Guild Wars 2

It seems to me that anet views the whole Aetherpath endeavor as a waste of time. They develop a new dungeon path, and all they get is complaints. They probably view metrics that show it is the least run dungeon path in the game. Clearly the community doesn’t want more challenging content, they just want to farm the easy stuff, right?

I think there are a number of issues with the aetherpath that prevent it from being popular, but they have nothing to do with its difficulty. I want to highlight some of the ones I see and encourage people in the community to contribute their own. Hopefully, anet will be able to learn from this list, address the mistakes, and be more open to developing new instanced 5-man dungeons.

I’ll start with the big one-

Rewards

Colin Johanson

Every time you finish a dungeon you get tokens you can trade in for reward items that you want, rather than having a small chance of getting it as a drop, because it’s more fun to always get rewarded for finishing with something you want to have!

This was from a blog written in June 2012, explaining some of the PvE design decisions in gw2. It pretty succinctly sums up why people have a problem with the reward system TA aetherpath. The unique weapons skins for this path are locked behind a ridiculously low chance to drop. Whats worse, they can be bought on the TP, which means you are better off farming easy dungeons to save up the gold for the skin you want rather then playing the content it comes from.

All of the at-launch dungeons have a token system which gives you guaranteed progression towards unique rewards. You get to choose the skin you get, so it will be relevant to your character. You may also trade in your tokens for generic, salvageable rares, which gives value to the tokens without making the unique skins tradeable. This is a good system, and it’s clear that it was designed with an understanding of how frustrating rng loot chests can be. I’m not sure why anet has moved away from the token system, but I think it was a mistake.

This is the big thing keeping aetherpath from being popular. But there are some other, smaller aspects that add up to major frustration.

Unskippable Cutscenes
The sparky and slick cutscene is the most egregious. I would also count Caithe’s dialogue at the start of the path – it’s not strictly speaking a cutscene, but we should be able to interact with her to interrupt her dialogue and choose a path.

Replacing Foward-Up
This is not something that currently effects the dungeon, but it gave a bad first impression. Rather then doing a simple QoL fix on the final boss of TAF/U, Anet chose to remove the path entirely. This was done with only a few days warning, and and justification given seemed half thought out at best. Instead of excitement about new content, the dialogue on the forums leading up to the patch was soured by this frustrating turn.

Padding
Everyone may not agree with me on this, but I believe there are a bit too many filler trash-mob rooms. There are some interesting encounters and puzzles, but getting to each major objective feels tedious. The solution many of the at-launch dungeons have is to make some trash sections optional – skippable. If they want to move away from skips, I believe they should trim down the dungeon to its meat and potatoes. Keep in trash sections which introduce mechanics (like the run between sparky/slick and the foreman in which you blow up the generators), keep the puzzels, but cut out the rest.

This post is already getting pretty long so I’ll let others contribute what they see as issues with aetherpath. I want anet to know that there is an audience for challenging 5 man content, and that aetherpath is not a good metric of that audience because of other surrounding factors which kept it from being a success.

imo, the ooze font is holding most pugs back from doing this. It requires a lot of coordination and that’s rarely given in pugs. Padding is okay, at least you always have something to do; trash at the beginning, font, a bit more trash, boss, trash with showing how to destroy hologenerators, another group of trash, boss, puzzle, a bit more trash + generators, endboss and then maybe bonus-objectives.

I actually like the fact you can get rare skins you can sell for a ton of money. Can agree with the unskippable cutscenes and the fact they replaced TAFU though.

I’m all for rare skins, but again, needs to be a reward for running this dungeon over others. The dungeon still has a moderate skill floor, so people who mainly WvW or PvP will never set foot in this dungeon (or rarely).

A simple band-aid would be, be able to trade tokens for the skins, as well as have a chance of getting the skin drop, so as to be able to sell on the post, something more or less similar as to SAB. Win Win Win?

I agree: Ooze, ooze ooze. That’s the main issue regarding this dungeon.

Maybe if they were friendly to players during the annoying part or if the path was a bit shorter to the door, I don’t know. But for the time being it’s just too frustrating to do with a pug.

Its not just the fact that there are irritating puzzles. Its also that they appear before you even get to a boss.

When i first played that dungeon it left a bad impression because the start was so irritating. And even though the bosses were quite fun I already had a bitter taste in my mouth by that time.

The reason it flopped is because it strictly requires co-ordination, simple as.

Get a group of five random fools together and expecting them to co-ordinate without voice communications, a willingness to even communicate via party chat and the internet being devoid of video guides and there being no “common knowledge” pug strategies is basically impossible.

It’s what explorables were originally meant to be – something an organised group will clear but if you lack that, well you won’t clear it. The problem is the rewards for it don’t justify the challenge – and the fact that it takes like half an hour to complete for 2g, tokens and 0.000000000001% chance to get a skin is also why people don’t bother.

Think of it like Arah p4, except with a bunch of unskippable cutscenes. It’s like a black hole for pug tactics so nobody bothers with it, there’s barely any footage of it, and what footage there is is stuff performed by high-end guilds doing things you’ll never get in a pug.

Also really really terrible RNG. I would love to learn the path and do it with a group but then the chance of getting the skins are very slim that I’d rather not even attempt. I’ll make more gold running the paths that I’ve already done hundred of times

It flopped for the same reason FOTM isn’t that popular. The gold/hour is bad relative to other content and the skins are entirely RNG. Both FOTM and Aether desperately need token systems to incentivize participation.

The dungeon itself I really enjoy. The puzzles are a refreshing change in pace from the standard DPS races and the boss fights have interesting mechanics, though I agree that the ooze puzzle is a pug nightmare.

maha.7902:

The reason it flopped is because it strictly requires co-ordination, simple as.

I don’t think it’s that simple because as you say -

maha.7902:

The problem is the rewards for it don’t justify the challenge – and the fact that it takes like half an hour to complete for 2g, tokens and 0.000000000001% chance to get a skin is also why people don’t bother.

I think people would coordinate if there was incentive to do so. Which is why I listed rewards as the major thing holding this dungeon back.

The fact that there are hardly any videos of tactics may be more a symptom of the reward problem. Organized groups have very little incentive to spend time developing strategies, because they could make just as much or more money doing the farmable paths. If the path gave rewards more in line with the time and coordination required, groups would learn the path. They would make videos, tatics would become common place, and you’d see an evolution like you had with the at-launch dungeons from “this is impossible!” to “this is way too easy”.

Basically we are in a cycle of: no-one does the dungeon → no videos/ tactics → every play through feels like re-inventing the wheel → not worth the effort → no-one does the dungeon. I think with proper reward re-balancing that would break the cycle, and people might come up with tactics that make things like the ooze puzzle less annoying.

Imo Anet should stop watching just metrics and should start introducing surveys.
For example I didn’t care about Mawdrey skin, or ascended tier, but I hate destroying items that pile up into my bags so I had to make that back to obtain Mawdrey II (to convert all my dust).
How in this world can Anet understand for what reason I started collecting all pieces for that back?

Same goes for the Aetherpath, if it was a flop there should be some reasons behind it (and I think OP pretty much summed up most, if not all, of them).
Why they don’t want to investigate? :S

I like dungeons, maybe I don’t like very much stacking in a corner most of the time, BUT they could work on resolve that problem too instead of dumping the whole area

There was only one thing wrong with the Aetherpath dungeon and that was the other dungeons. The other dungeons allow speed running for better time vs reward.

The old path is forgotten (even though it would be nice to see it back sometime). Cosmetic drops wouldn’t be a problem if the dungeon was run regularly for basic loots. If the dungeon was run regularly then common knowledge tactics would soon make everything straightforward.

I can see the rewards angle being relevant.

It’s a bit like running high level fractals. All that, and for RNG?

There are just many other more fun and more rewarding activities to do. To me, I’d still do fractals because it can be a lot more fun even without any appropriate rewards.

The puzzles in Aetherpath, though…

Explorable mode was meant to be the hard version of a dungeon. Story mode was meant to be casual-friendly. I am against making explorable dungeons easier. I want ooze font to stay – it’s very simple puzzle once your team know the strategy (pulling elementals to the back of the room).

The unskippable cut-scenes are the worst.

Edenfer.9816:

Ooze, ooze ooze. That’s the main issue regarding this dungeon.

As easy as it seems. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5T1Dqoi8Nw

Nokaru.7831:

The unskippable cut-scenes are the worst.

I can only agree with this.
Scarlet and her Dungeon. They complement eachother perfectly. Burn, burn, burn!

I see many of the suggested “fixes” as faceroll changes for lazy people, please DON’T do that. Ooze room is done with 2 players, any class, they just need coordination (i do it al the time with a gurdian friend, or a ranger, or a necro, while the other 3 watch). Pugs just need to learn, same as happens with Arah Lupicus. Aetherpath is not hard, it just needs people to work with each other, wich is the point on Grouping for Dungeon. I’m really sick of joining dungeons to just play alone with some random guys running nearby. In aether we really need to speak with the people, coordinate and work as a team. Don’t remove that, instead make other dungeons that challenging.

In my opinnion, the path is almost perfect. Anet did a nice job, but the problem with the path is the skins. Aetherpath lacks on reward, they needs to be acquired by tokens instead of RNG (and i say this after 270 runs with no luck, when a guildie won an “of dreams” skin in his First run). Not fair Anet, not fair.
To fix: Let us buy the skins with tokens that drop specifically in the aetherpath.

Stooperdale.3560:

There was only one thing wrong with the Aetherpath dungeon and that was the other dungeons. The other dungeons allow speed running for better time vs reward.

Elrey.5472:

I see many of the suggested “fixes” as faceroll changes for lazy people, please DON’T do that. Ooze room is done with 2 players, any class, they just need coordination (i do it al the time with a gurdian friend, or a ranger, or a necro, while the other 3 watch). Pugs just need to learn, same as happens with Arah Lupicus. Aetherpath is not hard, it just needs people to work with each other, wich is the point on Grouping for Dungeon. I’m really sick of joining dungeons to just play alone with some random guys running nearby. In aether we really need to speak with the people, coordinate and work as a team. Don’t remove that, instead make other dungeons that challenging.

In my opinnion, the path is almost perfect. Anet did a nice job, but the problem with the path is the skins. Aetherpath lacks on reward, they needs to be acquired by tokens instead of RNG (and i say this after 270 runs with no luck, when a guildie won an “of dreams” skin in his First run). Not fair Anet, not fair.
To fix: Let us buy the skins with tokens that drop specifically in the aetherpath.

Stooperdale.3560:

There was only one thing wrong with the Aetherpath dungeon and that was the other dungeons. The other dungeons allow speed running for better time vs reward.

Some of the dream skin are extremely nice and I know a lot of people who would run this path for a chance at them, however right now the chances of getting on of those skins is irrelevant.

@Elrey: Agree, tho these skins should somehow stay path specific… if those who do daily up/fwd get access to the same stuff, its like giving it for CoF token too. Aetherized Nightmare skins should stay aetherpath related.

sMihaly.1492:

@Elrey: Agree, tho these skins should somehow stay path specific… if those who do daily up/fwd get access to the same stuff, its like giving it for CoF token too. Aetherized Nightmare skins should stay aetherpath related.

yeah, that’s why i said to get them by tokens for the skins, but i mean specifically Aetherpath tokens, not TA tokens :P Anet should make new ones.

Btw hi, seems like you joined me at oozes xD

I like the rare skins being rare (although it feels like Fractal skins rng somtimes).

Also why does a character that hasnt completed the path before unable to see waypoints unlocked when joining a group that’s halfway done in the path? I dont remember this an issue with other paths.

rojak.1894:

I like the rare skins being rare (although it feels like Fractal skins rng somtimes).

Also why does a character that hasnt completed the path before unable to see waypoints unlocked when joining a group that’s halfway done in the path? I dont remember this an issue with other paths.

Rare is ok. but more than 250 runs… seriously, with 0 drops… and people with 1 run gets that drop… That system doesn’t really seems rewarding at all.

Yeah it’s rng (perhaps the rate could be adjusted?). I’ve ran teq so many times and havent got a hoard, however I could buy this weapon for 300g off the tp.

Praying for “Week 2: A Fresh Start” to include “reworking dungeon rewards(again)”

I am going to second the oozes as to why I hate this dungeon so much. Most everything else is good. The Slick and Sparky boss fight is actually one of my favorite in the game. Good use of teamwork and coordination.

Aetherpath is my favorite dungeon in the game. In general, it rewards situational awareness, movement, and the smart use of control abilities, rather than stacking and raw DPS. For those same reasons, it’s also a total pug killer, which is why it’s done less.

It’s as close to a hard mode as we’re going to get for GW2 dungeons.

Mckeone.9804:

Aetherpath is my favorite dungeon in the game. In general, it rewards situational awareness, movement, and the smart use of control abilities, rather than stacking and raw DPS. For those same reasons, it’s also a total pug killer, which is why it’s done less.

It’s as close to a hard mode as we’re going to get for GW2 dungeons.

I agree completely. I love aether. We need more dungeons like that!

Make it worth 5g and see what happens.

I don’t need gold, thanks. I need reward for playing THIS dungeon path instead of playing several others.

Aetherpath really needs to get better rewards. Aetherpath, Arah p4 and fotm are the longest dungeons and quite challenging, yet they give bad reward per time spend.
If those dungeons had better rewards (more gold, realistic chance for skins, maybe via tokens), then the pugs would run it and would get better and learn the tactics.

Edit: I’d rather run a dungeon 100 times, get a token every time and finally can buy my skin for those 100 tokens than having a 1/100 chance for getting a skin.

Yeah I’ve only run it once. 4 hours later we managed to finish it. Of course it didn’t help that we had an uncoordinated pug, had 4 players drop out at various points and had to wait to replace them. Overall it was fun, and challenging, but definetly not worth the rewards. And those chests at the end? Never did find any. It would help if there wasn’t a timer to get all of them. It was like you HAD to know the exact locations, and how to get to them. But having never run the dungeon we had no clue.

I think its fine to have a couple of dungeon paths that require communication and teamwork, as long as there are others that can be easily pugged. Its just a different type of dungeon, that’s all.

As far as effort spent, we do need more like it, but I understand the reticence. Maybe they should look at the reward for completion.

I made this suggestion in another thread, but I dont care if they move away from lengthy dungeons – as long as the dont lose focus on 5 player content. Instead of full dungeons, use the same model their using for lving story – give us shorter challenging 5-man content every two weeks to complete in parties. I would be happy with that.

Personally I like the Aetherblades path a lot. It’s a shame most PUGs for this comprise first-timers, so the ooze font can be a massive pain. However, if you have a group that’s willing to pay attention to instructions, it can be very satisfying to pull off. That’s what I like about the path as a whole: the sense of mastery you get from overcoming some of its tricky obstacles more and more efficiently.

Mckeone.9804:

Aetherpath is my favorite dungeon in the game. In general, it rewards situational awareness, movement, and the smart use of control abilities, rather than stacking and raw DPS. For those same reasons, it’s also a total pug killer, which is why it’s done less.

It’s as close to a hard mode as we’re going to get for GW2 dungeons.

Agreed. I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite dungeon but it certainly is well designed overall.

I can understand PUGs not doing it but I can pretty much never manage to find even guildies that want to do it, mostly because of the dungeon’s reputation. It’s not that hard if you do it a few times.

I’d play it if the ooze puzzle were removed, anything that involves herding NPCs is annoying, the fights are fine.

There is very limited “trash” in the dungeon, and its all very quick. Stack up, pull, dead. Every single trash mob in the dungeon takes very little time overall, probably less then 5 minutes total from beginning to end. The time sinks are in the complicated puzzles which require coordination, of which there are two.

Easiest way to do ooze (imo), have 2 people pull flame eles to far end, (including a reflector). 2 people start running oozes. Kill the flame eles as the oozes start being run. Done. It takes 2 minutes of explaining and coordination, and done.

The other puzzle is the electric floor room which, if you can’t work out the patterns and avoid the electric floors, is doable in about 1 minute, solo, as an elementalist.

I run this path alot, taking pugs with me and trying to teach it as I go along. I rarely have hold ups on trash mobs, or the puzzles. Its the bosses that ruin pugs. Bosses like slick and sparki who cause massive degen debuffs if not controlling the ooze correctly, and the foreman who’s spin is devastating if you don’t get far enough out of the way. Plus his tracking, along with the gears on the ground to punish ranging, and limited area from his shockwave.

I like these fights because they reward good dodging, good use of utilities, positioning and blocks, and team support from things like stabilities, condi clears etc. Yes, as rT proved its possible to destroy these bosses very quickly using FGS (which will be dead in 2 weeks), and other high burst damages. However, your average group wont be able to facetank, and out DPS these bosses. (Not saying its not possible to melee them, just significantly harder and very pug unfriendly).

Raina.8642:

There is very limited “trash” in the dungeon, and its all very quick. Stack up, pull, dead. Every single trash mob in the dungeon takes very little time overall, probably less then 5 minutes total from beginning to end. The time sinks are in the complicated puzzles which require coordination, of which there are two.

Disagree here. Watched rT’s 15:48 aetherpath record and about 10 minutes of it is trash, and that’s with their group’s high damage and pacing. An average group would spend at least 20 minutes going through that trash. I’d include the tedious hologram things in the endboss room as “trash”.

Neither of the puzzles are “complicated”. 2 people click a plant at roughly the same time and walk to a door while the other 3 aggro some mobs. People run to some platforms while not standing in the bad tiles. It makes Swamp Fractal orbs look like elite content.

When the reward is not equal to the dificulty curve i’m not surprised at all that the path failed.

rfdarko.4639:

It seems to me that anet views the whole Aetherpath endeavor as a waste of time. They develop a new dungeon path, and all they get is complaints. They probably view metrics that show it is the least run dungeon path in the game. Clearly the community doesn’t want more challenging content, they just want to farm the easy stuff, right?

I think there are a number of issues with the aetherpath that prevent it from being popular, but they have nothing to do with its difficulty. I want to highlight some of the ones I see and encourage people in the community to contribute their own. Hopefully, anet will be able to learn from this list, address the mistakes, and be more open to developing new instanced 5-man dungeons.

I’ll start with the big one-

Rewards

Colin Johanson

Every time you finish a dungeon you get tokens you can trade in for reward items that you want, rather than having a small chance of getting it as a drop, because it’s more fun to always get rewarded for finishing with something you want to have!

This was from a blog written in June 2012, explaining some of the PvE design decisions in gw2. It pretty succinctly sums up why people have a problem with the reward system TA aetherpath. The unique weapons skins for this path are locked behind a ridiculously low chance to drop. Whats worse, they can be bought on the TP, which means you are better off farming easy dungeons to save up the gold for the skin you want rather then playing the content it comes from.

All of the at-launch dungeons have a token system which gives you guaranteed progression towards unique rewards. You get to choose the skin you get, so it will be relevant to your character. You may also trade in your tokens for generic, salvageable rares, which gives value to the tokens without making the unique skins tradeable. This is a good system, and it’s clear that it was designed with an understanding of how frustrating rng loot chests can be. I’m not sure why anet has moved away from the token system, but I think it was a mistake.

This is the big thing keeping aetherpath from being popular. But there are some other, smaller aspects that add up to major frustration.

Unskippable Cutscenes
The sparky and slick cutscene is the most egregious. I would also count Caithe’s dialogue at the start of the path – it’s not strictly speaking a cutscene, but we should be able to interact with her to interrupt her dialogue and choose a path.

Replacing Foward-Up
This is not something that currently effects the dungeon, but it gave a bad first impression. Rather then doing a simple QoL fix on the final boss of TAF/U, Anet chose to remove the path entirely. This was done with only a few days warning, and and justification given seemed half thought out at best. Instead of excitement about new content, the dialogue on the forums leading up to the patch was soured by this frustrating turn.

Padding
Everyone may not agree with me on this, but I believe there are a bit too many filler trash-mob rooms. There are some interesting encounters and puzzles, but getting to each major objective feels tedious. The solution many of the at-launch dungeons have is to make some trash sections optional – skippable. If they want to move away from skips, I believe they should trim down the dungeon to its meat and potatoes. Keep in trash sections which introduce mechanics (like the run between sparky/slick and the foreman in which you blow up the generators), keep the puzzels, but cut out the rest.

This post is already getting pretty long so I’ll let others contribute what they see as issues with aetherpath. I want anet to know that there is an audience for challenging 5 man content, and that aetherpath is not a good metric of that audience because of other surrounding factors which kept it from being a success.

It’s too hard and too long. What are the most common ran paths ?

COF p1
SE p1
AC p1 & p3

Literally, everyone runs these, why ? Because they’re fast and easy, and the reward is good.

It’s that simple.

Aetherpath is too long, has a big chance to fail, it’s too hard, too complicated and the rewards aren’t good enough.

I’m a casual PvE player but overall the Aetherblade path was fun from my experience, it feels more refreshing than stack-till-they-drop bosses from the other paths. The first time through was new and exciting, beating each challenge was a rewarding feeling. It is one of the harder dungeon paths, and even harder for PUGs and players who are new to the game. Coordination is key to completing this dungeon, and that’s probably what’s holding back most players. I would agree that it’s more innovative than the other paths, and actually requires competent players. It lacks a decent amount of reward per time after the first few runs, which is why it isn’t farmed. Which ultimately makes the dungeon seem unpopular. I’d still have to say it’s one of the better designed dungeon paths.

The dungeon is well-paced, each event has some significance to teach the player how and what mechanics would be involved in the next challenges. Overall, the dungeon felt like it was made for casual and mixed players who enjoyed a challenge. That may also be a reason why it’s not popular among the farmers; speed runners are stuck at a pace, zerkers find it hard to survive some encounters and incompetent players just can’t figure things out on their own.

Players who want a challenge definitely would enjoy the Aetherblade path. Sadly, players just want their wealth and shiny equipment as fast as possible. Aetherblades does not offer enough incentives for the challenges it offers. And that is why people avoid the Aetherblade path.

Aetherpath is fun and players still run it.

The only reasons it is run less often than the others are 1. it is harder to pug (meaning it is designed more for organized groups), and 2. it can take longer than other dungeons (meaning its run more for the experience/fun than it is for loot/grinding).

Imo, we need alot more dungeons like Aetherpath – actually offering a challenge and requiring teamwork – but they should not be in the same category as the grindable/puggable dungeons (which do still have an important place in the game). I know Im unlikely to get that wish due to resource allocation, but the idea that Aetherpath is flawed just because it isnt run as often as other dungeons is faulty logic.

Again, my solution would be very short 5-player instances released on a much more aggressive schedule (similar to the LS instances) that included fights on the same caliber as Sparky/Slick and the Clockheart. I really think that would fix the issues all sides have with the dungeon (wouldnt require as many Anet resources, dungeon runners would have new content more often and they wouldnt take forever to run).

voidwater.2064:

I’d play it if the ooze puzzle were removed.

Funny… i’d stop playing aetherpath if the ooze font were removed. Why? because i love puzzles, positioning and people synchronized on teamspeak or chat.

A dungeon is a place to go with a team. A place where you actually need to play with people. Not a place to solo content along with 4 more players that are just taking care of themselves. That’s a problem the missing trinity made in gw2. Anet found a way to adress that and you want it removed?…. makes no sense to me.

Like Blaeys said, we need more dungeons like this one. But the rewards must be increased for it.

First off, thanks for the clear and concise read there OP.

I completely agree with everything you mentioned however you did not bring up the most important point of all: Reward vs. Effort

That is the biggest problem with almost all the content in this game. There are so many alternates of making 2g that are far less time consuming and much easier.
P1 of AC + P1 of Cof can be done in less than 20 mins which together provide a reward of 2.5g. However Aetherpath can take up to a hour and requires a ton of coordination. This is the primary reason no one wants to do this path.

If this path however rewarded 4g? then yes perhaps some of the teams would start spending more time doing this run. Imo, this path is just as tedious as Arah P4 and should reward appropriately.

All the dungeon rewards need to be balanced, Anet has the stats, take average time of completion and adjust rewards accordingly and it will make for a better system.
Even better would be taking paths that are not commonly run in Past 24 hours and add bonus reward to it.

All paths that can be completed within 10-15m should award 1g.
15-20 min average should give 1.5 and so forth.

Players are not afraid of hard content, they want to feel rewarded for the time and effort they are spending. Make this change and all the dungeons will be vitalized.

Elrey.5472:

voidwater.2064:

I’d play it if the ooze puzzle were removed.

Funny… i’d stop playing aetherpath if the ooze font were removed. Why? because i love puzzles, positioning and people synchronized on teamspeak or chat.

We value very different things, then.

Puzzles are not really that interesting once you know the solution.. Put the triangle block in the triangle shaped hole. Now what about the star block? Good job!

It’s just mechanical repetition of a solution, no quick tactical thinking required, no challenges to your physical abilities.

Having to drag ooze around is okay when you’re fighting Sparki/Slick, but I’d rather not have a puzzle centered around that mechanic. Also, at some level it’s a visceral contempt for what the player is asked to do in the puzzle.

Combat is the core of the game. I would not mind if all dungeons had their puzzles removed and replaced with difficult, exciting boss fights. Boss rush all the way through is fine with me.

The most interesting content for me would be complex boss battles with lots of twitch gameplay. By twitchy, imagine something slightly less difficult than “multiplayer Touhou”.

Bosses should be twitchy enough such that even if you know the process for beating the bosses, executing those plans successfully is far, far from guaranteed. Fights should spam you with harmful things that demand your constant attention.

Obstacles should not come from team synchronization/communication requirements. Difficulty should arise simply because it’s hard to avoid death in fights, not because you have to chat with people.

Elrey.5472:

A dungeon is a place to go with a team. A place where you actually need to play with people. Not a place to solo content along with 4 more players that are just taking care of themselves.

I see nothing wrong with the “5 soloers” model, just make it pretty hard for the individuals to stay alive, and the content will be fun for me. The types of “teamwork” in RPGs that I find most interesting are skill/build synergies, not action synchronization and communication.

Elrey.5472:

makes no sense to me.

Basically, I like the fights, but I don’t like the puzzles. The puzzles have to be completed to reach the fights. I wish the puzzles would go away.

Elrey.5472:

Like Blaeys said, we need more dungeons like this one. But the rewards must be increased for it.

That said, I’d agree with this, upping the rewards to match the effort involved for Aetherpath would attract more people.

Unlike other dungeons (aside Arah maybe, Mai Trin and Molten bosses) you can actually be stuck in this one. If your team cannot bring down Sparki and Slick, or can’t figure out how to deal with the last boss, they can be stuck there for quite a long time.

Which discourages PuGs, especially “Anet said I could play how I want and if I want to play an inefficient build, I should be able to complete it” type of players (I’m not saying “zerk or gtfo”, but an engi in full zerk gear with whatever traits who only wants to use his pistol and nothing else is someone I don’t want to end up with ever again).

Add in the Ooze puzzle and this make the dungeon something extremely annoying to carry someone around.
Unlike Arah, where if everyone dies at Lupi you might be able to solo it, good luck fighting the last boss when someone decides to constantly kill the holograms and keep ranging the boss which makes the fight floor full of spinning blades.

Put simply, it was too long and too hard for too little reward. I enjoyed the dungeon (although I wouldn’t run it regularly), and it appeals to players who like a challenge and diverse boss mechanics, but if the complaints about the World Summit boss are anything to go by, it was way too hard for the majority of the game’s players.

I think the difficulty of this path is far higher than the other dungeons, but I think that’s okay. This path is very fun with an organised group with voice communication, but I would never touch this dungeon with PUGs.

But there should definitely have been better rewards. There should have been a new dungeon vendor, and unique tokens for the path, and the gold reward should be greater.

RedStar.4218:

Unlike Arah, where if everyone dies at Lupi you might be able to solo it, good luck fighting the last boss when someone decides to constantly kill the holograms and keep ranging the boss which makes the fight floor full of spinning blades.

Clockheart is 100 times easier than lupicus imo. If your group is really bad just let them die, be ready to dodge or block the tier 30 attacks while they die, then solo it. Also ranging it i find clockheart way easier, the spinning blades aren’t random at all, they drop where you are when he growls. Most of the time i am not even facing clockheart, i just “hear” a growl and i just move 2 meters away from my position because a spinning gear will drop there. If you suddenly get torment that just means you are in range of his 180º arc frontal attack.
Clockheart it’s so easy that you don’t need to even see his animations. Just pay attention to the sounds, your conditions and range it like a bearbow would xD.

That said, i gotta admit it’s fun to let them die when they kill holograms out of time

I am rlly kittened off whenever this happens :/
(@loot)

You can get exotic dungeon weapons as drops?

Elrey.5472:

RedStar.4218:

Unlike Arah, where if everyone dies at Lupi you might be able to solo it, good luck fighting the last boss when someone decides to constantly kill the holograms and keep ranging the boss which makes the fight floor full of spinning blades.

Clockheart is 100 times easier than lupicus imo. If your group is really bad just let them die, be ready to dodge or block the tier 30 attacks while they die, then solo it. Also ranging it i find clockheart way easier, the spinning blades aren’t random at all, they drop where you are when he growls. Most of the time i am not even facing clockheart, i just “hear” a growl and i just move 2 meters away from my position because a spinning gear will drop there. If you suddenly get torment that just means you are in range of his 180º arc frontal attack.
Clockheart it’s so easy that you don’t need to even see his animations. Just pay attention to the sounds, your conditions and range it like a bearbow would xD.

That said, i gotta admit it’s fun to let them die when they kill holograms out of time

What I meant is that if you’re good, you can solo Lupi while the rest of your team can do whatever the hell they want and it won’t cause you too much problems;
If you’re team wants to make Clockheart a nightmare, they can do it quite easily by filling the room with razors, blowing up the holograms and rather quickly the only safe places will be the platforms. If they don’t have razors on them.

It’s an easy boss. The room however can be turned to hell quite easily, just by having a team who isn’t too aware of what not to do.