Guild Wars 2

When I reached level 35 on my first character, I was very excited to do the Explorable Mode of Ascalonian Catacombs. What I found very quickly was that no one wanted to party with a level 35 character. Everyone wanted characters near or at level 80.
Eventually I found a party. It was full of players around level 35. Playing through the dungeon at this level, especially with new players who were not knowledgeable of dungeon mechanics, resulted in several hours of incredibly aggravating and repetitive gameplay.

As far as I’m concerned, Guild Wars 1 had this perfect. As you did dungeons the first time around, characters of the appropriate level could beat them in a reasonable amount of time, often without party wipes, even if it was the first time through. Once a character reached level 20, and had better equipment and skills, they could go back and play through the dungeon in Hard Mode for more challenging play and a better reward.
It’s frustrating to reach the appropriate level for a dungeon only to find that it’s almost impossible to beat in a reasonable amount of time.

Story mode was supposed to be the casual mode option for dungeons with explorable modes being the hard mode option. A casual mode or hard mode option that could be selected in explorable dungeons might allow allow less skilled players to experience content that might otherwise be too difficult.

I like this idea and would fully support an easier/lower level mode, a “normal” mode (current one) and a hard mode for dungeons.

While I see your point, I somewhat disagree. We have been playing the game for almost a year. The challenge of some of the content is worth every death, as far as I am concerned. I would hate to see “easymode” come through and ruin the challenge, even if they gave us a choice of “checking the box” for easy or hard.

The content isn’t “too difficult” imho. It is challenging, yes, but a group of appropriate level characters can make it through, as long as one doesn’t make it a speed run ala CoF.

Instead, I would rather see a bonus or “special” reward for the one level 80 to help a group of 35’s through th story mode.

In short, no. Please don’t.

@Spencer: Story mode does not provide a reward comparable to Explore mode.

@Ashabhi: How nice for you that you don’t find it too difficult, and that you are not a new player. That doesn’t mean others don’t have this problem. I also don’t see how it would in any way ruin the challenge. Like I said in my first post, the Hard Mode version would provide a greater reward, so if you are level 80 there would be no reason to play in easy mode. Easy mode would be primarily for low level players who do not want to waste a ton of time just to do a dungeon. The AC dungeon takes around 20-40 minutes for a group of level 80’s. For a group of 35’s this can easily turn into 2+ hours, with a strong possibility of party wipes and players rage quitting, if just one or two players aren’t particularly skilled or familiar with dungeon mechanics. For someone who doesn’t have that kind of time, or doesn’t feel that the reward is worth that kind of time, this means waiting til around level 80 before even bothering with the dungeon. A level 35 dungeon that people don’t want to do until they are a much higher level is a very badly planned dungeon.

They should add Heroic mode whit nice loot like skins and stuff to each dungeon.

My greatest concern is that dungeons should look most attractive to players currently at the dungeon’s level. Right now that is when they look least attractive.