesterday, I made the decision to uninstall GW2 and continue my adventures in Bioware’s Star Wars universe.

My decision was made, in part, because of the issue being discussed here. I felt like I could not make significant achievements in Tyria as a solo player. I was unable to complete my character’s personal story and was unable to bring my living story to its conclusion. I love exploration, but was unable to explore completely because the availability of some locations was dependent on the actions of other players.

I recently completed the new “Rise of the Hutt Cartel” expansion for swtor and was very satisfied to bring a new chapter in my character’s story to its conclusion, as others were enjoying group content present as separate adventures.

I have no issue with the presence of group content and recognize its importance. I have decided to go where I feel that all playstlyes are rewarded. I also realize that my views are only my own! Just wanted to add to the discussion and I will be keeping an eye on upcoming content in GW2 in case something strikes my fancy.

Cheers,
Skade Thordottir

^ This. Almost word for word, with the following additions:

1.) I really love so many things about GW2 (multiple weapons, shared nodes, shared mob credit, the revive system, digitigrade cat-people whose females don’t have unnecessary human features, etc.) and have been impressed by event and level-scaling and other immensely helpful and enjoyable mechanics. I’ve learned to love and succeed at jump puzzles and finding hidden caves, groves and tunnels is totally fun.

2.) However, buoyed by some comments that it was easy and “you don’t even need a fractals group”, I did actually do the Molten Facility dungeon, despite not having completed my personal story due to the 5-person group requirement. I felt trapped by the fact that I had followed, completed and enjoyed all of the previous open-world steps and associated events but would now be forced (yes, forced, I don’t believe that a solo/duo-happy player should leave the game/not play MMOs) to embarass myself in a dungeon. I like helping people but I’m shy about interacting and worry about doing something stupid because I don’t know any better.

Result: My husband and I (Elementalist and Guardian support builds), both level 80 wearing orange player-made kit) joined a group and had the worst experience I have had playing GW2. Yes, it’s a rather neat dungeon. I liked the flavour text and storyline. But if I could have paid to just have that experience solo or with one or two other people, I would have done so. I said hello in group and nobody responded. Someone said something nasty to a player who had taken longer zoning into the dungeon than the rest of us. After about the first 30 seconds, two players spent the run fighting over strategies (one of these was derogatory and awful about everyone else in the group, reaching borderline abusive when her (female avatar) directions weren’t followed, and bizarrely threatened the guy she was arguing with) and we were stuck, a captive audience because …we soloed, duoed and in one rare instance, triod the rest of the content whilst wandering the open world and just wanted the end of the story.

I didn’t enjoy that I wouldn’t ever finish my personal storyline and I don’t appreciate that I felt like I had to spend an hour in misery because I wanted to feel like I completed something. I feel a bit duped. But Cathar are coming soon in SWTOR and I haven’t done Hutt Cartel yet, so despite the lovely, mostly sensible features of GW2, that’s what I’ll focus on now.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Dungeons are the GW2 equivilant of GW1 missions.

Oh? GW1 missions were specificially designed to be completable by a single player with the the assistances of Heroes and/or Henchmen, or multiple players with the additional players taking up Hero/henchman slots in the group. Kindly show me where the GW2 dungeons are soloable that way.
If anything, GW2 dungeons are the equivilent of, well, GW1 dungeons. Additional content designed specifically for multiple PCs only, that should never be required in order to complere a main storyline.

As for why I hate forced grouping so much? I work at a job where I’m constantly having to pick up the slack for losers who are too lazy to do their own jobs, despite us ‘supposedly’ supposed to be working as a ‘team’. I was raised to be self-sufficient and self-reliant—being put in a situation where I’m forced into doing someone else’s job for them, or worse, stuck in a sitation where someone else gets my job dumped on them (often because I’m stuck with a third person’s work) makes my skin crawl. If i can’t stand that at my place of work, why in the world would I want it in my recreation time, especially given that virtually every forced-grouping experience I’ve dealt with across multiple games has ended up with me stuck with the very same kinds of waste of space? There have been exceptions of course, but they’re few and far between. Also, I have other venues for making and talking to friends—I’m here to play the game; casual chatting in passing or when I’m idle is all well and good, especially when it’s about the game, but my primary purpose is to play the game, not socialize.

Along with that—(and Konig, this isn’t directed at you), I’m downright sick of these idiots with their trite little ‘If you don’t like interacting with people, go play a single-player game!. First off, kindly get it through your little heads that there is more to player interaction than just 5-man dungeon squads. In fact, that’s the wonderful thing about the masses of public events found in games like GW2, Rift, and others—you just show up and do them, with no formal grouping required.
And secondly, consider this—when you go to a shopping mall, an amusement park, a theater, or any other venue and demand that everyone split up into 5-person squads to shop, or eat, or ride things, or go to the bathroom (hmmm, actually, I probably don’t want to know the answer to that last one—given the sickos I’ve seen over the years, you probably do)? Conversely, since I know someone will try to throw it up (pun intended), you wouldn’t demand that you be the only person in the mall/park/whatever either, which is what these ‘Go play SP’ people try to claim solo play is. Again, if you can be around and interact with people offline without that kind of grouping, why be forced into it online?

Get some friends, play the dungeons, stop the whinging and stop being such a big child… Why should the devs not include dungeons because you feel you cannot handle the apparently mammoth task that is a dungeon. There is nowhere near as much pressure as you imply.

So what that a story ends with a dungeon, I’m not happy I had to find out the rest of the story through world events and repetitive instances. Running around fixing signs…

Believe it or not dungeons and ‘forced’ group content are a core part of most MMO’s end game because, you know, you should play them with others and that’s sort of what devs would think an MMO community would want.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

It’s got to do with me trying to understand WHY you hate what you hate, because all you folks have given me is just “I hate it – I don’t hate open world player interaction, which is similar, but I hate dungeons.” It isn’t “5-man WoW raid” – and you constantly saying that dungeons are for “raiders” makes me wonder if you’ve ever did a dungeon.

I don’t like structured group content. I don’t enjoy pre-forming groups and being locked together for the duration of the ride. It turns the game into a chore to me.

I like when you can just start something on your own, without waiting on anyone else, and others can just jump in or out as they please. You can talk and socialize as you play through the content you want to without having to form an arbitrary group in advance. This is why I liked the rooms of PSO, but HATED playing with others in Guild Wars. In PSO, I could open a room, head to the Forest and start my run with others coming and going as they please. In Guild Wars, if I wanted to go into a zone, mission, dungeon, etc. with other people, I had to wait around to form a group and hope they weren’t going to end up being obnoxious gits or bailing partway through.

I’ve never liked this type of pre-structured group content, and while I was willing to tolerate it for the MWF, I certainly didn’t enjoy the decision.

SnoodBeAR.5286:

Get some friends, play the dungeons, stop the whinging and stop being such a big child… Why should the devs not include dungeons because you feel you cannot handle the apparently mammoth task that is a dungeon. There is nowhere near as much pressure as you imply.

Not one person in this thread has suggested the removal or exclusion of dungeons from Guild Wars 2. Perhaps if you had read through the thread you would have seen that and refrained from suggesting otherwise. I do find it interesting though that so many of you who disagree with our position have an inability to avoid juvenile name calling. Are these forums not for those who offer negative feedback in a positive way as much as it is for those who sing praises? And are we not allowed to voice that feedback without being constantly referred to as whiners and/or children?

SnoodBeAR.5286:

Believe it or not dungeons and ‘forced’ group content are a core part of most MMO’s end game because, you know, you should play them with others and that’s sort of what devs would think an MMO community would want.

In case you haven’t noticed we’re not talking about most MMO’s. If we wanted to play most MMO’s then that’s what we’d do. This is Guild Wars 2, the MMO that had ambitions of breaking the mold set by most MMO’s. It was thought that they wished to create an online world that encouraged players to play together rather then forcing them to.

Just what is the purpose to have the ending wait a couple weeks and then only be doable for 4 days …. and then not be anything but a cutscene and not have any prize?? Is it your hope to exclude anyone who works or has finals those 4 days for some satanic reason? I have no problem, I’m retired and will probably remember to finish it off in those 4 days…… but I just don’t see the reasoning, if there is any.

(So I can’t stand to have something uncompleted staring at me on my screen every day…. I’m old , I’m entitled to be eccentric)

Vulpis.8063:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Dungeons are the GW2 equivilant of GW1 missions.

Oh? GW1 missions were specificially designed to be completable by a single player with the the assistances of Heroes and/or Henchmen, or multiple players with the additional players taking up Hero/henchman slots in the group. Kindly show me where the GW2 dungeons are soloable that way.

I dont know, when I played prophecies I didnt didnt find these heroes everyone is bringing up, and with the henchmen most missions didnt really work, required ages or flat out failed.

My guess is heroes is something they added much later? If so it doesnt have much relevance for how prophecies missions were intended to be done, i.e. by a group of players.

And I agree with Konig, GW has raids in the open world, like Shatterer, Temple of Grenth, etc. Dungeons are not raids in the same sense and its hard to take you serious when you fill your posts with twisted references to express your disdain of another game.

I guess everything has already been said – still, here’s my opinion.

I, too, am disappointed that the living world content ends with a 5 man dungeon. Simply because of the “bait and switch” thing which is going on here.

All the previous content was solo stuff, even the instances in the last patch were solo content. Never ever did the devs mention that the END of this story would be a dungeon which is not soloable. The content started slowly, with promises that better and better content would be coming forth. And now we have this dungeon which those players who enjoyed the story BECAUSE it was solo content cannot finish, and the only replies to the question WHY the story suddenly is no longer soloable content is “because kitten YOU”. This is simply bait and switch – people were lured in by the solo content, but to get to the story end and to the reward (the gloves + achievement), you need to finish a dungeon. Lots of players would not even have started the living world content, had this been known before.

I am in a very small guild of only me plus two rl friends. We tried the dungeon, but we failed at the end boss after pretty much dying through the dungeon (of us three, only I played any mmorpg before so I am the only one of us who has any raid experience from other games, and my friends are VERY casual players who can play open world content well enough but have no real experience with organized party play, assisting etc., so it was a bit of a mess and they are a bit “demoralized” by the whole experience now and are reluctant to try again). There really should be another way to finish this content, without having to do a dungeon.

I haven’t read all of the comments but several pages. I too am disappointed in the decision to force us into a dungeon. All players and not created equal. I don’t like to do dungeons because I’m not fantastic player with awesome gear/weapons who can whiz through. That’s why I will only do one with my guild, a family guild, who don’t berate me for my lack of gaming talent. Those we have tried we have only done the story mode because they have been so difficult and stressful. Our lives are stressful enough, who needs a game to cause stress too! And sadly, we will probably not finish this one because it has proved too difficult. Two legendaries?? Really?? Why make it so difficult for something required to finish the story?

Add “Knowing every Cook recipe” to my long list of uncompleted things in GW2. I just learned that there are recipes that only drop from the molten chest at the end of the dungeon.

Sigh.

Nalora.7964:

Add “Knowing every Cook recipe” to my long list of uncompleted things in GW2. I just learned that there are recipes that only drop from the molten chest at the end of the dungeon.

There’s an alternative for this, since they very kindly did not soulbind or account bind the drops at the end. Buy them off the Trading Post. I guarantee you there is a surplus of them being generated at the moment, and were going for a couple silver the last time I looked.

MatthewMedina.5419:

Hello! Thanks for starting this thread. :-)

As one of the designers for the Molten Weapons Facility, I would just like to say that one of our chief concerns throughout the development of Retribution was to address this very issue. We worked hard to ensure that the dungeon experience we have crafted is not simply possible to complete by groups of all different skill levels and compositions, but more importantly that it is lots of fun and rewarding for everyone. I understand the concerns about jumping into a 5-man instance if you’re more accustomed to solo play – in fact as a player I typically share those feelings, so rest assured that such concerns have been and continue to be addressed firsthand by our team!

Flame and Frost has so far made use of many of the different types of content available to players of Guild Wars 2. There have been open world dynamic events, solo instances, scavenger-hunts and achievements. In this case, with the culmination of Flame and Frost, given all the tools in our tool kit as developers, a 5-man instance was really the thing that made the most sense for us to pursue, as it enabled us to best tell the conclusion to this story arc in the way that we wanted.

We’re paying careful attention to this balance of content types, and the Living World teams will always strive to offer a variety of content to our players on a regular basis, and to make that content as compelling, and accessible, as possible.

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!

If I wanted to group for dungeons, I would still be playing WoW.

I never had to group for anything in GW1. I soloed every dungeon with heroes/henchies. Forcing players to group to complete storyline instances is a bad model.

I am seriously considering uninstalling the game and going back to GW1.

And, for the record, ‘MMO’ does not mean you are expected to group up to complete content. It only means that you will see other ‘real’ people in the game world.

And here I am to add my few words to the debate. yes dissapointed that the storyline ends in a dungeon, but even more dissapointed with some of the attitudes here to poeple who like to play as an individual in a MMO RPG. That expands to Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, I can see that most of the negative and even hurtful comments here probably come from people who have never played a real RPG at all. Massive means it’s big, Multiplayer means lots of players can play at the same time, Online is obvious, the RPG bit here is the kicker, if I want to play the role of wandering hero, a lone wolf travelling across the world jumping in to help the oppressed and aiding people to defend homesteads and towns that’s my right. Nothing about MMO says, thou MUST group in parties of 5, It simply says you are in a huge world with lots of other people., go for your life!

The ones who say, oh go play a single player game miss the point, what makes a great MMO is the variety of people playing, if you end up with an entire game filled with clones how much fun will that be? My best adventures here have been with one or two friends, we can’t always get on at the same time, when I am by myself I explore, seek out hidden places and etc. The world is big, but not big enough, finding hidden caves that very few poeple know about, having it much bigger, even TO big for a person to fully explore would be ideal, hidden places with secret chests, ways to get stuff that don’t involve compulsory 5 man dungeons, bliss.

Running dungeons over and over again, the pits, the worst, done enough of that in other MMO’s, it’s one of the reasons I have never completed a dungeon in GW2, and probably never will, and it’s one of the reasons I came to GW2, the claim that they are breaking the mold. The only mold breaking they did was in the quests mechanics and open world events, which are not really open world events but just appear to be, they are actually events in large unlimited player dungeon style instance.

An MMO can’t survive with just dungeon runners, it simply can’t. The current model is just driving away customers, I am starting to look for a new game myself, so unless the dev’s try a bit more mold breaking this game will die, and that’s true. Oh yes the naysayers, any large game like this will on for quite a while just due to momentum and the investment from the devs, but it can’t go on without a good range of players, and the dungeon only mechanics at the moment is going to drive a lot off. It survives now because of the model, pay to buy, free to play, but once that pay to buy market has been flooded is the crunch, give it 2 years.

The only thing we can hope is that bigger and better games spawn from the ruins of older games, have fun all.

So if you dont like the game its dying? Here on deso its almost the same since headstart. Even after 8 months I can find party for Hotw or SE even in morning.. there are WvW queves and many people in TPvP so tell me more about how the game is dying because you and a few single player oriented people dont like it. IMO theres no MMO like GW2, show me atleast one F2P or Buy to play MMO as good as GW2 so I can move on when I will be as disappointed of GW2 as you, thanks. You cant be expecting that Anet will make loads of additions for players who dont like dungeons, events, pvp, wvw etc., they will focus on the majority of players, not you, fortunately.

Strejda Tom.6108:

So if you dont like the game its dying? Here on deso its almost the same since headstart. Even after 8 months I can find party for Hotw or SE even in morning.. there are WvW queves and many people in TPvP so tell me more about hows the game dying because you and a few single player oriented people dont like it. IMO theres no MMO like GW2, show me atleast one F2P or Buy to play MMO as good as GW2 so I can move on when I will be as disappointed of GW2 as you, thanks.

See this is the exact thing I mean, I NEVER said I didn’t like the game, so I suggest you either quote where I said didn’t or stop making stuff up! The STFU or leave attitude is what kitten es people off on forums, people wouldn’t be here if they didn’t enjoy the game, games I don’t like I just uninstall, I don’t come onto forums to point out areas where I think it is failing the user base if I don’t like it.

I didn’t say the game is dying either, I clearly said it wouldn’t survive if it limited its user base to players who liked dungeons and ignored everyone else, at the moment it has a good revenue stream from upfront sales, if that doesn’t tranlate into revenue from players then the game ends, and the more players and playing styles you cater to the more the potential earnings from the player base. You dedicated dungeon runner need the more varied player base so that you can continue playing your wonderful game.

And for you that entire discussion point devolves to STFU and go away, great, I’ll remember that attitude next time I am thinking about posting on the forum so that I can respond to the previous posters in the correct manner.

I am not dedicated dungeon runner. I do WvW, PvP, Dungeons, Guild Missions, Stories. I didnt react only to you, I react to everyone who could play free trial weekends or beta or could read blogs about this game before buying it, bought it and now is disappointed of this game. What content do you exactly expect if you dont want to group up? Should anet make 50% of future updates for people who dont want to group up? I am not sure that this could be the good idea of updating this game since there arent many people like you. Not that many compared to people who are satisfied.

EDIT: I think that people who hate or complain about some area of the game should provide some good feedback and ideas. Henchmens arent the solution of dungeons and stories etc, because even ranger pets are quite dumb and needed many updates. Henchmen AI would need to be really awesome because there are much more movement options, aoe skills etc than in GW1 so it wouldnt be that easy as in GW1.

Strejda Tom.6108:

I am not dedicated dungeon runner. I do WvW, PvP, Dungeons, Guild Missions, Stories. I didnt react only to you, I react to everyone who could play free trial weekends or beta or could read blogs about this game before buying it, bought it and now is disappointed of this game. What content do you exactly expect if you dont want to group up? Should anet make 50% of future updates for people who dont want to group up? I am not sure that this could be the good idea of updating this game since there arent many people like you. Not that many compared to people who are satisfied.

EDIT: I think that people who hate or complain about some area of the game should provide some good feedback and ideas. Henchmens arent the solution of dungeons and stories etc, because even ranger pets are quite dumb and needed many updates. Henchmen AI would need to be really awesome because there are much more movement options, aoe skills etc than in GW1 so it wouldnt be that easy as in GW1.

I don’t normally jump in and address people like you, but I am going to make an exception: Although your edit softened your lack of understanding of what this thread is about, your previous post and the first half of this one show that you haven’t read this thread at all. Jumping in with a reactionary response only inflames the situation with its non-constructive commentary.

To toss you a breadcrumb to spare you reading 8 pages, here are the highlights:

1) The Living Story and the Personal Story are, up until the very last step, achievable as a solo player. Weeks, and sometimes months, of working away at these Stories only to have a 5-man dungeon requirement to see their natural completion has left many people disappointed and angry. Why? Up until the last stage, those Story lines were completable as a solo player. The Stories force you into a 5-man dungeon if you want to see the end, and if you want your achievement.

2) This is not a thread against dungeons. There are many play styles in the game, and GW2 seems to offer a decent amount of content to satisfy all players. Some people prefer WvW and will not step into PvE at all to level; others prefer to spend all their time running dungeons. Many people like to craft, jump from DE to DE, or whatever their hearts desire. If you don’t want to, or dislike, one aspect of the game you don’t even have to go near it.

..That is, except if you want to see the end of the Living Story or your Personal Story. Then, and only then, no matter your play style or likes and dislikes, ANET forces everyone to run a dungeon for Story completion.

3) ANET has produced a wonderfully progressive, brilliant game that seems to achieve what they set out to do: to break the mold of other MMO’s. That’s why people came here. There were bold promises they wouldn’t be “Like those other games”, and for the most part they’ve succeeded grandly. There are so many options for so many types of players in the game that it really feels like someone was finally listening and “got it”. The key word here is Options.

Look at the Daily and Monthly achievements. After sufficient feedback, the Devs changed them so they weren’t so rigid in what you had to do to complete them. Now you get to choose 5 out of a list of tasks and you don’t have to do any you don’t like. It was an immensely fair change that acknowledged there is a wide spectrum of their playerbase who all don’t do the same things.

This is what this thread really boils down to: the current lack of options to see Story completion. Everyone has to do one thing, no matter how they play, or they are left out in the cold.

Let’s hope the Devs notice that this thread has a lot more replies and views (by far) than any other F&F thread and realise they have made a mistake (once again) by ending a solo story with a dungeon. It would be nice to hear feedback from them, even better an apology and acknowledgement that their course of action has alienated a lot of players. Even better, fix F&F so it can be completed solo, but I shan’t be holding my breath for that one, just look at how the personal story STILL ends.

To complete the story content I’m being forced into events of big zergs. It has little structure to it and has no tactics, I don’t feel like I’m doing anything but waiting for the event to finish. The instances are repetitive and pretty much identical. I don’t like that! People enjoy bits of different content, we haven’t had a dungeon since release (not including fractals) and it was about time we got one. The majority of people can deal with a dungeon without getting their knickers in a twist, so it’s not much of a problem that they force you to finish the story in that way. Dungeons are also a core part of GW2 (omg, ikr, SHOCKED) being one of the primary ways to obtain gear and the main part of the endgame content, surprisingly I don’t sit in Orr and kill X, pick up Y or go to Z.

Also if every bit of F&F was instances or events I’m sure people would be just as annoyed in the lack of variety of the new content.

Mastruq.2463:

Vulpis.8063:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Dungeons are the GW2 equivilant of GW1 missions.

Oh? GW1 missions were specificially designed to be completable by a single player with the the assistances of Heroes and/or Henchmen, or multiple players with the additional players taking up Hero/henchman slots in the group. Kindly show me where the GW2 dungeons are soloable that way.

I dont know, when I played prophecies I didnt didnt find these heroes everyone is bringing up, and with the henchmen most missions didnt really work, required ages or flat out failed.

My guess is heroes is something they added much later? If so it doesnt have much relevance for how prophecies missions were intended to be done, i.e. by a group of players.

And I agree with Konig, GW has raids in the open world, like Shatterer, Temple of Grenth, etc. Dungeons are not raids in the same sense and its hard to take you serious when you fill your posts with twisted references to express your disdain of another game.

Oh? Hmm. I came in late (was given the Trilogy set and EotN as a gift), so it’s entirely possible that Heroes weren’t added until the expansions (I know you can’t even get MOX until you get to Lion’s Arch). I always thought they were one of GW1’s greatest innovations, as they allowed a single player to do what in any other game would be considered a dungeon/raid (or more accurately dungeons/raids, plural, as the later missions expected you to be using either a full team of H&H and/or players, and had difficulty levels set accordingly).

As for my denunciation of ‘raids’—two things here. I’ll deal with the easier one first.
I think there’s a semantic difference in what I’m refering to as a raid and what you and Konig seem to be—the ‘raid’ I’m refering to is any content requiring a formal, regimented grouping of players to complete (It’s been my understanding that the 5-man activities of this type on WoW were also called raids, along with the larger groups—I’ve seen the phrase ‘5-man raids’ rather often). The open world public events aren’t, at least by the definition I’m using, raids, as they’re informal groups of varying size (I’d compare to the Rift public events such as rifts and invasions, but that game muddles the issue by having a largely automated system that bundles people into groups—and when a size threshhold is met, raid-groups—without any player input when they interact with the appropriate content).
As for the disdain…no, it’s not a disdain for the game, nor is it, really, disdain for the play/design type itself. It is, however a disdain (to use it mildly—disgust would be more appropriate, really) for the repeated and often very badly executed shoehorning of the design type into places where it’s not especially appropriate or even needed, nearly always justified with an excuse that boils down to ’We’re doing it because WoW does it’, backed by players who for some odd reason complain about non-WoW games not being just like WoW.
To their credit, Guild Wars handles them better than some (It’s been a while, but I seem to recall Champions’ Lairs being story-roadblocks…but mitigated by there being several separate storylines you could be working on at a time), and worse than others (Rift realized a while back that their dungeon instances had beautiful design work people wanted to see without getting killed in 5 second flat, so they made versions that were soloable and set them as level-cap+ content). The dungeons in GW1 were properly-encapsulated and self-contained mini-stories. The Destiny’s Edge side-story chain are in and of themselves nicely done (though pretty obviously only in dungeons as an excuse for having dungeons in the first place), but the encapsulation breaks down horribly at the end—there’s no excuse for having sudden requirement for the end of a dungeon, nor is there one for requiring the personal mission to complete the DE storyline…the two should have been kept separate. F&F handles it even worse—the dungeon should not be the only way to end the story, and conversely, there should have been dungeons all along, running a parallel storyline (the people who investigated the Molten Alliance, and brought that information to Rox and Braham to be acted on, perhaps?)
Someone else has already complained about being forced into doing the open-world and solo content, while liking the final dungeon…and on reflection, they’re absolutely right. Arenanet’s dropped the ball even worse than I originally thought, by focusing on only one flavor of content at a time, when they should have been providing tasks for every play type at each stage of content. (which does remind me—the people who should really be pitching fits around here are the PvPers, as there was no PvP/WvW content involved here at all..)

SnoodBeAR.5286:

To complete the story content I’m being forced into events of big zergs. It has little structure to it and has no tactics, I don’t feel like I’m doing anything but waiting for the event to finish. The instances are repetitive and pretty much identical. I don’t like that! People enjoy bits of different content, we haven’t had a dungeon since release (not including fractals) and it was about time we got one. The majority of people can deal with a dungeon without getting their knickers in a twist, so it’s not much of a problem that they force you to finish the story in that way. Dungeons are also a core part of GW2 (omg, ikr, SHOCKED) being one of the primary ways to obtain gear and the main part of the endgame content, surprisingly I don’t sit in Orr and kill X, pick up Y or go to Z.

Also if every bit of F&F was instances or events I’m sure people would be just as annoyed in the lack of variety of the new content.

I’m actually starting to wonder if we’re playing two different MMOs that somehow have the same name and forums here.
The core content of the GW2 I’ve been playing consists almost entirely of instances, fixed events and dynamic events that are soloable but can be run by groups (formal only in the case of the instances, informal in the case of everything else), along with a smaller number of open world ‘group’ events such a Champions and things like the Maw. The dungeons are specifically side-story chain which is, with one glaring exception, an independant but parallel storyline to the main Personal one. (I admittedly have no clue about the PvP content in any of it’s flavors—though the fact that there has been no need whatsoever for me to have to be involved in it tells me that it’s properly encaspulated from regular PvE play, as the dungeons should have been.)

And as for getting knickers in a twist—imagine a giant department store, with every variety of purchasable there is. You’re quite free to browse and pick up things on your own, buy you discover when you get to the checkout that the only way you’re allowed to pay for things and leave the story is to form a regimented squad with 4 other people and pool both your items and your payment. If you came in with enough friends to do so, you’re fine, otherwise you either have to stand around trying to find people to hook up with (and hope you don’t get stuck with Slimeball Larry and his overloaded cart of partially-used ‘adult entertainment products’) or drop your stuff and leave empty handed. This policy isn’t posted on the front door, only at the checkout. I don’t know about you, but I’d get a bit mad at the sudden changeup…

Illysharia.7286:

<snipped purely for brevity>

Thank You
I regret that I can only give you a single +1 as you’ve simply and eloquently summed up everything I’ve been trying to get across here. (I’m not that great a writer to begin with—and being angry not only at the sheer stupidity of the decisions made, but at the trite, cliche, and in some cases totally inapplicable to Guild Wars compared to other games responses that I’ve been getting hasn’t helped).

I would add a small point, though—the dungeon-runners do have at least somewhat of a point in the other direction…they’ve complained about being forced to do solo content just to gain their reward for having done the dungeon (I’m not counting the loot from the dungeon like the Jetpack, here). Granted, I have to wonder why you’re playing here just for the dungeons since that’s a miniscule amount of the content, but still—they really should have had a dungeon at each stage of the Living Story with parallel storyline content, as well as a parallel achievement track that has the same final reward on completion.

SnoodBeAR.5286:

Dungeons are also a core part of GW2 (omg, ikr, SHOCKED) being one of the primary ways to obtain gear and the main part of the endgame content

For you. Took me a while to find where they are even tracked. Just sayin’…

I think the disappointment goes beyond the incongruity of ending the living story with a forced 5-man dungeon. It’s disappointment that Arenanet didn’t have the sense to know not to do so, or lacks in leadership to the point that no one stepped in and shot it down after the live event team working on this event decided to go that route.

2013 Arenanet is not pre-2013 Arenanet. I don’t know what happened. It could be the result of internal re-organization, the loss of key people or both. This game is completely amazing, but if I didn’t know better, it would be easy to think that the current developers are trying to actively degrade the game.

They’ve admitted that they knew that ending with a 5-man dungeon would alienate a lot of players, they still bear the burden of the fact that most people never complete their Personal Story because of the mistake of requiring a 5-man dungeon for completion and, yet, they still went ahead and ended the Living Story with a mandatory Dungeon?!?!?

We’ve all seen people who have such a strong fear of success that they sabotage themselves. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that behavior before in a company with over 100 employees.

The immediate band-aid fix would be to remove completion of the dungeon from the F&F event completion requirements and once the dungeon closes allow people who didn’t complete the dungeon to visit the key NPCs and complete the story.

Moving forward, they really need to stop doing things they know will alienate players, (with no real good reason) and start finding ways to make Dungeons more inclusive, while maintaining the ability for five and groups to play them and find them challenging.

To be honest, the entire Living Story thing seems like a wasted four months and that development time could have been much better spent delivering on the doubling/tripling of world DEs Colin talked about last fall and finding ways to allow Dungeons to scale for smaller groups. (If they refuse to work at making dungeons more inclusive, then I’d actually prefer to see them work on more extensive open world, non-instanced “dungeons”, like the mini dungeon in Gendarran Fields, or instanced dungeons that can handle any number of players, like Flame Legion Tomb in Diessa Plateau, rather than wasting time trying to make current 5-man dungeons even more obnoxious to play).

I really hope that they will also commit to never again gate progress or completion of a Living Story or other world event with niche content, like a 5-man dungeon, which precludes a large portion of the playerbase from having fun completing, or completing at all, an event that they have spent a good amount of time following and participating in.

From SnoodBeAR ….. we haven’t had a dungeon since release (not including fractals) and it was about time we got one.

You have to be kidding right? Let me refresh your memory. The Mad King Thorn Halloween events ended in a dungeon which was temporary similar to MWF. You could replay it as many times as you liked.

Next there was the Winter’s Day Events which included Toymaker Tixx and his airship visiting all the cities. Again this involved 5-man instances ending with a dungeon in LA. It was temporary content but a dungeon nevertheless.

You dismiss Fractals as thought they were no big deal. That was the only major, permanent update to the game and it’s all dungeons originally the only way to get ascended gear.

The personal story ends in having to do the Arah story mode dungeon. And now the F&F story arc ends in a dungeon. All we want is for one – I repeat ONE – story to not end in a dungeon or at least to have alternative ways to complete the story. I don’t think that’s asking for too much. =)

Imagine Anet creating dungeons that you group for all the way to the end and then every single time you get to the boss you have to do it solo.

Vulpis.8063:

Mastruq.2463:

Vulpis.8063:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Dungeons are the GW2 equivilant of GW1 missions.

Oh? GW1 missions were specificially designed to be completable by a single player with the the assistances of Heroes and/or Henchmen, or multiple players with the additional players taking up Hero/henchman slots in the group. Kindly show me where the GW2 dungeons are soloable that way.

I dont know, when I played prophecies I didnt didnt find these heroes everyone is bringing up, and with the henchmen most missions didnt really work, required ages or flat out failed.

My guess is heroes is something they added much later? If so it doesnt have much relevance for how prophecies missions were intended to be done, i.e. by a group of players.

And I agree with Konig, GW has raids in the open world, like Shatterer, Temple of Grenth, etc. Dungeons are not raids in the same sense and its hard to take you serious when you fill your posts with twisted references to express your disdain of another game.

Oh? Hmm. I came in late (was given the Trilogy set and EotN as a gift), so it’s entirely possible that Heroes weren’t added until the expansions (I know you can’t even get MOX until you get to Lion’s Arch). I always thought they were one of GW1’s greatest innovations, as they allowed a single player to do what in any other game would be considered a dungeon/raid (or more accurately dungeons/raids, plural, as the later missions expected you to be using either a full team of H&H and/or players, and had difficulty levels set accordingly).

As for my denunciation of ‘raids’—two things here …snipped semantics…

I think you are using several arguments that you dont know enough about, like how and when heroes became a thing in GW1 (never had any, played the original release and some of the Cantha campaign). And back then the missions expected you to bring a group of players or struggle madly for a long time to do it with henchmen, if at all. It wasnt solo content in GW1 until late additions to the game obsoleted it by power creep (more skills, professions, better npc allies). And depending on how ArenaNet advances GW2 you’ll eventually solo Arah too, in a few years. Doesnt help with a temp dungeon I know, and I have my beef with the temp expressed in other threads.

Then there is the talk about raids and WoW and in the last reply you say heard others call it that way? That’s the basis of all the “its like WoW its baaaad” you’re bringing up?
Let me go on record saying here that my definition of raid is older then WoW, and the outdoor encounters in GW2 are raids by that definition. So to me GW2 has raids, and they are not instanced dungeons, they are the open world content you apparently take part in. If you want to read more about it google about the Everquest of 2000-2003ish, but dont try to push everything into a WoW-shaped box just because it is apparently the Big Bad around here.

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)?

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.

I love player interaction and in turn love partying up, as well as running into huge mobs of players in the meta events. The only thing I don’t like are the dungeons themselves. This didn’t stop me from completing Arah or F&F because I was required to go there, but I sure felt like an anchor that the rest of the team had to carry me through each time giving everyone involved a quite unenjoyable experience, because really they were 4 manning the entire thing most of the time.

Pretty sure my ping isn’t helping but when you must dodge out of red circles (running is too slow, the circles appear late for me) and can’t jump over insta-death shockwaves (because where the graphic is is never where the damage radius is), or have to dodge that arch lich’s lightning bolts waaaay before they are anywhere close to you it’s just generally not fun. At all.

Sure, I could probably improve if I studied and practiced but you know what that sounds like to me? Homework. Unenjoyable and for the most part unnecessary homework at that. When it comes down to it I can spend hours doing that, something I ultimately DO NOT ENJOY or I could go make better use of my time. Guess which one wins out? You like dungeons? That’s cool. Go live in the stinky hole filled with monsters. I’ll come visit next time there’s a mandatory dungeon and make you carry me through.

Vulpis.8063:

Oh? Hmm. I came in late (was given the Trilogy set and EotN as a gift), so it’s entirely possible that Heroes weren’t added until the expansions (I know you can’t even get MOX until you get to Lion’s Arch). I always thought they were one of GW1’s greatest innovations, as they allowed a single player to do what in any other game would be considered a dungeon/raid (or more accurately dungeons/raids, plural, as the later missions expected you to be using either a full team of H&H and/or players, and had difficulty levels set accordingly).

Heroes were added with Nightfall. And MOX was added even later than that.
The ability to use a full party of heroes was added even later than both of those.

So before that you had to either bring real people, or completely useless henchmen, and some missions/quests was more or less completely impossible with henchmen (the Titan Quests are a good example) but also quite a few of the regular missions in Prophecies.

I did the dungeon twice. Once with a friend and the rest pugs and once with all pugs. It was a fun dungeon and I enjoyed it.

That was to let you know that I don’t mind dungeons and don’t mind pugs.

Here is what I think is a bad idea: Having a content sequence start out solo and end up group. Although that isn’t a problem with me, I’ve always found the concept annoying.

I think content that has many steps in it should begin as it ends. If it is group content, be group all the way through. If it is solo content, be solo all the way through.

Sollith.3502:

Suggestions to Anet:
While I think that Anet did a fine job with the Flame and Frost story arc, there are some things I think they could have done to make things just that much better.

I suggest that they provide an open world alternative alongside any content like the Molten Facility Instance in the future (so you could do the dungeon and/or you could do an open world event too; each would have a unique spin, but both would lead to the conclusion of the story arc). One example of something that could work alongside the Molten Instance, would be to have an large scale invasion event that players repel (maybe like a wvw sort of thing, but players vs the molten alliance).

Also, one design choice that would have been nice for similar events/arcs in the future would be to have the option to obtain a soul/account bound version of the jetpack by means of tokens (like the SAB skins).

I like this suggestion. Something like this would make the content available to all types of players, both the dungeoneers and us open-world types. Would be even better if the two iterations of the ending were not mutually exclusive, rewarding those who did both with some extra subtleties of plot and maybe hints of future events.

At least then those who, like me, did the events leading up to the blow-off solo would find out how the story ends. As it is, I won’t. And that’s a choice I’m making, and I’m ok with that, but still, would be nice to have an option to find out how the next one goes.

Alright, I’m going to chime in here again not to one particular person, but everyone.

The reason ANet did the final section as a dungeon is it is how they best felt they could tell the story they wanted to (straight from their mouths that)- As much as we want to think otherwise, DE’s are kinda limited on what they can do. We all got to see this in effect back in the Karka event, where people could hardly handle everything that was going on – causing lag that was getting people killed and disconnected, people being thrown into overflow, and all other nasty things (took some folks what, about a month to finally receive their reward from taking part in it?).
As a dungeon, the folks making it have more control over what is going on – because they make it with the express intent of 5 people teams. Would it be nice to have it scale better – yes, no one here is arguing over the fact it would be wonderful for a dungeon to scale better with the number of players. This keeps the ‘final story’ from being a simple boring zerg-fest (something a lot of complaints get logged about on the forums with already existing DEs), allows them to try out new mechanics, and gives everyone (don’t argue the semantics here, I’m just trying to give you an idea) a chance to participate without having their PC explode into a dying husk of molten metal. It also gives you the opportunity to not have to wait to do the content (as DE’s require cooldowns before the chain starts again) in relative to the DEs.

Think about how annoying those stupid Sonic Recorder things are when you are just running around trying to explore the world and have fun. Imagine if stuff like that popped up on an even larger scale to bother you while you were out exploring!

Yes, it would be nice to experience the entire story in any of our specific playstyles, but you also have to remember : the story isn’t actually done yet. The dungeon tells the story of Rox and Braham going in to rescue the kidnapped folks, but the actual end to all of this happens after the 12th (or whenever it was this phase ended). As far as I know, that means everyone still gets to finish the story, with or without that dungeon.

And no, I have no problem with dungeons, and haven’t completed my personal story because I’m waiting for friends to get that far with theirs. I don’t feel that 5-person content is bad, but I can agree it would be nice to scale it (as long as loot was scaled suitably so – something most people wouldn’t think about mentioning). so we could all do it when we wanted too. Scaling alone, however, would not help those of us with sudden time issues (like kids) or medical conditions (honestly, for this it would still most likely be better to have good friends that could help you along and support you through the dungeons), nor the people that just plain don’t like dungeons.

Also, dungeons aren’t a WoW type raid (for everyone that keeps saying it). I don’t even play WoW and I know it, can we just call them dungeons like we should instead of over-exaggerating with the requirements?

Hello,
I did not read through all posts, sorry.

I agree with the OP, it is sad to not be able to finish F&F solo. I personnaly do not like dungeons but other aspects of the game. I do as few dungeon as possible (did the 5 runs for a monthly reward few months ago + the personal story one).

And to answer first post MatthewMedina:
“We worked hard to ensure that the dungeon experience we have crafted is not simply possible to complete by groups of all different skill levels and compositions, but more importantly that it is lots of fun and rewarding for everyone”

This week end I tried it. The other 4 members of the group were experienced with this dungeon. And after several trials (at least 5, if not more) against the set of 2 bosses (the one which flies and sends fire all around + the berserker) we finally abandonned.
Result: 2 hours of the sunday lost + frustration + no fun + I have to redo this dungeon.

I’m ok with dungeon as long as it is actually fun and feasible … as it is now it is not.

In another post I mentioned I liked the 2 instances do-able in solo and suggested to have dungeons with difficulty scaled based on player number (1 to 5)

Imarion

It’s good to see others who agree that F&F should not have concluded with a dungeon.

I do dungeons and they can be enjoyable but I don’t want to be forced to do a dungeon to see the end of a storyline. Particularly a storyline that up until now I have been able to enjoy without any need to group.

The unique thing about GW2 is being able to play with others without the hassle of grouping. That is one of the truly innovative things that I enjoy most about game. And I liked breaking up F&F invader camps or helping with refugees and the other F&F content. I was playing with others and GW2 freely allow players the multiplayer experience but then they have to conclude F&F with a dungeon.

None of that previous F&F content required grouping. Making grouping the only way to see the F&F conclusion was a very bad decision.

Keep dungeons separate for gear or title grinding. Keep them separate for those who want a challenge with others. But don’t tie a storyline to it when you introduce that story outside of dungeons to people who were playing solo.

And for what it’s worth I also think it was a wretched idea to conclude the Personal Story with a dungeon. What had been your personal story up until that moment suddenly turns you into just another cog filling out a 5-man group. Your character doesn’t need to be there, it could be any warm body. And there’s 4 our of 5 chance you won’t even get to watch your own character in the cutscenes, instead being forced to watch another character end the story you had been doing. That was a terrible way to conclude the PS and it’s a terrible way to end F&F.

Tsubaki.8732:

All the previous content was solo stuff, even the instances in the last patch were solo content. Never ever did the devs mention that the END of this story would be a dungeon which is not soloable. The content started slowly, with promises that better and better content would be coming forth. And now we have this dungeon which those players who enjoyed the story BECAUSE it was solo content cannot finish –
(edit)
There really should be another way to finish this content, without having to do a dungeon.

I agree 100%

In particular because ArenaNet made the incomprehensible decision to only make this rather trying dungeon available for only 2 weeks.

There is a odd sense of desperation to the LFG calls outside of the dungeon entrance. This is not longer fun, this is people trying to find others to run because they are looking at missing their only chance to see this content.

My condolences go out to those people who haven’t found a strong guild who can run this thing and need to struggle to find others just to see the conclusion of F&F because of the time limit. Even though I’ve run the dungeon, I find it very disappointing that ArenaNet would put any players in such a position without any options.

Honestly even if you hate the idea of dungeons or group play I’d recommend giving it a go. I’m mostly a solo player, been playing for 8 months and it’s the first dungeon I’ve ever done. Other than that it’s only been odd guild missions where I’ve actually been in a group.

But it’s not really any different to doing a series of Dynamic Events at a quiet time when the same people are always around. The dungeon doesn’t require much in the way of coordination, I did it with a group of 4 who were all doing it for the first time and other than being caught by the boss’s waves we found it relatively easy.

You can just ignore the groups with very specific or demanding requirements and go for one which isn’t so fussy. Or maybe all the people who have had bad experiences could get together to form their own groups?

Like Danikat above, I’m largely a solo player. I enjoy being able to play on my own time and my own terms, and not be dictated to in regards to “you must bring this build/stand in this spot/attack ONLY my target”. That said, I have a feeling that many people here who are vehemently against dungeons and formal group play have this position because of bad experiences with PUGs.

PUGs are a real mixed bag. Sometimes you’ll get good people, who are friendly, polite, and are able to laugh it off when mistakes happen and everybody gets wiped. Other times you’ll get annoying kittens who are stuck up, arrogant, demand that everybody do things their way, and scream insults at people who won’t or aren’t quick enough to keep up. You never know what you’re going to get, and for people who don’t have a lot of time to game, I can understand why they’d prefer to cut off the risk of being grouped up with these people completely.

It would have been nice if Story-mode dungeons were designed so that one could solo them if one so wanted (enemies can scale up as more people join in), with Explorable-mode dungeons left as the more difficult option. I don’t find the MF dungeon at all bad (keeping in mind that this was my first “real” dungeon), but I have no objections to Story-mode dungeons being soloable in the future.

KorbanDallas.7389:

Think about how annoying those stupid Sonic Recorder things are when you are just running around trying to explore the world and have fun. Imagine if stuff like that popped up on an even larger scale to bother you while you were out exploring!

Yes, it would be nice to experience the entire story in any of our specific playstyles, but you also have to remember : the story isn’t actually done yet. The dungeon tells the story of Rox and Braham going in to rescue the kidnapped folks, but the actual end to all of this happens after the 12th (or whenever it was this phase ended). As far as I know, that means everyone still gets to finish the story, with or without that dungeon.

Actually, I have had a very similar experience to the Sonic Microphones over on DCUO—there, regular level progression ends at 30, whereupon a second progression system kicks in primarily based around gearscore, called Combat Rating or CR. With one of of their expansions, they added a bunch of mobs into their open-world areas designed specificly for players that had the equivilent of all Purples/Ascended gear here..but with not particularly well thoughtout aggro where anyone not at the current pinnacle of gearing tended to run across one of these mobs when just traveling around and get two-shotted. There’s also content for a different expansion that while not designed for the top-rank players nor as immediately lethal, is still highly annoying because of the sheer frequency of the particular spawns across the open world combined with an overall apathy towards that expansion’s content, meaning these mobs aren’t cleared out as often as the spawning code was balanced for.
OTOH, they also never had that rather obnoxious knockback that the Sonic Microphones had, either. Though I must give credit to the physics engine GW2 uses..if you stood behind a sufficiently wide tree, it did block the sonic wave—so my little Asura ended up playing Time Crisis with the things, by jumping out to shoot the thing as much as I could, then ducking back behind the tree (and failing to line up properly quite often, resulting in me getting knocked back anyway). They also have a ‘cooldown cycle’ where they point upwards and don’t fire that’s also very useful, though I’m not sure if it’s related to their remaining health or not when they do it.

And…yes, there’s an epilogue, but as far as I can tell from what I’ve been reading from Anet and others, unless Anet makes a siginficant design decision between now and the 12th, all it consists of is an ‘epilogue’ with dialogue and/or cutscenes and a ‘celebration’ interactable that gives you an achievement tick—that is not one of the ones required for the only actual participation reward for the event. This in part is what is so aggravating about the way this last main section is designed—the final achievement tick needed to get the Gauntlets reward isn’t the dungeon—it’s the two cut scenes that you go see with Rox and Braham afterwards…but the achievement for this has the dungeon completion as a pre-requisite in order to be able to get credit for it. This is what makes me mad, design-wise—it’s blatantly obvious that they could have easily provided some optional means to unlock those scenes and the achivements related to them besides the dungeon, but for whatever reason decided to roadblock it instead—and worse, do it in a way they already know was something that made a good portion of the player base mad. This doesn’t seem like a particularly sane business decision, honestly.