Guild Wars 2

Vulpis.8063:

chuckle That is indeed a part of it as well—whether you actually have any liking for Destiny’s Edge or feel they have any worth to the current situation.

That scene in LA—shows me a group of has-beens who think they’re all that because they fought the last time. But instead of putting aside their differences and actually being useful now, they do nothing but squabble pettily and go running off their own directions. Why would I even want to associate with these people, much less go help them solve their little snit-fits? I’m busy with this thing called ‘Saving the World’—if they’re not going to help, I’d just as soon they stay out of my way so I can get the job done. If anything they’re a lesson in what not to do.

Ain’t it the truth. Silly, irresponsible characters doing silly, irresponsible things when the fate of the world hangs in the balance.

Jemmi.6058:

Just going to start out by saying that this is going to be my last post on this subject in here. I think I have stated my opinion and points. However, I’d like to address your most recent post.

One reason you may want to go check out these people is because they may tell you what not to do.

Another reason you may want to go check out these people is because one of them was your mentor for the previous 20 levels.

Another reason you may to go check out these people is because they have actually gone and battled dragons before.

If only we could learn from their mistakes, but no. Human characters, at least, are given no other options than to be just like good old Logan ‘gotta save the queen even if it means everybody including the queen will die because of these danged old dragons’ Thackeray.

SPOILERS lie beyond, proceed at your own risk:

<Character name>: Captain Thackeray! I’m glad you’re here. We’ve got an urgent situation. Kellach’s been corrupted by Orrian artifacts. The pirate, Alastia, told him that the queen’s blood will cure the corruption.

Logan Thackeray: Dwayna’s mercy! I have to protect the queen. We can’t let him near her!

<Character name>: I think the undead are following him because he has the artifact. As long as he’s out there, they’ll be right on his heels.

Crusader Hiroki: We don’t have much time. The undead mob he’s leading is just getting bigger. Kellach’s growing more dangerous by the second.

<Character name>: We can’t just think of the queen. We have to think of Kryta. If we just defend her, Logan, Kellach will destroy every town from Lion’s Arch to Divinity’s Reach.

Logan Thackeray: You’re right, kitten But, when it comes to my duty to the queen… well, never mind. I’m listening. What’s the plan?

(Just when you think maybe ol’ Logan is starting to see the light, maybe he’s learned something from us…)

<Character name>: Well, I’m gonna join one of these crazy orders and then… we’re gonna go defend the queen! To heck with everybody else. Not all that many towns between here and Lion’s Arch anyway. They can fend for themselves. Huzzah!

I actually deleted my sylvari because of even worse contrivances in their version of the personal story.

Anyway: not a fan of the GW2 style of dungeons, but lots of people are. I hope the dungeoneer guys get lots more dungeons – permanent dungeons! – to play in. That’s fine and dandy with me – so long as any new dungeons are ‘side adventures’ like the Destiny’s Edge dungeons and not the culmination of a storyline like the ones at the end of the personal story and F&F (both of which I have done – once).

Also, re the solo/group debate: I am not strictly a solo player, nor strictly a team player. I play solo when my friends aren’t online, but when they are online we almost always team up…

…but we don’t do dungeons. ;-)

Like many, after finally playing MF, I enjoyed it generally. It didn’t blow my mind or anything, but there was some fun bits for sure. If they added a dungeon to Southsun, fine.

I just think the big scale, open world battles are more fun. Probably harder to set up on the devs part, but I enjoy them more. I’d rather fight The Claw of Jormag with a massive zerg than do MF any day. And again, that’s not even trying to knock MF. If some Living Stories had dungeon conclusions and others had huge meta event conclusions, I’d be happy.

As this debate continues, especially now that it now involves the personal story and the side story of the dungeons, I’ve found myself wondering what the anti-forced grouping crowd would feel about an alternative where there are essentially 2 ways to complete the story step in question.

For example, taking the Flame and Frost arc, what if Brahamm storming the Molten Facilities in a group required dungeon was one path and Rox needing your assistance in building some sort of device to help the freed refugees was the other. Completing either path would advance you to the next part of the arc, or you could to both if you wanted. The story told in the act of completing each arc, however, would of course be different. Obviously, you wouldn’t need to do the forced grouping to progress but you would need to do it if you really wanted the entire story.

StriderShinryu.6923:

As this debate continues, especially now that it now involves the personal story and the side story of the dungeons, I’ve found myself wondering what the anti-forced grouping crowd would feel about an alternative where there are essentially 2 ways to complete the story step in question.

For example, taking the Flame and Frost arc, what if Brahamm storming the Molten Facilities in a group required dungeon was one path and Rox needing your assistance in building some sort of device to help the freed refugees was the other. Completing either path would advance you to the next part of the arc, or you could to both if you wanted. The story told in the act of completing each arc, however, would of course be different. Obviously, you wouldn’t need to do the forced grouping to progress but you would need to do it if you really wanted the entire story.

That’s pretty much what I’ve been asking for, really, with competion of either of those tasks unlocking the way to the final story scenes with Rox and Braham, which in turn is the last tick for the overall completion achievement. Though again, what would be even better is having this kind of choice at every stage.

To be honest, even though I should love content like this, I feel like Arenanet just completely wasted my time over the past four months by encouraging me to play in F&F, only to just completely ruin the entire thing with the 5-man Dungeon requirement.

Unless they come out and guarantee that they won’t do the same thing with this or any other Living Story content in the future, I just can’t see myself giving a rat’s kitten about Living Story.

As to dungeons in general, it’s really rather sad that a game with so many tools for scaling content insists on an arbitrary 5-man requirement for dungeons. Even if they remain stubborn on non-event dungeons, there is zero, nada, zilch reason why the developers on this game couldn’t or shouldn’t design any future event dungeons to scale for 1-5 people.

The instanced content for month three of F&F scaled just fine. I don’t think anyone believes for one second that they couldn’t do the same exact thing for a longer instance that looks and feels like a dungeon.

So, yeah, please Arenanet, let us know if you plan on ruining this LS with another mandatory 5-man dungeon, so we can make an informed decision and avoid completely wasting our time and enthusiasm on content you will just go and spoil in the end.

StriderShinryu.6923:

As this debate continues, especially now that it now involves the personal story and the side story of the dungeons, I’ve found myself wondering what the anti-forced grouping crowd would feel about an alternative where there are essentially 2 ways to complete the story step in question.

For example, taking the Flame and Frost arc, what if Brahamm storming the Molten Facilities in a group required dungeon was one path and Rox needing your assistance in building some sort of device to help the freed refugees was the other. Completing either path would advance you to the next part of the arc, or you could to both if you wanted. The story told in the act of completing each arc, however, would of course be different. Obviously, you wouldn’t need to do the forced grouping to progress but you would need to do it if you really wanted the entire story.

The “band-aid” fix for the F&F debacle would be something like this. If they care about the player base at all, they will push a quick fix that will allow us to complete the story with out having to do the dungeon.

However, I really want to stress that this was a bad design decision, they knew it was a bad design decision, there were alternatives that would have been much better, but, for what ever reason, they chose the path of least resistance and most harm.

They acknowledged that they knew a 5-man dungeon would tick off a lot of players, so why do it? As I’ve said before, the instanced content from Month Three scaled just about perfectly. I find it metaphysically impossible to believe that they couldn’t have produced a more in depth, scaling instance for the finale that would have looked and played almost identically to the dungeon we did get. Some things would have had to been done differently, or been designed to intelligently alter the script based on party size, but they could have given us a very satisfying ending in the same setting, with the same story and much the same game play, and done it as a scalable instance.

I’m still as dumbfounded as I was when we first learned that they intended to end the four month LS event with a dungeon. I haven’t found any reasons or thinking that make the decision any more logical or acceptable.

Jemmi.6058:

You only copied half my quote and then misunderstood entirely! The content is presented in different ways throughout each step in an evolution. Read it again:

I did read it. The difference everyone in the thread is talking about is the difference between solo content and grouped content.

First you just saw refugees, then you had a lost and found scavenger hunt, then you had 1-man mini dungeons,

All these activities you list above are solo-able content.

then you had a group dungeon.

This one activity is grouped content.

This is not progression. The type (category/classification/whatever) of content in F&F makes a sudden change from multiple activities over the course of whole months that could be done solo to a singular conclusion activity that has to be done with a group. Intentional or otherwise, ArenaNet pulled a bait and switch.

LameFox.6349:

So have I, but while it’s viable in an ‘I can run around and kill/annoy things’ sense, the broader objectives aren’t really going to happen if there aren’t a few other players on your side to help fight against the swarm (unless you wait until most of them get bored of it and leave, I guess).

A group of 5 people in WvW isn’t going to accomplish anything in the ‘broader objective’ sense anymore than a single person. They can attack camps rather than single guards but for those broader objectives you are now talking about guild content which is a completely different subject.

Both the hypothetical and actual MF can be done with no less than one, and no more than five. The pop-up saying five are recommended is not actually binding. Not only will it let you inside alone or with a small group, but if you’re the sort of person who felt Diablo 3 was too easy pre-Inferno (and it kinda was), you can even finish it alone.

So are you saying all the dungeons should be designed so that they can conceivably be solo-ed, but won’t that kind of activity be limited only to hardcore players? The hardcores might have figured out how to solo the MF dungeon in less than two weeks but what about the rest of playerbase?

And frankly, I’ve had enough of seeing storylines in other MMOs that start in the open world only to be hidden behind gated content reserved for hardcores. I don’t begrudge these players the tangible (if virtual) rewards of hardcore playing like the gear, titles etc.

But what is wrong with making the game’s storyline so that everyone in the community can get to appreciate it? Why does the story have to be reserved solely for people who run dungeons or are hardcore enough to solo them? I’ve always thought this was another basic flaw in MMOs and GW2 has done a good job removing so many traditional MMOs flaws, I was hoping they would do so here as well. Shouldn’t just buying the box give everyone the simple enjoyment of seeing a game’s storyline?

Personally I think Super Adventure Box had the correct idea in offering an easy mode that gave less rewards but at least allowed more people to try the thing.

Vulpis.8063:

But the part actually at the battle, where you lead the Pact allies you’ve been collecting through the Personal story into the fight, (and have the Edge swoop in A-Team style), through to beating the Big Bad? That should be group-optional, same as the entire rest of that story.

Agreed. And not just because of the use of the Buffy the Vamprie Slayer term for the final villain

Fiontar.4695:

The “band-aid” fix for the F&F debacle would be something like this. If they care about the player base at all, they will push a quick fix that will allow us to complete the story with out having to do the dungeon.

That would be nice to see. Particularly because it would mean ArenaNet has learned from the F&F just as they seem to have learned from the Karka event.

Honestly? I wouldn’t mind a new dungeon. I just hope the timeframe to play is bigger than 2 weeks.

DoctorOverlord.8620:

A group of 5 people in WvW isn’t going to accomplish anything in the ‘broader objective’ sense anymore than a single person. They can attack camps rather than single guards but for those broader objectives you are now talking about guild content which is a completely different subject.

Not necessarily. 5 people (with siege) can take some bases as well, when nobody’s really cared enough to massively upgrade them or gets to them in time. Flipping camps would certainly be faster though, but that doesn’t take 5 unless people show up, either (in which case 5 may well not be enough, but the camp itself is the easy part).

It’s also enough to mount a defence against a small force in un-upgraded bases, and with upgrades slowing attackers 5 can actually be quite formidable. A few months ago me and one other person decided, for no particular reason except we foresaw attacks and it was defensible but being ignored, to fully upgrade Veloka. For a day we managed to repel or delay long enough anyone who attacked it, then logging in the following day little had changed, so we rebuilt our stuff and kept going. It was the last thing our server owned on EB that day before getting completely overwhelmed (I don’t remember if we were on Piken or GH at the time but it was pretty severely outnumbered) and once everyone had no choice but to fall back to it, we got a pretty impressive final stand for our efforts.

DoctorOverlord.8620:

So are you saying all the dungeons should be designed so that they can conceivably be solo-ed, but won’t that kind of activity be limited only to hardcore players? The hardcores might have figured out how to solo the MF dungeon in less than two weeks but what about the rest of playerbase?

And frankly, I’ve had enough of seeing storylines in other MMOs that start in the open world only to be hidden behind gated content reserved for hardcores. I don’t begrudge these players the tangible (if virtual) rewards of hardcore playing like the gear, titles etc.

Not necessarily to be solo’d, but as far as dungeons go, it’s actually pretty easy, which makes sense for what purpose it serves. Not quite as easy as MK was, but that was for a holiday. If anything I think they need to work on eradicating this notion people have that being in a dungeon it’s necessarily for ‘those people who run dungeons’ and for anyone else to do it is some kind of punishment.

It’s just a terribly silly and self-defeating idea that people seem to have, when it’s not even as hard as some high level events. Especially since as an instance, you can’t have a bunch of people show up, scale it through the roof, then do really badly or die and leave you with the painful version. GW2 appears to have somehow managed to draw in all the people who, while not actually opposed to grouping to complete content, have a phobia of officially being ‘in a group’ and instead go do the same thing all over the world, without a blue chat channel or names on the left side of their screens.

If they managed to make dungeons that didn’t look like dungeons, I doubt they’d get nearly as many complaints about it. The hitch I guess is that solo story instances are pretty much a sign saying ‘five players would make this easier’ away from looking exactly like a dungeon. On the other hand, that karka world-event-thing was hilariously fatal to so many people, even besides the spectacular performance issues. The few times I managed to get in at all, there were players dropping left right and centre. Of course the part that gets complaints is (deservedly, at that) the horrible performance.

So, any response on the original question yet? I wa so annoyed at spending time doing the F&F stuff only to find that it ended in a dungeon I was never going to do, resulting in me never seeing the end content, that it’s actually led me to looking around at new games, that’s unusual because the last MMO I played lasted me 3 years and I wa hoping to get similar longevity out of GW2. The question needs to be answered, if it doesn’t end in a 5 man dungeon I will simply ignore it and play on, but I need to know.

If we get no reply I will play the content in the hope it doesn’t, but if I suddenly find after months of playing that it does, with no warning or any indication, then it’s going to ge a deal breaker for sure, so I really suggest getting the bad news over with now. And don’t try the “oh it will ruin the story” routine, or “we don’t really know” rubbish, tell us yes or no, that’s all that’s been asked.

Oh yes if anyone cares to reply about MMO grouping and solo players need to get a life/find a solo game/ learn to love dungeons cause they are so rad and cool etc etc, don’t bother, had enough of that, not listening, just want an answer.

’I hate dungeons, therefore, the entire living story should just cater to me, disregard what anyone else wants and make it all open world content/solo content. ’

Yeaaahhh…No.

Varonica.8307:

So, any response on the original question yet? I wa so annoyed at spending time doing the F&F stuff only to find that it ended in a dungeon I was never going to do, resulting in me never seeing the end content, that it’s actually led me to looking around at new games, that’s unusual because the last MMO I played lasted me 3 years and I wa hoping to get similar longevity out of GW2. The question needs to be answered, if it doesn’t end in a 5 man dungeon I will simply ignore it and play on, but I need to know.

If we get no reply I will play the content in the hope it doesn’t, but if I suddenly find after months of playing that it does, with no warning or any indication, then it’s going to ge a deal breaker for sure, so I really suggest getting the bad news over with now. And don’t try the “oh it will ruin the story” routine, or “we don’t really know” rubbish, tell us yes or no, that’s all that’s been asked.

Oh yes if anyone cares to reply about MMO grouping and solo players need to get a life/find a solo game/ learn to love dungeons cause they are so rad and cool etc etc, don’t bother, had enough of that, not listening, just want an answer.

It will most likely end in a 5 man dungeon in my opinion. The only people who can give a definite answer is ArenaNet staff and they haven’t posted in here yet so just wait and see.

I hope there will be a group dungeon, not just in the end, but even during the whole Living Story chapter. Personally, I’d love to see more than just one dungeon during the whole LS chapter. What about some sort of “pre-dungeons”, which you have to complete before going into the final one? That would be awesome. Group dungeons are one of the very reasons, why I like playing MMO games.

to group up with other players is kinda the whole idea behind mmos

TriiX.2614:

to group up with other players is kinda the whole idea behind mmos

Oh okay. I wasn’t aware that we could group up at our own discretion outside of 5-man dungeons. Thanks for clearing that up.

TriiX.2614:

to group up with other players is kinda the whole idea behind mmos

No.

Dungeons are more of an ‘non-social’ setting. Keep up the small talk in a dungeon, and you’ll probably get you or your mates killed.

Logically, most of the social interaction happens on the world. And no, MMOs are ‘virtual worlds’ not ‘forced group play’. It’s your line of thinking (not you specifically) that has soured good games and turned them into multi-play cliches.

But, moving on…

I vote for dungeons parallel to other events during this in this story.

Oh, and if a 5-man runner is added, It’d be cool to see one that uses the over-world map, with the little red instance confines. It’d be a use of two mechanics that have otherwise been separate (personal story map instance, but with the difficulty ruleset of internal dungeons). Like a little path that leads around the beach, into whatever area, add some story dialog… Probably the stat-inflated trash mobs instead of tricky AIs.

The last statement seems sarcastic, yeah, but it’s basically most of what we have for dungeon gameplay challenge until they can use their tools in a manner that produces ‘interesting challenge’ rather then ‘easy to produce pseudo challenge’ redundancy (which is obviously alright with some of the dungeon community).

So yeah… an internal dungeon, and one with a confined path using the overworld map… Mix it up, kids.

And to reiterate: Possibly make sure the dungeon is more for grind/drops, over achievement and lore requirement. I believe they should be PART of canon, not be the MAIN canon experience.

Looking at this ending story arc. More people running that dungeon seemed to be doing it for a rare item drop (The jet pack and some recipes, more then for the story that mattered mostly the first time, becoming irrelevant to the item-grind thereafter).

Ryu.1368:

Looking at this ending story arc. More people running that dungeon seemed to be doing it for a rare item drop (The jet pack and some recipes, more then for the story that mattered mostly the first time, becoming irrelevant to the item-grind thereafter).

To be fair, though, most of the content in the game is like that. From DEs to Dungeons to World Bosses, players will generally experience them once for the content and then every subsequent run will be for the XP and/or loot. In fact, one could argue that because dungeons require some level of repetition and learning, they provide a pretty decent time/rewarding content ratio compared to, say, your average DE chain.

StriderShinryu.6923:

Ryu.1368:

Looking at this ending story arc. More people running that dungeon seemed to be doing it for a rare item drop (The jet pack and some recipes, more then for the story that mattered mostly the first time, becoming irrelevant to the item-grind thereafter).

To be fair, though, most of the content in the game is like that. From DEs to Dungeons to World Bosses, players will generally experience them once for the content and then every subsequent run will be for the XP and/or loot. In fact, one could argue that because dungeons require some level of repetition and learning, they provide a pretty decent time/rewarding content ratio compared to, say, your average DE chain.

And this is due to the fact that the Dynamic Events should also be worked on. They present a very plastic view on what the world should be structured as. Events like Shatterer and Maw are example of events that should have been ‘one-time’ experiences (time extended in the Living Story manner), as they’re structured in the same way, but with little time between them, and no real return.

And to be as fair, the world itself is where all the real lore and lag is. It should be their focus first and foremost, despite the fact that dungeons are easier to work with. The Dynamic Events are also a rushed version of what was originally promised. More often then not, dungeons are where most good gear and drops can be had. Most people run dungeons for the drops more then people play Dynamic Events for their missing immersiveness.

Evolving the world where lag is is more ideal, but evolving dungeons would be easier, and therefore possibly more practical. So it becomes a ‘choose a poison and go’.

Where what you say is sound and true, one part is more subjective, however:

“one could argue that because dungeons require some level of repetition and learning, they provide a pretty decent time/rewarding content ratio compared to, say, your average DE chain.”

Subjective only because it’s a matter of time able to be spent versus one’s tolerance to said repitition. You’d be very surprised how many ‘end-gamers’ simple log on to just unwind. Walk around. Explore pretty scenes. Chat. Whatever they procure during that, is simple happenstance. Therefore the game being structured as a ‘grind after story’ is more with the individual. Yes you could say that about dungeons, but they’re far more linear even with ‘paths’ then an open world, making ‘basic social interaction’ more casual with more possibly little to no strain. The original philosophy before commercialism to MMOs was not ‘forced group’ and ‘farm-grind’ but ‘escape from reality. Life in an alternate world/universe’ where goals are self-defined and organic rather then linear and pre-set.

You did say “One can argue” however, so it does respectfully imply margin of error. Just like anything I post. Just ideas. Because quite frankly, I believe structuring stories in an MMO as singleplayer stories implies ALL citizens are the ONE PERSON driving force to the world’s moving evolution. Every individual in the world is given their own alternate universe protagonist role. A very un-organic take on a Living World. But until someone comes up with an amazing idea to ‘fix’ that, we take what we get and enjoy it… Thusly an example of my ‘subjective view’.

raiden.9024:

Whattman.5841:

All I can say is that I am glad that the non-dungeon people seem to be a distinct minority. If you want a game that you play by yourself, then by definition an MMO is not for you. Play a single-player game like the Witcher or something. I hope they have a dungeon in this storyline and all of the others….the more the merrier.

Minority? I think only a few run dungeons and most of them do it for cash cof 1 which doesn’t really count as ppl who love dungeons, they do it for fast gold, took blizzard 3mil subs to make them listen to their customers, what will it take anet. If dungeons didn’t reward loot or gold would you do them? Ofc not you want fast loot, if you could make as much gold as cof in the open world in the same time still think dungeons would be popular? And your another one who don’t understand what mmo stands for lol. First M don’t = 5 ppl, running about open world meeting questing with ppl is mmo sticking 5 ppl in a cave is a dungeon crawler ala Diablo.

, i would argue that most of us actualy enjoy doing dungons ones or twice because they tell a better naritive than world content and have better group combat encounters. we just dont want to run them over and over and over again grinding out lootz like some.

not that we dont enjoy them at all.

Ryu.1368:

Subjective only because it’s a matter of time able to be spent versus one’s tolerance to said repitition. You’d be very surprised how many ‘end-gamers’ simple log on to just unwind. Walk around. Explore pretty scenes. Chat. Whatever they procure during that, is simple happenstance.

Oh, absolitely. Personally, I’m not much of a dungeon runner myself. I do tend to find the way grouping works in GW2 to be a better experience than in other MMOs I’ve played, but I still spend way more time just running my alts around and enjoying the environments than I do in dungeons. That sort of carte blanche approach is what I’ve always enjoyed in MMOs, maybe largely because my first MMO was The Matrix Online, where player created RP content and interaction on a character level were king and organized group content almost didn’t exist.

I just feel that any content in an MMO is likely to be experienced only once or twice for it’s, well, content. It’s a weakness of the genre to be sure and the only hope, I suppose, is that you enjoy enough off the buffet table that you don’t end up minding when each item is only particularly tasty once (and that there are going to be items you don’t want to eat at all). Could these issues be resolved? I’m honestly not sure they can be without some sort of real revolution all the way back in the planning/design stages.

I find myself sort of on the fence about the whole forced grouping issue. I do absolutely see the problem with slapping a group required dungeon at the end of a generally solo experience. I still have my final Personal Story quest sitting undone in my upper right screen as well. I can’t help but also feel, though, that maybe some of the people who are so against forced group content maybe aren’t giving it as fair a shot as they could given bad experiences in the past. Not everyone, of course, jusr some. Just as there are people who, for no good reason, equate MMOs with nothing but forced grouping there are also those who mistakenly equate forced grouping with bad with little tangible backing.

Elbegast.6970:

Will Southsun be ending in a Group Dungeon?

I would like to know so that I don’t waste my time with the content. I have no desire to complete a single player chain; only to beg 4 other players to run me through a dungeon.

Forcing people to party to complete a dungeon is just wrong, especially after a long chain of soloable content.

GW2 is a MMO. Go buy a single player game if that is what you want.

No, but seriously stop being selfish. There was solo and group content added. They added content for everybody and that is how it should be. Just because you like Solo content doesn’t mean that all content that they release should be solo and that you should whine and moan if they add one thing out of 5 that isn’t in line with what you want.

LameFox.6349:

Not necessarily to be solo’d, but as far as dungeons go, it’s actually pretty easy, which makes sense for what purpose it serves. Not quite as easy as MK was, but that was for a holiday. If anything I think they need to work on eradicating this notion people have that being in a dungeon it’s necessarily for ‘those people who run dungeons’ and for anyone else to do it is some kind of punishment.

Easy is a very, very relative term. You might want to take a look through these forums again—I’ve seen some people complaining that even doing it as the intended 5-man group, they haven’t been able to complete it.
And if you want to eradicate that idea—then quit punishing the players who don’t run dungeons by making the only options ‘Run the dungeon’ or ‘Waste the entire effort you’ve put into participating in this content, receiving absolutely nothing for it.’

LameFox.6349:

It’s just a terribly silly and self-defeating idea that people seem to have, when it’s not even as hard as some high level events. Especially since as an instance, you can’t have a bunch of people show up, scale it through the roof, then do really badly or die and leave you with the painful version. GW2 appears to have somehow managed to draw in all the people who, while not actually opposed to grouping to complete content, have a phobia of officially being ‘in a group’ and instead go do the same thing all over the world, without a blue chat channel or names on the left side of their screens.

This would be called ‘selling point of the game’, yes—not needing to be regimented into little 5-person cliques to play, but being able to drop in to help others as you choose and just as easily wander off again, without these obligatory groups. This is precisely the same reason ‘dynamic events’ and ‘public events’ that scale to as many—or as few—are participating are becoming a popular thing.

LameFox.6349:

If they managed to make dungeons that didn’t look like dungeons, I doubt they’d get nearly as many complaints about it. The hitch I guess is that solo story instances are pretty much a sign saying ‘five players would make this easier’ away from looking exactly like a dungeon. On the other hand, that karka world-event-thing was hilariously fatal to so many people, even besides the spectacular performance issues. The few times I managed to get in at all, there were players dropping left right and centre. Of course the part that gets complaints is (deservedly, at that) the horrible performance.

It’s amazing that you can see this, yet not understand why people are complaining about the situation—as you say, every solo instance is also groupable.
In other posts, you’ve rather snidely refered to soloable missions as ‘easy mode’. Here’s a thought for you—how about we take another construct from GW1 and make the soloable instances be ‘Normal mode’, each with a dungeon/dungeon-like version that’s ‘Hard mode’, intended to be group-only (with greater rewards/achievements/ego-stroking for having done the hard version)?

To answer those saying…it’s a MMORPG so grouping should be part of it.

To me, the best thing about GW2 is that you can solo then if you come across other players, you can jump right in and help out without needing the irritation of forming groups for an hour first. You are free to come and go as you please most of the time and still have folks to chat with and help each other out with information.

So for me, I want as little forced grouping as possible..you can get that anywhere from dozens of titles….and yes, I like grouping, I just like freedom to choose more.

timidobserver.7925:

Elbegast.6970:

Will Southsun be ending in a Group Dungeon?

I would like to know so that I don’t waste my time with the content. I have no desire to complete a single player chain; only to beg 4 other players to run me through a dungeon.

Forcing people to party to complete a dungeon is just wrong, especially after a long chain of soloable content.

GW2 is a MMO. Go buy a single player game if that is what you want.

No, but seriously stop being selfish. There was solo and group content added. They added content for everybody and that is how it should be. Just because you like Solo content doesn’t mean that all content that they release should be solo and that you should whine and moan if they add one thing out of 5 that isn’t in line with what you want.

GW2 is a MMO with a lot of people who like doing their own things in parallel.
If the only content you can bring yourself to do is dungeons, maybe you should be the one to leave, find a good GM, and run yourself through more complex and challenging dungeons than it’s possble to do here?
Quit being selfish towards those who paid for this game precisely because it allows myriads of other ways to be social and work alongside each other than Ye Olde 5-man.
If these dungeons were being presented as an alternate mode of play (like PvP and WvW are) instead of a roadblock across content that otherwise is doable by by solos and groups in its entirety.
For that matter, why shouldn’t there be complaints, when that 1 out of 5 completely wastes and invalidates the effort put into the other 4 of the 5? Talk about selfish—wanting people to have gone to all that work for absolutely nothing just so you can get your favorite style and only that style.

Anwar.2018:

To answer those saying…it’s a MMORPG so grouping should be part of it.

To me, the best thing about GW2 is that you can solo then if you come across other players, you can jump right in and help out without needing the irritation of forming groups for an hour first. You are free to come and go as you please most of the time and still have folks to chat with and help each other out with information.

So for me, I want as little forced grouping as possible..you can get that anywhere from dozens of titles….and yes, I like grouping, I just like freedom to choose more.

Yes, they should only add the stuff you like. Anything else is useless.

Vulpis.8063:

timidobserver.7925:

Elbegast.6970:

Will Southsun be ending in a Group Dungeon?

I would like to know so that I don’t waste my time with the content. I have no desire to complete a single player chain; only to beg 4 other players to run me through a dungeon.

Forcing people to party to complete a dungeon is just wrong, especially after a long chain of soloable content.

GW2 is a MMO. Go buy a single player game if that is what you want.

No, but seriously stop being selfish. There was solo and group content added. They added content for everybody and that is how it should be. Just because you like Solo content doesn’t mean that all content that they release should be solo and that you should whine and moan if they add one thing out of 5 that isn’t in line with what you want.

GW2 is a MMO with a lot of people who like doing their own things in parallel.
If the only content you can bring yourself to do is dungeons, maybe you should be the one to leave, find a good GM, and run yourself through more complex and challenging dungeons than it’s possble to do here?
Quit being selfish towards those who paid for this game precisely because it allows myriads of other ways to be social and work alongside each other than Ye Olde 5-man.
If these dungeons were being presented as an alternate mode of play (like PvP and WvW are) instead of a roadblock across content that otherwise is doable by by solos and groups in its entirety.

How am I being selfish by saying that they should continue to add stuff for everybody instead of listening to those that whine about everything that gets put in that they don’t like.

I personally hate Spvp, but plenty of people like it so yeh they should add stuff for it.

I am sure that this new content will have stuff that you can solo and hopefully group content, assuming that they don’t succumb to the pressure of people like you guys. Adding stuff for everybody is the way to go.

timidobserver.7925:

I personally hate Spvp, but plenty of people like it so yeh they should add stuff for it.

I am sure that this new content will have stuff that you can solo and hopefully group content, assuming that they don’t succumb to the pressure of people like you guys. Adding stuff for everybody is the way to go.

Forced! The word you’re missing is forced. Nobody is complaining about content added for all types of players. If they added a new SPvP map, we would not be having hissy fits about it, unless ANet did something utterly silly, like somehow making it mandatory for WvW rank progression.

If that MF dungeon had been added as an optional elite mission to crack open the facility, to then allow large groups of randoms to pile in for a final zergy battle against the alliance, then nobody would be complaining! (Unless it occurred during a narrow window around 3am, of course).

Rika.7249:

Forcing people to play with other people in an MMO is just wrong. Why is the game even online, jesus!

Because gw2 was supposed to be mainly open world dynamic events, not instanced dungeons.
Because we were told we would not need organised groups, just go play with whoever is around?
Because there still is no lfg, despite anet saying any game launching now should have one at launch….

Elbegast.6970:

Will Southsun be ending in a Group Dungeon?

I would like to know so that I don’t waste my time with the content. I have no desire to complete a single player chain; only to beg 4 other players to run me through a dungeon.

Forcing people to party to complete a dungeon is just wrong, especially after a long chain of soloable content.

I sure hope so, in my personal opinion temporary themed dungeon events are the most entertaining type of event in GW2. Keep them coming ArenaNet!!!

Daemon.4295:

Elbegast.6970:

Will Southsun be ending in a Group Dungeon?

I would like to know so that I don’t waste my time with the content. I have no desire to complete a single player chain; only to beg 4 other players to run me through a dungeon.

Forcing people to party to complete a dungeon is just wrong, especially after a long chain of soloable content.

I sure hope so, in my personal opinion temporary themed dungeon events are the most entertaining type of event in GW2. Keep them coming ArenaNet!!!

To paraphrase other people here, you are just selfish wanting them to add content for just one type of player, but I am not serious, they can have as many new dungeons as you want, themed to if you like, just don’t add them to story arcs like this, and still waiting for that answer, this oh so friendly and helpfull company that listens to its player base can’t be bothered answering.

Look basically I don’t care whether or not you want more dungeons, and whether or not you get them, that’s not the question under discussion here, at least it’s not supposed to be the question, the question is will southsun cove storyline end in a 5 man dungeon, it just needs a yes or a no from anet and we can all move on doing our own thing.

Varonica.8307:

Daemon.4295:

Elbegast.6970:

Will Southsun be ending in a Group Dungeon?

I would like to know so that I don’t waste my time with the content. I have no desire to complete a single player chain; only to beg 4 other players to run me through a dungeon.

Forcing people to party to complete a dungeon is just wrong, especially after a long chain of soloable content.

I sure hope so, in my personal opinion temporary themed dungeon events are the most entertaining type of event in GW2. Keep them coming ArenaNet!!!

To paraphrase other people here, you are just selfish wanting them to add content for just one type of player, but I am not serious, they can have as many new dungeons as you want, themed to if you like, just don’t add them to story arcs like this, and still waiting for that answer, this oh so friendly and helpfull company that listens to its player base can’t be bothered answering.

Look basically I don’t care whether or not you want more dungeons, and whether or not you get them, that’s not the question under discussion here, at least it’s not supposed to be the question, the question is will southsun cove storyline end in a 5 man dungeon, it just needs a yes or a no from anet and we can all move on doing our own thing.

What… but you aren’t selfish for wanting them to add some meta-event/world event or something? Why can people not want dungeon content, he didn’t say no other type of content should be added just that he’d like to see more dungeon content.

Arenanet should not gate progression through special events by making 5-man dungeons a required step, period.

The best answer is to make such dungeons scale. The story instances in month three of the F&F living story scaled and did so just about perfectly. There is no reason a longer instance can’t do exactly the same, whether they want to actually call it a dungeon or not.

The lazy answer is to just ensure that if a 5-man dungeon is included in a monthly or living story event, that it is completely optional and participation is not required to complete the event and any meta-achievments/rewards/titles associated with the event.

I still can’t believe that Arenanet thought it was ok to have players spend scores of hours over four months working on the living story and related content, only to make completion and rewards hinge on mandatory participation in a 5-man dungeon. That one to two hours of forced grouping, playing a type of content ANet has been working hard to ensure is only really fun for a small percentage of the game’s population and over-whelming frustration for everyone else, would trump all the time and effort people put into the rest of the LS is just plain sad.

5-man dungeons that don’t scale, in a game with so many established mechanisms for scaling, is the most selfish content in a game that otherwise accommodates dynamic passive grouping for content and formal party sizes of 2-5 in number. That development time is spent on such niche content is bad enough, but that the appeal could be greatly broadened by adding scalability, yet they chose not to do so, seems to be a very selfish design decision highly in-congruent with the rest of the game.

There are two related issues here. Gating of mass appeal community content via 5-man dungeons, which should never, ever happen and the stubborn resistance to the natural evolution of dungeon content in this game, which is scalability based on group size. In a game that has been paradigm shifting in it’s approach to game design, it’s disappointing to see one area of the game suffer under such stubborn resistance to change from stale old MMO design philosophies.

Fiontar.4695:

The best answer is to make such dungeons scale. The story instances in month three of the F&F living story scaled and did so just about perfectly.

I have yet to see an instance of scaling in the game that works well. Usually, stuff like instances that get scaled down to 1 person are laughably easy compared to things designed for 5 players being played as intended by 5 players.

A more realistic option is to make the main story be all easy, solo missions like the F+F ones and the dungeon be a sidequest that is designed to work for 5 people.

If you all want this to be solo able. Anet should just have made it a single player game.

THERE IS A REASON! That Anet decided that people need to groupe up, it is an MMO for a reason. They wanted people to play together.
If you want solo stuff, you are playing the wrong game

Manifibel.8420:

If you all want this to be solo able. Anet should just have made it a single player game.

THERE IS A REASON! That Anet decided that people need to groupe up, it is an MMO for a reason. They wanted people to play together.
If you want solo stuff, you are playing the wrong game

In your opinion. As you can see by reading through this thread there are many other opinions represented than just this one.

I would like to know the answer to the OP’s question. Will this end in a 5-man dungeon also?

I’m over 40 years old and I’ve played many many games over the years. I already know what’s fun for me and what isn’t fun for me. I personally don’t find dealing with a dungeon fun so I’m simply not interested. I have a lot of other things to do in the game that more than qualifies as fun. I’m having a blast and I don’t feel the need to take jabs at the content I don’t personally like.

I sometimes do miss Fort Aspenwood in GW1 though. Random grouping took away a lot of the hassle for me although sometimes you would end up playing with people who didn’t speak english. lol

I think that if dungeons in GW2 had an option for random grouping I would probably play them a bit more.

Seeing as there is an achievemnt for escaping from a diabolical Sylvari’s Lair, I’d say this is a given.

The horrific misuse of a semicolon from OP annoyed me more than their whining about multiplayer in an MMO.

Elbegast.6970:

… I played GW1 for years and never had to group to complete anything…

Clearly you missed out on a lot of fun parts of the game like Tomb of the Primeval Kings, Fisure of Woe, and Underworld. You can only solo so much in those areas. And insead of relying on other people, you chose to rely on henchmen and heroes. Which is fine as a point of convenience, but real people are generally more effective than AI controlled NPCs.

Elbegast.6970:

I don’t join guilds. I have no one on my friends list. I don’t beg and grovel others to carry me through content.

Since when is forming a 5-man cooperative group being carried through? If that’s the case, then all you’re admitting is being inefficient and ignorant of the dungeon mechanics. Learn the content and you won’t have to be carried…you can participate.

Seras.5702:

but real people are generally more effective than AI controlled NPCs.

More than once in GW I went back to a mission that my guildies and I had failed and pretty much sailed through it with my Henchies of Doom. I found the Heroes and Henchies to be much more reliable in certain situations. ;-)

Tachenon.5270:

Seras.5702:

but real people are generally more effective than AI controlled NPCs.

More than once in GW I went back to a mission that my guildies and I had failed and pretty much sailed through it with my Henchies of Doom. I found the Heroes and Henchies to be much more reliable in certain situations. ;-)

Hence, the generally. We’ve all been in one of those groups.

I’ve got a bit of a counter question to the actual question being posed here, because I’m always curious to find out what people think (regardless of whether or not I agree with it):
We have a lot of “If it ends with a dungeons, I won’t even do it” and “I wasted all my time on F&F / Personal Story because it ended in a stupid dungeon”, but riddle me this:

While you were doing the personal story, the little F&F preliminary stuffs, where you enjoying it? Did you have fun doing that content? If you answered yes to that, then do it and enjoy it anyways and if there IS a dungeon at the end, just ignore it.

For anyone else:
“MMO” does not imply grouping, or imply not needing grouping. Everyone needs to back off of that term.

Majority of complaints stem from “final-step” Dungeons (think personal story), as players who don’t want to do dungeons (some with medical issues or IRL obligations) hit a ‘brick wall’.

“Personal Story” does not mean the story focuses entirely on you, just that it involves you, so we again need to all back off of using it in arguments about how dungeons “aren’t personal.”

OP: If you see the red Anet logo by your thread, then you will know that Anet has given you an answer (without you even needing to hop in and read through anything), and it will save you some of your time. Chances are, they are a bit busy to answer you, so I wouldn’t expect an answer – however, if you enjoy the game go play it anyways.

im all up for groups, could use something like dungeon finder, OMG every mmo has it but this one

KorbanDallas.7389:

I’ve got a bit of a counter question to the actual question being posed here, because I’m always curious to find out what people think (regardless of whether or not I agree with it):
We have a lot of “If it ends with a dungeons, I won’t even do it” and “I wasted all my time on F&F / Personal Story because it ended in a stupid dungeon”, but riddle me this:

While you were doing the personal story, the little F&F preliminary stuffs, where you enjoying it? Did you have fun doing that content? If you answered yes to that, then do it and enjoy it anyways and if there IS a dungeon at the end, just ignore it.

For anyone else:
“MMO” does not imply grouping, or imply not needing grouping. Everyone needs to back off of that term.

Majority of complaints stem from “final-step” Dungeons (think personal story), as players who don’t want to do dungeons (some with medical issues or IRL obligations) hit a ‘brick wall’.

“Personal Story” does not mean the story focuses entirely on you, just that it involves you, so we again need to all back off of using it in arguments about how dungeons “aren’t personal.”

OP: If you see the red Anet logo by your thread, then you will know that Anet has given you an answer (without you even needing to hop in and read through anything), and it will save you some of your time. Chances are, they are a bit busy to answer you, so I wouldn’t expect an answer – however, if you enjoy the game go play it anyways.

To be honest, F&F just felt like busy work and an extension of the daily grind. I did enjoy the MA pop up DEs, because they were fairly well designed and the added event density was welcome, however, I didn’t find any of the rest of it to be particularly fun. (Well, I did like the story instances, but felt let down that they were only single part affairs. I would much rather have had a series of 4-6 story instances for each character over two months than one each that culminated in a ::gag:: 5-man Dungeon).

Me and my friends primarily did them to give Arenanet a chance to show their concept was viable and for the achievements/rewards. Among the five of us, we did a very good job of keeping pace with new achievements when they became available, but all of us stopped bothering when the Dungeon was announced and made a crucial element in completion/reward.

Now, you are probably going to say “the five of you, why didn’t you just all group up and do the dungeon”? Well, there are five of us who are real life friends, but getting more than three of us at any time is difficult with our schedules and was impossible during the time window the content was available. We all play together via VOIP and the social aspect is a big portion of what makes it fun.

The arbitrary requirement of five people for a dungeon is probably too big a burden for most people who play regularly with RL friends, rather than playing as part of a large, faceless guild. Allowing scaling for 2-5 or even 3-5 would make the content much more viable for many more people.

GW2 already has a number of mechanisms for scaling content. It’s hard to believe that they couldn’t successfully design scalable dungeons, if they actually wanted to, incentivizing grouping with more people, but fully supporting smaller group sizes. Another NCSoft game, Wildstar, is planning on offering Dungeons that scale from solo all the way up to raid size. If they succeed, imo, it’s going to make Arenanet look even more foolish for not trying to at least allow scaling for 1 to 5, or 2 to 5.

Fiontar.4695:

Now, you are probably going to say “the five of you, why didn’t you just all group up and do the dungeon”? Well, there are five of us who are real life friends, but getting more than three of us at any time is difficult with our schedules and was impossible during the time window the content was available. We all play together via VOIP and the social aspect is a big portion of what makes it fun.

The arbitrary requirement of five people for a dungeon is probably too big a burden for most people who play regularly with RL friends, rather than playing as part of a large, faceless guild. Allowing scaling for 2-5 or even 3-5 would make the content much more viable for many more people.

If you look around, you’ll find I’m generally pretty imaginative towards things, so I could come up with multiple reasons why you wouldn’t do a dungeon even with 5 friends (but thanks for the explanation anyways).
I’ve had some problems with PUGs in the past in other games, so I tend to only play with friends or solo myself – as a fact, my entire guild consists of 90% people I know in real life, or that someone I know knows (although I tend to party with the ones I do know), and likewise have experienced similar instances of only having 2 or 3 people on at any given time. What I do tend to do though is try and get at least 5 of them together time and again and do dungeons with them, because I tend to enjoy difficult content (ever hear of I Wanna Be The Guy? Yeah) and would rather do it with friends than with strangers (to date, we’ve gotten all but two story modes wrapped up, and the explorable versions of 3 or 4 done I think).

I do think that making it scalable from 2-5 would be the best bet (i’d prefer 2 – 8 because I miss having everyone together at once when playing on that rare occasion) as some dungeon mechanics require at least that second person to still function properly, but I also think that these kind of threads would still show up (as a lot of the solo-mode complaints stem from various reasonable reasons of not wanting other people around). To note though – some of the dungeons can be completed without a full party (I’ve managed a few with 3) as long as everyone pulls their own weight. Not CM though. I don’t care what anyone says about that dungeon, I dispise it.

Well, imo. If they “force” us to group up like last story dungeon, we should at least have some kind of automatic lfg system. Kind of like spvp I guess.

Varonica.8307:

Daemon.4295:

Elbegast.6970:

Will Southsun be ending in a Group Dungeon?

I would like to know so that I don’t waste my time with the content. I have no desire to complete a single player chain; only to beg 4 other players to run me through a dungeon.

Forcing people to party to complete a dungeon is just wrong, especially after a long chain of soloable content.

I sure hope so, in my personal opinion temporary themed dungeon events are the most entertaining type of event in GW2. Keep them coming ArenaNet!!!

To paraphrase other people here, you are just selfish wanting them to add content for just one type of player, but I am not serious, they can have as many new dungeons as you want, themed to if you like, just don’t add them to story arcs like this, and still waiting for that answer, this oh so friendly and helpfull company that listens to its player base can’t be bothered answering.

Look basically I don’t care whether or not you want more dungeons, and whether or not you get them, that’s not the question under discussion here, at least it’s not supposed to be the question, the question is will southsun cove storyline end in a 5 man dungeon, it just needs a yes or a no from anet and we can all move on doing our own thing.

Hey I just commented on what I personally enjoy most in GW2, I never said they should ignore other types of content. Honestly I think Anet does a good job at improving all aspects of gameplay, whether it’s new maps in spvp, new tactics for wvw, or new dungeons in pve.

Regarding single player content, I don’t have a problem with people playing GW2 solo but at the end of the day it is an MMO, so I think a stronger focus from the devs on group play is to be expected. Also, Living Story isn’t an extension of your Personal Story, it isn’t all about your character. You’re supposed to be working together with your fellow Tyrians to make the world a better place. What I do have a gripe with is the final dungeon in personal story, which robs you of all your glory and was a big mistake on Anet’s part in my opinion. I wasn’t even in the cutscenes!

PS: Arenanet will never tell you how the living story content will unravel, that would be a horrific spoiler for the rest of us. But it’s probably safe to say that you will see more solo content, and more group content. Something for everyone!

Pukknub.7368:

Well, imo. If they “force” us to group up like last story dungeon, we should at least have some kind of automatic lfg system. Kind of like spvp I guess.

They said they were working on this ages ago, didn’t they? We might see it at some point. It doesn’t bother me though, gw2lfg works just fine for me.

Its a MMO it good when they add new instance that make you work with other players….

Killface.1896:

Its a MMO it good when they add new instance that make you work with other players….

That might make sense, but for the arbitrary requirement for five players. Even the ability to scale for 3-5 players would be a vast, vast improvement for people who want to do group content with friends, but can’t because they can’t often get five people together at once to do things.

I tend to think that scaling for 1-5 would be best, because it no longer gates content vs. people who just insist on always playing solo, but also provides easy access to content for group sizes of 2-5. I think people would group up more often with that level of flexibility than they do with the current 5-man requirement, not less.

However, if Arenanet just couldn’t pull off successful scaling for 1-5, even 3-5 would be worth the development effort, as I would expect that for every notch the range would be widened, it would make the content viable for exponentially more players.

I think this subject takes on more urgency in light of NCSoft’s other big game in the pipeline, WildStar. If, and I admit it’s a big if, Carbine can actually pull off the announced scalability of WildStar’s dungeon content from Solo to full raid size and any size in between, then it’s going to make the lack of scalability in GW2, a game that every where else scales, seem all the more pitiful.

GW2 was always supposed to be about removing the barriers to grouping and incentivizing players to play together instead, rather than forced grouping. That Dungeons currently enforce an arbitrary party size and create serious barriers for groups of 2-4 playing the content together seems to be a symptom of intractable, old school thinking, lack of developer ability, pure laziness or some combination of the three.

Elbegast.6970:

Will Southsun be ending in a Group Dungeon?

I would like to know so that I don’t waste my time with the content. I have no desire to complete a single player chain; only to beg 4 other players to run me through a dungeon.

Forcing people to party to complete a dungeon is just wrong, especially after a long chain of soloable content.

If the devs aren’t going to answer the question, why would most players even bother with the whole mess? It IS a horrid thing to sit there, BEGGING for four others to go.

I have the same issue on my 80 Ranger for my personal story – that’s terrible.

People really think that 4 other players is massive multiplayer?