Guild Wars 2

I can say with certainty that the people who want dungeons more difficult are the minority. They need to be able to be done by pug groups that don’t have exotic gear. I’m sure they are going to flame me like crazy for this but it is because they are an extremely vocal bunch. Not everyone has 4 hours to fight the same fight over and over with the same group and tons of communication. The most common dungeon group has to be a random one, and most people are taking the same path over and over again despite diminishing returns because the other paths are too hard!

What’s the goal with making them harder? To appease the people who already can do it and have it on autopilot.

What’s the goal with making them easier? To make them more accessible to everyone else who still has yet to do them and get the goodies!

Think about it.

From my point of view I like the difficulty. I don’t want to see everybody in these dungeon sets. It doesn’t become an visual achievement then.

I would like something that I couldn’t beat and then being able to see someone that is wearing his ‘achievement’ of beating that dungeon multiple times. When I see that I strive to play better and achieve the same goal.

Example CoF speed runs were easy and fast. Now I see everybody wearing this armor, as cool as it looks I don’t even want it. (I don’t want something everybody has)

Over time people will find strategies and tactics on how to beat these bosses and they will become second nature to everybody. Hopefully that takes awhile.

If I beat the dungeon in 1 run without difficulty I will get bored and not want to continue that dungeon for more runs.

I love the feeling of beating a boss after time dedication. Beating a boss on the brink of losing feels great. Last person up gets the final blow before he falls over from bleed damage kind of scenario. The second time you do it you’ll see your improvement. This time we had the whole team alive for his death.

The goal of making them harder is to have something to achieve without the title (and they are not autopilot right away) The goal of making them easier makes it too boring and you WILL autopilot through them everytime. It becomes a chore and not a ‘game’.

Wait a couple weeks till strategies start forming then try dungeons again. You sound like the type that doesn’t like a challenge (and that’s fine, there are all types of people) some dungeons are easier than others. Let the skilled players have their visual achievements.

I think people have a wide variety of experiences regarding the dungeons, and a lot of that has to do with the group playing them. In my experience with running Ascalonian Catacombs several times over the past few days, I’ve learned a few basic things that can really help dungeon runs:

1.) Read the Wiki page on the dungeon you’re about to do, and the path.
Dungeons are not standard PvE parts of the game. Often times you will need to swap gear around, change out utilities and elites, and switch up trait bonuses mid-run to be able to handle the next encounter. Knowing what is ahead will greatly help this. You NEED a solid understanding of at least 90% of the mechanics in the game, including not only your own abilities, but some of the others around you in order to manipulate them the best.

2.) Realize that while the minimum level for an Explore Mode dungeon is 35, you’re likely to have more success with a higher level group.
This last point isn’t just about gear or abilities, but about overall game experience. The enemies that you fight in the dungeons BEHAVE very similarly to other enemies in the later sections of the game. Fights become drastically more involved in the later levels, and at level 35 you just won’t have the speed or game knowledge to deal with that as well as you could.

Anyone who’s been to the Level 80 PvE areas and then gone back to the earlier ones will know exactly what I’m talking about with this one. I used to hate the Dredge because I felt like they were too strong, now they just seem like they stand still and occasionally attack you. The Risen you fight later on in the game prepare your reflexes, reacting to telegraphed attack patterns, and condition management, as well as some of the deeper complexities present in your class.

All of which are important skills to running an explore mode dungeon, by the way.

3.) Classes DO matter.
Aim for variation in your groups for dungeons. Don’t just take anyone and expect to succeed. This isn’t going to happen. Different classes fill different roles and will be stronger in different areas. Recognize where your class shines, and try to be there for your team when they need your specific abilities.

For example, I’m a Mesmer. My DPS is decent, but really only medium at best. My tanking abilities are also mediocre at best. But I shine at inflicting conditions, confusing and stunning single targets, and I have decent splash abilities thanks to shatters (“shredding”). So I play to those strengths, and only those. I strip conditions from allies, and throw down AoE combos that inflict confusion and poison. I interrupt large enemies telegraphing deadly attacks, and apply invisibility to the group when we need to get away (or to myself when I’m in a tight spot). I don’t ever TRY to do more than what I know I’m good at, because it’ll most likely result in my death, which negatively affects the ENTIRE group, because then I won’t be there to do my job.

Guild Wars 2 has removed the holy trinity, and instead, now we have EVERY class mattering. Your class DOES and WILL continue to have a specific role in the game. Make sure you play to those strengths at extremes, and that everyone else in your group is doing that, and you’ll laugh your way through even the “hardest” sections of the dungeons.

I would say that the only problem I have fundamentally with the dungeons is the recommended level. It’s too low. Saying a bunch of 35’s could do these dungeons is certainly true, but not if their breadth of game experience is ONLY 35 levels on any character. You don’t have the game knowledge to keep up with the challenges present in the dungeons whatsoever and they will seem impossible.

No, I don’t want the dungeons made harder, they’re just a bit overtuned in some segments compared to overall, npc and/or point defense are a joke and the rest of the game seems fine aside from the odd boss fight, if you can get out of the “hurhurhur DEEPZ FTW :B” mentality the game is pretty decent and well made dungeon wise even if it’s not particularly forgiving and exciting.

All that ever seems to hapkitten players don’t go supportive in terms of utilities and end up shred to bits then scream at the game for not letting them play in a way that’s boring and offers less to a group.

inb4 obligatory “I build glasscannon and offer tons to a group” post with thinly stretched rationalisations.

I don’t have exotic gear.
I finally replaced some of my blues with greens last night!’ :-)

But I want dungeons to be more difficult.
Once you do it the first time and understand what’s going on, it’s too easy.

Well, I don’t necessary want enemies to have more HP and hurt harder, I just want the battles to be more challenging.

Still walking into every dungeon with my first 4 friends that want to go and still say they all rate between easy and medium except arah with is more long than anything else.

I think they need to implement more difficulty modes. Story mode, which you are only supposed to run once, and exploratory mode are not enough.

I also think there needs to be a distinction between difficulty and length. Filling as dungeon with high hp mobs doesn’t make really make it more difficult, just longer.n

The game is young Wasselin, the game is still young.

I too hope for higher difficulty because I know over time people will have these on farm. No need to drop the difficultly.

- Xhaine

Kain.9167:

They need to be able to be done by pug groups that don’t have exotic gear.

You are wrong here – explorable dungeons are not meant for pugs at all, yet for undergeared ones. AN has stated that many times.

Normal and hard mode please!

Wethospu.6437:

Normal and hard mode please!

Yes let what we have now be normal and give us a hard mode or better yet call it Kitten mode, just make sure Kitten mode reward has skins that can be gotten no other way

I don’t like you people who demand that you be special with armor that will separate your “greatness” from the rest. Many of the people who have full sets at this point got it from exploiting and we, the rest, are stuck with diminished returns. Fact is, when you’re done, you’re done and you won’t be touching dungeons after you have the few pieces you want from them.

I think normal and hard mode is a bad idea and will likely only cause balance issues that will screw over people currently running dungeons even more. They need one difficulty which is hard, but hard to a random group of 5 people. You shouldn’t have to consult a Wiki and read a book on a dungeon before you do it. You should be able to go into a dungeon, stumble through it the first time, and then be able to figure it out better and better for each subsequent run. Demanding Ventrilo, set groups in a guilds, research, heavy trial and error, etc. is only going to kill the playerbase. Said it before and I will say it again, not everyone has hours upon hours everyday to play – should they be denied dungeon gear altogether? Stop being kittening morons trying to protect your digital flames and let other people have fun too.

Even in real life human’s achieve to separate their “greatness” from the rest, there is no difference in massively multi-player online games. I have 1-2 pugs with me in most dungeons and I haven’t had to kick one yet, they listen and we win.

You absolutely should do some research. Especially on group mechanics. Once you find some good group compositions and strategies you can apply it to almost all the fights. Thinking you are going to win by doing nothing but throwing your body at something is …. well it’s not smart play

Play smart

- Xhaine

Xhaine.4120:

From my point of view I like the difficulty. I don’t want to see everybody in these dungeon sets. It doesn’t become an visual achievement then.

I would like something that I couldn’t beat and then being able to see someone that is wearing his ‘achievement’ of beating that dungeon multiple times. When I see that I strive to play better and achieve the same goal.

Example CoF speed runs were easy and fast. Now I see everybody wearing this armor, as cool as it looks I don’t even want it. (I don’t want something everybody has)

Over time people will find strategies and tactics on how to beat these bosses and they will become second nature to everybody. Hopefully that takes awhile.

If I beat the dungeon in 1 run without difficulty I will get bored and not want to continue that dungeon for more runs.

I love the feeling of beating a boss after time dedication. Beating a boss on the brink of losing feels great. Last person up gets the final blow before he falls over from bleed damage kind of scenario. The second time you do it you’ll see your improvement. This time we had the whole team alive for his death.

The goal of making them harder is to have something to achieve without the title (and they are not autopilot right away) The goal of making them easier makes it too boring and you WILL autopilot through them everytime. It becomes a chore and not a ‘game’.

Wait a couple weeks till strategies start forming then try dungeons again. You sound like the type that doesn’t like a challenge (and that’s fine, there are all types of people) some dungeons are easier than others. Let the skilled players have their visual achievements.

Ahh yes, the “I am a special snowflake” argument.

@crucifer
There could be a LOT of reasons behind this, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they didn’t test it, it’s possible of course but it’s even forgivable if that’s the case, there was massive holes that were being exploited and thus, they had to stop it so they weren’t just “the only” dungeon that was being bothered with, it got a LARGE buff which was supposedly to help raise the time taken to complete the dungeon, is may have been a kneejerk change but it’s not as horrific as people make it out to be, just an overtuning imho, and most defence segments share issues which cause problems and I’m sure in time they will be fixed to be more achievable as a dps and survive as opposed to “kite and corpse conga”

@roberthrouda
Thanks again for the clarifications and updates, even if they’re small it’s always appreciated that you guys jump in, and that you also understand that emotional and particularly angry off the cuff responses, are usually born of a passion for a game and a desire for the game to no become anything less than the game they love and enjoy,
Would it be too much to ask of you currently for a general “no promises being made” update into what you guys are seemingly getting from the community in general so far? would be interesting to hear which way you guys are leaning towards currently as to future development changes to dungeons which have been the most controversial aspect of the game for many

the only thing i have an issue with in dungeons is that you dont get the tokens per boss or challenge, right now i am trying to get the arah gear, but i cant get past lupicus giganticus with pugs, this is really frustrating. That means that i never get any reward for the progress i made up to that point.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with making some dungeons harder than others, and I think a lot of people are just disappointed because they’ve been shut out of a whole area of gameplay. Dungeoning with a group isn’t remotely the same experience as doing DE’s all day with whoever’s around in open world. People feel cheated because they don’t have time to dedicate 3+hours to trying to pug their way through a dungeon, or don’t know enough folks to start an organized run, and then they get told “dungeons aren’t for you”. Reward the harder dungeons with more tokens and better loot. Let the people who want to be entitled to exclusive content be able to get the rewards faster, but give everyone else the chance to get it eventually too.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

We have plans, and we’ll be commenting on them very soon. I wish I could have a “no promises being made” thread where we talk about things, but the unfortunate aspect of a dev revealing plans and intentions is that in itself is a promise. And we may say something, build it, try it, and then iterate on it to the point it is not what we said, and that tarnishes credibility we had in claiming something, even though the system it became might be measurably better. The danger is in systems that change that aren’t easily measured as better or worse, that are different from our initial assertions and expectations.

Those are indeed good reasons.

If you lack communications players complain, but if you talk too much players will use your words against you.
There is no winning beside maybe letting out informations that are confirmed to be happening soon.

just dropped by to say i haven’t had any issues running explorable dungeons blindly (that is, without previous research) with random groups. it’s totally doable, and as much as i hate to say it, if you’re having that much trouble, try looking at yourself before blaming the game. see if there isn’t anything you could be doing better, any changes you could make to your build to make it more efficient on that spot, etc.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Hellkaiser.6025:

Would it be too much to ask of you currently for a general “no promises being made” update into what you guys are seemingly getting from the community in general so far? would be interesting to hear which way you guys are leaning towards currently as to future development changes to dungeons which have been the most controversial aspect of the game for many

We have plans, and we’ll be commenting on them very soon. I wish I could have a “no promises being made” thread where we talk about things, but the unfortunate aspect of a dev revealing plans and intentions is that in itself is a promise. And we may say something, build it, try it, and then iterate on it to the point it is not what we said, and that tarnishes credibility we had in claiming something, even though the system it became might be measurably better. The danger is in systems that change that aren’t easily measured as better or worse, that are different from our initial assertions and expectations.

Have you guys thought of doing what the player suggested but having the transparency and the willingness to say if something got tweaked if it was somethign you talked about and it isn’t the original now or we tried it and found it to either be lacking, op, or just a bad idea. I mean you guys are human too…sometimes it goes a lot further when you can show that you are human by admitting fallibility, or heck even saying stay tuned you guys are gonna be stoked…we like it when you talk to us.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Threads like these have the potential to get a bit volatile. Please remember to provide constructive criticism with each other, and foster dialogue over name calling.

That being said, we are indeed careful about analyzing what the feedback really means. Everyone has legit feedback to give, no matter how it is constructed – part of our job as Developers is to look at feedback from any sort, and attempt to glean the essence of their feedback.
Sometimes it is simple: This boss hurts my face and can kill me in one shot with his Flameburst attack, and there’s no way to dodge or block it!
Sometimes it’s rather complex: Nerf FlameBurster boss in CoF he’s totally OP!

Both are just examples of what could be the same issue, and both have merit. The second example would usually only draw a cursory glance which can lead a reader to the assumption that a group just got rolled and couldn’t defeat a boss… but the first example is more indicative that there might be a problem with some numbers and balance.

It’s part of our job to read your feedback, investigate things, and make a decision on what we find. Some feedback is harder to glean actionable items from, but that’s part of what we do.

Thanks for the response. It’s was pretty obvious that you all took time to try to find the meat of feedback, but it was nice to hear it out loud. All I want is what is best for the game. Nobody wants another WoW!

Kain.9167

I don’t like you people who demand that you be special with armor that will separate your “greatness” from the rest. Many of the people who have full sets at this point got it from exploiting and we, the rest, are stuck with diminished returns. Fact is, when you’re done, you’re done and you won’t be touching dungeons after you have the few pieces you want from them.

I think normal and hard mode is a bad idea and will likely only cause balance issues that will screw over people currently running dungeons even more. They need one difficulty which is hard, but hard to a random group of 5 people. You shouldn’t have to consult a Wiki and read a book on a dungeon before you do it. You should be able to go into a dungeon, stumble through it the first time, and then be able to figure it out better and better for each subsequent run. Demanding Ventrilo, set groups in a guilds, research, heavy trial and error, etc. is only going to kill the playerbase. Said it before and I will say it again, not everyone has hours upon hours everyday to play – should they be denied dungeon gear altogether? Stop being kittening morons trying to protect your digital flames and let other people have fun too.

I don’t like you people who demand easy access to everything in the game which leaves nothing remotely challenging in game. Fact is, when you’re done, you won’t be touching these dungeons after you have the few pieces you want from them leaving people with no challenging content to do, and no pve content for guild groups or groups of friends.

I think normal and hard mode is a bad idea because why please as many people as possible when you can make content for the smallest percentage of the population as possible. We need one difficulty which is hard for a bunch of people who stumble their way into a dungeon naked, who haven’t spent any trait or skill points and think they need a tank, a healer and 3 dps. This way when guild groups and groups of friends who are looking for a challenge can face roll through the content get bored and move onto another game. After all this game is about shiny loot not about socializing and doing group activities that can be both challenging and enjoyable.

The amount of hypocrisy coming from your post is astounding, you have taken the view that the majority of the player base is like you, no guild, pugging everything, completely uninterested in the remotest amount of challenge and just looking for dungeon loot which has exactly the same stats as the crafted items which you can fully gear with the minute you hit max level.

They even gave you full access to all the dungeons lore included with story mode. The only reason for doing explorable modes is 1: You want the armor sets because they look cool or 2: You want to experience the only pve content in this game that is remotely challenging.

And as you have pointed out not only do you want access to the gear, which personally they can mail it to you for all I care, you want to take away the only thing guild groups have to do that is challenging in pve?

Sounds to me like your comment about not wanting another WoW was sarcasm because that seems to be exactly the kind of system you want for 5 man dungeons in this game. Incredibly easy and a mere stepping stone to as much gear as possible as quickly as possible.

There is plenty of room in this game to have both easy content that gives you access and more challenging content that gives people things to work toward and challenge them. You don’t seem to want either and have also decided this means no one else should get it.

No I do not have explorable gear, I did not exploit the dungeon system when it was incredibly easy. I merely look forward to some challenging content that rewards teamwork and playing with a small group of guild members and friends, which outside of explorable dungeons my only choices are WvW or SPvP.

Stop being selfish and allow other people to have fun to.

I hope they don’t change the difficulty. Only thing that needs to be changed are rewards increased such as different explorable paths some take extremely long compared to others so nobody will do the longer 1s more than once

…Just curious if anyone here has beaten that Subject Alpha boss in the Teleporter route explorable of COE, without exploiting constant Stability buff + split-second immunity** dodging? My team really tried to beat him with several BalanceWay tactics and ordinary corpse-rolling from the WP that’s 2 minutes away but it just seemed impossible so I made everyone run stability instead so we couldn’t be crystalled (I didn’t even die once… but it felt so gimmicky).

• * – (the AoE’s he summons every 3 seconds basically cover the entire quadrant you’re standing in so it’s a lot easier to just time your dodge to “evade” the AoE instead of actually trying to get OUTSIDE of the red circles in time).

I’m fine with explorable modes being hard, they are supposed to replace raids in other MMO’s.

I’m mostly concerned with the reward in them, the few times I’ve done explorables I’ve been disappointed with the rewards for all that banging your head on the wall. I know tokens were increased, but that still leaves the fatal flaw of explorable dungeon rewards: What if you don’t want the dungeon skin? You’ve designed dungeons to be run by highly organized guild groups… and yet in a lot of guilds you’re not going to find 5 people who all want to run the dungeon multiple times for the skins. You’ll have 1 or 2 people that want the skin dragging 3-4 people along with them and basically wasting their time and giving them repair bills until you have the instance on farm.

THAT SAID… I think story modes are across the board, overtuned, especially on level.

Story mode should be designed around your under geared PuGs, but Bosses are still 1 and 2 shotting people.

1 example I can say for specific is the final boss of Honor of the Waves Story Mode… his flock of seagulls attack pretty much downed the target in the group whenever he used it, and you couldn’t dodge all of it, you’d evade a few of the birds but still end up downed every time he turned and used it on you.

Story mode should be pretty easy, if the rewards need to be pushed back, so be it, but almost across the board they felt overtuned for what they were intended to be, for casuals while they were leveling up.

The current dungeon difficulty is perfect in my personal opinion. Explanation: for me, dungeons should be hard to pug groups. But if you form a balanced group and do it over and over again, it’s going to get easier. A good balance is, after many runs, a static group can do it with 1 or 2 accidental deaths due to oversight or bad RNG. At least that’s my personal experience/opinion having been through many dungeons. It’s great that some groups have great gear/coordination/skill level and can make it through the dungeon without rage quitting. But keep in mind that to others, their dying over and over again may not be rewarded at all at the end. While it’s very comfortable to sit at the top w/ your a little group of skillful friends and call the pugs nub, it’s healthier for the server to have a good player pool willing to at least do these dungeons, and slowly build up that skill. Raising the difficulty would just create a brick wall to discourage people.

Currently the state of the dungeon is that, there’s alot of bugs that are creating walls for players. Once these bugs are patched, the experience will be alot better. There’s certain bosses and fights that may need tweaking (crystals in CoF, mag room, e.g.) but the overall feel of the difficulty is good. Now if we can get a good LFG tool /communication channel for dungeons, would be even better.

Crucifer.2831:

Hey Magg’s Kite room is unachievable in the intended way for all the reasons posted for 2 weeks.

Oh about that you are the guy who did this to the dungeon….how can i trust you to balance other dungeons?

I think he is touching on something real – I loved the first part of your game and I would love to love the rest of it, but I really feel like you continually say “oh, we tested this, you can do it!” but when I play the game (on a number of servers with a large variety of players), all I hear is people saying that they cannot do what you expect them to be able to do. How, when that is the case, am I (and we as a community), suppose to find comfort in your feedback and insights?

I am not trying to be harsh or negative, but I do not understand the relationship between the community and the developers – particularly comparing the developers expectations to the community’s capabilities.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

We try to be as transparent as possible with our changes. Some things, like closing exploits, we aren’t always going to post about. You never want to directly put down someone’s idea though, or point out specific people since that can have unforeseen consequences (ahem).
But yes, there are good player suggestions that we outright implement without any tweaking whatsoever. “crystals are too hard to kill” being an example. Yup, they’re a bit on the tough side for how many there are at any given time – nerfing the toughness seems appropriate. That’s gonna happen on Monday though, but I felt it was a solid example

This is good news. I am looking forward to it.

Unless it breaks… then you will be in for another week of anger. No pressure. :d

For some dungeons, they need to be made both harder and easier in different sections, rather than an overall ‘difficulty summary’. For example, Magg’s run at CoF is generally a breeze, i wouldn’t be opposed to upping the difficulty on the devourers to require a more tactical approach. Usually it can be done with the team all over the place killing whatever they feel like. That said, the kite-room is near impossible to kill the enemies and hold out in some zombie apocalypse style survival mode, and even just running around taking aggro can be tough until everyone one else in the party gets the hang of it and can buy those extra few crucial seconds. If it was more do-able, but still tough… that would balance the dungeon out alot. I’ve seen players try to jump through the gate and get frustrated with me because i insisted we kite the room, as exploiters are the reason for tripe like DR. Maybe a few more acoytles in the boss room too, he is very easy with any PuG.

Pathway 1 however, the run to the boss room itself is fine and I have lead various PuG’s through it with no major problems… but the boss is rediculous! We were built well, we had my Thief with focused deadly arts, sup grenth runed up and experienced in Degen – A ranger and a necro who both knew to focus high condition DPS – particularly poison… and 2 guardians who were experienced. we communicated well despite being a pug, everyone was very savvy, following plans precisely, offering feedback and solutions on our attempts. we ALL took the time to watch a few videos of teams clearing the boss on youtube to get the strategy down… and we applied that strategy as well as we could. there were no weak links or bad players, but that boss just has ZERO room for error. For a PuG, I honestly don’t think there was much more we could have done to give it a better shot… and I dont see how if we were a guild on ventrilo that could have gone any differently. we knew what to anticipate, but in the end it just didn’t pan out like the video. We wiped about 10 times, each time trying hard and working out the kinks… but in the end, we just couldn’t do it. I have been in that situation with several other PuG’s on that boss. Every single player i’ve faced him with has came to the conclusion… He needs to be softened up somehow. If he can heal himself, give him less health. the challenge is executing the strategy right, and because he takes so long to down…that’s alot of holding out perfectly… so if we do nail it, keeping the poison on him and avoiding the crystals that fall.. that should be rewarded. that’s a good enough challenge.

The people likely to disagree with me are very fortunate, They have guilds who they’ve known over the years from several other games. Tight gaming bunches who know eachother on a real name basis, understand eachothers strong points, and are comfortable coordinating with eachother over a headset… all those boxes ticked, but also just HAPPEN to be interested in running the same dungeons over and over again, available at the same time of the day…. Reality check: the majority of us don’t have such crews, but we are individually good players and deserve the same nice things other skilled players can acheive with their fortunate circumstances. I couldn’t interest any of my friends in GW2.. They either think they are ‘too cool’ for online games, or stubborn guys who got into WoW and can’t see anything being better. I also live in Australia… alot of us are very easy to get along with – great people. But many aussie gamers are high-school aged kids who abuse eachother over simple mistakes and have egos leaking out of their ears. That means even by luck if i could get a guild who just happened to have the exact same goals as me, it could be an unpleasant experience where as the players over seas in the US etc who i’d like to play with, are in time zones where it’s not often practical for us to play at the same time.

Hayden

But many aussie gamers are high-school aged kids who abuse eachother over simple mistakes and have egos leaking out of their ears. That means even by luck if i could get a guild who just happened to have the exact same goals as me, it could be an unpleasant experience where as the players over seas in the US etc who i’d like to play with, are in time zones where it’s not often practical for us to play at the same time.

Aw, we love you too.

Probably.

Dungeons are NOT HARD. Just way much too kitten No challenge at all, just some random crap mechanics (in most cases bugged) and no tactics at all. Point of those dungeons is to die less and spent less.

there’s a reason i didnt do endgame PVE in WoW. i tried grinding heroic dungeons but they were mind-numbingly easy. raids were the same, except there was a gear threshold to do a given encounter. making scripted scenarios challenging and fresh for multiple runs is very challenging. my vote is to at least keep explorable dungeons reasonably difficult for the novelty to last longer. so that there’s at least some struggle, and a reason to keep trying.

im a big fan of randomly generated content, like in Global Agenda’s instances. you never truly know what you’re gonna get, but it ends up working out in the end.

ultimately, PVE is always gonna be a snoozefest after a while. this is why GW2’s resources need to be prioritized for DE’s and WvW expansion. dynamic content is amazing and i see huge potential in it, as long as the scaling is fixed.

Kain.9167:

I can say with certainty that the people who want dungeons more difficult are the minority. They need to be able to be done by pug groups that don’t have exotic gear. I’m sure they are going to flame me like crazy for this but it is because they are an extremely vocal bunch. Not everyone has 4 hours to fight the same fight over and over with the same group and tons of communication. The most common dungeon group has to be a random one, and most people are taking the same path over and over again despite diminishing returns because the other paths are too hard!

What’s the goal with making them harder? To appease the people who already can do it and have it on autopilot.

What’s the goal with making them easier? To make them more accessible to everyone else who still has yet to do them and get the goodies!

Think about it.

So the quality has to take a hit because you want people to be able to clear it from the get-and-go? You dissapoint me.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be harder, I’m all for having more diverse tactics instead of just a few tough ones. I would probably nerdgasm if I had to dodge three different aoes in the space of two seconds with precise positioning before I could hit the boss for about two seconds until he has some other trick up his sleeve for me.

That’s why I love CoE so much. It’s boss tactics are by far the most diverse.

Inci.7560:

Kain.9167:

I can say with certainty that the people who want dungeons more difficult are the minority. They need to be able to be done by pug groups that don’t have exotic gear. I’m sure they are going to flame me like crazy for this but it is because they are an extremely vocal bunch. Not everyone has 4 hours to fight the same fight over and over with the same group and tons of communication. The most common dungeon group has to be a random one, and most people are taking the same path over and over again despite diminishing returns because the other paths are too hard!

What’s the goal with making them harder? To appease the people who already can do it and have it on autopilot.

What’s the goal with making them easier? To make them more accessible to everyone else who still has yet to do them and get the goodies!

Think about it.

So the quality has to take a hit because you want people to be able to clear it from the get-and-go? You dissapoint me.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be harder, I’m all for having more diverse tactics instead of just a few tough ones. I would probably nerdgasm if I had to dodge three different aoes in the space of two seconds with precise positioning before I could hit the boss for about two seconds until he has some other trick up his sleeve for me.

That’s why I love CoE so much. It’s boss tactics are by far the most diverse.

I don’t think they should make everything easy enough for just any player regardless of their attention to what’s happening, experience and team work… but there are some bosses that are just unfair, exclusive to precise guild teams of friends, with mic’s and thorough understanding of eachothers style. I bet i’m no worse a player than any individual in a group capable of demolishing any boss – but with the resources and guilds i’m part of, I am often alone trying my best to coordinate PuG’s. if i can show them how it’s done, make sure every player is switched on, listening, and involved in the strategising… and individually capable, then as a combined unit it should be possible for us. But on a boss like path 1 in CoF, it just isn’t. super coordinated guild teams aren’t being rewarded on individual ability, they are being rewarded on the fortunate edge that working as a well oiled unti due to outside factors provides them. If i can pull a PuG across the line, that should speak for my ability just the same and make us just as deserving. I like challenges, I like it when we wipe once or twice and have to re-think our angle, That’s not a set-back, that’s a rewarding challenge. but even if with a well thought out, individually capable PuG, it’s just not possible…I don’t see how bringing it down just within our reach is too far below you.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Indeed. I can say this though, we recognize failures not just in random occasions, but in total systems and dungeons in general. The great thing about an MMO/Live game, is that we can change it for the better. We have plans to change things based on feedback, and we are finalizing those plans right now. As soon as we are done and have a solid actionable plan, we’ll let you all know what that is, and what you can expect for the future of dungeons.

“and what you can expect for the future of dungeons. "

please say future dungeons will have unique bosses with equally unique mechanics, like the end of CoE story or SE story, and that it’ll have a lot more puzzle solving like the minidungeon on diessa plateau

seriously, dungeons are seriously lacking on the puzzle department. from the way you guys talked before launch, i was expecting them to be almost like zelda dungeons, but with awesome combat. it’s not that i don’t like them now, it’s that they have so much potential to be more than what they are, and to be better. you’ve designed an amazing dungeon and tucked it hidden in diessa plateau, at the end of a DE chain. you’ve designed amazing bosses, but only two dungeons get the honors.

Hi Robert I actually got the forums to work so I’ll give some feedback of what I think about dungeons. First I’ll list what I’ve done so I won’t get called a complete noob and should “l2p” because dungeons are easy.

I completed every story dungeon, 1 route in AC, 1 route in CM, 3 routes in HotW, 2 routes in CoF, and mostly pugged might I add.

I think that mobs in dungeons have way too much health. Even for a well geared 5 man team, it’s takes a pretty long time just to kill one trash enemy. In all the dungeon routes I’ve done, everything is a damage sponge while they have things that will kill you or your team in one hit. It seems like your principle of making things hard is giving everything a billion health and attacks that will one hit you which requires split second reaction time to dodge. I’m pretty sure I say this for a lot of people, but hard mode in GW1, which used the exact way of making things more difficult, was not every well received because players felt cheated and just not fun to play until really OP PvE skills came out like a year later which made PvE a joke.

Also I have some comments to make about the story mode dungeons. Let’s say for example your average player just got to level 30 and got an invite to AC. The difficulty jump from zones to AC is pretty kitten huge. A lot of players got discouraged from ever doing a dungeon again because of that. Story modes shouldn’t be that hard and frustrating. When I was slaving through CoE story, it was just brutal and we were doing it with a fully equipped team on teamspeak. I understand that explorable areas should have a reasonable amount of difficulty but story mode shouldn’t. I played 6 years of GW1, and cleared pretty much all end game and high end areas; Personally I found The Deep to be the most fun. I also played a lot of high end PvP; infused for top 200 teams and also held halls a lot. I’m no means a bad player, but the point I’m trying to make is if I don’t find dungeons fun, story mode and explorable mode, imagine what your average player would think.

hard stuff is good.
i don’t want to be able to beat every dungeon with a pug. that’s not what they are supposed to be about. what other game intends for their high-difficulty pve to be pug-able? why do people feel entitled to it here.

btw, despite anyone’s cognitive dissonance, i don’t have any dungeon gear and i have every intention of playing the crap out of them.

Voltar.8574:

btw, despite anyone’s cognitive dissonance, i don’t have any dungeon gear and i have every intention of playing the crap out of them.

Interesting use of the term cognitive dissonance. Might I ask what you mean by that? Not 100% certain that CD has anything to do with any of the community’s complaints regarding dungeons.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

We try to be as transparent as possible with our changes. Some things, like closing exploits, we aren’t always going to post about. You never want to directly put down someone’s idea though, or point out specific people since that can have unforeseen consequences (ahem).
But yes, there are good player suggestions that we outright implement without any tweaking whatsoever. “crystals are too hard to kill” being an example. Yup, they’re a bit on the tough side for how many there are at any given time – nerfing the toughness seems appropriate. That’s gonna happen on Monday though, but I felt it was a solid example

I absolutely love the effort your putting into clearing up these shenanigans(not that I disagree with the dungeon “issues”). I just hope the community will be able to wait patiently enough for your guy’s updates!

BTW quick question: Do the devs ever respond to the suggestions tab, or is that something you guys just occasionally poke at with a 10ft long needle?

I think both groups deserve to enjoy the game. Thats why different dungeons and paths can have different difficulties.

I dont care about difficulty, what i DO care about is the 3 silver i get for a dungeon

Just a request on how you increase difficulty:

Drop the monsters HP and Toughness. As it stands now, once a monster is down to about half HP, the fight is essentially over,everyone has learnt the patterns, and now are just going through the motions. Doing something to keep the fight interesting the whole way through would go a long way to increacing the fun from dungeons, even if it’s as simple as an AI change at HP thresholds.

No, just no. Explorable dungeons, Arah for instance should be harder than it is. Ive done Arah 4 times yesterday and we have managed to do each run in 1 and half hour and everyone in my group said they are just too easy.

The problem with players that cant beat Arah or other dungeons is this, they dont know what progress mean, they are spoiled by other games and they dont want to spend golds on repairs and they dont know how to play their classes.

THERE are many MMORPGS that are exactly what you want them, casual friendly, world of warcraft, rift, swtor, lotro, etc etc. I left ALL of them and wont play them again, why? Cause they are too easy and I could farm the best gear in less than few weeks after maxxing my character.

Guild Wars 2 needs to follow Guild Wars 1 and stay at same difficulty and if it became something like others mmorpgs out there, it will fail for sure.

Guild Wars 2 is easy and dungeons should be harder and who says otherwise just want everything handed for free. That is not how mmorpg should work and If Anet makes dungeons easy and farmable by everyone I am just moving to another mmorpg or game.

Bye

@Voltar: “i don’t want to be able to beat every dungeon with a pug. that’s not what they are supposed to be about. what other game intends for their high-difficulty pve to be pug-able? why do people feel entitled to it here.”

Okay. most of us don’t have such networks which allow of us construct and conduct a precise team. it doesn’t mean we are any worse than you, but you have the added benefit of knowing whose running what, how much they can handle and how to relate relevant info to them to ensure they get it right. it’s easy for you to form a team, communicate with that team… and whatever else. those are essentially the points which carry a guild crew where a PuG fails, that doesn’t mean the PuG consists of less capable players… they deserve the rewards just as much. This game is different because there’s no roles, and the majority of guilds i’ve found couldn’t care less about dungeons as anything more than “hey for kitten and giggles, let’s try that on the weekend one time only and never do it again”. if there were far more dungeon oriented guilds, actively recruiting and organizing these things..it wouldn’t be a problem. but in the meantime, be considerate and understand you are just lucky to have the support you do.

ONE THING:

This game is called GUILD Wars !!

Its not called pug wars, find yourself a guild, its not hard to do it. You call for nerf explorable route cause you cant do dungeons with pug? Explorable dungeons should NOT be done by pug and random groups, ever.

I’ve done most content while pugging.

Dungeons require a minimum level of execution from every player in the group, and every player needs to understand the encounter mechanics. After that hurdle, things are easy.

But dungeons are impossible if you have dead weight, and quite frankly very many players are dead weight. In this case the fault lies with poor players and not the dungeons, though many of the dungeons could use bugfixes