Guild Wars 2

There is no need for skill in PvE for this game. I can go through a dungeon, worst group of life, just bum rushing everything, die hundreds of times, and still get the same reward as someone who tried extremely hard and died no times at all. Armor repairs aren’t even a deterrent, you can just not repair your armor and just keep killing one thing at a time before you die. the same goes for quests.

There needs to be a limit to how many times you die in a quest or dungeon because at this point you might as well just hand people the chest. They’re going to get it eventually.

Even if it is not a limit on death’s, just something that actually requires you to work for it.

I personally think they should bring in an “in dungeon” death penalty that should punish you simply for dying lots.

The problem right now is that you can die lots and still get the reward. There should come a point with the dungeons where you’re not just costing lots of money in repair bills, but outright BARRED from carrying on by a debuff of some kind. It should simply be a case of saying to people, “you failed, therefore you go no further than this.”

The game should be forcing people to play well in explorable mode (at least), and those who chose to use death to attempt to get past the parts they don’t enjoy should be punished for doing so. It shouldn’t be a viable option to corpse rush… ever.

And the reward at the end should be an actual reward.

I think a 20+ silver repair bill is a penalty as itself, no?

Dungeons might be quite easy for groups who are good at the mechanics, know how to dodge, equip themselves properly, bring symbiotic skills etc. – as Colin Johanson pointed out in an earlier post about dungeon difficulty. But those requirements almost certainly don’t fit the majority of the playerbase, most likely in fact a small minority of dungeon groups will get these factors even half right.

In the light of the above then, making dungeons more punitive would mean that most people would soon give up and the work Arenanet put into dungeons would only be seen by a small minority of gamers.

Part of the problem is that dungeons are just too long, which enhances the possibility of missteps causing wipes. But also when your users have invested hours into an activity only to fail it and have their effort amount to nothing that’s a strong incentive to keep the majority of players out of dungeons permanently, fun as it might be a few.

Also, it’s somewhat hard to know exactly how difficult dungeons are for most people, since difficulty always gets muddled up with ego and everyone claiming they can do them easily with both arms tied behind their backs – which is often far from the truth when you actually encounter one of those players.

Personally I do not think that ArenaNet should base content consumption on what players SHOULD see, and instead should base it on what players DESERVE to see. Content should be treated in the same way items and currency are treated; players should earn the right to see the content at the end of a dungeon by clearing the rest of the dungeon. If they can’t do that, they don’t get to see the content.

It’s that simple.

I also do not thing that excusing poor mechanic design by saying it “allows everyone to see the content” adds anything to this discussion at all, outside of a stench of entitlement.

So you’re saying discouraging the majority of players from ever doing a dungeon again is a good thing.?Interesting….

The eternal struggle between hardcore gamers and everyone else continues.

Not everyone has 24 hours a day free to perfect their skills…

Adine.2184:

So you’re saying discouraging the majority of players from ever doing a dungeon again is a good thing.?Interesting….

No, that’s not what I’m saying. Way to twist the concept.

I’m arguing with several notions put forward in this thread. I’m arguing with the idea that greater risk and challenge causes people to stop running dungeons. I’m arguing with the idea that because the content is there it means everyone should get to see it.

I’m arguing against mediocrity

The main problem I have is that people here are suggesting that the game’s challenging content should be grossly devalued simply because people should inherently “get to see it”. It shouldn’t, and they shouldn’t. If that content is designed SPECIFICALLY for the presentation of the game’s more challenging areas, then it should only be seen by overcoming those challenges. World of Warcraft tried to create a system where “everyone” got to see the content, and that ruined raiding for a lot of people. Prior to TBC, raiding wasn’t just about getting the gear. It was about seeing that content, and earning the right to see that content. It was a reward in and of itself to get into Naxx. It was definitely a reward to see – and then kill – C’Thun. These days, it is not a reward to see Deathwing in Hard Mode; you’ve already seen him in ezmode. The only reward is the loot, and that’s where it ends. There’s no enthusiasm for raiding any more, as can be seen with the demise of top end raiding. I personally believe it was this decision to average out the game that has led to the continued decline of World of Warcraft.

That sort of approach to design reflects a compromise on the integrity of the game; when a game losses integrity, it is sure to lose players.

In my opinion, dungeons should be set up in the following way:

The dungeon should be set up in stages, defined by the distinct boss fights and challenges within that dungeon. A player should move through the dungeon by completing those boss fights or challenges, with each challenge becoming sequentially harder. The player should then be rewarded at each stage of completion in a way that reflects the difficulty of the boss or challenge they have completed, and a final reward for completing the entire dungeon.

Each stage should require skill and ability. Regardless of whether it’s a fight, or a puzzle, or any other form of major challenge, the player should have to DO something to get a reward; that doesn’t include ghost running. It shouldn’t be a case of, “you are free to complete the designated challenges, or you are free to simply move beyond them because you don’t want to do them.”

In addition to this, players should suffer the consequences of failure in no uncertain terms. If a player fails to achieve something after a given period of time – whether that’s defined by a time limit, or a cap on deaths – the dungeon should be reset, and they should have to do it all again.

There’s nothing wrong with this sort of system, especially if each stage rewards are definitely valuable. People would still run the dungeons as, even if they can’t get past the third challenge (or whatever), the rewards would be worth their time, and progressing further in the dungeon would be a natural goal. If the dungeon design is on the ball, players will openly talk about encounters and challenges that they liked, which would inspire other players to pursue those encounters and challenges. That’s how it works in raiding (or did), and it’s how the loot game works in general. If you devalue that system, you are devaluing a central component of the game. Sadly it’s already devalued, and more value needs to be applied.

HakkaiRequiem.5130:

The eternal struggle between hardcore gamers and everyone else continues.

I’m not a hardcore gamer. I’m a very casual player.

Just because I value ACTUAL challenge, and think that that the risk:reward ratio is VERY important to challenging content, does not mean I’m a hardcore player.

If you do not want an actual challenge, why would you try to run the content that is intended to be challenging? I mean… it’s clear that without the corpse run exploit (which is ultimately what it is) many people would not cleared that content for how hard it is, and if the exploit didn’t exist you would HAVE to perfect your skills, or go and do something else?

Just because you WANT to do something does not mean you should instantly be allowed to do it. Just because you WANT the best gear in the game, or you want to see ALL of the content, doesn’t mean you should inherently just be allowed to do that. You should have to EARN that right. I’d rather earn it through actual challenges, things that test my abilities as a gamer.

Right now what you have is the usual lame grind.

I think that is up to each person. If you do not want to do it that way, then don’t. I will leave a group if they are dying too much, not dodging enough etc. I personally have no interest in zerging a dungeon, so I will leave. I eventually did finish story AC being downed 3 times (no defeats), and 2 other players got defeated once I think.

So need to change the dungeon standards, just change the way you run it.

Kal.2376:

I think that is up to each person. If you do not want to do it that way, then don’t. I will leave a group if they are dying too much, not dodging enough etc. I personally have no interest in zerging a dungeon, so I will leave. I eventually did finish story AC being downed 3 times (no defeats), and 2 other players got defeated once I think.

So need to change the dungeon standards, just change the way you run it.

You may be willing to forgo the zerg, but the vast majority of players are not willing to do that. If you give a player two options, they will almost invariably pick the option that represented the least risk and the greatest reward. It is often not because they “enjoy” that option more, and it has more to do with the fact that they get the reward without having to take any risks.

That shouldn’t be allowed.

There’s a cost to repeated dying – it uses up time.

When you combine that with the large number of runs required to get the dungeon armours, it becomes quite a significant cost.

This is a clever cost because it penalises failure over the long run but doesn’t stop players from completing content.

I don’t think we need more of a penalty here, but instead more of a reward. How about bonus rewards for less deaths or clearing in a certain amount of time. These are things that are not required to do/enjoy the dungeon, but could give an extra challenge/incentive for players to do it well.

Well, I can agree with more rewards. But only in small amounts – like 20% more money and tokens for a perfect run. (so ultimately, all you’re doing is giving a time penalty to unskilled people, since they can get the same amount of money/tokens if they just run the dungeon a few more times. But you’re dressing it up in a nicer way.)

I play mostly japanese games, so I’ve always enjoyed the “Ranking” system most of their games have. It’s always fun to try and perfect your skills to S-Rank all the missions in a game like Devil May Cry etc.

It’s bad to have some sort of “exclusive” reward for people who do perfect runs (apart from an achievement or a title), because that leads to content being inaccessible to a large proportion of your playerbase, which is usually not a good thing.

I kind of like the positive reinforcement side as well. No deaths, you get some bonus. 1 death, less bonus, 2 deaths, even less, etc.

In the end, it’s the same thing as a penalty (you do bad, you get less stuff), but the way people see it is a little different. The rewards could be individual as well, so if I do not die at all, but player B next to me dies 4 times, then I’m not really affected.

I’s tricky, but applying any penalty, or bonus is always tricky. You can’t really force people to play well. You can nudge them a bit with a carrot though.

^ Almost agree OP. Good play should be rewarded. Bad play is punishment enough all on its own.

If you suck, and therefore zerg rush your way to victory, secretly deep down… you know it.

If you have (and use) the time to perfect your skills and find like minded others to play with, you should get more/better than those who don’t.

I HATE content being locked behind artificial walls like in other games, but I’ll tell you what I hate even more: PUNISHING A GAME PLAYER FOR ANYTHING that doesn’t break the game.

Games need to be about rewards. Punishment is never acceptable for the general game experience. If you’re harrasing others, or exploiting or whatever, go eat a bag of broken glass for all I care.

But games should be mouth-breather: small reward, all content. Uber-raiding-god: large reward, all content.

Easier said than done, I know. But that’s why I’m a mouth-breathing gamer, not a designer.

How about the amount of time it takes?

I think there has to be exotics guarantee drop in dungeons I do not even see the point going into the dungeon in the first place If I have the same chance of getting something I want from PvP or WvW or random drop.

So far I find PvE to be under par with every other MMO the mechanics are great the loot and all of that side of things not so great.

people take things a little to serious. locking people out of a dungeon for dying is insane. if a group take 3 hrs to clear a dungeon and die 100 timeskittenright they deserve to finish it as far as im concerned. they have earned it maybe not by your standards but i have. now the part that i do agree with maybe extra tokens for for dying less, more gold, maybe make it timed. Ill tell you this if you have a gripe try to come up with a solution that makes everyone happy not just yourself . it isnt hard if you brainstorm.