Guild Wars 2

First of all the video link:
http://www.twitch.tv/aliettefaye/b/376274889

Secondly, Impressions:

Our group makeup was:
Guardian
Mesmer
Warrior
Elementalist
Ranger

The run went a LOT more smoothly than runs with other level 80s I’ve been with. In fact, everything seemed to die a lot faster than I remember it, since this is the first time I’ve properly cleared trash in a very long time. We did not wipe, and had only one defeated (me since I’m pretty bad at Ranger XD).

But overall, I felt like it was just another dungeon run. It wasn’t OMG over the top, and felt like a pretty fun experience that I’d want to do again.

Very fun run, great experience, would love to play with you all again. I didn’t even have to use time warp!

Too bad we can’t hear ourselves laughing our kitten off though.

-the undownable (until the howling king got his last howl off on me) mesmer.

I’m slightly amused, because we essentially WERE a PuG. We haven’t played with each other until we ran the dungeon.

Going back and watching the video, I see where I choked. It was rezzing someone when we got poisoned XD.

OMG I can’t believe I forgot to ask you this:

Maestro, are you a male teacher?

Great work to your pug group, awesome job with the video too. Can we get a sticky on this? It would be a great guide vid for new and old players alike. Hopefully this will bring some people back to AC to give it another shot, it does get lonely standing at the gates waiting for players to come around.

Well it was certainly easier than I expected. I had my coffee and everything ready, thinking I’d need a bit more twitch to get by but I was able to relax the whole way through.

I wasn’t trying that hard and still we made it through with 0 wipes. One thing I noticed is my damage was decently close to what my lvl 80 could manage and just as survivable. Using Impale + Rip was about 1.5k dmg and bleed ticks were 38-40 and I think at most I only had 3-4 stacks from my corruption sigil.

For the most part, I’d believe an appropriate level character is more than adaquate to run with full 80 groups even on speed runs as the difference is literally what you can eek out from traits. My other bleed warrior would have a bit longer bleeds and Last Chance (quickness on low HP foes) and that’s about it.

Levistis.8356:

OMG I can’t believe I forgot to ask you this:

Maestro, are you a male teacher?

Haha, no, although I have taught at various times in my life, and am male XD.

Leo G.4501:

Well it was certainly easier than I expected. I had my coffee and everything ready, thinking I’d need a bit more twitch to get by but I was able to relax the whole way through.

I wasn’t trying that hard and still we made it through with 0 wipes. One thing I noticed is my damage was decently close to what my lvl 80 could manage and just as survivable. Using Impale + Rip was about 1.5k dmg and bleed ticks were 38-40 and I think at most I only had 3-4 stacks from my corruption sigil.

For the most part, I’d believe an appropriate level character is more than adaquate to run with full 80 groups even on speed runs as the difference is literally what you can eek out from traits. My other bleed warrior would have a bit longer bleeds and Last Chance (quickness on low HP foes) and that’s about it.

Also remember that the difference in a stat from Traits between a lvl 35 and a downscaled lvl 80 is not 300 – 100, but 300*[scale factor] – 100, which is probably a lot lower.

Maestro.5376:

Also remember that the difference in a stat from Traits between a lvl 35 and a downscaled lvl 80 is not 300 – 100, but 300*[scale factor] – 100, which is probably a lot lower.

Another thing I noticed about the scale is factors like traits and stats you build around. Like a lvl 80 character built around damage and crit with no traits for health or toughness will have lower health, healing, toughness and armor than a lvl 35 character. From past tests, it’s probably because an artificial gap is created by your level and if you don’t have something to fill it, you’re naturally weaker there.

can’t wait to see this. regardless of outcome – though i can tell it went quite smoothly, i think what’s even greater is that you seemed to have made new friends and thoroughly enjoyed some new content that ANet gave us.

this is what PuGs can be – given, you guys clicked and had stuff to talk about, etc etc.. hopefulyl you guys will be doing more dungeons together. i’ve been invited to a guild because i partook in a pug. i’ve made many other friends that we dungeon, WvW together because i joined a pug.

grats folk!

akamon.2769:

can’t wait to see this. regardless of outcome – though i can tell it went quite smoothly, i think what’s even greater is that you seemed to have made new friends and thoroughly enjoyed some new content that ANet gave us.

this is what PuGs can be – given, you guys clicked and had stuff to talk about, etc etc.. hopefulyl you guys will be doing more dungeons together. i’ve been invited to a guild because i partook in a pug. i’ve made many other friends that we dungeon, WvW together because i joined a pug.

grats folk!

Thank you. And actually, the entirety of the dungeon was run with me screaming my head off in TS because I was the only one that really talked XD.

If I’m on voicechat I tend to do running commentaries of what’s happening, it’s a habit XD.

I still don’t get why you did this, but I’m sure it was fun so I can’t really say it was a waste.

WonderfulCT.6278:

I still don’t get why you did this, but I’m sure it was fun so I can’t really say it was a waste.

Because if you look at the first page of the Dungeon subform, 30% of the threads are about how the new AC is too hard and it’s impossible for a group of level 35 players to do now.

Maestro.5376:

WonderfulCT.6278:

I still don’t get why you did this, but I’m sure it was fun so I can’t really say it was a waste.

Because if you look at the first page of the Dungeon subform, 30% of the threads are about how the new AC is too hard and it’s impossible for a group of level 35 players to do now.

They don’t back up their claims with anything so you could have just ignored them.

WonderfulCT.6278:

I still don’t get why you did this, but I’m sure it was fun so I can’t really say it was a waste.

We may have all had different reasons. Me personally, I’ve always been curious about the new dynamic level scaling and wanted to see the performance difference between an exotic armor lvl 80 and a lvl 35 with just masterwork.

The stat and performance difference are very slight if noticable at all. When I get some time, I’ll be doing some more stat comparisons to try and figure out the bigger differences like how traits are scaled if at all.

All in all, I think characters on level are ‘balanced’ stat wise while lvl 80s with a gear focus on damage or on survival will suffer a bit and be ‘imbalanced’, i.e. the offensive character will have less HP and armor or a defensive character will have weaker attacks than an equivalent balanced lvl 35 character.

WonderfulCT.6278:

Maestro.5376:

WonderfulCT.6278:

I still don’t get why you did this, but I’m sure it was fun so I can’t really say it was a waste.

Because if you look at the first page of the Dungeon subform, 30% of the threads are about how the new AC is too hard and it’s impossible for a group of level 35 players to do now.

They don’t back up their claims with anything so you could have just ignored them.

I feel this did need to be done, and ignoring the “too hard” posts is not a good idea. I am seeing more "I heard AC is too hard, is it? " posts from new players being scared away by the forums. Standing at the gates of AC lately has also reflected how players feel and what they have read in these forums due to the lesser number of player base at location. A lot of groups I have been in have many players leave at the Spider Queen and the tactic this group utilized would help a lot of people out, most try to kill two gargoyle heads from the wall and jump down to face the full amount of mini spiders. I have also joined a lot of groups that were stuck at the spider when I joined until I brought condition removal to their feet. Thank you for making this video, as I said hopefully it will bring some numbers back. It would be awesome to be able to find a group around when I get my next alt up to 35.

Jabiacas Horologium.4976:

WonderfulCT.6278:

Maestro.5376:

WonderfulCT.6278:

I still don’t get why you did this, but I’m sure it was fun so I can’t really say it was a waste.

Because if you look at the first page of the Dungeon subform, 30% of the threads are about how the new AC is too hard and it’s impossible for a group of level 35 players to do now.

They don’t back up their claims with anything so you could have just ignored them.

I feel this did need to be done, and ignoring the “too hard” posts is not a good idea. I am seeing more "I heard AC is too hard, is it? " posts from new players being scared away by the forums. Standing at the gates of AC lately has also reflected how players feel and what they have read in these forums due to the lesser number of player base at location. A lot of groups I have been in have many players leave at the Spider Queen and the tactic this group utilized would help a lot of people out, most try to kill two gargoyle heads from the wall and jump down to face the full amount of mini spiders. I have also joined a lot of groups that were stuck at the spider when I joined until I brought condition removal to their feet. Thank you for making this video, as I said hopefully it will bring some numbers back. It would be awesome to be able to find a group around when I get my next alt up to 35.

Oh my god. You just made my day.

When we were looking at the Spider Queen fight, we specifically talked about whether we should hop up to the wall and kill the Gargoyle Heads that way, but we finally decided that it was too “exploit” or “glitchy” use of terrain and decided to pull the spiders up the stairs instead.

It worked well

congrats. you managed to do what only a few people even doubted and raised a strawman argument against the very valid complaints. also, you completed the only path people were not complaining about, because that’s the one which works perfectly.

the main complaints are still:

• very unfriendly to new users (especially for being the first dungeon)
• bugged npcs/bosses make it unnecessarily hard without abusing safespots etc
• new players will have a hard time finding a group

I’ve tried several runs and with experienced players it usually was a breeze (80s or not), only path 3 still gives problem, because even decent player seem to be unable to understand the concept of defiant.
add a few new players to an otherwise experienced group though, and you’re in hell. maybe I just always get unlucky and get people who really can’t play at all, but before the patch, it was possible to take someone new, explain each fight in a few sentences and they wouldn’t drag down the team too much. that that mean, most groups were welcoming new players so they could learn the dungeon. now I won’t take newbies anymore (except guildies), because it’s just too frustrating.

Oranisagu.3706:

the main complaints are still:

• very unfriendly to new users (especially for being the first dungeon)
• bugged npcs/bosses make it unnecessarily hard without abusing safespots etc
• new players will have a hard time finding a group

-AC exp isn’t the first dungeon though.
-Dungeons being bugged isn’t really something we can even address other than bring it to the knowledge of the devs. What we can do is show that you don’t need lvl 80 exotic/ascended characters to this.
-And I’m making it my goal to attacking the issue concerning level/stats so at least that once misconception that lvl 80s are your best bet here when in some cases it actually isn’t. But people will always prefer experienced players over new players when it comes to completing speedy runs. There’s nothing you can do about that and making AC a tutorial isn’t going to help new players, it’s only going to appease farmers.

I’ve tried several runs and with experienced players it usually was a breeze (80s or not), only path 3 still gives problem, because even decent player seem to be unable to understand the concept of defiant.
add a few new players to an otherwise experienced group though, and you’re in hell. maybe I just always get unlucky and get people who really can’t play at all, but before the patch, it was possible to take someone new, explain each fight in a few sentences and they wouldn’t drag down the team too much. that that mean, most groups were welcoming new players so they could learn the dungeon. now I won’t take newbies anymore (except guildies), because it’s just too frustrating.

I just did another run with a PuG, most were new and the 1 other lvl 80 in the group hadn’t done the dungeon since the changes. Path 3, warrior, warrior, elementalist, elementalist, engineer.

The entire dungeon was pretty rough, wiped on Kholer nearly a dozen times, the spider queen was bloodbath, couldn’t beat the troll and the burrows we failed once (with 2 elementalists!!) and was still a close call. Rumblous? He beat him on the 2nd try, the first being a wipe because we tried to skip and the breeders in the hall didn’t unleash and harassed us during. Gast ended up dying somewhere in the middle and one of the elementalist saved us from the falling rocks with an updraft. I rezzed the NPC with a banner and we all made it through with everyone alive.

It wasn’t a very coordinated group but they were determined and we finished.

I’m going to admit the dungeon isn’t perfect and things still need to be fixed, but I’m unsure what exactly you’re trying to prove or disprove. That you can’t do it so it must be impossible? That you can do it but newbies can’t so it needs to be nerfed? That casual players need the content catered to them? More modes are required?

Oranisagu.3706:

congrats. you managed to do what only a few people even doubted and raised a strawman argument against the very valid complaints. also, you completed the only path people were not complaining about, because that’s the one which works perfectly.

the main complaints are still:

• very unfriendly to new users (especially for being the first dungeon)
• bugged npcs/bosses make it unnecessarily hard without abusing safespots etc
• new players will have a hard time finding a group

I’ve tried several runs and with experienced players it usually was a breeze (80s or not), only path 3 still gives problem, because even decent player seem to be unable to understand the concept of defiant.
add a few new players to an otherwise experienced group though, and you’re in hell. maybe I just always get unlucky and get people who really can’t play at all, but before the patch, it was possible to take someone new, explain each fight in a few sentences and they wouldn’t drag down the team too much. that that mean, most groups were welcoming new players so they could learn the dungeon. now I won’t take newbies anymore (except guildies), because it’s just too frustrating.

This path was also complained about. People complained that with the new Graveling changes, defending Hodgins was now “impossible”. Path 3 is an issue with Grast, not players.
There is no way that you are going to get a group that will be able to remove the stacks of Defiance quickly and often enough before the next scream. You’ll run out of CC’s with their CDs by the time Colossus roars about the third or fourth time.

The “unfriendly to new players” complaint is honestly stupid. Of course it is. It’s supposed to be a challenging dungeon. It’s unfriendly to anybody that hasn’t researched it or done it before. You can be a veteran player and still get manhandled if you don’t know what the dungeon is like. (This applies to every dungeon.)

New players have trouble finding groups? There are some workarounds. Get into a Guild, find some friends to play with, use LFG like most people.

I’ll give you the bugged NPC for Grast.

Oranisagu.3706:

congrats. you managed to do what only a few people even doubted and raised a strawman argument against the very valid complaints. also, you completed the only path people were not complaining about, because that’s the one which works perfectly.

the main complaints are still:

• very unfriendly to new users (especially for being the first dungeon)
• bugged npcs/bosses make it unnecessarily hard without abusing safespots etc
• new players will have a hard time finding a group

I’ve tried several runs and with experienced players it usually was a breeze (80s or not), only path 3 still gives problem, because even decent player seem to be unable to understand the concept of defiant.
add a few new players to an otherwise experienced group though, and you’re in hell. maybe I just always get unlucky and get people who really can’t play at all, but before the patch, it was possible to take someone new, explain each fight in a few sentences and they wouldn’t drag down the team too much. that that mean, most groups were welcoming new players so they could learn the dungeon. now I won’t take newbies anymore (except guildies), because it’s just too frustrating.

Path 1 and the impossibility of defending Hodgins was probably one of the more-complained-about “issues” with AC.

Bugged NPCs is not something that people are really complaining about in terms of the dungeons being “hard.” It’s accepted that these bugs will be fixed at some point.

If you’d like, we can run the other paths.

Maestro.5376:

Path 1 and the impossibility of defending Hodgins was probably one of the more-complained-about “issues” with AC.

Bugged NPCs is not something that people are really complaining about in terms of the dungeons being “hard.” It’s accepted that these bugs will be fixed at some point.

If you’d like, we can run the other paths.

sorry, I only saw a few cries about path 1 and kinda ignored them for obvious whines. even before patch people were complaining about the burrows parts. it’s gotten harder now, thanks to infinite knockdowns from gravelings, but far from impossible (2 eles still make both burrow-parts a joke).

I mainly saw legitimate complaints about path 3 (with still no confirmation if slowcasting grast is unintended – seems like something they wouldn’t have missed in QA). and yet, some people still claim path 3 is easy, you just have to interrupt rumblus, everything works as intended.

AlietteFaye.7316:

There is no way that you are going to get a group that will be able to remove the stacks of Defiance quickly and often enough before the next scream. You’ll run out of CC’s with their CDs by the time Colossus roars about the third or fourth time.

The “unfriendly to new players” complaint is honestly stupid. Of course it is. It’s supposed to be a challenging dungeon. It’s unfriendly to anybody that hasn’t researched it or done it before. You can be a veteran player and still get manhandled if you don’t know what the dungeon is like. (This applies to every dungeon.)

New players have trouble finding groups? There are some workarounds. Get into a Guild, find some friends to play with, use LFG like most people.

I’ll give you the bugged NPC for Grast.

1 mesmer & one pistol thief alone should be able to strip defiant fast enough & interrupt. the problem lies with uncoordinated groups (via ts or the like) not being able to do it well enough (without wasting interrupts by having two players interrupt at the same time).

yes, being the first dungeon (@Leo G: yes, it IS the first dungeon. explo is it’s second mode, but still the first dungeon), it should be more forgiving for inexperienced players. personally, I think it’s incredibly stupid to say it shouldn’t be easier, doesn’t really help either of ours arguments, though, doesn’t it?

and for the people claiming I just can’t do it and am whining about: I’ve had quite a few successful runs, without any problems. I just won’t take newbs into AC anymore. before the patch, I’ve done noob runs to help them get started with dungeons – that’s nearly impossible now (if you don’t want to ress them every 2 minutes and take more than an hour for each path).
but ok, if you all insist, lets separate the player base between elitists and noobs, with selfish people like you around, I stopped caring about the player base anyway.

Oranisagu.3706:

but ok, if you all insist, lets separate the player base between elitists and noobs, with selfish people like you around, I stopped caring about the player base anyway.

None of us are being elitist. Arenanet clearly stated that Explorable Mode dungeons were not for noobs, and if you think that the player-friendliness of the other EX mode dungeons is indicative of their intentions, they’ve already said they’re revamping ALL the dungeons to make them more challenging.

Maestro.5376:

None of us are being elitist. Arenanet clearly stated that Explorable Mode dungeons were not for noobs, and if you think that the player-friendliness of the other EX mode dungeons is indicative of their intentions, they’ve already said they’re revamping ALL the dungeons to make them more challenging.

have you ever stopped to consider how a noob gets to become experienced? there has to be some kind of progression of difficulty to allow them to learn new content. right now, we have easy mode pve and then suddenly the very first dungeon a huge step up. I question arenanets decision of revamping the dungeons without introducing different levels of difficulty. ie they should’ve fixed cof first, because its way to easy, while leaving ac mainly unchanged, as it was good for teaching new players the basics of dungeons. I KNOW what they said, that doesn’t change the fact that I think it’s a stupid as hell decision. that’s why I still argue against the ac changes.

trying to show off how good you are by completing a dungeon with a group of experienced players in order to prove everyone how bad they are for failing does amount to elitism in my book. but we might interpret the term differently.

maybe, instead of only picking experienced players and telling everyone how easy AC really is, you could try introducing new players into dungeons like I did and see for yourself how miserably they fail, without any chance to practice in a less harsh environment. I don’t even know what to tell them anymore apart from: well, you could try pvp, helps a bit learning your class better.

as I said, I won’t pug with noobs anymore, ANet successfully turned me away from helping new players. if that’s what they wanted, great.

Oranisagu.3706:

have you ever stopped to consider how a noob gets to become experienced? there has to be some kind of progression of difficulty to allow them to learn new content.

This is one reason when I group with newer players, I don’t always come out and tell them how the fight runs.

IMO, someone learns better if given the opportunity to learn and just telling them ‘dodge this and this, don’t stand in that, etc’ isn’t quite learning. This is probably because my best method of learning is getting my hands dirty and doing it for myself, seeing the big attacks, maybe even dying to them on multiple occasions. I know lots of other people learn things differently, but no one can dispute that video games are meant to be learned through trial and error, people just get accustomed to looking up guides now that they are so readily available online.

But handing you boulders to juggle the bosses or bosses so easy a group can kill them before they get a second round of attack in isn’t doing new players a favor. This is why dungeon runners sucked for so long, because they always fell back on things like waypoint rezzing to tide them over for their lack of adaptability. Leading new players by the hand through simple fights is no better at preparing them for tougher content so again, this leaves me asking what you’re actually advocating?

right now, we have easy mode pve and then suddenly the very first dungeon a huge step up.

Open world can be challenging! You just have to venture through areas above your level. If things become easy at your level, try facing mobs with new and stronger attacks and see how you fair. If you can manage that, I don’t see why you couldn’t learn the ins and outs of a dungeon the very same way.

trying to show off how good you are by completing a dungeon with a group of experienced players in order to prove everyone how bad they are for failing does amount to elitism in my book. but we might interpret the term differently.

This probably isn’t aimed at me. But I’m not doing this. My purpose was to gauge the level of adequacy of a lvl 35 in masterwork to a lvl 80 in exotics running the same lvl 35 content and I have to say…it’s about the same.

maybe, instead of only picking experienced players and telling everyone how easy AC really is, you could try introducing new players into dungeons like I did and see for yourself how miserably they fail, without any chance to practice in a less harsh environment. I don’t even know what to tell them anymore apart from: well, you could try pvp, helps a bit learning your class better.

That you feel taking someone inexperienced shouldn’t be difficult is probably where your opinion truly differs from mine. The way I got good at some dungeons was…to try and fail and try again. In the past, that’s how you get good at any video game. You try, you fail, you learn patterns and then try again. Whether this is miserable or fun and challenging comes to if you actually learn and get better.

I may sound old for saying, but back in my retro-gaming days, there are nary a tutorial for your platforming, action or RPGs and if you didn’t have the manual, it was trial and error. I bet Ninja Gaiden would have been so awesome if it started you out in Ninja Training Academy like in Naruto
/sarcasm

Alright, Maestro, fine. You managed to finish AC with a 35 mob and maybe a further 10 % of GW2 players will do the same. What about the other 90 %? AC is already losing players due to the difficulty, I don’t think I need to tell you what will happen to other dungeons when they get harder.

As a player of GW1, WoW and other, less known MMOs, GW2’s post-patch AC dungeon is bull. If I compare the dungeons to WoW, at least you had a difficulty ladder there. You had easier dungeons at the beginning, followed by mediocre to hard ones. Dungeons were fun and basically every player of every skill had something to do in them. If you were more of a noob, you could always do lower level ones and have fun at it – like I said, we don’t all have the time or patience to input 100s of hours into a game to be able to finish a dungeon.

Whereas GW2 is favourizing elitists. You can’t deny that. Dungeons (will) have only one difficulty level – hard, which in the long run will remove GW2 of its playerbase. The only people who will stay are gonna be very experienced players and even they will get tired of the game sooner or later and move on to something new/better.

WoW is popular because it’s not only for elitists, it’s not only for noobs and it’s not only for casual players. It’s got everything for everyone, it’s got areas for casual and experienced players, it’s got dungeons for new and old, good and bad, and that’s what’s kept it going for the past 8 (?) years.

GW2 has a LOT of potential, but it seriously needs to stop favourizing only one type of players. Make something for everyone to enjoy – AC dungeon for new, less experienced players (but still being a challenge to do – pre-patch AC was OK), followed by other dungeons.

Sadly liquid storm; the response you are going to get is:

“The story modes are the easy modes do those instead of explore mode!!”

Because these elitists think that useless rewards are what everyone should get. (Why don’t they add even a small number of tokens to story mode – say 15 (with repeats yielding none)? it would at-least net you a piece of gear after 2 runs (from the non-level 80 tab) and it would actually fulfil the role of “easy dungeon” that people think should exist.

But no; “play your way” means; you don’t get to play dungeons unless you can find a group of semi-competent players. Forget helping your less-than capable guildies, it isn’t worth the repeated wipes. (ps. I love the detha path boss fight; about the only nice thing I can say about the whole dungeon since the change).

Liquid Storm.8097:

Alright, Maestro, fine. You managed to finish AC with a 35 mob and maybe a further 10 % of GW2 players will do the same. What about the other 90 %? AC is already losing players due to the difficulty, I don’t think I need to tell you what will happen to other dungeons when they get harder.

As a player of GW1, WoW and other, less known MMOs, GW2’s post-patch AC dungeon is bull. If I compare the dungeons to WoW, at least you had a difficulty ladder there. You had easier dungeons at the beginning, followed by mediocre to hard ones. Dungeons were fun and basically every player of every skill had something to do in them. If you were more of a noob, you could always do lower level ones and have fun at it – like I said, we don’t all have the time or patience to input 100s of hours into a game to be able to finish a dungeon.

Whereas GW2 is favourizing elitists. You can’t deny that. Dungeons (will) have only one difficulty level – hard, which in the long run will remove GW2 of its playerbase. The only people who will stay are gonna be very experienced players and even they will get tired of the game sooner or later and move on to something new/better.

WoW is popular because it’s not only for elitists, it’s not only for noobs and it’s not only for casual players. It’s got everything for everyone, it’s got areas for casual and experienced players, it’s got dungeons for new and old, good and bad, and that’s what’s kept it going for the past 8 (?) years.

GW2 has a LOT of potential, but it seriously needs to stop favourizing only one type of players. Make something for everyone to enjoy – AC dungeon for new, less experienced players (but still being a challenge to do – pre-patch AC was OK), followed by other dungeons.

Are you saying that EVERYTHING ELSE, the HUGE open world, the event chains in Orr, the World Bosses like the Shatter, NONE of that is for casuals? This ENTIRE GAME has been geared towards casuals from the start, despite Anet’s intention that the explorable mode dungeons be skill-gated. So I really don’t think they’re favoring the extremely skilled. In fact, I’d have thought that they developed the game entirely with casual completion in mind.

If you don’t like the dungeons, just don’t DO them. I don’t get what’s so hard about that. There are no stat sets that can only be obtained in dungeons that can’t be purchased elsewhere. Sure, you have cosmetics, but really, if you’re going to start griping about LOOKS you might as well start griping about that in any OTHER MMO where the equipment ISN’T normalized by rarity and that robe you might really like is actually also the same rarity but of worse stat distribution.

Hell, they’ve even spent the last few months making Story Mode Dungeons MORE accessible to casuals. What the hell more do you want? The entire game can’t be casual…because of course, then we run into your problem of equal distribution of attention. You could do all the story mode dungeons in the game before going back to do the explorables. There’s nothing that says you HAVE to do content at a certain level or you miss out.

Honestly…I don’t know why it would matter if dungeons decrease in population. Is Anet somehow charging a separate USD$ entrance fee for every admission into dungeons? It doesn’t affect them, it doesn’t affect you, why are you complaining?

@Leo G:
yes I know. my methods aren’t that different. I used to pug with new players and just wipe a few times, first time without saying anything, then giving a few tips etc. some people were quick and with one or two pointers managed to work well, others needed more help. I also always took people to kohler, because he’s one of the best bosses to teach people dodgeing and watching animations.

I liked doing it, because I could get a group of 4 new players and while we wiped a few times, we made progress and by the end of the run they felt good for beating their first dungeon, and I felt good because I could teach them something and everybody had fun.
I think it was already difficult taking new people in the sense that we wiped a few times etc, it wasn’t as if I could just pull them through while soloing everything. but the fun thing was, there was progress. right now new players fail many times until they ragequit (or until I give up). no amount of explanation from my part helps anymore.

I started online gaming with ultima online, so you don’t really sound that old to me, but unlike you I remember the lack of tutorials was no problem as players were helpful and taught new players the basics, which could be a rewarding experience for both. anet made a move which turned people (at least me, and I doubt I’m the only one) from helping new players out. I guess it’s only experienced 80’s (except if it’s an alt) even for ac runs now.

Liquid Storm.8097:

…

fully agree.

@Maestro: if you don’t like easier dungeons, just don’t do them. wow, see what I did there? a perfect argument, isn’t it? why do you always use arguments like this one instead of something more productive?
the game has various degrees of difficulty in pve, most of it is casual friendly, you’re right. yet you’re completely ignoring the lack of difficulty progression. there’s nothing that prepares you for constant knockdowns etc or having to interrupt a mob with defiant every 10 seconds. it’s good there is harder content. but there needs to be something in between. right now, if they’d change cof to lvl 35 and ac to 75, we’d have that kind of progression. if they want ac to be the easiest dungeon (revamping all other dungeons to be at least as hard or harder, as you suggest they will), then we’ll have a huge gap. ideally, players of every skilllevel will have some content they find hard but doable to challenge them. if every dungeon gets revamped like ac, there will be loads of players not good enough for dungeons but still finding general pve to easy.

MeateaW.3519:

Sadly liquid storm; the response you are going to get is:

“The story modes are the easy modes do those instead of explore mode!!”

Because these elitists think that useless rewards are what everyone should get. (Why don’t they add even a small number of tokens to story mode – say 15 (with repeats yielding none)? it would at-least net you a piece of gear after 2 runs (from the non-level 80 tab) and it would actually fulfil the role of “easy dungeon” that people think should exist.

But no; “play your way” means; you don’t get to play dungeons unless you can find a group of semi-competent players. Forget helping your less-than capable guildies, it isn’t worth the repeated wipes. (ps. I love the detha path boss fight; about the only nice thing I can say about the whole dungeon since the change).

Actually, several of us agree that the Story Mode dungeon should reward rare gear until the entire set is obtained, thus gearing out adventurers for EX. That actually would make sense, since each run of AC Story gives you about a level in experience. At 30, if you run AC Ex 6 times, you’re already probably 36 and have a full set of rare armor.

You also seem to be getting “play your way” confused with “go anywhere.” “Play your way” means you play the way you want to play, and if the dungeon playstyle doesn’t jive with the way you want to play, you’re not obligated to do it, there are no rewards that can be obtained from dungeons that, stat-wise, cannot be obtained anywhere else.

On another note, I was wondering when all the nay-sayers would turn up. It’s been disturbingly quiet up until now.

@Oranisagu: Definitely can’t argue with that preference. If all my dungeon runs were like the last one I had (described in another post, AC path 3) then yeah, I’d probably just solo the darn stuff as by then I’d have to get that good to finish anything >_>

Oranisagu.3706:

@Maestro: if you don’t like easier dungeons, just don’t do them. wow, see what I did there? a perfect argument, isn’t it? why do you always use arguments like this one instead of something more productive?
the game has various degrees of difficulty in pve, most of it is casual friendly, you’re right. yet you’re completely ignoring the lack of difficulty progression. there’s nothing that prepares you for constant knockdowns etc or having to interrupt a mob with defiant every 10 seconds. it’s good there is harder content. but there needs to be something in between. right now, if they’d change cof to lvl 35 and ac to 75, we’d have that kind of progression. if they want ac to be the easiest dungeon (revamping all other dungeons to be at least as hard or harder, as you suggest they will), then we’ll have a huge gap. ideally, players of every skilllevel will have some content they find hard but doable to challenge them. if every dungeon gets revamped like ac, there will be loads of players not good enough for dungeons but still finding general pve to easy.

Except, it’s not a perfect argument, because in the end, everything is dictated by Arenanet and what their vision for dungeons is. You seem to interpret our actions as a call for Arenanet to make dungeons harder. It is not. It is a statement that their current level of difficulty for AC Ex is consistent with their vision and intent.

The Defiant interruption is, like Robert said, a temporary bandaid until they fix Grast. There is currently no boss in the game that relies on stripping Defiance and interrupting them in order to beat them/not wipe. I would appreciate this if you stopped bringing it up as part of the new AC EX’s difficulty since it’s currently not working as intended. The path should be considered broken in its current state.

Besides, I already don’t bother to do a lot of the easier dungeon content. We’re not pushing Anet to change anything from what they’ve done to the dungeons in the game already, and will do to dungeons in the future. YOU’RE the one pushing for them to change something, so here’s a thought. Why don’t YOU go make a video and show them how difficult AC Ex is for a group of newly-turned level 35 players?

Maestro, the sudden huge decrease in AC exp dungeons speaks for itself, don’t you think? You can go on and on about being fair and whatnot, AC is a prime example how (starter) dungeons should NOT look like. And an MMO without at least one (ONE, UNO!) fairly easy dungeon-like area for people to play in and get to know the ins and outs of the gameplay mechanics of a dungeon is doomed to failure. It’s just a matter of time.

Thus your comment about not playing dungeons if I’m not “skilled” enough is an arrogant and quite ignorant response of an elitist. But I’m not gonna argue further with you here, you’ve got your own opinion and I’ve got mine. With AC as it is now, especially path 1 AND numerous bugs PLUS being a level 35 dungeon (hence why it’s called ‘starter’), I predict a medium to huge decline in GW2’s playerbase in the next 2 to 3 months.

Liquid Storm.8097:

Maestro, the sudden huge decrease in AC exp dungeons speaks for itself, don’t you think? You can go on and on about being fair and whatnot, AC is a prime example how (starter) dungeons should NOT look like. And an MMO without at least one (ONE, UNO!) fairly easy dungeon-like area for people to play in and get to know the ins and outs of the gameplay mechanics of a dungeon is doomed to failure. It’s just a matter of time.

Thus your comment about not playing dungeons if I’m not “skilled” enough is an arrogant and quite ignorant response of an elitist. But I’m not gonna argue further with you here, you’ve got your own opinion and I’ve got mine. With AC as it is now, especially path 1 AND numerous bugs PLUS being a level 35 dungeon (hence why it’s called ‘starter’), I predict a medium to huge decline in GW2’s playerbase in the next 2 to 3 months.

The story mode dungeons already provide that dungeon-like environment for players to play with. I don’t really know what you’re asking for? To make the Ex modes as easy as the story modes? That would kind of defeat the purpose, no?

Also, regarding the dropoff in AC Exp runs, most of this can be attributed to the fact that AC Exp is no longer an easy, fast source of gold for players who don’t know what they’re doing. All the farming has basically moved over to CoF P1. So I don’t think the decrease in AC Exp population is entirely due to the increase in difficulty of the dungeon.

Also, it’s not like there aren’t easier dungeons to do. Word travels fast, as you can probably see. People probably already know that there are easier EX dungeons to do for your first time in one, and will gravitate towards those. I honestly don’t see a dropoff in population in the future, but I do forsee a shift in population to dungeons that might not have been as popular before.

Maestro.5376:

Except, it’s not a perfect argument, because in the end, everything is dictated by Arenanet and what their vision for dungeons is. You seem to interpret our actions as a call for Arenanet to make dungeons harder. It is not. It is a statement that their current level of difficulty for AC Ex is consistent with their vision and intent.

good to know you agree your way of arguing isn’t useful. now you would just have to stop doing it anyway.
I don’t interpret your action actually (well, I kinda do, I think it was childish, but thats beside the point). ac got changed, some people think it’s for the worse. you think its for the better. you claim to know their vision and intent, I just know how the changes affect newer players (most people in my guild are <1k AP and have maybe played 2-3 weeks. most won’t try any dungeons ever again after we tried ac). I guess there’s nothing more to say, I can’t argue against faith.

Maestro.5376:

The Defiant interruption is, like Robert said, a temporary bandaid until they fix Grast. There is currently no boss in the game that relies on stripping Defiance and interrupting them in order to beat them/not wipe. I would appreciate this if you stopped bringing it up as part of the new AC EX’s difficulty since it’s currently not working as intended. The path should be considered broken in its current state.

sorry, I must have missed the official statement. I only saw the patchnotes claiming interruption works as intended now (which it doesn’t always, but that, again, is besides the point), which implied interruption is the way to go. but I could’ve just missed hroudas post. and yet, it hasn’t been fixed (even temporary, like making him invuln, take the attack away and give him stability).

Maestro.5376:

Besides, I already don’t bother to do a lot of the easier dungeon content. We’re not pushing Anet to change anything from what they’ve done to the dungeons in the game already, and will do to dungeons in the future. YOU’RE the one pushing for them to change something, so here’s a thought. Why don’t YOU go make a video and show them how difficult AC Ex is for a group of newly-turned level 35 players?

no, you very loudly tell them everything is fine and they should go on with their plans of making dungeons harder. I offer a counterpoint of telling how these kind of changes affect the playerbase, especially new players. but of course, since you post 10x as much as I, you must be correct and I’m wrong.
a video would make absolutely no difference, just as yours didn’t.

but I give up, arguing with you doesn’t seem very productive, I never could handle discussions based on blind faith. you win, ac is perfect, yay.

Maestro.5376:

Also, regarding the dropoff in AC Exp runs, most of this can be attributed to the fact that AC Exp is no longer an easy, fast source of gold for players who don’t know what they’re doing. All the farming has basically moved over to CoF P1. So I don’t think the decrease in AC Exp population is entirely due to the increase in difficulty of the dungeon.

So you’re saying people fled AC due to not being easy anymore, yet in the very next sentence you state that you don’t think it has anything to do with difficulty. Make up your mind.

And as stated before, pre-patch AC was fine. It was “easy”, yes, cause it’s a friggin 35 dungeon for christ sake! What don’t you get?! Although I agree with the changes of P2 boss Ghost Eater (the traps at least DO something now), but making everything else harder is bollocks.

And if they want ALL dungeons to be uber hardcore challenging in explorer mode, why BSing people with the level 35 then? Make the story mode 30/50/70/whatever with decent drops and every explo mode 80 with a higher chance of decent drops. Problem?

Oranisagu.3706:

Maestro.5376:

Except, it’s not a perfect argument, because in the end, everything is dictated by Arenanet and what their vision for dungeons is. You seem to interpret our actions as a call for Arenanet to make dungeons harder. It is not. It is a statement that their current level of difficulty for AC Ex is consistent with their vision and intent.

good to know you agree your way of arguing isn’t useful. now you would just have to stop doing it anyway.
I don’t interpret your action actually (well, I kinda do, I think it was childish, but thats beside the point). ac got changed, some people think it’s for the worse. you think its for the better. you claim to know their vision and intent, I just know how the changes affect newer players (most people in my guild are <1k AP and have maybe played 2-3 weeks. most won’t try any dungeons ever again after we tried ac). I guess there’s nothing more to say, I can’t argue against faith.

Maestro.5376:

The Defiant interruption is, like Robert said, a temporary bandaid until they fix Grast. There is currently no boss in the game that relies on stripping Defiance and interrupting them in order to beat them/not wipe. I would appreciate this if you stopped bringing it up as part of the new AC EX’s difficulty since it’s currently not working as intended. The path should be considered broken in its current state.

sorry, I must have missed the official statement. I only saw the patchnotes claiming interruption works as intended now (which it doesn’t always, but that, again, is besides the point), which implied interruption is the way to go. but I could’ve just missed hroudas post. and yet, it hasn’t been fixed (even temporary, like making him invuln, take the attack away and give him stability).

Maestro.5376:

Besides, I already don’t bother to do a lot of the easier dungeon content. We’re not pushing Anet to change anything from what they’ve done to the dungeons in the game already, and will do to dungeons in the future. YOU’RE the one pushing for them to change something, so here’s a thought. Why don’t YOU go make a video and show them how difficult AC Ex is for a group of newly-turned level 35 players?

no, you very loudly tell them everything is fine and they should go on with their plans of making dungeons harder. I offer a counterpoint of telling how these kind of changes affect the playerbase, especially new players. but of course, since you post 10x as much as I, you must be correct and I’m wrong.
a video would make absolutely no difference, just as yours didn’t.

but I give up, arguing with you doesn’t seem very productive, I never could handle discussions based on blind faith. you win, ac is perfect, yay.

It’s not faith, I’d really rather you keep faith out of it, thanks. It’s the fact that Anet has stated again and again that ALL Ex dungeons would be for groups of players that were coordinated and had good synergy with each other. It was on the website before the revamp that removed a lot of the clutter-like information, and it’s been on several interviews where they talk about dungeons. It doesn’t matter if you’re 35 or 80, you’re going to need to be coordinated, you’re going to need to know your class.

Whether you feel like this is good design philosophy is another thing entirely. What we’ve shown is that AC Ex in its current incarnation is sound and matches their stated philosophy.

I also love how you say that I think AC Ex is perfect when I’ve started a thread that consolidates all the issues/bugs that currently happen, mostly with P3. :P

Liquid Storm.8097:

Maestro.5376:

Also, regarding the dropoff in AC Exp runs, most of this can be attributed to the fact that AC Exp is no longer an easy, fast source of gold for players who don’t know what they’re doing. All the farming has basically moved over to CoF P1. So I don’t think the decrease in AC Exp population is entirely due to the increase in difficulty of the dungeon.

So you’re saying people fled AC due to not being easy anymore, yet in the very next sentence you state that you don’t think it has anything to do with difficulty. Make up your mind.

And as stated before, pre-patch AC was fine. It was “easy”, yes, cause it’s a friggin 35 dungeon for christ sake! What don’t you get?! Although I agree with the changes of P2 boss Ghost Eater (the traps at least DO something now), but making everything else harder is bollocks.

And if they want ALL dungeons to be uber hardcore challenging in explorer mode, why BSing people with the level 35 then? Make the story mode 30/50/70/whatever with decent drops and every explo mode 80 with a higher chance of decent drops. Problem?

Sorry, I should have clarified. I meant that the decrease in AC Exp population does not MAINLY stem from new 35’s being driven away by what they deem an impossible dungeon, but mainly stems from players who farm gold being led towards more profitable runs like CoF P1.

And if you watched the video, we basically just proved that it WASN’T challenging for level 35 players. We were by no means familiar with our classes, and we’re not the best players in the game. We hadn’t even played together prior to this run. It was just a group of people who decided to get together and run AC Ex. Sure, we had some pre-knowledge of the dungeon, but the majority of it isn’t hard to figure out, and the rest depends on how well players are able to stay out of red circles, dodge properly, etc.

There are many suggestions I have for dungeons, among some is introducing more randomness and variety to the encounters such as swapping a boss’ primary skills from instance to instance so you’re never quite sure what it will throw at you in your run, but another suggestion outside of adding or fixing dungeons is this:

wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mini-dungeon

Don’t need tutorial dungeons. Just make more mini-dungeons across the levels. Make those tutorial-esque for newer dungeon runners.

Maestro.5376:

Sorry, I should have clarified. I meant that the decrease in AC Exp population does not MAINLY stem from new 35’s being driven away by what they deem an impossible dungeon, but mainly stems from players who farm gold being led towards more profitable runs like CoF P1.

Exactly, so what’s the point of AC then…..? It’s too hard for new players, not worth the trouble for gold farmers, not essential for players wanting to level up….

Maestro.5376:

And if you watched the video, we basically just proved that it WASN’T challenging for level 35 players. We were by no means familiar with our classes, and we’re not the best players in the game. We hadn’t even played together prior to this run. It was just a group of people who decided to get together and run AC Ex. Sure, we had some pre-knowledge of the dungeon, but the majority of it isn’t hard to figure out, and the rest depends on how well players are able to stay out of red circles, dodge properly, etc.

This was the title of your topic:
Calling Experienced Players with lvl ~35 Alts

Having said that, you have proved nothing.

Leo G.4501:

wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mini-dungeon
Don’t need tutorial dungeons. Just make more mini-dungeons across the levels. Make those tutorial-esque for newer dungeon runners.

+1, that was one of the first good ideas I’ve read in this thread. if they’d have increasing difficulty it would be perfect to introduce new players to harder content.

just did font of rhand yesterday with a few random people (chest even dropped a lvl 39 rare, for my then 35 mesmer – meaning it might be just the same as a dragon chest, which also guarantees a rare of lvl 39 or higher). those minidungeons are very fun and good for newer players. I’d love to see more of them, if they get harder in difficulty they’d even be able to bridge the gap in difficulty up to dungeons.

Liquid Storm.8097:

Having said that, you have proved nothing.

I’d like to believe we proved that lvl 35s can clear trash and clean up these bosses just as good as downleveled 80s. I don’t think we ever hit a brick wall that stopped us.

Before, people had the misconception that a full lvl 35 team took a tremendous amount of time and were hugely squishy compared to fully tricked-out lvl 80s and that the amount of difficulty in doing the dungeon on the level was out of balanced. All this was proven false.

Oranisagu.3706:

Leo G.4501:

wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mini-dungeon
Don’t need tutorial dungeons. Just make more mini-dungeons across the levels. Make those tutorial-esque for newer dungeon runners.

+1, that was one of the first good ideas I’ve read in this thread. if they’d have increasing difficulty it would be perfect to introduce new players to harder content.

just did font of rhand yesterday with a few random people (chest even dropped a lvl 39 rare, for my then 35 mesmer – meaning it might be just the same as a dragon chest, which also guarantees a rare of lvl 39 or higher). those minidungeons are very fun and good for newer players. I’d love to see more of them, if they get harder in difficulty they’d even be able to bridge the gap in difficulty up to dungeons.

On that idea, I think chest for such events should be kind of like the personal story chests that let you choose the rewards. Not choose exactly what you want, but it will randomly give you a choice of 3 different loots of the same quality (choose a medium armor, heavy armor or light armor piece, or randomly 3 different weapons) as that gives you a higher chance of getting something you can use.

…or they can just weigh drops better by your class…that might be asking too much.

I have not fully watched the vid (at work), but I will say;

Firstly – I hold my hands up and admit, I was one of the nay-sayers. Thank you Maestro and the rest of the group for proving me, and many others wrong – even if at least a partial proving (some may say experienced 80’s running alts will not be the same as normal 35’s running it for the 2nd time in all of their playtime)
Even on Saturday night, I tried it out with my lvl40 thief, while it wasn’t too much of a problem for me due to the thief’s slippery-ness, and evasion techniques, there were other classes that had more of an issue staying up.

On my second point these were the key things we noticed about the general difficulty scaling for specific parts of the dungeon:

- Troll is basically supercharged. My group had trouble killing him because he always arrives at the worst locations, (while being ganked by kholer and his minions or set of archers just before Nente etc). I have no idea why they changed his “melee range attack” to a bouncing projectile that hits like a truck.

- We tried Kholer a number of times, and while he wasn’t a problem, trying to get rid of his minions were for us. In the end we skipped him. Why? Because again, as always, he was not worth the time and effort to take down. He still needs a new re-design that makes him a FUN boss. I’d prefer a more hectic summoning of multiple mobs like the mini-boss before King Adleburn’s first dialouge cuscene in AC story. Not alot of HP, but a ton of necro’s, monks and elementalists throwing down AOE’s and reflections meaning you have to franticly clear them up. (imagine, the spawn rates of Graveling burrows, but it spawns ascalon ghosts!)…Hey, they could even make kholer do a Nente and teleport to higher ground (there are a few ledges in the centre area) and spawn waves of mobs etc. I don’t know..ANYTHING but what it is now.

- Last boss = Better mechanics for teamwork – worse mechanics for AI. Boss bugged out numerous times, even so much that while I was still in an “engaged state” with boss, he just ran to the centre of the area and reset. It takes a bit too long for a normally spec’ed group to whittle him down. It’s almost right, just a tad too long in my opinion.

The real question now I guess is: Will 80’s stop being closed-minded and bring in more 35+’s?
…Because, as much as it’s a wakeup call for lower levels that they can complete it, it’s also a wake up call for 80’s to say it’s not as hard they think.

nethykins.7986:

- Troll is basically supercharged. My group had trouble killing him because he always arrives at the worst locations, (while being ganked by kholer and his minions or set of archers just before Nente etc). I have no idea why they changed his “melee range attack” to a bouncing projectile that hits like a truck.

Other criticisms aside, this is probably the part of the dungeon that rather irks me. It’s a troll. Why is it throwing bouncing lightning balls!? All in all, he’s not that hard to defeat but it gets more trickier since kiting is ineffective. The fear is cool, the shockwaves alright but why is he flinging lightning!?!

Leo G.4501:

nethykins.7986:

- Troll is basically supercharged. My group had trouble killing him because he always arrives at the worst locations, (while being ganked by kholer and his minions or set of archers just before Nente etc). I have no idea why they changed his “melee range attack” to a bouncing projectile that hits like a truck.

Other criticisms aside, this is probably the part of the dungeon that rather irks me. It’s a troll. Why is it throwing bouncing lightning balls!? All in all, he’s not that hard to defeat but it gets more trickier since kiting is ineffective. The fear is cool, the shockwaves alright but why is he flinging lightning!?!

Exactly my thoughts too…and don’t they apply bleed too? Kinda OTT.
The fear is a good little addition but it’s not really an ideal skill to place on a boss that appears where you’re in close quarters and there are ledges you can fall off that can reset the encounter

I also found out that blind doesn’t work on his bolt attacks. My build had 3 blinds I could apply right off the bat, yet I was still getting hit.

Leo G.4501:

I’d like to believe we proved that lvl 35s can clear trash and clean up these bosses just as good as downleveled 80s. I don’t think we ever hit a brick wall that stopped us.

Before, people had the misconception that a full lvl 35 team took a tremendous amount of time and were hugely squishy compared to fully tricked-out lvl 80s and that the amount of difficulty in doing the dungeon on the level was out of balanced. All this was proven false.

With skype/TS open….?

Anyway, all I’m saying is GW2 is going down the same road as GW1 when people started forming parties for UW and FoW. If Anet continues to make dungeons harder, people will stop picking up random players and begin forming groups. This is happening right now at AC and this will happen to other dungeons as well if/when they change them. I remember when playing GW1, your world had to hold the Favour of the Gods to have access to UW/FoW. The problem here was that the Favour of the Gods was always held by either the JP or NA worlds and when EU finally DID hold the favour (which happened like once a month?), there was no freaking way you could get into those instances and not get wiped by the first couple of mobs due to being inexperienced. Hence people got fed up and started forming private groups and that’s something I don’t want to see with GW2’s dungeons, especially not a level 35 one.

We had elitists in GW1 too with the same mentality as you guys here do. The game therefore became boring after a while for me as a casual player – all you could do was PvE, you had no chance of getting into a decent PvP group and you couldn’t even get into a dungeon group. At some point you could finally get rares by participating in a Barrage group (forgot the name of the instance) and even then they just had to patch that up.

I thought GW2 was supposed to be different. It started off very well, the PvE experience is great, people helping each other out, etc. But as far as dungeons go, apparently it’s gonna be the same freakishly irritating story as with its predecessor – only skype-organized, high-l33t m4d skillZ allowed. Probably the last title I’ve ever bought from Anet, apparently I’m not their target audience.

Great job guys, many people here needed this to stop whining, but it seems it wasnt enough for all of them.

Liquid Storm.8097:

I don’t think I need to tell you what will happen to other dungeons when they get harder.

Let me guess, they may become actually interesting to complete instead of a press 1, 1 and 1 to finish?