Guild Wars 2

TL;DR version at the bottom.

So me and my buddies hit 30+ and decide to take a crack at the dungeons of GW2. We’re all long time MMO vets, who particularly enjoy dungeon crawling.

We hit the Ascalonian Catacombs (story mode) with 3 people at first (some of us are allergic to PUGs) just to get our feet wet. Takes us about an hour to get through the first two bosses. The bosses themselves were not so bad … the real heart attack was the double (and triple) silver vet Ranger pulls. I wished PC Rangers played that well

We come back with our other buddy (so four of us now) and clear story mode. Overall I enjoyed the experience. The different paradigm to other MMO dungeons (no main healer or tank) was refreshing and made the fights (even the same ones) interesting and dynamic. Hard but not unenjoyably so.

We come back for explorer mode with the same four in the group and have similar experiences as we did in story mode (even with the different encounters). We clear the first three bosses up to the burial mounds (we chose to go the route of the King and followed Hodgins throughout) and found ourselves stuck without a fifth (we think) as we were unable to handle the multiple spawns with just four. Overall we came away thinking the encounters were well done … again hard but not unenjoyably so.

Pros:

1) Enjoyable degree of difficulty. Some will disagree vehemently with this I know and I would absolutely hate to try to PUG these dungeons.

2) New paradigm of self sustaining toons is very well done and refreshing. Not the same old scripted and formulaic fights. While some old formula rules still exist, the lack of healer/tank setup lends to more dynamic fights overall.

3) Traps! Finally … after umpteen ages since EQ and EQ2, an MMO reintroduces the concept of traps. Kudos for remembering what dungeons are supposed to be like. Could use a bit more creativity here though (how many times can we see the same flame breathing gargoyle head and spike trap?). Now if only we could find secret doors and passages.

Cons:

1) Risk vs. Reward is totally blown. Nice hard dungeons … crappy loot. Why would anyone do these a second time (or a first after reading this)? The token system (later on) is not enough (imo). Unique risks deserve unique rewards, and high risk deserve high rewards (both in exp and loot). Most people will come to realize they could have made more money, got better upgrades and levelled faster by doing something else. Big no no in game design here imo and probably my #1 problem with the dungeon design thus far.

2) Some encounters are bit over tuned. Having to remember what combination of weapon and skills load outs you may need (x5) per encounter is a bit tedious (not to mention the mechanic of wiping to get to “know” the encounter). I feel this is one of the sore points of GW2 in general though (personal peeve I know).

3) Multi death scenarios are always bad game design, but this mode of design seems to be en vogue throughout MMOs these days for lack of creative balance and risk/reward. The obvious graveyard zerg strategy that the majority of players will fall back on when doing these dungeons just makes me feel dirty inside.

TL;DR: Liked the dungeon. Loved the difficulty. Hated the lack of rewards (coin, items, exp) for effort spent.

I agree for the most part. The same gargoyle heads and spiked traps used throughout the dungeon makes sense though. Think about where you’re at. In the Ascalonian Dungeons. Its the same dungeon so it should have similar decor just like a house.

I would understand that point if it were something like CM where sometimes you are in a house, sometimes outside, and sometimes in a cave. The decor their should definitely differ.

I know it was probably a joke but just wanted to explain it anyway lol. It makes sense if you step back outside the game and view it as a place to live or visit like a castle.

So far out of all the dungeons I have played (a whole grand total of 2 including AC lol!), AC has been my favorite. The other dungeon I played was CM which I absolutely dispise. The rifleman in CM have eagle eye sight and can take you down with only a few shots. Others state that they do more damage while you move as if you should just stand there and get pelted by multiple rifleman (because the mobs in CM are in groups of 20, no joke, most of the time).

The traps in EM AC are OP ^^ I’ve probably died to them more than the fights on my first playthrough of that place; until you memorize their locations you always risk dying (and not getting rezzed unless thief or mes).