Guild Wars 2

I remember that one of the reasons argued to reject the “Holly Trinity” was that PUGs had not problems finding players to complete a party, however, it happens that 5 player parties still have problems to fin players to complete them. There is also the problem for casual players that as they may go afk several times during a dungeon, they do not want to play in a PUG. In GW 1 there were Heroes and Henchies so there was no problem to solo a dungeon.

So I suggest to make all dungeons scalable from 1 to 5 players, so that there is neither need to search for a party nor a need to look for more player to fill a 5 players party.

not sure if making it soloable is the solution to this problem…I have this problem as well…I dont like getting together with a group where I know I must be in for 1.5 hours or more without the option of taking a break or leaving without ill effects…I think one big problem is Story Mode…by making something like Story Mode they have created a case where as time goes on less and less people are willing to do a dungeon in SM making anybody who waited to do them until now SOL…so maybe making Story Mode soloable would be a good idea…but the Explorable Modes should definitely remain a group thing…OR a dungeon finder could solve all these issues

I can’t agree with this one! Just like Missions in GW1, Dungeons are supposed to be party “areas”. We already have most of the map that is easily soloable (at least until level 56, where I stand at the moment).

On the other hand, I think ANet should add MORE party required areas!

Except, as marianojc points out, groups are hard to come by or difficult to pull together, so a scaling system or hireable henchmen/heroes would be useful.

Nobody seems to want to do story mode (and those that do always demand that cutscenes be skipped) and in the groups I’ve joined in the past, the first demand has usually been “link your gear” followed by a boot out of the group.

Why should any sane human being have to put up with nonsense like that? If soloing/group scaling making dungeons more accessible to us mere plebs, then who cares if gear stat-addled elitist snobs get offended?

I kinda agree with OP – except we should be able to hire henchmen to fill out our group like in GW1 instead of soloing.

I can never find groups for story mode dungeons. I can’t kill Zaitan because I can’t get through the story mode dungeons. It would be nice to finish my storylines. This game definitely does not take into account the fact that almost nobody is willing to replay story mode dungeons to help others. There should be dungeon henchmen for story mode at least or make them soloable.

Honestly, I think the only part that should be allowed to be scaled from soloing to a 5 party group should be the story mode since it’s the only real part that you don’t get much of anything out of but the story and it always seems difficult to put a party together for one.

No! Just NO! This is a social game and this aspect should remain and be reinforced…
You don’t find someone? Join an active guild, interacts, make friends! This is what the game is supposed to be! Want to play a solo game? You are on the wrong place…

Yes. Very yes. One of the critical factors that kept me enjoying Guild Wars throughout the years was the ability to do it on my own. I thoroughly enjoyed tinkering around with hero teams and was able to accomplish 30/30 and 50/50 with Heroes and Henchmen. Being able to play at my own: pace, distance, and style allowed me to enjoy what I like most about the game: my experimental builds, teams, the music, the environment and all without hassle, complaint or interference. At the same time, the players that preferred to travel with others were able to enjoy they liked: each other. Everyone wins.

Eddie Van Grog.7095:

Want to play a solo game? You are on the wrong place…

The problem with this mentality is that Arenanet has a massive fanbase of people who enjoy solo gameplay because of Guild Wars 1. You’re telling me to abandon my favorite game company right now.

Edit: And anyways, that’s not even the issue. The issue is that pugs just don’t form for story mode dungeons. I don’t want to be forced to join somebody else’s massive guild just so I can disappear into a crowd. I prefer strong relationships with fewer friends than lousy relationships with tons of people for my guild experience.

Absolutely not! Now I am not opposed to them intruducing dungeons that are for smaller groups…like three or two and make it so the dungeons mobs and bosses scale to the number of the people involved. However, making dungeons soloable pretty much eliminates the point. And This opinion is coming from someone who thinks that dungeons for the sake of progression is a REALLY bad idea in any game!

Not! If you want to solo a dungeon, play a single player game or die a lot in DDO.

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Yes, this would be great. I don’t do dungeons because of the grouping requirement but if I could do them solo, I would.

I think it would be a cool alternative if there were solo versions of the dungeons or even an infinite/endless dungeon like Torchlight. Prior to launch I actually thought story mode was going to be solo and explorable was for groups.

I think making dungeons soloable would run counter to what ANet was trying to achieve with the shift to a more open world in GW2, but as somebody who pretty much solo’ed all of GW1 with H/H, I can understand the desire.

Personally I would still do open world just as often as I do WvW or dungeons, a change such as this would merely give me something else to do when I feel like some quiet time to myself. Much like fishing in an Mmo, it’s good to just immerse yourself in an area by yourself sometimes.

Elthurien.8356:

Prior to launch I actually thought story mode was going to be solo and explorable was for groups.

I did as well.

However, instanced dungeons have traditionally been group content mini-games within a persistent online world. This and the rewards that go with it needs to be preserved and not taken away from the players who enjoy group content. That said, GW2 does have an unique opportunity to appeal to more than just this type of player by making Story mode either solo or able to be completed with npc assistance while not messing around with the explorable mode and it’s group requirement.

Also, I tend to disagree with the attitude that MMO means you either need to learn to play as part of a group or go play some other game that is meant for solo play. That is old school thinking. Times have change. More types of people are playing and we don’t always fit into this classic mode of online gaming.

To me, the pinnacle of MMO-ness means a massive persistent online world to be enjoyed by many players and many play styles. GW2 is very well placed here and the open world with scaling zones, scaling events, the way that waypoints and inventory management are handled, etc. allows for this without the needed commitment to large amounts of time to either complete content, to find a group, to travel or to be stuck at a hub. This makes for an exciting and immersed open world with challenges for all types of players and the desire to explore all zones and content. Adding a solo mode to instanced dungeons would only enhance the accessibility of the game.

Areannet, Why can I have NPC assistance in story mode quests but not in the story mode on the dungeon?

Instead of solo, Anet should develop better tools to find people to join you on dungeons! Either by finding groups or just filling spots randomly on teams of people doing the same dungeon (across all servers). Dungeons should be about team play and should reward that…
GW1 was never meant to be solo. It was the declining population that led Anet to introduce heroes and allow solo gameplay. Maybe when GW2 becomes older that would be justified, nowadays I think it defeats the purpose of the game.
This is not a solo game… Even though you can make lots of it on your own, certain areas should maintain the team cooperation aspect of it! You want to solo… Solo jumping puzzles that give you good drops. Not dungeons that are supposed to be hard and challenging and require teamplay! No… please, no!

Good luck finding teammates who actually want to work together rather than run off and do their own thing once you enter a dungeon (or bail out altogether when they discover that their teammates aren’t wearing uber-leet armour like themselves). This is why I favour solo play – I actually want to explore and enjoy the dungeons, not speedrun the things like some of the people I used to end up grouping with.

ANet have already capitulated to the loud-mouthed gear-grinders, so what can possibly be wrong with making dungeons more accessible to people who are increasingly sick to death of elitists?

uknortherner.2670:

Good luck finding teammates who actually want to work together rather than run off and do their own thing once you enter a dungeon (or bail out altogether when they discover that their teammates aren’t wearing uber-leet armour like themselves). This is why I favour solo play – I actually want to explore and enjoy the dungeons, not speedrun the things like some of the people I used to end up grouping with.

Yes this just about sums it up………….

And this I want to do……..
“This is why I favour solo play – I actually want to explore and enjoy the dungeons, not speedrun the things like some of the people I used to end up grouping with”.

Dungeons to me are a disaster, a lot of content is being skipped, it’s hard finding/getting in a group, it’s quite a big part of the game I want to enjoy doing, not just HAVE to do it for the grind and find it a chore.

Oh wait, there’s more “grind” just around the corner !!

Solid Gold.9310:

Oh wait, there’s more “grind” just around the corner !!

Except we don’t know that yet. But I digress, this isn’t the place to discuss that.

I’d say make Story Mode solo-able, but keep Explorable Mode as group content.

If you go making everything solo-able, then people won’t group up, simply because it’s more convenient.

Not seeing how that would be a good thing for an MMO.

uknortherner.2670:

Good luck finding teammates who actually want to work together rather than run off and do their own thing once you enter a dungeon (or bail out altogether when they discover that their teammates aren’t wearing uber-leet armour like themselves). This is why I favour solo play – I actually want to explore and enjoy the dungeons, not speedrun the things like some of the people I used to end up grouping with.

ANet have already capitulated to the loud-mouthed gear-grinders, so what can possibly be wrong with making dungeons more accessible to people who are increasingly sick to death of elitists?

Join a guild?

The problem in dungeons is the cheesy damage and huge health pools.

You need to “endure” X minutes of “no mistakes” against a brick wall that hits like a truck.
It’s not fun.

Nurvus.2891:

The problem in dungeons is the cheesy damage and huge health pools.

You need to “endure” X minutes of “no mistakes” against a brick wall that hits like a truck.
It’s not fun.

Agreed. While the lack of Trinity is a good thing, they also need to insert mechanics that promote team-play (since you need to add if you’re taking away), as well as awareness outside of 1HKO and AoE.

Good god no. There’s already too much of this game that can be done solo, negating the point of a Massively Multiplayer Online game.

If you want to play GW2 alone, play Skyrim. It’s a much better game solo.

They want GW2 to become MSORPG (Massively Soloplayer Online RPG).

I think it would be good idea to make dungeons soloable. But if players want to go in there in groups it should not be restricted either.

Dungeons in GW2 reminds at this point like DoA in GW1. Team want to see other players gears and if they think it is not elitist enough, they just kick that party member off. In that way, those elitists players choose who will go in the dungeon and who will not. Who is allowed to do Dungeons and who is not. They don’t want to give a change for other players.

In GW1 there were same thing in DoA. Other players wanted that there would be DwG, UA, HB, Imba and so on. Even DoA were playable with heroes too

Let’s make all players enjoy all part of the game, even dungeons.

I think “solo” might be too extreme, but making them scale a bit from, say, 3-5 players would go a long way towards helping people get into at least story mode more quickly. Having to kill a hour (and spam /map) looking for the last person or two to do an unpopular story mode dungeon is just a waste of time, especially if the dungeon itself already takes a long time. Of course a dungeon finder would make many of these issues moot, but I have no idea which is more likely to be implemented and either would help.

Another idea that I think could solve some problems is a system of automated PUGs, much like it is for sPvP or like it is in Diablo 3 cooperative mode. So that players have to accept whoever joins with them regardless of gear, level or skill and that leaving the group does not cause any problem to the remaining people, because either a new player is introduced by the automated system, or because the monsters scale down.

Mmm Diablo 3 might be another good example of what I suggest, you can play in D3 either solo or with other players, monsters scale up and down on the go with the actual number of players there are in the team, or a player leaves and another comes, and complains from some players against other players gear or skill or level is unsual (may be, because, if you do not like them, you just leave without harm for the remaining people). The whole D3 is like a dungeon.

In Guild Wars 2 there is the system of scaling up or down characters, so a way to implement this suggestion might be to scale up several levels a player’s character that enters solo in a Dungeon -say level 80 → level 92-, if another player comes then it is scaled down -say level 80 → 89- , if still one more player comes it is scaled down again -say level 80 → 86-,…. if a player leaves then the remaining players’ characters are scaled up.

I agree with the OP on this one. I would really love to see henchmen available for dungeons. There are a number of reasons why a person might want to go through a dungeon solo. They’ve been mentioned here and on other threads, but my list includes:
- Not having long contiguous time slots for game time and needing to even temporarily step away from the computer (henchmen don’t complain when you’re AFK)
- Wanting to explore and enjoy dungeon content at your own pace (sometimes I just want to see what’s around a corner or over a bridge even if it is a dead end)
- Not feeling compelled to skim or skip cinematics when I know the other people have seen them before
- I’ve seen people respond that this is an MMO and henchmen would discourage people playing together – I disagree with this – I don’t enjoy group play all that much and avoid it when possible anyway – if you are a group player that is great and I don’t want to minimize your gaming experience, however honestly I (and others like me) weren’t going to PUG with you anyway – so having henchmen available changes nothing for you, but gains a lot for us
- All content should be accessible to people who enjoy solo, small group, or a full group – there are people who like to partner with one friend and don’t really want to add other people – let them fill out the party with henchmen – so far the only dungeon in GW2 I’ve played is Arah story mode, and that because I had to in order to finish the story line – I’d like to experience the content from other dungeons, but on my own time at my own pace
- Players who enjoy group play should not be impacted at all and can still form groups – undoubtedly they will still have a tactical advantage since unless players are very poor, a full group of players should be stronger than a solo player plus henchmen – I’d still deliberately choose the “penalty” of henchmen in order to have the benefits of playing at my own pace, be able to step away when needed, not feel compelled to rush, etc.
- Allow players easier access to less-populated dungeons where finding a full group would otherwise be time-consuming

Fractals needs a solo mode if the only reward is an increase in scale so players can remain viable.

I agree, but they don’t have to make it easier. All you need to do is not let the monsters in dungeons heal if they lose aggro or go out of range of their leash (actually, just unleash them for solo – if we get camped at the WP tough meowmeow for us) and we can handle the rest.

Henchman stuff sounds good too. Can we use our alts as Henchmen?

Story mode should be solo-able, for no other reason than that it’s kitten hard to find a party for story mode. Explorable is a group thing, it should stay that way.

Of course, the main issue with dungeons is the loot, but that’s another story…

I would like to be able to solo everything, maybe except for Fractals. But so far, Fractals is the only dungeon I’ve run across that requires teamwork, even the DE’s were more based on adding bodies for more DPS than any kind of teamwork. If teamwork isn’t part of the equation, why not scale for soloing? When I have done the story runs, it was with parties that had done it a dozen times, and they just went quick through it all, and the mystery and difficulty was greatly reduced. It was much less enjoyable than going through at my own pace and learning the trick to the boss fights. Once Nightfall came out, I said goodbye to PUGs, because the henchmen were more consistent than the players. GW2 is much less tactical and cooperative and the only tactics/roles that really matter is to target the same enemy, fall back, and do dps.

Then again, I only completed the first three story modes, so I am hoping the explorable modes and later dungeons get more intense.

I would absolutely love this ! Making them scalable from 1 to 5 players as the OP suggested is a brilliant idea. I would also add to make group events soloable when there’s no one around or little or no interest shown in doing them by other players. Cathedral of Silence has been contested on my server for the last 2 weeks, stopping 100% map completion of Cursed Shores for me. When this place is contested you cant do the skill point north of Graven Cay

I do and don’t like the solo idea I feel it would only be a good idea for the story mode version for the reasons above. This removes the social aspect of the game the true solution would be to fix the dungeon party finding method since now it relies on which map you are asking chat in a simple mechanic for a global dungeon party finder would fix this issue entirely.
There are loads of people doing dungeons just not necessarily in your server…

cannons.8109:

I kinda agree with OP – except we should be able to hire henchmen to fill out our group like in GW1 instead of soloing.

I would love to see highered henchmen that scale what your level is at the time. Not like GW1 when you had to level them.

But, please, please, under any circumstances. Please do not make them like ALL the friendly guards in GW2, THE GUARDS ARE WAY TO WEAK AND DIE WAY TO FAST NO MATTER WHAT LEVEL ZONE YOU ARE IN. I beg you do not make the henchmen cookie cutter guards, ALL guards fail at any type of combat in this game.

I agree there should be some sort of soloable dungeon. I am a fan of playing alone sometimes and experiencing what my character can actually do without other people helping. Although one can already do this in general PvE, I would like to see some more difficult areas that require more finesse and skill to complete such as a single player dungeon. In normal PvE maps, other people can help you when you do not always want their help. Another fun possible idea would be a duo dungeon where two people go together and do not require a full group of five. This goes back to the idea of scaling based on group size.

dont know about making them actually solo but it would be nice to add a seperate add on to some of the dungeons like completely diffrent routes and story to them specifically for solo play similar to how some of eq2’s and age of conan have soloable dungeons specifically for that playstyle.

As usual there are people replying to the title without even bothering to read the actual post. And as usual, those responses can be disregarded.

The issue is story mode, and the point is a good one.

Maybe they could have a single path designed for soloing (and only available when soloing)… maybe, but I don’t know if catering purely to that sort of thing would be wise. Gw2 is designed to be more group oriented and I think they should keep it that way.

However, I also think they need to rework dungeons a bit and make them not so overly reliant on everyone just systematically mobbing together. Dungeons should be difficult, but good players should be able to still shine. This means that how enemies attack would need to be worked on (better attack telegraphing for one), AI group orientation and pulling groups to divide and conquer rather than facing a much larger sized force directly, etc. Bosses could be a bit more dynamic and varied as well (it seems like enemies in this game have like 2 attacks at most and maybe one charge skill that shares one of those same animations…)

Gw2 needs a decent LFG tool too. Finding groups when different players want different paths, at different times, players split between LA and the dungeon entrance map; all add up to making finding a dungeon group a royal pain in the rear sometimes (especially story modes; which I just plain gave up on ever completing).

I agree completely. Make dungeons soloable and give 20% of the reward. Heck, why stop there? Make the dungeons scale in both difficulty and reward depending on how many people are in the dungeon. This will be one more potential source of replayable PvE content in a game surprisingly lacking in replayablility.. The more options for having fun and seeing everything the game has to offer, the better.

Story mode should be ok with henchmen since not all that many people run them now.
Other than that i do not think this is a good idea at all.
You said that it should be like in GW1 and be able to do dungeons with henchmen/ Heroes.
Do you realize how hard it was with henchmen?
Even with Heroes it was no cakewalk and you needed to micro them all and carefully choose your skill builds. Maybe things got easier once they let you take on a full party of Heroes but still…it is not easy.

A henchman/hero will never dodge as good as a player and never be able to assert the situation in a game that relies on instincts and timing.

Dungeons are made to be hard and for groups.
If you do not have the 30-40 minutes it takes to finish one path then go do one of the other awesome things in game.

I was going to make a thread on this if there wasn’t one already, so I’ll weigh in here.

For the first couple of months after release, I was, to put it bluntly, simply too busy to be able to dedicate the time to run a dungeon on anything remotely resembling a regular basis. Now, I’m finding that it’s pretty much impossible to find a group for story mode – I see groups forming for AC story occasionally, sometimes CM, every once in a while TA, but SE (the one I’m stuck on now) seems to be a dead zone. Pretty much anyone who wants to form a group for a dungeon nowadays is going for explorable.

Considering that ArenaNet intended story mode to be an important part of the storyline, I’d consider it a major issue if getting story mode dungeons has become impractical already – what’s it going to be like for new players in a year’s time when there’ll be that many more months worth of new content to spread players out even more, and possibly an expansion?

With this in mind, I’d suggest one or more of the following:

1) Make Story Mode ONLY soloable, whether by downscaling the enemies or providing decent NPC assistants to fill in any open slots in the party. Explorable is supposed to be the more elite level of play that encourages teamwork (although, thinking on it, if exotics are already being made obsolete then it’s probably reasonable for the dungeon outfits to be made more accessible).

2) Provide an incentive for players to help other players out in story mode that doesn’t come out of the first-timer’s pocket. I gather ArenaNet doesn’t want people seeing story mode as something to farm, but perhaps a system could be set up whereby as long as at least one player is doing it for the first time on that character, anyone repeating it on that character gets improved rewards as an incentive for helping their fellow players out. This could even extend to dungeon tokens – not as many as completing the explorable dungeon, but enough so that a player who’s looking to collect tokens from that dungeon can help someone through story mode without completely wasting their time.

3) An improved dungeon finding system. At the moment, as a previous player noted, people looking to do a dungeon are often split between LA and the map where the dungeon is, and spending the time and/or waypoint fees going to the dungeon entrance is a gamble that all too often doesn’t pay off these days. There need to be universal lobby areas that are convenient to get to (personally, I don’t think waypoint fees should have been introduced at all since they discourage people moving freely around to find or join groups, but I think that ship has already sailed… although I hope ArenaNet does reconsider) where people who want to do a particular dungeon can congregate. And as suggested above, since the dungeons are instanced as it is and populations on servers are spreading out, they should probably be multi-server instances.

For dungeons that have contested entrances such as Arah and the Crucible of Eternity, groups once formed can be dropped at the non-contested waypoint closest to the dungeon in the server that receives the most votes from the group.

I agree with the OP, we need all dungeons to scale from solo to 5 man.

This way maybe I would be interested in play dungeons. I like your idea. +1

cannons.8109:

I kinda agree with OP – except we should be able to hire henchmen to fill out our group like in GW1 instead of soloing.

Except in GW2 they could make us pay to hire them, there’s another cash sink for them which they seem to be so very fond of.

I don’t agree…sorry.

The game has very few reasons to group up as it is.

I don’t even think story mode should be soloable…but I would concede that for a compromise.

I would like dungeons to be soloable so that I can take my time and explore them. I don’t play as much as some folks so I usually feel a bit lost in the dungeons. The rest of the group wants to barrel through and sometimes we get separated. This often happens after a wipe. I can’t always find my way back to the group quickly and as a result the rest of the group is waiting on me or proceeding without me. I find this to be frustrating. If I could explore on my own a few times before I grouped I would be better prepared and able to support the team. The rewards should be similar to what is found fighting similar content in open world to discourage gold/item farming.

I would vote against henchmen, I never liked that aspect of GW1 as I never felt like the main character of the story. I wouldn’t mind having a single persistent sidekick for dungeons only that I could level up and provide gear for similar to LOTRO’s encounters.