Guild Wars 2

Esplen is pretty much the only person in this whole thread that is making a good argument and being pretty kitten funny at the same time.

Anyways.

Scarletdawn.2750:

How will the game ever grow if they keep removing content? and now since I’ve joined the game only in the past month, I am missing story content because Anet removed the last story event’s dungeon? And how do I get to participate in this content past? Never? Didn’t I pay for the game like everyone else?

1. It will grow by adding even more temporary content.
2. It will grow by adding more permanent content which they’ve recently said they plan on doing.
3. It will grow with expansions. Oh, and advertising. You know, because that’s how people sell things.
4. You’re not missing any of the story. As it’s already been said in this thread there are NPCs throughout the world that you can go and talk to to pretty much hear about everything that’s happened thus far. I’m sooooooooooo sorry that you can’t have everything handed to you on a nice golden plate.
5. You get to participate in the past content(Well, dungeons) when they inevitably release them to fractals as they’ve said they want to do.
6. Yeah, you did pay for the default vanilla game like everybody else. Oh hey, guess what else? I paid for the game too and got it at launch, and technically right now you got more content than I did when I first joined. So not only did you pay for the same game, but you also paid for the same game probably at a lower price, AND with more content than I got when I first played.

To everybody else saying the problem is that there just isn’t enough time to do everything the living story, well, if you don’t have enough time to play maybe 1 hour a day then you probably shouldn’t be playing an MMO. Go play Runescape or Maple Story if you want an mmo where you can play for less than an hour a day. I’ve barely been playing GW2 as of late and I’ve gotten every achievement in every living story update since F&F with no problems playing only 1 hour a day most of the time.

Seriously, you guys probably have way more important things to do than play an MMO if your time is so limited. And if you want to just play games to “relax” then how about you stop playing GW2 if it causes you so much anger that you can’t do EVERY SINGLE THING?

Holy kitten, I can’t wait to see the amount of QQ when Anet introduces elite dungeons that can take more than 30 minutes like they did with GW1.

dreadicon.5840:

GW2 needs more dungeons like this; hard AND rewarding. Fractals is hard AND rewarding. Other dungeons are hard OR rewarding(i.e. CoF = rewarding, CM = Hard). Open world megga bosses are rewarding, but not often hard.

Agre with you in 99% except this quote.
Just FOTM 48 is hard, and ALL fotms have terrible rewards (reward/time).
CM isnt hard, just demand party members with reflection skills.

1. It will grow by adding even more temporary content.

If I increase in height by an inch for 13days and then lose that inch, is that growth? Because that’s what you’re saying…if it’s temporary, it’s not ‘real’ growth.

2. It will grow by adding more permanent content which they’ve recently said they plan on doing.

I am very happy to hear that they will be doing more permanent content, and frankly, there is no reason this Aetherblade dungeon couldn’t be permanent.

4. You’re not missing any of the story. As it’s already been said in this thread there are NPCs throughout the world that you can go and talk to to pretty much hear about everything that’s happened thus far. I’m sooooooooooo sorry that you can’t have everything handed to you on a nice golden plate.

Reading about what HAS happened is a big difference from participating in what IS happening. This isn’t about wanting something on a golden platter, it’s about content being unnecessarily limited.

5. You get to participate in the past content(Well, dungeons) when they inevitably release them to fractals as they’ve said they want to do.

A fractal is not the same as a complete dungeon…and although this is a great way to reintroduce past content they have removed, it still stands that they didn’t need to remove the content in the first place. Then this also creates a new issue with fractal content not actually being new, but just pieces of rehashed out old dungeons no longer available.

6. Yeah, you did pay for the default vanilla game like everybody else. Oh hey, guess what else? I paid for the game too and got it at launch, and technically right now you got more content than I did when I first joined. So not only did you pay for the same game, but you also paid for the same game probably at a lower price, AND with more content than I got when I first played.

With regards to supporting the game, I was talking about the spending of money above and beyond the cost of the game…ie buying gems. And yes, over time, one should always receive more for the same price…or the same amount for a lower price; like a console system dropping in price over time; my slim PS2 was a fraction of the cost of an original PS2; this is just one example, this exists throughout our economy.

To everybody else saying the problem is that there just isn’t enough time to do everything the living story, well, if you don’t have enough time to play maybe 1 hour a day then you probably shouldn’t be playing an MMO.

If you think that 13 days of a dungeon and all the achievements which go with it is ‘enough’ time there is something wrong with you. Even if I had more time to invest I would not be happy with a dungeon available for such a short period of time. Even festival events last a month. Would a month for this event be too much to ask for? And again, why remove the dungeon anyways?

Seriously, you guys probably have way more important things to do than play an MMO if your time is so limited.And if you want to just play games to “relax” then how about you stop playing GW2 if it causes you so much anger that you can’t do EVERY SINGLE THING?

Seriously, where do you get off judging me and what I should be doing with my free time? I have raised a legitimate complaint about a product that I paid for, and one that I would like to continue to support, for gw2 IS a good game. But dude, I was probably playing games when you were still in diapers.

In the end my friend, all you did was attack my actual statements, and not once did you offer a good reason why it’s cool to have a dungeon available for a mere 13 days. Somehow, I think you will find it quite difficult to make any sound argument regarding the ‘goodness’ of temporary dungeons. All it really does is create an elitist attitude, which you clearly possess, telling me to go play Runescape…lol

@Omg A Hotpocket, there’s nothing wrong with some temporary content. There is something wrong with temp content that blocks the temp story. Aetherblade Retreat is an unfriendly dungeon, and while there’s nothing wrong with unfriendly dungeons as a ‘optional hardcore addition’ or as permanent content, there IS something wrong with a unfriendly dungeon which blocks a story which will only be around for so long. Elite dungeons would be awesome if they make the things permanent. Generally, my argument wasn’t “no stuff should be temporary” but rather “AR is a bad design decision as it is a core element of the event which is extremely harsh to unskilled players.”

@PainShot, FOTM is more profitable if you don’t skip the content in both of them. Rushing dungeons is the STUPIDEST thing I have EVER heard of. If you are SKIPPING a dungeon’s content, then either you care only about the reward and not about the gameplay, and/or the dungeon isn’t designed correctly. If there are specific avoidance mechanics on portions of the dungeon, that’s something different entirely.

dreadicon.5840:

@Omg A Hotpocket, there’s nothing wrong with some temporary content. There is something wrong with temp content that blocks the temp story. Aetherblade Retreat is an unfriendly dungeon, and while there’s nothing wrong with unfriendly dungeons as a ‘optional hardcore addition’ or as permanent content, there IS something wrong with a unfriendly dungeon which blocks a story which will only be around for so long. Elite dungeons would be awesome if they make the things permanent. Generally, my argument wasn’t “no stuff should be temporary” but rather “AR is a bad design decision as it is a core element of the event which is extremely harsh to unskilled players.”

@PainShot, FOTM is more profitable if you don’t skip the content in both of them. Rushing dungeons is the STUPIDEST thing I have EVER heard of. If you are SKIPPING a dungeon’s content, then either you care only about the reward and not about the gameplay, and/or the dungeon isn’t designed correctly. If there are specific avoidance mechanics on portions of the dungeon, that’s something different entirely.

to be fair most things u skip n my mind are supposed to be skipped, arah for example is a perfect example, we tried to kill everything once, and its impossible, theres actually some baddies that spawn more every time they die. If you were to think about orr as an actual place filled with armies of the undead, you wouldn’t always necessarily try to cut a path through that, maybe you’d try sneak round the side first (assassins guild, vigil like choice).

as for the dungeon blocking content, erm, idk….not everything this game releases should be easy, if everybody could do everything then the better half of us would get bored. Sometimes dungeons are too easy, sometimes they are too hard, that’s just life.

you just gotta roll with the blows, accept you might not be able to get these specific achievements and in the meantime level up or get more experienced at hard dungeons, because in the end there’s plenty people managing to do this dungeon with random parties, so it cant be impossible.

Equilibriator.8741:

not everything this game releases should be easy, if everybody could do everything then the better half of us would get bored. Sometimes dungeons are too easy, sometimes they are too hard, that’s just life.

you just gotta roll with the blows, accept you might not be able to get these specific achievements and in the meantime level up or get more experienced at hard dungeons, because in the end there’s plenty people managing to do this dungeon with random parties, so it cant be impossible.

My gripe was never with the difficulty of the dungeon, just it’s limited time of availability. 13days is not very much time for a casual player to get in there and really have a bunch of runs under thier belt. I encourage difficult dungeons/fractals/raids, I love it…but don’t take them away after two weeks!
Surely the gw2 world could maintain it’s ‘living world’ concept while keeping dungeon content that arises through the ‘living world’ story.

oh i agree completely that they shouldnt be taking it away full stop, but i find it plausible that the dungeon in its entirity will become a fractal, and you will probably still be able to play it that way.

ppl say this is a bad thing, i say fractals is for the hardcores, so is this dungeon, they are suited to each other.

and yeh, i agree, ive only done it a couple of times myself because parties are hard to find or can be regularly failed half way through by leaving members or crap members.

This game desperately needs to take on the functions of the vast number of third party programs doing this games job for it, gw2lfg shouldnt be where i always have to go to find a party, teamspeak shouldnt be what i need to use to chat to guild, events should be trackable in game, commanders shouldnt be silenced for using map chat in wvw, the list goes on…

Scarletdawn.2750:

If I increase in height by an inch for 13days and then lose that inch, is that growth? Because that’s what you’re saying…if it’s temporary, it’s not ‘real’ growth.

I was talking about in terms of the playerbase. But even then, right now it’s more like growing 9inches then losing 5 inches. You’ll still have more than what you started with.

Reading about what HAS happened is a big difference from participating in what IS happening. This isn’t about wanting something on a golden platter, it’s about content being unnecessarily limited.

That’s part of Anet wanting a “living” “always changing” world. If they didn’t do this then it would just be like every other MMO out there which is exactly what nobody wants and everybody used to praise Anet for.

A fractal is not the same as a complete dungeon…and although this is a great way to reintroduce past content they have removed, it still stands that they didn’t need to remove the content in the first place. Then this also creates a new issue with fractal content not actually being new, but just pieces of rehashed out old dungeons no longer available.

Nowhere have they said they plan on only adding rehashed old dungeons. In fact, I’m pretty sure they’ve said they plan on adding new fractals too.

If you think that 13 days of a dungeon and all the achievements which go with it is ‘enough’ time there is something wrong with you. Even if I had more time to invest I would not be happy with a dungeon available for such a short period of time. Even festival events last a month. Would a month for this event be too much to ask for? And again, why remove the dungeon anyways?

If the dungeon offered new tokens for new armor/weapons then I would agree that it’s not enough time, but the dungeon is only there because it’s relevant to the current living story. You can’t farm it for anything but the monocle maybe and we already have enough of those on the TP. And again, living story. Plus since everybody keeps complaining I’m sure Anet will start to bring in perma higher-quality dungeons.

Seriously, where do you get off judging me and what I should be doing with my free time? I have raised a legitimate complaint about a product that I paid for, and one that I would like to continue to support, for gw2 IS a good game. But dude, I was probably playing games when you were still in diapers.

In the end my friend, all you did was attack my actual statements, and not once did you offer a good reason why it’s cool to have a dungeon available for a mere 13 days. Somehow, I think you will find it quite difficult to make any sound argument regarding the ‘goodness’ of temporary dungeons. All it really does is create an elitist attitude, which you clearly possess, telling me to go play Runescape…lol

First off, I said “To everybody else”. I wasn’t directing that comment to you at all. You said you have a wife and child, plus I wouldn’t doubt that you’ve possibly been playing games since I was just a little kid. The only reason it’s “cool” to have a dungeon for 13 days is to grant the effect of the world actually be living and changing. That’s all. Do I like it? Not really, but that’s how it is. I’m just tired of how these forums are full of hate on Anet no matter which subforum you go into. Most of the hate is just for the sake of hating. This game has a living world, they’ve been pushing that for many months now. People shouldn’t be surprised when they find out they’re playing a game that’s sticking to it’s agenda. GW2 is NOT advertized as your typical MMO, so people should stop trying to turn it into one. As I said, Runescape, Maple Story, WoW, or whatever else would probably be better for those people.

As for being an “elitist”, well, that term gets thrown around a lot on here. I guess that being able to learn that big red laser walls = BAD after my first death in the new dungeon counts as me being elite.

@Equilibriator ,
@Omg A Hotpocket,
@Scarletdawn,
I am trying to avoid this argument here: My argument is not that temporary content is bad, or that it is good. My argument is that temporary, difficult, AND story-related content all rolled into one IS bad by ANY definition. Dungeons can stay temporary and hard, or temporary and story related, but NOT all three. Achievements can stay hard too; that’s also outside this argument. IMO, temporary content vs permanent AS A GENERAL PHILOSOPHY is a very subjective argument that really boils down to personal opinion. It’s really way outside the specific point I was trying to make here.

If you disagree with my argument’s premise directly, feel free to say so! I’m not trying to shut down discussion, but rather trying to maintain the scope. If you think the idea of content which is temporary, difficult, and story-related is a good idea, please, tell me why!

I have no qualms with this or future dungeons being difficult but I would very much prefer there to be two modes for every dungeon. I personally could care less about the reward in the Aetherblade Retreat and I really just want to complete it for story’s sake, yet it’s so incredibly frustrating trying to find a group who has the skills to beat it. It frustrates me to no end that I won’t be able to witness how this story arc ends because I cannot finish the dungeon due to difficulty and lack of time.

There needs to be content that appeals to both casuals and hardcores. How hard is that to understand! Give those who like really difficult content a higher difficulty level so they have theirs and us more casual players lighter content that we can experience for fun and for the story.

Edit: I just wanted to add that this “alarming trend” of which you speak is something I have noticed as well. Am I to expect that all future story dungeons are going to have such a steep learning curve? If so, I would rather just drop the frustration and spend my time elsewhere, which is a thought that makes me not so happy because of my investment (timewise) in the series.

dreadicon.5840:

If you disagree with my argument’s premise directly, feel free to say so! I’m not trying to shut down discussion, but rather trying to maintain the scope. If you think the idea of content which is temporary, difficult, and story-related is a good idea, please, tell me why!

I do apologize for arguing about something which wasn’t the point of the thread. Anyways, I don’t disagree with your argument, but I also don’t disagree with Anet’s way of handling things.

As I did say in one of my replies, if people can’t be assed to log on 1 hour a day to play the game then they probably should play something even more casual-friendly than GW2 already is. It sucks for people who sometimes can’t be on for a couple of weeks, but it’s not the end of the world. Permanent content that is hard and story-related would be greatly appreciated by a bunch of the community I’m sure. However, the temporary content is too. Almost 90% of the complaints about this game come from people on these forums. Nobody else anywhere else really gives a kitten and they actually greatly enjoy the temporary content. Myself included. The whole point of having a living world with temporary content is to provide the feeling that the world IS a living one and not just something that keeps on getting more and more bloated with old content.

Even if they were to keep the dungeon they would have to keep the rest of the Dragon Bash stuff too. Why? Because unless you’ve seen the celebrations in LA, helped escort the ship’s council, found clues and suspects, met whatever her face awesome detective is named, then you wouldn’t be getting the story. Then it would go back to being “permanent and hard, but no story”. And the story is part of why everybody is doing it. Now, if you did keep all of that then you’d have Dragon Bash being celebrated all-year-long in LA just for the sake of people knowing the story in that one dungeon. Then you wouldn’t be able to have any other events or living story updates in that city.

You can’t just cherry-pick certain things out of an entire temporary update to keep. Well, you can with some things not relevant to the story(Like crab toss), but not with others. Then there’s the whole problem of having just too much content in some areas for too long. What if we kept all the F&F stuff? Then people would always see refugees everywhere still and Wayfarer Foothills along with Diessa Plateau would be closed to anymore living story updates. Then Kiel would be forever in Southsun because of the SoS update. And meanwhile you have all of these events which nobody cares about after 2 weeks.

Having temporary content that is story-related helps to keep the world fresh and changing and it does an amazing job of doing so, imo. Having story-related temporary and difficult content helps to make it challenging too. That is what comes down to personal opinion. Should it be so hard that you need to be in full ascended gear and that you need to run with an elite guild just to do it? No, never for temporary content, and that’s not what you need to do now either.

I personally think the difficulty for the story mode of these temporary dungeons should be somewhere between Molten Facility and Aetherblade Retreat. MF felt a bit too easy at times, and I can understand that some people are really incompetent at dodging when it comes to AR. So I think a nice medium would be perfect for story temporary dungeons. Then to make the people who want hard content they should just make challenging achievements. You can easily turn an easy dungeon into something that is hard by adding achievements in which you need to meet a certain criteria. Look at Unfriendly Skies and Personal Space. Nobody thought the final bosses of F&F were hard, but if you were to have added similar achievements to the fight then it could potentially have become much more challenging.

Continued next post because I did not realize how much I typed and that I went over the character limit x_x

Anyways, all of this no matter which subject we argue about is just opinion. And you can’t really win an opinion-based argument. Anet has stated that GW2 is the fastest growing MMO in the west recently and so they must be doing something right. Players aren’t feeling bored and like there’s nothing to do(unless they rush all the content). And the only ones who complain are either bad at the game(I’m sorry, but it is true.), the people who want everything to be way too easy and casual-friendly(Probably because they’re bad too.), or people who genuinely can’t access the game’s temporary content due to not being available themselves. For that last group of people I really do feel bad, but as I’ve said, those kind of people obviously have more important things to do so maybe they should spend their time on something more casual-friendly than GW2 already is or find a new hobby.

Guild Wars 2 is an MMO. Always has been, always will be. I’m fairly certain that when the majority of people hear “MMO” they automatically assume something that’s very time-consuming because of the rest of the games in the industry. GW2 was in fact made for casual players, but even in the past casual MMO players would play more than the “casuals” who play GW2. I’m probably starting to get off-topic again, so I’ll just leave it there. GW2 is sticking to it’s guns when it comes to the living story, and I personally enjoy it very much.

EDIT:

Justin.7163:

Edit: I just wanted to add that this “alarming trend” of which you speak is something I have noticed as well. Am I to expect that all future story dungeons are going to have such a steep learning curve? If so, I would rather just drop the frustration and spend my time elsewhere, which is a thought that makes me not so happy because of my investment (timewise) in the series.

If you played dungeons in the rest of the game then there isn’t a learning curve at all. Anet wants it’s players to play the whole game with everything it has to offer. If somebody just do sPvP or WvW and they never touch PvE then of course the dungeon is going to be harder for them. If you played explorable dungeons though then you would learn that dodging and timing is very important and I highly doubt you’d still be having problems. For the trash mobs it’s all about prioritizing your targets. Strikers/Thugs should always be killed first. Call your target and have everybody focus it down. For Frizz’s Lab you just need to kite the golems in a counter-clockwise movement while killing them. You don’t even need to jump onto the crates until both the wall and floor laser start going at the same time, and even then it’s still a very easy thing to do if you stay aware of your surroundings and of the lasers. For the final fight you need condition removal and some good survivability as well as know how to dodge out of red circles. Stack on Mai until her buff is gone, damage her until barrage phase, avoid AoE, repeat, then when she’s dead kill Horrik. There isn’t any “steep learning curve” unless you’ve never touched a dungeon in PvE. This dungeon is purely skill based which is a very good step in the right direction. And if you run zerker gear, don’t even bother since you’ll probably be downed in no time.

Casual does not mean bad. This is the first time in a while Ive done a dungeon and gone sick bloody pve mechanics awesome. First time and only time Ive done it thus far is 2 warrior 1 guardian and 2 thieves. I didnt know what the to expect but was able to react and solve the mechanics and what had to be done fine.

On that note of casual doesnt equal bad then we are promoting allowing bad players that can’t improve to experience said dungeons not casuals to experience to said dungeons…and promoting a lack of improvement by nerfing dungeons for bad players isn’t good.

@justin
i suppose your right in a way, if there was an easier mode with no rewards (much like story – exp in existing dungeons) then i could live with that for temporary content. You get the storyline, we get our rewards without having to worry about people, just getting them, who don’t deserve them.

@omg a hotpocket
i don’t mind the fact the dungeons leaving its spot, i just hope it returns to fractals because ultimately thats the benefit of fractals, you can add things like this. I also hope and expect them to add new ones too. The more the better, i say, because fractals is all about skill and diversity.

@Zanthrax
totally, despite the fact it was nails i enjoyed the fact i had to do boss fights that weren’t just stand still (im tank) while everyone else rails the boss. We can jump, roll, do other things like the bouncy things, this should be incorporated into more dungeons, say there was a dungeon you literally had to infiltrate an industrial charr fortification to get to the boss, that would be cool, only a few fights but lots of switches, jumping puzzle elements, rolling under flames, etc, that the team has to negotiate and do at certain times.

there should be gaps in this game you can only get through if you roll.

@Omg A Hotpocket, Thankyou for the civil and well-directed (even if long) response. I appreciate it very much. I still think GW2 is the game of the decade, play it off and on, and do most of the temp content. At the same time, I really think Anet has been missing some golden opportunities, and am just letting my concerns be heard before they become a trend.

@Justin, I think this is really what needs to happen, IMHO. An easy-mode shouldnt be that hard, right? They already have scaling on events across the world; why not give is a scaled down mode?

You know, the thing about the casual crowd of today is that some are just bad at games. Sometimes it’s because they can’t play much, sometimes it’s because they lack the coordination and/or mindset to be a ‘good gamer’, and sometimes it’s because they simply don’t want to ‘work’ at the game. They like messing around, doing whatever, and following the story. And you know what? There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s a game based on masses of people; it’s meant to be fun for as many players as possible. Should there be challenging content? ABSOLUTELY! And we really could use more of it. But I don’t really think we have a right to impose our opinion of ‘hard dungeons are fine for story content’ on those who don’t play for the numbers, or honing of millisecond reaction times, or throwing themselves against the impossible puzzle till we figure it out. It’s like saying ‘if you don’t work hard at the game and get better then you deserve to miss out on story because harder dungeons are more important than your idea of fun.’

“There needs to be content that appeals to both casuals and hardcores. How hard is that to understand!”

You seem to want all content to appeal to casuals whether or not it appeals to hardcores, but that’s not going to work. This dungeon isn’t hardcore by the way. I’d define hardcore as something for people who put intensive time/effort/organization into the game. This dungeon isn’t restricted to hardcore. A good player with limited time can complete this dungeon.

Never done the dungeon myself, but the only thing that really matters is that nobody seems to want to do the dungeon. Can’t seem to get a group together. Pretty sad for a new dungeon.

Stooperdale.3560:

“There needs to be content that appeals to both casuals and hardcores. How hard is that to understand!”

You seem to want all content to appeal to casuals whether or not it appeals to hardcores, but that’s not going to work. This dungeon isn’t hardcore by the way. I’d define hardcore as something for people who put intensive time/effort/organization into the game. This dungeon isn’t restricted to hardcore. A good player with limited time can complete this dungeon.

bingo!

So what you are saying is that essentially COF path 1 and AR are the wrong way around. The COF path 1 style of dungeon would make good temporary content and AR difficulty dungeons would make good permanent content. Agreed.

@Stooperdale,
@Equilibriator,
Did neither of you read my post I just made…? Or my original post for that matter. Difficult content is good! Difficult temporary content is good! the problem is difficult temporary STORY content, which BAD. Story is something that pretty much appeals to players universally, and restricting access to it based on ability to learn the dungeon in a week or so is unfair to a large portion of the playerbase. This is not because it’s too difficult to be in the game, or even because it’s too difficult to be temporary, but rather because it’s too difficult to be temporary AND story-related.

As an overall note, let me define story-related; When I say story-related, I am talking about the central plot of the living story. Finding out more about Mai and the Aetherblades is story related. Killing X aetherblades or finding aetherblade caches is not. That is how I define story-related. If you want a dungeon that is story-related, then give it an easy mode. I don’t even care if you only get like one achievement point for the easy mode; achievements can be hard, that’s fine too!

@Debois Guilbert, point in case. The dungeon is too much effort for most people. I talk to alot of guildies (in a full and very active guild, btw), and they all have no interest in it. Why? They have either finished it and find it too difficult to attempt again, or tried it and have given up on trying because they consider it just too hard.

@Webba, That would work, yeah.

Just joined a group advertised on g2lfg as “experienced only”. People died instantly before the beam even came out. I just dropped as soon as I was pulled into the beam. With not enough people alive there is too much pressure on the few remaining players and as soon as the achievement is failed there is no reason to hang around. So much for promoting camaraderie. Putting a timer on this event means I will end up being as selfish as possible to make it in time. If this was your guys intent to kill the community you are succeeding.

Snowblind.4371:

Just joined a group advertised on g2lfg as “experienced only”. People died instantly before the beam even came out. I just dropped as soon as I was pulled into the beam. With not enough people alive there is too much pressure on the few remaining players and as soon as the achievement is failed there is no reason to hang around. So much for promoting camaraderie. Putting a timer on this event means I will end up being as selfish as possible to make it in time. If this was your guys intent to kill the community you are succeeding.

The community isn’t telling you to drop party. By doing so you are killing the community, not the others.

A few nights ago I ran AR with a PUG group. I put ‘please be experienced’ in the title of the LFG request. Got 5. A few people had trouble with the first pull and one person dropped right there, one who was quite vocal of being experienced. Got a replacement. Continued in to the first boss. Another few problems and two more of the vocal ‘experienced’ people left. Again, we replaced them. From that point on we had no further trouble at all now that all the ‘experienced’ people left.

I personally note that most that are really vocal about being ‘experienced’ are not and are looking for a carry. It shows in how they play and how they act in the community. They don’t own up to their own mistakes and look to blame others. And leave the instant things are looking down for them. I punish said players that leave early by putting them on my block list. I don’t want to play with players that I can’t trust to stay. I don’t know why anyone else would, either.

Stooperdale.3560:

“There needs to be content that appeals to both casuals and hardcores. How hard is that to understand!”

You seem to want all content to appeal to casuals whether or not it appeals to hardcores, but that’s not going to work. This dungeon isn’t hardcore by the way. I’d define hardcore as something for people who put intensive time/effort/organization into the game. This dungeon isn’t restricted to hardcore. A good player with limited time can complete this dungeon.

1. Why is it not possible to have all content appeal to casuals and hardcore players? Is it just that you don’t want it to so that a big group of players are purposely excluded or is there some other reason you’re not sharing? Difficulty levels have been present in games since the beginning for a reason. All content is bascially the same but there’s a different level of difficulty which appeals to everyone. Why can’t it work GW2?
2. A good player can only complete this dungeon if the rest of the players in the party are “good” as well. You’re only as strong as your weakest link and unfortunately there are many who just can’t muster the skills to handle the very though aspcts of AR.

I really do not mind hard dungeons. What I can not stand is spending the whole evening in LA spamming for LFG for that dungeon. Anet needs to implement a LFG tool ASAP.

Third party sites are useless for temp content. At the moment on the one everybody keeps linking there are only 2 lfgs for that dungeon and both require people who have already completed it and only want the special achieves.

the ridiculousness of the difficulty to find people to do a dungeon in GW2 is astounding. I can not believe the game requires you to spam either in front of the dungeon or in LA for hours to be able to find a group when we already have a LFG system inplace in game…the one we use to get in wvw

^It’s the only reason I joined a group was because I felt bad for them and wanted to help.

I still think there’s an inherent flaw or bug with this dungeon. Early FotM used to have the same thing. You could do 20 dailies in about an hour with pugs. Then hit that one day where it’s just OMG hard and takes over 2 hours. That’s what I was feeling like doing AR. I expected a couple of wipes being a first timer. Though 2 of the group had already done it.

I’m agreeing with the OP that limited time content, especially if it has a story to it, should be based for casual play. The duration available to learn the content should be reciprocal to the difficulty of the content.

dreadicon.5840:

@Stooperdale,
@Equilibriator,
Did neither of you read my post I just made…? Or my original post for that matter. Difficult content is good! Difficult temporary content is good! the problem is difficult temporary STORY content, which BAD. Story is something that pretty much appeals to players universally, and restricting access to it based on ability to learn the dungeon in a week or so is unfair to a large portion of the playerbase. This is not because it’s too difficult to be in the game, or even because it’s too difficult to be temporary, but rather because it’s too difficult to be temporary AND story-related.

As an overall note, let me define story-related; When I say story-related, I am talking about the central plot of the living story. Finding out more about Mai and the Aetherblades is story related. Killing X aetherblades or finding aetherblade caches is not. That is how I define story-related. If you want a dungeon that is story-related, then give it an easy mode. I don’t even care if you only get like one achievement point for the easy mode; achievements can be hard, that’s fine too!

@Debois Guilbert, point in case. The dungeon is too much effort for most people. I talk to alot of guildies (in a full and very active guild, btw), and they all have no interest in it. Why? They have either finished it and find it too difficult to attempt again, or tried it and have given up on trying because they consider it just too hard.

@Webba, That would work, yeah.

No i read what you said, i have just decided that i dont agree.

living story is not some highly cerebral plot, its essentially a 2 week event for those who want to do it, followed by another, by another, by another, etc, etc.

Sometimes they will be easy, sometimes they will be not.

It’s not my fault you can’t play the game well or can’t find a good party, personally i haven’t had much problems provided you know how to ask and where to look, again my first run was as a 4 man team (when the dungeon got blocked so nobody could go in, and one of our party left, so we just went for it) of randoms i literally joined without anyone knowing what teh dungeon was like.

like what the last guy said, why does all material have to be catered to people who can’t play the game? Thats the way i look at it, complaints like “i dont have enough time” or “cant find a party” or “its to hard” is just complaints from people who should; realise they are playing an mmorpg, mmorpg is a time consuming game, if you don’t have the time to play regularly and for over an hour then accept you are going to miss out on stuff, you arent looking hard enough or are giving up to easily, other people are finding parties, you have no excuse, if its to hard then you arent reading guides or even attempting to understand the ai, you want things spoon fed to you and guess what, this dungeon isnt for babies, -this- living story isnt for the weak side of the community.

You are missing out because you are making life choices that have resulted in you missing out, why should all dungeons be a cakewalk because you want it that way? I want a million gold for farming one dungeon, i aint getting it, so i do lots of dungeons each day – result is i can do dungeons much better than average player. I am putting in the time and getting the reward, because i earned it.

If you can’t do the dungeon, accept your going to miss out on the next “content”, which will likely justy be a conversation with mai saying “my boss will get you, muahaha!” followed by an achievement.

If you really think your missing out, youtube the scene your missing out on. Upset you didn’t get the achievement? guess what!? You didn’t earn it, face it – some achievements are meant to indicate what a player has -achieved- not simply witnessed.

just waded through the longest two pages of reading i think i’ve ever engaged in, and it falls back to @dreadicon’s original assertion:

LIMITED time STORY content-driven dungeons that are VERY difficult may not be the best mix.

saying that? my guild and i will be diving back in there today; it being holiday, we’ve had lots of folk gone, and we’re a small guild. we got to fight #3 in frizz before two people had to leave, and we don’t pug, so …

we’ve read. we’ve reviewed. we understand the mechanics. we’ll be bringing a different set of characters for this. we expect that several hours’ outlay will eventually net us this dungeon. oh, and did i mention, we’re VERY achievement-minded?

we already have accepted we won’t get all the “cool kid” achievements for this, but we’re determined we will, at the least, complete it.

but i can see, as a trend, that if TEMPORARY dungeon content continues being SO difficult to learn, we will eventually give up playing them.

@dreadicon, i wholly concur with your premise, and +1 support it.

@Equilibriator:
Honestly, despite what you wrote, I don’t think you really read what Dreadicon wrote. Or if you did, you didn’t understand him/her very well.
(As of now I’m going to assume “him” since that’s more likely. If I’m wrong I apologize.)

Draedicon said he likes and wants more difficult content. He also stated he has absolutely no problem whatsoever if achievements are difficult. On the contrary.
He also said that difficult permament story content is not a problem in his book.
The only thing that bugs him is the comination of the three: difficult, story-related and temporary.
Hell, he even said he would support if the “reward” for the easy/story-mode would be scaled down to next to nothing.

Dreadicon isn’t looking for freebies here. He’s only trying to make a point that the story part of living story should be doable by everyone. Which I consider a reasonable request.
He also promotes a hard/exploration mode for those looking for a challenge. And that this one should wield the appropriate rewards and achievements.

What is the problem with 2 modes for a dungeon like the Aetherblades Retreat? One for those who just want to play the storyline and one for those looking to distinguish themselves as good gamers?
Aside from more work for the programmers of course.

I’m well aware that “success” or “seeing all” in an mmorpg is a function of time. (So is dreadicon btw. from what I’ve read.)
That will mean someone with more time spent on the game will always have more goodies/achievements/whatever than someone with less time invested. It will also mean that, like with any other hobby, those who invest more time will most likely be better at it.
And that’s how it should be.
But I can’t see why this is an argument to exclude those with less game-time from simple story related content. Which basically is what you’re advovating.

Your last post gives the impression that story isn’t that important for you. Again if I presume to much, I apologize. As I said, it gives the impression, doesn’t necessarily mean that’s how it is.
However for a lot of players it is an important aspect of the game. Sometimes the most important. And – maybe not surprisingly – quite often that is the case for a lot of those with less time to play the game in comparison to those who invest a lot of time and therefore have most likely seen it all more often than they could care for.

Thank you OP. I am one of the casual players you mention, and I couldn’t have put it better myself. Just to emphasis: Hard, temporary, and story related. Next time please pick 2 of the 3, Anet. I attempted to do this with a pug and we did ok until the 3rd stage of the midboss. Tried it several times and wiped every time. If I had a couple months to keep giving it a shot over the weekend, I could probably get to the point of being able to do it with a guild group. As is, I have no chance.

Silberfisch.3046:

@Equilibriator:
Honestly, despite what you wrote, I don’t think you really read what Dreadicon wrote. Or if you did, you didn’t understand him/her very well.
(As of now I’m going to assume “him” since that’s more likely. If I’m wrong I apologize.)

Draedicon said he likes and wants more difficult content. He also stated he has absolutely no problem whatsoever if achievements are difficult. On the contrary.
He also said that difficult permament story content is not a problem in his book.
The only thing that bugs him is the comination of the three: difficult, story-related and temporary.
Hell, he even said he would support if the “reward” for the easy/story-mode would be scaled down to next to nothing.

Dreadicon isn’t looking for freebies here. He’s only trying to make a point that the story part of living story should be doable by everyone. Which I consider a reasonable request.
He also promotes a hard/exploration mode for those looking for a challenge. And that this one should wield the appropriate rewards and achievements.

What is the problem with 2 modes for a dungeon like the Aetherblades Retreat? One for those who just want to play the storyline and one for those looking to distinguish themselves as good gamers?
Aside from more work for the programmers of course.

I’m well aware that “success” or “seeing all” in an mmorpg is a function of time. (So is dreadicon btw. from what I’ve read.)
That will mean someone with more time spent on the game will always have more goodies/achievements/whatever than someone with less time invested. It will also mean that, like with any other hobby, those who invest more time will most likely be better at it.
And that’s how it should be.
But I can’t see why this is an argument to exclude those with less game-time from simple story related content. Which basically is what you’re advovating.

Your last post gives the impression that story isn’t that important for you. Again if I presume to much, I apologize. As I said, it gives the impression, doesn’t necessarily mean that’s how it is.
However for a lot of players it is an important aspect of the game. Sometimes the most important. And – maybe not surprisingly – quite often that is the case for a lot of those with less time to play the game in comparison to those who invest a lot of time and therefore have most likely seen it all more often than they could care for.

and what im saying is the living story shoudlnt be free content, im saying it should sometimes be a case of you get it or you dont.

i understand people want dificulty levels on dungeons, but i say (and advocate as you rightly say) that your going to miss out on likely one step, one step which will not cost you anything story related – because you can watch it on youtube. The story you are missing out on will likely be purely JUST a conversation with mai, then you will get to continue like everyone else.

dungeons that are difficult, story-related and temporary are not bad because its rare. As far as i can tell this is the first time its happened with such a hard dungeon, why are you expecting it to -keep- happening?

the living story is a progression of the world, you are currently trying to take out the “leader” of the aetherblades and her small army, this is not something that sounds like a walk in the park. The dungeon is temporary, the content will move on.

The combination of the three is bad if it happens constantly, not if it happens once and people feel left out – because there are other people who feel annoyed they have to participate in cake walks that consume -their- time. What you are more upset about is simply misplaced aggravation at the fact the dungeon is temporary.

What i am arguing is that you arent considering the other people in this game who
-want- a harder dungeon, and seeing as all the new dungeons seem to be temporary and story-related, why should -we- have to wait because you only want what makes your half of the community happy? you aren’t thinking about us,. just yourselves and what you want.

I didn’t get upset when the first stage was an easy gold and cake walk guiding some injured representatives, yes i still got to do it, but that didnt mean i enjoyed it.

Forgive me if this sounds insulting but you have to broaden your mindframe and realise there are a lot of people who really like the new dungeon and have been waiting a lot longer than you for new dificult content.

if the devs decide to add 2 modes, thats their choice, but you shouldnt be seeking to pacify every dificult temporary dungeon just because you dont like it.

The key to this argument is that there are many opinions, not just your own, not just mine, but one side cant have it their way all the time.

I appear to have interpreted some of your previous post the wrong way a bit.

You are right. We are looking at the same problem from different angles. (Inserted nonsense to counter the censorship of the forums, which sometimes “corrects” words that are not even there. If you wonder what I’m talking about, the forum censored the last 3 letters of “angles” in combination with the first 2 of “both”, even though they are in different sentences…)
Both extremes are equally bad. Neither just putting out content that is hard nor only content that can be facerolled can be the desired goal.

But rather than (possibly) alternating between the two, I would like to see the option to pick which one you want to do. Of course that means a lot more work for designers and programmers. And I am aware that it is ultimately the prerogative of the creators to decide which way to go.

Omg A Hotpocket.7683:

Scarletdawn.2750:

How will the game ever grow if they keep removing content?

1. It will grow by adding even more temporary content.

A simple demonstration.

You will need a bucket and a cup and a toilet. Got them? Good. Now, fill the cup with water. Now pour the water from the cup into the bucket. Now pour the water from the bucket into the toilet.

Now answer this question: repeating the steps above as often as necessary, how long will it take to fill the bucket?

Helpful hints:

The water is the time and effort required to create temporary content.
The cup is the temporary content.
The bucket is the game.
The toilet is where temporary content belongs.

Any questions?

Tachenon.5270:

Omg A Hotpocket.7683:

Scarletdawn.2750:

How will the game ever grow if they keep removing content?

1. It will grow by adding even more temporary content.

A simple demonstration.

You will need a bucket and a cup and a toilet. Got them? Good. Now, fill the cup with water. Now pour the water from the cup into the bucket. Now pour the water from the bucket into the toilet.

Now answer this question: repeating the steps above as often as necessary, how long will it take to fill the bucket?

Helpful hints:

The water is the time and effort required to create temporary content.
The cup is the temporary content.
The bucket is the game.
The toilet is where temporary content belongs.

Any questions?

When I was talking about “growing” I meant the population – not the amount of content. People see that the game pushes out fast and frequent updates and that draws them to the game. According to Anet recently in an interview GW2 is the fastest growing MMO in the west. That’s growth. Not content-wise, but population-wise, and that’s what I meant. I apologize if I didn’t make that clear enough.

Though technically so far the game has been growing with each update since there’s always at least some permanent content added alongside the temporary content, so it’s unfair to say the game isn’t growing at all. So to be fair, you should only be dumping 70-90% of the water in the bucket into the toilet each time. So then the bucket is still getting 10-30% more full each time you add more water. So therefore, to answer your question, it’ll take anywhere from 3.33 to 10 times of placing water from the cup into the bucket to fill it up.

Silberfisch.3046:

I appear to have interpreted some of your previous post the wrong way a bit.

You are right. We are looking at the same problem from different angles. (Inserted nonsense to counter the censorship of the forums, which sometimes “corrects” words that are not even there. If you wonder what I’m talking about, the forum censored the last 3 letters of “angles” in combination with the first 2 of “both”, even though they are in different sentences…)
Both extremes are equally bad. Neither just putting out content that is hard nor only content that can be facerolled can be the desired goal.

But rather than (possibly) alternating between the two, I would like to see the option to pick which one you want to do. Of course that means a lot more work for designers and programmers. And I am aware that it is ultimately the prerogative of the creators to decide which way to go.

yeh i think u get what im saying now. Ultimately, 2 options would be nicer. I personally think the dungeon should have a 1 player version people do to get story content and unlock the multiplayer “proper” dungeon (like the last one) at the same time which is optional but more rewarding.

Regarding the dungeon difficulty: I was also unable to complete the dungeon with regular pug groupings. This in contrast to my Master Dungeon title and beating nearly all other content. Basic point: dungeon content is hard (especially the barrage part of the end-boss, this causes lots of deaths and griefs (which is good!)), timeframe to complete it is too short!

Regarding the availability of the dungeon after the content expires, I would like point out that we could use the help from Gumphrey the Traveler (see a suggestion thread I generated a while back – https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Gumphrey-the-Traveler-revisit-LS-dungeons/first#post2347866 ).