Guild Wars 2

Hey guys,

After reading most of the posts within the dungeon section, it does seem that malcontent is being spread because of dissatisfaction with the inherent design in the dungeons.

I am not very experienced with any form of raiding in an MMORPG; however, I have played the genre since Star Wars: Galaxies. I bought Guild Wars 2 because I have played and loved Guild Wars for six years, and along the way have met some very awesome people whose relationships have transcended just playing the game.

Here is my two cents on the dungeons: we loved, loved, loved doing HM dungeon runs in GW1. We, as a guild, met the other night with the intention of doing Ascalonian Catacombs in Explorable mode. We got some builds together and started to go through the dungeon. To make a long story short, we failed. Also, everyone was really disappointed with it, because to everyone of us it felt cheap.

Fundamentally, it seems like “difficult” has been confused with “cheap” for the dungeon. The design makes it so. It isn’t the high HP of the trash mobs (which, granted, stalls the flow through the dungeon, and is bordering on tedium). Also, having traps that take off 50% of your health with one hit is disheartening, especially when they overlap and it is an instant death. Also, the lag in the game makes it such that one can appear to be outside of the red ring of death and the trap will still get you. The latency can be a killer, literally, here. In no game, at no time, has “insta-death” ever been fun. It just feels cheap.

Also, Lt. Scorpion-Style-“GetOverHere!”-Followed-By-Spinney-Death feels cheap for numerous reasons. First, there is no escape for squishie classes that get caught by him. Instant-death follows. The latency ruins the dodging here, so it is hit or miss for a correctly-timed dodge, even with practice. Secondly, his scorpion-wire skill will pass through the pillars in the area that is to the right after going down the stairs. How can you dodge something that will pass through walls to get you? To us, and granted, we’re not elite gamers, is just feels cheap. (And cheap feels like an artificially inflated method of increasing the difficulty on something that wasn’t designed well.)

For the bosses, the ignoring of battlefield control is something else that feels “tacked-on” for difficulty. In the game realm, it destroys a bit of the sense of immersion when a human boss can remain standing when a hammer hits them in the face. As a guardian, here is a list of the skills that are rendered moot by fighting any kind of boss:

Zealot’s Embrace
Banish
Ring of Warding
Blinding Blade’s Pull
Line of Warding
Chains of Light
Shield of Absorption
Sanctuary
Bane Signet’s Activation
Signet of Wrath’s Activation
Hammer of Wisdom’s Command
Tome of Wrath’s knockdown

That’s 12 skills that are really not functioning the way they were designed, all because of a difficulty system that doesn’t gel with the overall game design.

The “cheap” feeling, if the developer kittenads this gets nothing else out of this post, is the number one thing that is causing the dungeons to not be fun. I’m not asking for you to make the dungeons easier, I’m asking in future expansions for you guys to make darn sure that you have your best game designers working on the dungeons. I’m sorry, but the dungeons feel like a very poorly designed portion of the game. The Let whomever designed the world meta-events take a stab at it. If it was indeed the same person for both, bring in others to collaborate with them.

Thanks for reading the wall’o’text. Overall, my guild and I love the game. Seriously. We love it! This is my stab at constructive criticism. Thanks!

My personal experience with AC is somewhat similar.
The first boss who AoE scorpion wires can be a hassle if not done in a very coordinated way and if you don’t know what to look for. Basically my latency on my POS computer, even with minimum settings, prevents me from being able to read his charge-up properly. Luckily my guild leader has a nice computer and can read it and he calls it out over voice chat. Even so, I tried waiting until the last second to dodge so that I’d be in mid-air for the scorpion wire; it must be a latency issue because it failed to work for me three times in a row. Then I tried evading as soon as my guildy called out the charge-up and it worked like a charm. This may seem fine, which it is, but my guild leader had the exact OPPOSITE issue. He was jumping as soon as he called it and it got him killed, so he had to wait until the very end of the charge up! Haha, I suppose it’s a matter of latency but we’ve figured it out so it works.
As far as that being an insta-death, as long as I’m at full HP beforehand I can stand to get pulled and still evade afterward as a medium armor thief with 0 vitality. Smarter yet, with my class I can set a teleport recall point which I can recall to regardless of being knocked down which helps me escape sometimes as well.

The traps I’ve honestly never had a problem with as a thief. I put on shadowstep, movespeed signet, and my shortbow and I can move across any space without issue. They DO hurt a lot though, but I find it to be thrilling.

The ignoring CC mechanics is a little cheesy, but it’s necessary. As a S/D tank-thief prior to reaching level 80, I was able to nearly stun-lock enemies in 1v1. C&D, 1, autoattack until the debuff is almost over and start casting C&D again just before it’s up so I’m invisible asap to stun again. Now with this timer we have to be very coordinated as a group so that we can save that one pivotal stun for when it’s needed most.

The idea is to learn the fights, and change up your builds. If you’re a guardian, add more blocks. You can block that blinding blade-esque move that boss does, as well as dodge it. You can’t blame your latency issues for the game being hard. Every game is like that; if you lag and are in a spot that you can die, you most likely will.

If your philosophy is “I can’t take these hits so its cheap”, your outlook is wrong. The idea with this game, and the dodge mechanic, is to try to avoid them completely. Dodging “at the last second” has always proven incorrect in my experience. I’ve always dodged the second before the last second, as I’ve noticed it lasts longer than you think it does. This was easily seen by my Major trait slot of “Heal allies at the end of your dodge roll” and the “delay” of when it ends and I see the healing effect.

I don’t quite get the “got some builds together” idea. If it’s your first time doing it, you go in knowing you’ll have to adapt. A build is fight specific, which is why people change builds on the fly between trash mobs and every boss.

The dungeons aren’t cheap, they’re just less forgiving than other games and the explorable world. Outside a dungeon, you can take on 4-5 guys sometimes and a bunch of hits. In a dungeon, if you stand there for 3 seconds as a boss charges an attack, get hit, then complain it’s cheap when you die from that one hit, you need to try again. Even if its a 1-second queue, you need to develop that reaction timing and find a way to dodge, block, make him miss, etc.

Was weakness up a lot on the boss? Protection on you and allies? How often was he blinded? Was aegis on to block attacks enough? Were you pulling the boss away from a downed ally and letting another res them and repeat if need be? I remember doing that fight at 35; he chases slow enough and one person can hold his attention long enough for others to help.

It’s hard, you have to be paying attention a lot. As a guardian myself, I’ve developed things I like and know are useful. Have to res someone but are afraid of getting hit? Use a focus, throw up #5 skill as you res; use the major trait that forms a protective shield as you res if its a ranged guy.

There’s a lot you can do, it’s just noticing what to do and when to do it; trial and error.

Very well written and I appreciate the feedback. I’ve had similar experiences in many of the dungeons and what irks me is that all MMOs follow the same jarring qualities. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE GUILD WARS2. They are breaking new ground with their game but there is one factor that remains that has kitten me off in many of the major mmo’s I’ve played. Bosses are immune to all cc’s. Straight up immune to a LOT of the players combo’s or abilities. Unless its straight up dps, forget about using it. Most classes have a stun move, or a snare or even a fear etc. Bosses are universally immune to such abilities. I get that they don’t want players chain stunning the boss and making the fight a trivialility. But how about encorporating the abilties into the design of the encounter. Maybe he drops his immunity when he charges up a super move and if you dont’ stun him or interrupt him somehow he insta wipes the group. Or maybe the boss summons creatures that explode when they reach you and you have to bring the creatures next to him and stun them so they explode on the boss dealing massive damage. Better yet have pillars in the room and you have to fear/stun the creatures next to the pillars to cause them to collapse the roof over the boss taking him down. The possibilities are endless here. My question…no wait my CHALLENGE to the devs is to design the boss encounters in the game WITH the full extent of our abilities in mind rather than giving the boss a Cheat ability that makes him completely immune to them.

Daboris.6730:

The idea is to learn the fights, and change up your builds. If you’re a guardian, add more blocks. You can block that blinding blade-esque move that boss does, as well as dodge it. You can’t blame your latency issues for the game being hard. Every game is like that; if you lag and are in a spot that you can die, you most likely will.

As he stated, he was working within the limitations of his latency to dodge the bosses abilities. Did you not read his post? He had to dodge when his leader called it or he would get hit…his leader would have to dodge after waiting till the end otherwise he would get hit. He did his part as a player and adapted to the difficulty despite his poor latency.

If your philosophy is “I can’t take these hits so its cheap”, your outlook is wrong. The idea with this game, and the dodge mechanic, is to try to avoid them completely. Dodging “at the last second” has always proven incorrect in my experience. I’ve always dodged the second before the last second, as I’ve noticed it lasts longer than you think it does. This was easily seen by my Major trait slot of “Heal allies at the end of your dodge roll” and the “delay” of when it ends and I see the healing effect.

Again, he never said he was expecting to just stand there and take the hits….

I don’t quite get the “got some builds together” idea. If it’s your first time doing it, you go in knowing you’ll have to adapt. A build is fight specific, which is why people change builds on the fly between trash mobs and every boss.

A lot of people have a mentality of trying new things, how else can you find out what works? And by the way, no one should be expected to change their entire build from boss to boss. Weapon types maybe, strategies absolutely, but downing a boss and then retraining your traits…that’s a little excessive.

The dungeons aren’t cheap, they’re just less forgiving than other games and the explorable world. Outside a dungeon, you can take on 4-5 guys sometimes and a bunch of hits. In a dungeon, if you stand there for 3 seconds as a boss charges an attack, get hit, then complain it’s cheap when you die from that one hit, you need to try again. Even if its a 1-second queue, you need to develop that reaction timing and find a way to dodge, block, make him miss, etc.

See first paragraph’s response. Your slamming the guy and he’s trying his best to dodge at the correct times. Some bosses have NO visible charge up time. Or if they do the animation isn’t visible with the number of particle effects going off. Melee are particularly affected by this since they see very little of what is going on. There are times when you can’t even see which way the mob/boss is facing.

Was weakness up a lot on the boss? Protection on you and allies? How often was he blinded? Was aegis on to block attacks enough? Were you pulling the boss away from a downed ally and letting another res them and repeat if need be? I remember doing that fight at 35; he chases slow enough and one person can hold his attention long enough for others to help.

I agree that teamwork is essential, ESPECIALLY in Explore mode. Its not so much what your abilities do so much as HOW they benefit or combo with other abilities. Combo fields are essential. Timing and execution even more so. By the way, how do you pull a boss away from a teammate? Aggro in this game is wonky at best. I’ve seen a boss focus down a teammate from the start of a fight till he was dead and he only cast a healing rain ability on us. Didn’t auto attack him or anything. We tried to get his attention but apparently its easy to ignore pure damage. There aren’t any taunts in the game which isn’t a bad thing necessarily, but how do we pull attention from the boss if we see a teammate in trouble. Can’t be done…or at least not with any urgency. I’ve also see a boss focus a teammate down to death, then switch to another player only to immediately go back to the first guy as soon as he entered the room. (that player apparently really insulted the boss’ mother or something).

It’s hard, you have to be paying attention a lot. As a guardian myself, I’ve developed things I like and know are useful. Have to res someone but are afraid of getting hit? Use a focus, throw up #5 skill as you res; use the major trait that forms a protective shield as you res if its a ranged guy.

There’s a lot you can do, it’s just noticing what to do and when to do it; trial and error.

*I think the main issue here that the OP is trying to point out is many of your abilities are useless on the boss because they are Defiant/Determined. I hope the dev’s read this post and take to heart that we like our abilities and want to use them EVEN on boss fights. *

Dorn, very nicely worded man. You summed up better what I was trying to say. Also, your clarifications were really helpful. Developers, if you do read this thread, please take Dorn’s to heart as well. Thanks guys.

Exactly what i have said for weeks now. The dungeons are not hard, in fact, most of them are really easy once you figure out how to beat them (no exploits).

The real issue is that they are badly designed and feel cheap.

Thank you for your great thread.

I think the consensus is that you can keep the difficulty the same without needing to resort to cheap mechanics. Add some stages to the fights, add some running around manning turrets and switches. Make it so we have to think and use the environment against the bosses as well as damage them down. You’ve shown us that this can be done in the dynamic events and world bosses (dragons) which are epic looking! The dungeons themselves are breathtaking in their scope. Imagine you kill the boss in my earlier example by toppling the pillars down on him. Instead of claiming loot and running down another long hallway with trash mobs you are slammed through the ground and plummet into a pool of water. There is no visible exit and after a few moments the walls start to close. You have to dive down and locate a tunnel where the chest is for the boss above. NO one would expect this. Its new, its different. I’m not a programmer and I have no idea what sort of programming would be involved but I’d love to see more situations like this in the dungeons.. Not just waves of mobs but actual traps that make you think. Maybe if you stop the walls in time by hitting switches or pulleys (nothing complicated like specific order or what not) you access a hidden tunnel to more treasure or a secret encounter.