Guild Wars 2

Also…here is a quick, and simple solution.

First. The facts.

- This Living Story is, and should be accessible to all.

- This content is only available for a limited time.

- All players should be able to reasonably finish the story, without resorting to days of frustration, or steep learning curve.

So, what is the solution?

Simple, allow players/groups to choose difficultly level, and scale rewards accordingly.

This allows for maximum flexibility, and is most fair. If you’re a solo player, and want to complete it by yourself, choose your difficulty.

Are you a new group? Choose easy, see story, but get less rewards.

Are you a hardcore player? Choose hard, get a challenge, and be rewarded for your efforts.

Are you casual, and don’t have time to dedicate? Choose easy, and get the story done.

^ I agree with this, very much.

Story and explorable paths in dungeons are kept seperate for a reason; giving story mode dungeons to the Living Story chapters but making them explorable mode difficulty makes little sense to me.

I think you are underestimating the amount of time and work required to scale stuff like that though.

They would more or less have to do 1 version of the dungeon for every difficulty available, which would suddenly mean that they would have quite a bit more work to be done.

And even if they did that people would complain. It would always be too hard for someone and it would always be too easy for someone else.

lordkrall.7241:

It would always be too hard for someone and it would always be too easy for someone else.

That is true, which is why I wrote this (you may have missed it when this thread turned to page 2):

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

lordkrall.7241:

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Why do your arguments always consist of totally absurd twisting of my words?

Perhaps take a moment and consider what I’m saying. Instead of twisting it around, try to think of some solutions.

But isn’t that more or less what you are saying?
You talk about not tying achievements to “hard” stuff, because everyone should be able to get them. With that logic they would need to give people achievements by simply logging in, since all people can’t spend more than 10 minutes per day playing, and that is not nearly enough time to achieve anything really.

The world isn’t black and white, and hard/easy is not an on/off switch.

Content will ALWAYS be too hard for some and too easy for others, and just right for some. Picture this as a curve right now. Are you seeing the curve? Good.

The trick is to implement something with a difficulty that falls in the comfort zone of the majority of players, so you get a nice curve with very few unhappy players on either end of the “too easy/too hard” scale.

The MF managed this. AR did not.

The AR content is too far on the right side of the scale, so in our curve,

• the few players who would find the MF to be a significant challenge and frustrating are now completely left out,
• the many players who found the MF to be a nice pastime are now significantly challenged and frustrated, and
• the few players who found the MF too easy are now happy.

Do you see the problem?

I don’t begrudge the hardcore players their challenging content. (And I believe, if dungeon expl. modes are beneath you, fractals will certainly allow you to go to your individual limits). But this is the living story. The content is tied to a story that is aimed at the entire player base, and is only here for a limited time (so some people just don’t have the time to go through the learning curve).

Who is right/wrong?

Obviously, nobody here is right/wrong. However: if you find the content too easy, that sucks for you, but you still get the achievements. If you find the content too hard, that also sucks for you, but you do not get the achievements.

Even if I personally found the AR easy as eating ice cream, I would still think that the latter outweighs the former.

Bloodstealer.5978:

@Crazylegsmurphy.6430

Your correct, all players are not equal, that’s exactly how it should be… I hated the Mad King Clock Tower cos it was just not suiting my play style.. but I worked at it until I adapted. This dungeon requires players to do the same.. maybe change your build a little maybe change your tactics.. either way its not a gimmee and should not be considered so. If you miss parts of the story then so be it, you simply are not up to it, no disrespect but that is not ANETs fault.

Sorry but it is you who is missing the point .. no content or achievement should be a gimmee.. you want that go find some P2W game that offers it.Why should something be dumbed down to accommodate you when many others have taken the time to learn it and adapt to it and overcome it.

I couldn’t disagree with you more.

GW2, and the Living Story are not for the elite. No one says it has to be a “gimme” but if they’re going to advertise this to everyone, it has to be accessible to everyone. It doesn’t need to be dumbed down, it needs to have options.

We all payed for this game, and we all support it. No one should be denied access to the story because ANet feels they have to cater to the top players. As pixelpumpkin said so well above, this needs to accommodate the majority of players.

My solution above also provides options for all levels.

And who can decide which group is the majority? How can we know that THIS dungeon is not the perfect one based on said curve?

We did after all have the very same complains about MF back when it was released, Fractals when they were released and the original dungeon back at the games release.

There will always be a small group that complains about it, what makes you think that the group is “correct” this time?

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

I couldn’t disagree with you more.

GW2, and the Living Story are not for the elite. No one says it has to be a “gimme” but if they’re going to advertise this to everyone, it has to be accessible to everyone. It doesn’t need to be dumbed down, it needs to have options.

We all payed for this game, and we all support it. No one should be denied access to the story because ANet feels they have to cater to the top players. As pixelpumpkin said so well above, this needs to accommodate the majority of players.

My solution above also provides options for all levels.

So what about those with limited playtime? They won’t be able to do the personal story, or any dungeons in the game, or the majority of the events in the game, wouldn’t they also be “denied access to the story”?
ArenaNet does in no way cater to the top players, if they did this dungeon would be more or less impossible for pugs, which is quite clearly not the case.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

Who is right/wrong?

Obviously, nobody here is right/wrong. However: if you find the content too easy, that sucks for you, but you still get the achievements. If you find the content too hard, that also sucks for you, but you do not get the achievements.

Even if I personally found the AR easy as eating ice cream, I would still think that the latter outweighs the former.

Giving players difficult content trains players for future content. The problem is that ANet have been handing people easy content for so long that they’ve never actually needed to learn how to be competent. For people who were already competent from previous games this is fine, but the dungeon was designed poorly so trash mobs did not introduce mechanics properly in a way that would implicitly teach people how to deal with the more complicated mechanics introduced in boss fights.

This is the issue. Poor design.

But the difficulty itself is great and should be continued. Everyone shouldn’t be getting every achievement. That’s what achievements are, things people achieve. Otherwise they should just be called Participations.

I see 2 problems with the ideas suggested so far:

1. They already have got different rewards for different levels of time/ability, and people aren’t happy because they want all of them regardless of where they personally fall in that scale.

You can just go out and kill 1 Aetherblade in each area and get the first tier of the achievements, or do the dungeon and get just the basic achievement for finishing it – being rewarded for participating.

But very few people seem to be happy with that. They don’t get those first few achievements and then conclude they’ve reached the limit of their time and/or ability and go away happy with what they’ve got (or accept that they’re the exceptional outlier who won’t be able to get any). They try for the others (or assume they can’t get them) and then complain that it’s too hard and demand that ALL the content be brought down to their level. But if Anet did that someone else would ask for it to be lowered again, and again, until we get to the people who come on the forum after each Living Story chapter to say “Oh, I didn’t bother to log in or read anything about it online because I assumed it would be boring, can I have the achievements added to my account now since I missed it?”

2. A lot of the people who want all the achievements and have the skill to get them (the ones the harder content is aimed at) will still choose the easiest path because it’s quicker and/or easier and then complain about the poor rewards. So even the people this harder content is aimed at won’t be happy.

Look at the Super Adventure Box for example. This was totally optional content that had absolutely nothing to do with anything else in game and didn’t reward anything except some achievements, a title and potentially some cosmetic weapon skins. They also included an easy mode that removed most of the jumping and enemies, but also limited which achievements you could get.

And what happened? Did people come here to say “Well, the normal mode was too hard for me, but I was rewarded for the level of time and effort I did put in so I’m happy with it and happy for the people who enjoyed the harder challenge and got the other rewards”? Of course not. They either demanded that all the achievements should be rewarded in easy mode and ideally in 1-2 runs, or long essays detailing exactly how each part should be changed to match their personal play style and skill level. Meanwhile people who could (and did) finish it on normal mode then began doing endless runs on easy mode to farm the reward chest and complained that the rewards weren’t good enough because you didn’t get the additional bauble that you did get in normal mode.

Danikat.8537:

You can just go out and kill 1 Aetherblade in each area and get the first tier of the achievements, or do the dungeon and get just the basic achievement for finishing it – being rewarded for participating.

But very few people seem to be happy with that.

I see what you’re saying, and I believe that there is a solution (or possibly more) to it anyway. Some ideas:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/3-Step-Solution-to-ALL-our-woes/

Danikat.8537:

And what happened, did people come here to say “Well, the normal mode was too hard for me, but I was rewarded for the level of time and effort I did put in so I’m happy with it and happy for the people who enjoyed the harder challenge and got the other rewards”. Of course not. They either demanded that all the achievements should be rewarded in easy mode and ideally in 1-2 runs, or long essays detailing exactly how each part should be changed to match their personal play style and skill level. Meanwhile people who could (and did) finish it on normal mode then began doing endless runs on easy mode to farm the reward chest and complained that the rewards weren’t good enough because you didn’t get the additional bauble that you did get in normal mode.

I read the SAB subforums religiously and I remember the majority of players being perfectly happy with how difficulty was handled in the SAB. Both the fact that there was an easy mode for some achievements and a normal mode for other achievements and better rewards, and the fact that you could enter with 1-5 players were very popular… ??!

Danikat.8537:

I see 2 problems with the ideas suggested so far:

1. They already have got different rewards for different levels of time/ability, and people aren’t happy because they want all of them regardless of where they personally fall in that scale.

You can just go out and kill 1 Aetherblade in each area and get the first tier of the achievements, or do the dungeon and get just the basic achievement for finishing it – being rewarded for participating.

But very few people seem to be happy with that. They don’t get those first few achievements and then conclude they’ve reached the limit of their time and/or ability and go away happy with what they’ve got (or accept that they’re the exceptional outlier who won’t be able to get any). They try for the others (or assume they can’t get them) and then complain that it’s too hard and demand that ALL the content be brought down to their level. But if Anet did that someone else would ask for it to be lowered again, and again, until we get to the people who come on the forum after each Living Story chapter to say “Oh, I didn’t bother to log in or read anything about it online because I assumed it would be boring, can I have the achievements added to my account now since I missed it?”

To be fair, I think there may be some confusion as to how the achievements work. I’m sure that many believe that the only way to get credit for the entire event, is to fill the bar to full.

Either way, the problem is that when you combine factors (time, tasks, skill, reward expectations), you create a situation in which a wide range of people potentially feel like they’re not being treated “fairly” or with “respect.”

That said, in terms of things like dungeons, or more specifically this current dungeon, we have a limited availability, with one path only. If that path is beyond the ability of a certain range of players, then it’s unfair. The reason it’s unfair isn’t because it’s hard, it’s because every player has the right to follow the story though.

Players are able to progress up until the dungeon, at which time they’re denied the ability to progress.

Danikat.8537:

2. A lot of the people who want all the achievements and have the skill to get them (the ones the harder content is aimed at) will still choose the easiest path because it’s quicker and/or easier and then complain about the poor rewards. So even the people this harder content is aimed at won’t be happy.

Look at the Super Adventure Box for example. This was totally optional content that had absolutely nothing to do with anything else in game and didn’t reward anything except some achievements, a title and potentially some cosmetic weapon skins. They also included an easy mode that removed most of the jumping and enemies, but also limited which achievements you could get.

And what happened? Did people come here to say “Well, the normal mode was too hard for me, but I was rewarded for the level of time and effort I did put in so I’m happy with it and happy for the people who enjoyed the harder challenge and got the other rewards”? Of course not. They either demanded that all the achievements should be rewarded in easy mode and ideally in 1-2 runs, or long essays detailing exactly how each part should be changed to match their personal play style and skill level. Meanwhile people who could (and did) finish it on normal mode then began doing endless runs on easy mode to farm the reward chest and complained that the rewards weren’t good enough because you didn’t get the additional bauble that you did get in normal mode.

Lets be clear here. The attempt should be to give the widest range of players the ability to play the game. That should be the ultimate goal here. To deny any of the players on the scale the consideration they deserve will not make for a very successful game.

The only way I can see to do that is to give players options. If they choose to run easy mode, then that is what they choose. If they want to challenge themselves, they have that option.

A one-size-fits-all solution will never work with a game that has such a wide range of players. This doesn’t work in sports, it doesn’t work in school, it doesn’t work in computer games.

ANet needs to spend time making sure the experience is amazing for as many players as they can. If that means delaying the Living Story by a few weeks, then so be it. Blasting out content, and hoping they hit that magical sweet spot, while still changing up the mechanics is a next to impossible task.

They should have split the dungeon into story/explorable.
The difference could be in the number of monsters, skills they use and their damage so it would be easy/hard mode kind of thing.

For example in story there would be less silver mobs, golems at frizz wouldn’t have pull, mai would deal less damage, have less stacks of the buff and barrage phases would be shorter.

In terms of achievements the “beat the boss” would be awarded in story (normal mode) while the skill challenge ones could be gotten from explorable (hard mode).
This way people that want story wouldn’t be left out while the rest of the community had their challenge.

Is this that unreasonable to foresee?

Flameseeker.1563:

They should have split the dungeon into story/explorable.
The difference could be in the number of monsters, skills they use and their damage so it would be easy/hard mode kind of thing.

For example in story there would be less silver mobs, golems at frizz wouldn’t have pull, mai would deal less damage, have less stacks of the buff and barrage phases would be shorter.

In terms of achievements the “beat the boss” would be awarded in story (normal mode) while the skill challenge ones could be gotten from explorable (hard mode).
This way people that want story wouldn’t be left out while the rest of the community had their challenge.

Is this that unreasonable to foresee?

Sounds completely reasonable to me. Thanks for your input.

Flameseeker.1563:

They should have split the dungeon into story/explorable.
The difference could be in the number of monsters, skills they use and their damage so it would be easy/hard mode kind of thing.

For example in story there would be less silver mobs, golems at frizz wouldn’t have pull, mai would deal less damage, have less stacks of the buff and barrage phases would be shorter.

In terms of achievements the “beat the boss” would be awarded in story (normal mode) while the skill challenge ones could be gotten from explorable (hard mode).
This way people that want story wouldn’t be left out while the rest of the community had their challenge.

Is this that unreasonable to foresee?

Sounds perfect to me.

An even easier solution would be to limit Frizz and Mai Trin to the first 2 (or even 3) out of their 4 phases. The rest of the dungeon wouldn’t even need any tweaking.

Like the SAB, it would allow players to “climb” the learning curve one step at a time, or go home with the story finished but without the skill achievements.

I’m a zerk warrior but for this dungeon I’ve changed a few things around so I can survive and not get beat down.

So I…

1: Changed main armor to have some toughness in them. (trinkets and weapons remained the same)
2: Changed all my utility skills to be defensive.
3: All traits stayed the same also for maximum damage.
4: Booned up with foods that gave me health stuff.
5: Equipped one range weapon during boss fights.

So during the middle boss fight, I would run and range, and if the window was open then I would melee them.

During the last fight, if I had aggro, then I would range her, but when I didn’t I would switch to melee and unleash everything on her, but if my health got low I would range again.

Basically you can be a pro player, but if you don’t make the necessary changes to your environment, then you’re going to have a real bad time dealing with it.

lordkrall.7241:

I think you are underestimating the amount of time and work required to scale stuff like that though.

They would more or less have to do 1 version of the dungeon for every difficulty available, which would suddenly mean that they would have quite a bit more work to be done.

And even if they did that people would complain. It would always be too hard for someone and it would always be too easy for someone else.

I think you have absolutely no idea how much work this would take, should keep that in mind and should stop acting like you know it would take so much more work. If they do it right then it shouldn’t take that much more work. After all, I don’t think that assigning stats and abilities is what takes up the time; I rather imagine it’s designing the environment, modelling the enemies, scripting the events and encounters, voice and sound work and so on.

The NPCs Attributes, the factors that determine their health and damage (and ultimately the difficulty of the encounters) are just numbers stored in columns in a database. Sure, some balancing has to be done to make sure that normal mode is “right” but easy mode means replacing the veterans and elites with normal mobs that do a lot less damage and have less health. At worst you make sure that it’s too easy. “Divide all damage and hit-points by five and call it a day.”

Regardless of whether or not everyone would be happy (and you can’t please everyone) I believe that a whole lot more people would be happy if they did this. Normal and easy mode are logical solutions for this, followed by a hard mode for those who power through this kind of dungeon content.

Pifil.5193:

The NPCs Attributes, the factors that determine their health and damage (and ultimately the difficulty of the encounters) are just numbers stored in columns in a database. Sure some balancing has to be done to make sure that normal mode is “right” but easy mode means replacing the veterans and elites with normal mobs that do a lot less damage and have less health. At worst you make sure that it’s too easy. Divide all damage and hit-points by five and call it a day.

Indeed, but that is just the thing. People are overall NOT complaining about the mobs, but rather the mechanics of the fights. And that isn’t something that is “stored in columns in a database”. It would require more or less completely rebuilding the whole fights which would require quite a bit of work.

lordkrall.7241:

Indeed, but that is just the thing. People are overall NOT complaining about the mobs, but rather the mechanics of the fights. And that isn’t something that is “stored in columns in a database”. It would require more or less completely rebuilding the whole fights which would require quite a bit of work.

The amount of damage they deal certainly is.

Players with certain builds (that work great for them otherwise), and those who aren’t yet strong enough (armour, weapons, etc), probably find that the mechanics/damage is simply too much for them to handle.

I don’t want to get into a, “What build is best” debate because in the end it doesn’t matter. Living Story dungeons need to have options for different player levels.

As to how much time it would take, this is an irrelevant argument. If it takes too much time to properly make a dungeon, then reevaluate the release schedule. Don’t just pump out content for the sake of content. I would rather the Living Story be pushed back a week, than to have content that I try doing for hours and hours, only to give up in frustration.

lordkrall.7241:

Indeed, but that is just the thing. People are overall NOT complaining about the mobs, but rather the mechanics of the fights. And that isn’t something that is “stored in columns in a database”. It would require more or less completely rebuilding the whole fights which would require quite a bit of work.

Ah, but what do those mechanics actually do? Ultimately they do damage and/or apply conditions. The amount of damage, the duration and type of the conditions and so on are all numbers stored in columns in a database.

You reduce the damage, the duration, increase cooldowns and maybe even remove or replace conditions entirely. The design work is all done for the normal mode you just nerf everything for easy mode.

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

The amount of damage they deal certainly is.

Players with certain builds (that work great for them otherwise), and those who aren’t yet strong enough (armour, weapons, etc), probably find that the mechanics/damage is simply too much for them to handle.

I don’t want to get into a, “What build is best” debate because in the end it doesn’t matter. Living Story dungeons need to have options for different player levels.

As to how much time it would take, this is an irrelevant argument. If it takes too much time to properly make a dungeon, then reevaluate the release schedule. Don’t just pump out content for the sake of content. I would rather the Living Story be pushed back a week, than to have content that I try doing for hours and hours, only to give up in frustration.

Of course, but the damage they do is not really an issue. The issue people seem to have is that they are unable to avoid it. Lets face it, the skills in question don’t really do much damage, the issue is that people are assuming that they can stand and take the hits instead of avoiding them (which is possible in 99% of the cases).

Indeed, but the thing is the dungeon IS properly done, you simply can’t accept the fact that you are unable to do it without changing your approach to the fights.

Pifil.5193:

Ah, but what do those mechanics actually do? Ultimately they do damage and/or apply conditions. The amount of damage, the duration and type of the conditions and so on are all numbers stored in columns in a database.

You reduce the damage, the duration, increase cooldowns and maybe even remove or replace conditions entirely. The design work is all done for the normal mode you just nerf everything for easy mode.

But thats just the thing: IF they lower the already low damage it will be possible to simply stand around taking the hits and still survive, which would destroy the whole point in having the mechanics at all and they could simply remove them.

lordkrall.7241:

Of course, but the damage they do is not really an issue. The issue people seem to have is that they are unable to avoid it. Lets face it, the skills in question don’t really do much damage, the issue is that people are assuming that they can stand and take the hits instead of avoiding them (which is possible in 99% of the cases).

Indeed, but the thing is the dungeon IS properly done, you simply can’t accept the fact that you are unable to do it without changing your approach to the fights.

What exactly is my approach to fights? Perhaps you can enlighten me since you seem to know why I struggled so much more in this dungeon than almost any others.

lordkrall.7241:

But thats just the thing: IF they lower the already low damage it will be possible to simply stand around taking the hits and still survive, which would destroy the whole point in having the mechanics at all and they could simply remove them.

Well, I think that’s taking things to an extreme.

If the damage is already low then you don’t have to lower it. If the damage is low but the problem is that you get CCed in it for a long time and are unable to avoid it then you leave the damage as is but reduce the duration of the CC and increase the cooldown on those abilities. There are many different ways to balance the numbers in an encounter after all.

Ultimately though, what we’re talking about is an easy mode, lordkrall. The point of an easy solo mode is that people can get through it more easily.

Think of it as training mode. Teach people the mechanics in an environment where they can make mistakes and recover from them without dying and resetting the entire fight and then they can graduate to normal mode where things are faster, telegraphs are shorter, CCs are longer and the entire dungeon is just that bit more unforgiving.

Then when normal mode is is too easy for you you move onto hard mode where it gets a lot more unforgiving.

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

What exactly is my approach to fights? Perhaps you can enlighten me since you seem to know why I struggled so much more in this dungeon than almost any others.

Well, you do seem to be under the impression that you will survive multiple hits without healing and/or moving, which might work in the other dungeons, but quite clearly won’t work here.

The Goemm’s Lab JP was not glitchy for me and it is a fun and well designed jumping puzzle! The only problem I had with it is when you fall off it does not teleport you back to the beginning.

The AR dungeon was really frustrating the first and second time I did it, but now on my sixth time I find it much easier, but it is still a fun and challenging dungeon with great rewards at the end!

Michelangelo.1742:

The Goemm’s Lab JP was not glitchy for me and it is a fun and well designed jumping puzzle! The only problem I had with it is when you fall off it does not teleport you back to the beginning.

Uhhh…that’s the glitch.

That glitch can kill you as well, requiring you to start from scratch. That glitch caused a few accounts to be wrongly suspended. That glitch, which has been known for months, should have been fixed before adding an achievement in there.

lordkrall.7241:

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

What exactly is my approach to fights? Perhaps you can enlighten me since you seem to know why I struggled so much more in this dungeon than almost any others.

Well, you do seem to be under the impression that you will survive multiple hits without healing and/or moving, which might work in the other dungeons, but quite clearly won’t work here.

Really? Can you quote where I said I should be able to stand there and spam “1”, never move and always win?

Do you ever respond without exaggerating or making Straw Man arguments?

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Really? Can you quote where I said I should be able to stand there and spam “1”, never move and always win?

Do you ever respond without exaggerating or making Straw Man arguments?

I never said you have said that, I said you SEEM to be thinking that, since quite clearly loads of people is fully able to complete the dungeon you are clearly doing something very wrong. And based on the dungeon itself that scenario is more or less the only plausible one.

Pifil.5193:

Think of it as training mode. Teach people the mechanics in an environment where they can make mistakes and recover from them without dying and resetting the entire fight and then they can graduate to normal mode where things are faster, telegraphs are shorter, CCs are longer and the entire dungeon is just that bit more unforgiving.

This.

If on wipe you would start at the stage that killed the group instead of stage 1, that would have helped already too.

lordkrall.7241:

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Really? Can you quote where I said I should be able to stand there and spam “1”, never move and always win?

Do you ever respond without exaggerating or making Straw Man arguments?

I never said you have said that, I said you SEEM to be thinking that, since quite clearly loads of people is fully able to complete the dungeon you are clearly doing something very wrong. And based on the dungeon itself that scenario is more or less the only plausible one.

I’m sorry, but the only one who seems to be thinking that….is you. And quite clearly…you are wrong about the second part as well.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/skypirates/Aether-dungeon-needs-radical-nerfing/page/5#post2323279

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/skypirates/AR-is-HARD-Thank-you-Anet/first

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/skypirates/Aetherblade-Retreat-Feedback-Improvements/first#post2321139

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/skypirates/Time-Limited-Chevos-in-AR

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/skypirates/AR-dungeon-on-a-low-level

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/skypirates/Should-I-even-try-this-dungeon

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/skypirates/why-is-the-new-dungeon-so-hard-at-the-end

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/skypirates/Finally-finished-Aesther-Blade-dungeon

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/skypirates/Can-someone-help-me-with-AR

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/skypirates/AR-dungeon-complaints

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/skypirates/Laser-Room-is-Way-to-Hard

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/skypirates/Why-does-the-hardest-dungeon-have-2-weeks

Would you like more links to threads by players that are having issues?

Look, I’m not saying it’s not doable. You need to start listening, and stop trying to turn everything into a Straw Man argument. Honestly!

And yet that is a EXTREMELY small part of the playerbase and not even close to half of the active forum-userbase that seem to have issues with it. So clearly it is doable by the majority of players.

lordkrall.7241:

And yet that is a EXTREMELY small part of the playerbase and not even close to half of the active forum-userbase that seem to have issues with it. So clearly it is doable by the majority of players.

Ok, you’re right.

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Bloodstealer.5978:

@Crazylegsmurphy.6430

Your correct, all players are not equal, that’s exactly how it should be… I hated the Mad King Clock Tower cos it was just not suiting my play style.. but I worked at it until I adapted. This dungeon requires players to do the same.. maybe change your build a little maybe change your tactics.. either way its not a gimmee and should not be considered so. If you miss parts of the story then so be it, you simply are not up to it, no disrespect but that is not ANETs fault.

Sorry but it is you who is missing the point .. no content or achievement should be a gimmee.. you want that go find some P2W game that offers it.Why should something be dumbed down to accommodate you when many others have taken the time to learn it and adapt to it and overcome it.

I couldn’t disagree with you more.

GW2, and the Living Story are not for the elite. No one says it has to be a “gimme” but if they’re going to advertise this to everyone, it has to be accessible to everyone. It doesn’t need to be dumbed down, it needs to have options.

We all payed for this game, and we all support it. No one should be denied access to the story because ANet feels they have to cater to the top players. As pixelpumpkin said so well above, this needs to accommodate the majority of players.

My solution above also provides options for all levels.

There you go again.. honestly what isn’t accessable to you.. cos everything about the LS is accessable to everyone.. you just haven’t mastered it as yet, and by the sounds of it never will.
So where is this the fault of the game or ANET.. the fault lays with you and your group tactics/builds..nothing more, nothing less.
You are making this event out to be exclusive … like I said nothing is a gimmee you have to work at it and thankfully ANET have put something in which does provide some kind of challenge… in whatever form they have put it in.

No, sorry this is now beginning to seem like a hard luck story gone sour. My suggestion would be to dust yourselves off, buckle up and go again until you finally crack it… just like the plethora of other players have done.

Simple fact is that the content is there for all to play out… all you have to do is be good enough to achieve it…. it has nothing to do with being content for the ELITE.. my 14yr old completed it about an hour ago and he rarely plays GW2 and like me he is definitely not an ELITE player.

As for your notion of difficulty scaling, sure I can get behind that but the risk reward scenario should reflect it.. you wanna go faceroll easymode then don’t expect any achievement points or special snowflake end of story reward until you have upped your game. But as others have already said – to undertake content like this with all the options and changes based on difficulty, it would not warrant being temporary event content and would justifiably take longer to develop and implement.. then lets sit back and read all the flame wars to ANET about not releasing content quick enough etc, etc. No matter what difficulty this dungeon is put out at, someone will always feel aggrieved and scream nerfbat to ANET.. when in all honesty the real issue lies much closer to home imo.

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

lordkrall.7241:

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Really? Can you quote where I said I should be able to stand there and spam “1”, never move and always win?

Do you ever respond without exaggerating or making Straw Man arguments?

I never said you have said that, I said you SEEM to be thinking that, since quite clearly loads of people is fully able to complete the dungeon you are clearly doing something very wrong. And based on the dungeon itself that scenario is more or less the only plausible one.

I’m sorry, but the only one who seems to be thinking that….is you. And quite clearly…you are wrong about the second part as well.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/skypirates/Aether-dungeon-needs-radical-nerfing/page/5#post2323279

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/skypirates/AR-is-HARD-Thank-you-Anet/first

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/skypirates/Aetherblade-Retreat-Feedback-Improvements/first#post2321139

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/skypirates/Time-Limited-Chevos-in-AR

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/skypirates/AR-dungeon-on-a-low-level

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/skypirates/Should-I-even-try-this-dungeon

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/skypirates/why-is-the-new-dungeon-so-hard-at-the-end

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/skypirates/Finally-finished-Aesther-Blade-dungeon

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/skypirates/Can-someone-help-me-with-AR

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/skypirates/AR-dungeon-complaints

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/skypirates/Laser-Room-is-Way-to-Hard

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/livingworld/skypirates/Why-does-the-hardest-dungeon-have-2-weeks

Would you like more links to threads by players that are having issues?

Look, I’m not saying it’s not doable. You need to start listening, and stop trying to turn everything into a Straw Man argument. Honestly!

small sample is small sample I am afraid.. forumites likely account for less than 1% of the game population just like every other MMO forum out there.
For every post screaming nerf it, there will be a counter within each thread so I would most definitely consider your and the other few postings to be in the minority here.

not my precious cheevos

):

FYI i’m fairly sure more than 1% of the games population use the game, I’m not sure you realize how few people are playing actively.

Just wanted to add that you didnt miss any story in AR. You just follow Ellen through it and defeat Mai there’s nothing more to it story-wise. I think the story progression comes from talking to Mai in her cell like the achievement says at some point (this doesnt seem to be implemented yet).

Also wanted to say that not all the threads you linked think that the hard difficulty is something bad. My thread was one of them and i think they should make more dungeons like this.

The achievements don’t really bother me, but the storyline does.

Last Saturday, our guild did a six-group run into the new dungeon. 30 players started, and after 4 hours, 10 of them finished. If the dungeon is a required portion of the story, then that potentially locks out 2/3 of our guild.

For many of us, the story is the most interesting part of the Dragon Bash/Sky Pirates event. The rest of the content is actually kind of tedious. Smack a bunch of pinatas? Yawn. Chase down a bunch of randomly-spawning pirates (or wait for them to spawn once-a-minute at a cache)? Ho hum. Click on a bunch of remote, and mostly worthless, caches? Wait two hours for a mediocre fireworks display? Are you serious?

Without the story, the last two events have been very, very disappointing. We don’t want 2/3 of our guild thinking that GW2’s heavily-promoted new content is either dull or out of reach. Difficult dungeons are great. Heck, dungeons that are beyond the reach of 2/3 of the guild are OK too. But please, don’t put all of the interesting content behind a barrier that can’t be crossed by most of our players.

People in this thread have made perfectly good suggestions of different tactics you can use to beat this dungeon. Can you not take these suggestions and try again? Don’t people want to be challenged anymore? I don’t like this attitude of “I couldn’t do it the first time so please change your game because I can’t be bothered to try again.”

I’ve read all the posts, and can understand how some people would want an easy mode to this dungeon. I can also understand how some people may think one build (i.e. Zerker) isn’t recommended to use for AR. But let me give you my opinion on why I think this dungeon is actually easy.

I run a full Zerker Thief, so basically I’m low on Toughness and Vitality. With a pug group, I managed to get through this dungeon in less than an hour (maybe around 45 minutes?), killed the end boss within the 15 minute timer to shoot the airship, and was downed only once. I missed a lot of the achievements due to mechanics (Golem pulling me into the wall, getting hit by a cannon barrage, etc.), but I’m not losing any sleep over it. That was my first and only time running AR.

I don’t know if it’s because of my skill, my group’s skill, luck, or a combination of the three. I just had no real issues with AR. Others have given tips, which I will use when I try again this week. But even with all the tips from the forums or other fan sites, it comes down to the individual. You must understand the basics of dodge rolling and kiting. With this knowledge, you must then understand when to use them. I got hit by the laser wall, but I didn’t stand in it. I spam clicked to dodge, which left me hurt, but alive. I got hit by a cannon barrage, but again I kept double tapping to dodge, and survived, albeit hurt. The only time I was downed was when I was meleeing Mai, and she knocked me on my rear.

Moral of my story? 1) Mechanics: Learn them, understand them, and use them. 2) Learn from your mistakes: If you fail, remember how to failed, and try not to do it again.

I think the Lining story content – except the gathering/killing 1/1000 things and the little cutscenes here and there – is just a “beta” for getting the reactions from the players.
Remember they are working on the paid expansion and what a better way to see how people react to different types of content if not add it for testing every 2-3 weeks.
It is small content with small bugs and even if they are major ones the content will be wiped out in short time – case solved: no one cares because in a few days new content is up and people forget the old one.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Moral of my story? 1) Mechanics: Learn them, understand them, and use them. 2) Learn from your mistakes: If you fail, remember how to failed, and try not to do it again.

That’s the real problem! You are asking too much of many people here.

Crovax.7854:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Moral of my story? 1) Mechanics: Learn them, understand them, and use them. 2) Learn from your mistakes: If you fail, remember how to failed, and try not to do it again.

That’s the real problem! You are asking too much of many people here.

This made me a sad penguin. Is there no hope for those people?

Crovax.7854:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Moral of my story? 1) Mechanics: Learn them, understand them, and use them. 2) Learn from your mistakes: If you fail, remember how to failed, and try not to do it again.

That’s the real problem! You are asking too much of many people here.

No, that would actually be quite a reasonable suggestion…IF it wasn’t available for only a short time. Like all the other dungeons, I would try them at my own pace until I passed them. The problem here is thakittens part of the story, and I have only a limited time to dedicate to it, and all the other parts of the story.

Again, difficult is fine…but difficult, with a time limit is frustrating. Why is it not reasonable to ask for a “Story Mode” for those who are interested in playing, seeing the story, but not spending hours and hours learning and perfecting the dungeon?

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Again, difficult is fine…but difficult, with a time limit is frustrating. Why is it not reasonable to ask for a “Story Mode” for those who are interested in playing, seeing the story, but not spending hours and hours learning and perfecting the dungeon?

Once again, there is no story in this dungeon. If there is can someone say what it is because like I said there were only ~2 lines that Kiel said at the end of the dungeon. Everything is “don’t leave me behind I’m useful”. If you just want story (and assuming that the dungeon does not need to be completed to see the final instance of her in jail) then ignore this dungeon and move on. Otherwise, take the time like rest of us took to learn the mechanics and to kill the bosses (sorry if that comes off rude but I don’t know how else to word it). Once again, 2 weeks for ~2-4 hours of trying isn’t much to ask if you want your story.

There’s also a vid in another thread that shows a ele solo’ing the dungeon. If some people are good enough to solo the dungeon then a group should be able to beat it, even with some difficulty.

Another suggestion to add to the pile, I think you said that you were playing with your dungeon squad/friends. Well, try a PUG. A good number of people have given good advice already, and more people know how the dungeon works now, so just join a PUG and test your luck that way.

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Crovax.7854:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Moral of my story? 1) Mechanics: Learn them, understand them, and use them. 2) Learn from your mistakes: If you fail, remember how to failed, and try not to do it again.

That’s the real problem! You are asking too much of many people here.

No, that would actually be quite a reasonable suggestion…IF it wasn’t available for only a short time. Like all the other dungeons, I would try them at my own pace until I passed them. The problem here is thakittens part of the story, and I have only a limited time to dedicate to it, and all the other parts of the story.

Again, difficult is fine…but difficult, with a time limit is frustrating. Why is it not reasonable to ask for a “Story Mode” for those who are interested in playing, seeing the story, but not spending hours and hours learning and perfecting the dungeon?

Again, I did this dungeon only once. Took 45 minutes to an hour with a pug group. The mechanics of the dungeon in place are the same as every other content of Guild Wars 2. Dodge rolling to evade. Don’t touch lasers or walls that hurt. Kite red circles. Avoid strong enemy attacks that can “1 hit” you.

So it’s not so much understanding the dungeon itself, but rather getting comfortable with the game. Same thing with Guild Bounties – people who are used to hacking and slashing will have a hard time. Zerging doesn’t work either. Laser wall room takes one type of strategy, while end boss takes another.

Guild Wars 2 combat is built on adaptive game play. If you want to rush forward and tank hundreds of enemies at a time, there are other games I could recommend.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Guild Wars 2 combat is built on adaptive game play. If you want to rush forward and tank hundreds of enemies at a time, there are other games I could recommend.

Is that what I was doing?

Wallace MacBix.2089:

Once again, there is no story in this dungeon. If there is can someone say what it is because like I said there were only ~2 lines that Kiel said at the end of the dungeon. Everything is “don’t leave me behind I’m useful”. If you just want story (and assuming that the dungeon does not need to be completed to see the final instance of her in jail) then ignore this dungeon and move on.

SPOILER ALERT

I’m not sure if you remember this, but Mai Trin is one of the main villains of the Dragon Bash/Sky Pirates story. Just as the players are about to arrest her, she escapes with help from the Aetherblade Pirates and hides out in their hidden lair. The expedition to track her down and capture her is a vital part of her story. It may even be the climax.

END SPOILERS

Missing that is like missing the last chapter of a book…the one where all the exciting stuff happens and the story resolves.

the people discouraging zerker gear are probably frustrated because they can’t get the timing on the dodges. if that applies to you, by all means, get a bit more toughnes/vit for an additional buffer. that’s what it’s for – a safety net. it’s really not necessary though, no matter what some disgruntled players might think. if you play carefully and stay at range her attack (which has a 2-3 second windup and a slow moving projectile which can easily be dodged) will never one-shot you if you’re not already badly damaged. make sure you’re always full health and if you take dmg immediately get to a safe distance and heal up.

just had a decent group of 2 guards, 2 warrs and 1 necro and without much communication we got through in the first try – the only time someone died was from laserwalls, and 2 during third barrage. from the dmg we had, I assume I was by far not the only one using zerker gear.

signahead.7281:

Wallace MacBix.2089:

Once again, there is no story in this dungeon. If there is can someone say what it is because like I said there were only ~2 lines that Kiel said at the end of the dungeon. Everything is “don’t leave me behind I’m useful”. If you just want story (and assuming that the dungeon does not need to be completed to see the final instance of her in jail) then ignore this dungeon and move on.

SPOILER ALERT

I’m not sure if you remember this, but Mai Trin is one of the main villains of the Dragon Bash/Sky Pirates story. Just as the players are about to arrest her, she escapes with help from the Aetherblade Pirates and hides out in their hidden lair. The expedition to track her down and capture her is a vital part of her story. It may even be the climax.

END SPOILERS

Missing that is like missing the last chapter of a book…the one where all the exciting stuff happens and the story resolves.

And this is why I’m so cranky about the limited time, combined with the difficulty. I was interested to see where this was going to go. Missing this part of the story sounds pretty key in my opinion.

Why is there no story mode…man, ANet!

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

And this is why I’m so cranky about the limited time, combined with the difficulty. I was interested to see where this was going to go. Missing this part of the story sounds pretty key in my opinion.

Why is there no story mode…man, ANet!

And yet nothing is actually resolved in the dungeon other than the actual capture, no talks about motives, no closure to the story or anything like that. There are literally 3-4 lines spoken in the whole dungeon

And this IS the story mode, there is no explorable mode for this dungeon.

lordkrall.7241:

And yet nothing is actually resolved in the dungeon other than the actual capture, no talks about motives, no closure to the story or anything like that. There are literally 3-4 lines spoken in the whole dungeon

And this IS the story mode, there is no explorable mode for this dungeon.

I think you’re confusing dialog and story. Even if no one says anything, Mai’s capture is a huge part of the story.