Guild Wars 2

I don’t really care how fast or easily some other people are able to get their dungeon gear sets, so long as i’m still able to get it myself eventually.

Some of the dungeon EM runs don’t look doable from my point-of-view, and since there’s currently no tokens for incomplete runs the situation is not good for me. Over half the groups i’ve been in had one or more persons drop out before reaching the end; and a few of my groups unanimously gave up! Nobody goes into these things with the intent to fail, blaming it all on in-experience or poor skill seems like pretty shallow elitism to me.

PVE games aren’t meant to be played competitively; they’re played for enjoyment, as such the content should be accessible by the majority of players. I have over 20 years of personal experience with MMOG’s and PC games in general; I think my opinion is more expert than people who are saying this content shouldn’t be PUG’able.

An easy mode please Arenanet! I usually only play with my girlfriend. Its not the recommended 5 but to be honest i’ve got no interest in playing in dungeons with anyone else.

just whole design in dungeons is bad… i dont know why anet want to make “fun” game with dungeons, where u get only skin drops, nobody want to go for example AC for set, because of shi**y looking armour… I better want to grind better and better set than grinding “good” looking skin…. maybe 2 dungeons have nice skins… PvE in this game is really big FAIL !! (hello LFG…). No trinity system – no tactics – just big mess killing boss with million hp…

- Im really dissapointment that endgame is there soooooo boooring… without great reward and hard dungeons PvE is going to fail… Idk what dungeon team does last 4 years but i have feeling that dungeons was in development for one month… (environment in dungeons is so STUNNING, but system is fail….)

Safire.9143:

nobody want to go for example AC for set, because of shi**y looking armour…

I wonder why there’s always at least 20 people outside the dungeon looking for group. At least on my server.

So many posts lol

@roberthrouda
Thank you for the reply, I appreciate it as do we all, as someone else said “we love it when you talk to us” and yes those are perfectly acceptable reasons to try and keep any sort of “official” statement to a minimum due to the lateness of changes and how something can suddenly go from a great idea to a massive oversight and problem waiting to happen.

It’s good to see you guys taking such a measured approach to things and we’re all well aware that there’s a ton of other things that are being worked on as well as dungeons so hopefully the little love you’re going to be giving this monday coming, will be enough to keep us going til more potential fine tuning can be made if any

@jimtravakh:

I agree, somewhat… there can be obvious dead weight though, and not so obvious for example it’s hard to tell what’s what for some classes because of how little they’re played in dungeon content

@dogblaster:

Could you MAYBE show a little tact in your responses? we get it, you’re an angry serious hardcore 1337 game lord, I would want to leave too if things went as far as WoW for example in terms of casualisation, which is a nice word which really means ghettoisation, in that the game is full of troll and people with the intention of ruining others fun because there’s no consequence or challenge so they’re bored. Not all of them mind you, but some.

Being the “no you won’t” pouty poster, won’t get you listened to, if you are going to leave, then remember this is NOT like rift, swtor, lotro, WoW etc etc, you’ve paid your cash for the game, you are free to leave at any stage and whilst I don’t like pointing this out to you, you’re probably in the minority being so hardcore, you aren’t as important a demographic as you think, but more than that, if you don’t show you are capable of a better attitude, hardcore and awesomesauce broseidon god of the brocean as you may be even, then you’re just another nuisance bigoted player that is probably better off leaving before they’re banned.

@Dogblaster If you read the lore you would know that the name is not about YOU FORMING OR JOINING A GUILD, it is about the guild wars around Tyria that nearly destroyed the human civilizations.

Jim Travakh.7495:

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

Actually the fault lies with the game designers and developers for creating the very casual game that those like you keep saying you left to come here for.

They made the overworld way to easy with no step up or preperation to the skills that would be essentially needed in the dungeon while allowing entry into the very first one at a low level that did not take long to reach, and again left the player with nothing to really train or prepare them for what was about to happen.

Most I have talked to in game and in guild understood they were meant to be hard, but none of them expected such a drastic and huge jump in design.

Would you like to try again?

@Dogblaster

2 words. Anger Management. With a side dose of “Chill Pills”.

You make reference to GW1 as if you know something about it, and maybe you do, but one would be slow to want to take your so called knowledge serious.

As someone else pointed out. The games name of “Guild Wars” has nothing to do with being about player guilds and everything to do with the lore before, during, after GW1.

@certain others here

You make statements about past games and grinding for your junk taking little time, but yet you fail to see that no matter your “Whine” for “Harder” that this game was never designed for you.

What part of “We got rid of the grind” did people miss.

Sure they just implemented it in its own way at a much accelerated level, but the grind of weeks, months, years is gone. That was not what this game was marketed as, and yet you same people continue to spout of non-sense to the contray.

If you expected that you were going to come into GW2 like you did every other game before the “Dumb Down” came months, years later and sit in Lions Arch being one of a handful of players looking all “OMG I GOTz UBER LEET SKILLZ LOOK AT ME” you came to the wrong game in the end.

Face it no matter what none of you that came here expecting to sit and be all top tier untouchable for months are anything special. If you were you wouldn’t see the sheer amount of numbers of people that have everything you do already in just over a months time.

So sometimes when reading all this garbage and battles on the forum I have to really stop and wonder. Who is the bigger whiner? The casuals that are actually having the hard times or the “Uber Doodz” that say its to easy. Which on certain days/posts it makes me think most of the “Uber Doodz” are QQ so hard, because they have already realized that they wasted their $70+ dollars on a game that wasn’t ever meant to be as “Hardcore” or “Uber” as they expected.

They are ticked at the world for not getting something as hard as they feel they should demand, and are doing everything they can to make sure the game is stepped up or else to stay on top.

See its really not that hard when one is sitting on the center of the fence looking on both sides to speculate. I watch the “Uber” crowd all day for weeks now intimidate, harrass, and more to anyone they percieve as under them, while they are doing just as much of the QQ as everyone else around here.

I came with a large group of players from past guilds, friends from GW1, friends irl, etc.

We are now down to a handful left. While you all bicker about the dungeons Anet should be asking “How many people are we losing”. There are many reasons why people are already leaving, and not all of it is around the stupid dungeons being to easy or to hard.

Game developers get lucky once, and the second time takes work. Anet set a bar that players were looking up to with GW1 that many of us have just started seeing was not really meet.

Plain and Simple.

Michael Fejervary.8576:

Jim Travakh.7495:

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

Actually the fault lies with the game designers and developers for creating the very casual game that those like you keep saying you left to come here for.

They made the overworld way to easy with no step up or preperation to the skills that would be essentially needed in the dungeon while allowing entry into the very first one at a low level that did not take long to reach, and again left the player with nothing to really train or prepare them for what was about to happen.

Most I have talked to in game and in guild understood they were meant to be hard, but none of them expected such a drastic and huge jump in design.

Would you like to try again?

They have also said all along that dungeons are not ment for everyone. They said that they were ment for well rounded groups of players. They said that everyone had to carry there own weight. They never once said anyone could just go into a dungeon and complete it. People who have/had this expectation the fault rests entirely with them.

Would you like to try again?

They said dungeons aren’t for everyone, but it wouldn’t hurt them and us to help less experienced gamers learn the mechanics necessary to be successful in said dungeons.

I don’t think the vast majority wants to waltz in and do nothing and still get things. I’m sure everyone’s doing their best, but the best of a person who is not naturally gifted or practiced in video games is not the same as the best of a person who jumps from new title to new title.

Dungeons need to either come in a variety of difficulties to help players transition into the more challenging—and, hopefully, more rewarding—dungeons, or the game needs to do a better job of providing challenges throughout the leveling process that encourage players to experiment with their other skills.

It might sound stupid for some of you, but this is because you lack empathy. Not everything can be solved by you telling others, “L2P.” It’s funny the first few times, sure, but it just makes you a kitten after a while. Don’t be that guy.

In my experience, most explorable dungeons seem quite simple after a few runs.

However, Arah explorable mode is extremely tedious, long, annoying and insanely hard. It sometimes bugs out aswell, such as no waypoint at Shoggoroth, and the rewards for completing it are underwhelming. For a dungeon this hard, rewards should at least be double the amount they are, if anything to make up for repair costs of constant wiping.

As an example; if it weren’t for waypoints at Giganticus Lupicus, which makes it possible to corpse run and zerg, the fight would be nigh impossible, as was shown with our group today when the WP at Shoggoroth didn’t show. As for Shoggoroth, if he reset his hp after a wipe, he wouldn’t be able to be downed either.

Dungeons are just too overtuned in most parts, and seem to be constructed around a massive corpse running-fest, not to mention Arah is loooooong aswell.

I’m sure ArenaNet has statistics and data on Arah though, to see how many groups finikitten and where the difficulties lie, so hopefully it will be brought in line with other dungeons. Doubt they want to restrict dungeons to a small fraction of hardline players.

miya.5160:

They said dungeons aren’t for everyone, but it wouldn’t hurt them and us to help less experienced gamers learn the mechanics necessary to be successful in said dungeons.

I don’t think the vast majority wants to waltz in and do nothing and still get things. I’m sure everyone’s doing their best, but the best of a person who is not naturally gifted or practiced in video games is not the same as the best of a person who jumps from new title to new title.

Dungeons need to either come in a variety of difficulties to help players transition into the more challenging—and, hopefully, more rewarding—dungeons, or the game needs to do a better job of providing challenges throughout the leveling process that encourage players to experiment with their other skills.

It might sound stupid for some of you, but this is because you lack empathy. Not everything can be solved by you telling others, “L2P.” It’s funny the first few times, sure, but it just makes you a kitten after a while. Don’t be that guy.

The best thing you can do is ask the group who has done this zone. Those that have know the tricks and if there like me will walk you threw the zone step by step. I never take more than 3-4 deaths, and normally its 0-2, in a zone for three reasons. 1: I listen to the people who have done the zone before and do as they ask. 2: I revive downed players, not dead but downed. 3: I know when something is beyond this groups skill level. If it is i simply leave the zone letting them know that with this current group its not possible and not worth the repairs. A big part of this game is realizing that you have to know when your over your head. To many players now days rather graveyard zerg mobs that are to much for them and end up paying 30-40 silver in repairs out of there pocket. I’ve yet to ever lose coin in a dungeon nor will i ever because of that one simple fact.

Edit: Oh and to date i’ve only had to leave a group 2 times out of more than 50 dungeon runs.

Oh. I can do the dungeons.

I just believe the game should do a better job about bridging the skill gap.

I just wish they made a dunguen that is not for the casual gamer. A dunguen that is Mission kitten impossible. That way, the casual gamers can keep theire story modes, and the “few” rest of us, can get a real challange.

Crafting end-game.Legendary = you all know how much time that takes.
PvE end-game today =Explorer mode. Which is easy for alot of people.
is it realy that hard to understand?

If you have a level 80 character, you have more than enough time to play this game.

Realy, is it so difficult to understand that we want a dunguen you simply cannot complete? unless you spend houres and weeks prepearing tacs. we play this game to get new experiance, and to get challanged do we not?.

I realy wish they made a Hardcore dunguen on steroids, where the normal story mode is the same challange that Explorer mode is today., and that the Explorer of this dunguen was hardcore mode was on steroides. That way it is acctully a prestige to complete it Explorer mode… Most players out there will not complete everything in this game. Thats how simple it is. While others want more challange right away. Challanges that not everyone will be able to complete.

Pokerjoker.7246:

I just wish they made a dunguen that is not for the casual gamer. A dunguen that is Mission kitten impossible. That way, the casual gamers can keep theire story modes, and the “few” rest of us, can get a real challange.

Crafting end-game.Legendary = you all know how much time that takes.
PvE end-game today =Explorer mode. Which is easy for alot of people.
is it realy that hard to understand?

If you have a level 80 character, you have more than enough time to play this game.

Realy, is it so difficult to understand that we want a dunguen you simply cannot complete? unless you spend houres and weeks prepearing tacs. we play this game to get new experiance, and to get challanged do we not?.

I realy wish they made a Hardcore dunguen on steroids, where the normal story mode is the same challange that Explorer mode is today., and that the Explorer of this dunguen was hardcore mode was on steroides. That way it is acctully a prestige to complete it Explorer mode… Most players out there will not complete everything in this game. Thats how simple it is. While others want more challange right away. Challanges that not everyone will be able to complete.

Actually you play the game to have fun. If you dont enjoy a part of the game dont play it simple as that. As for the dungeons they are made for your average group of COMPETENT players. Notice i said competent. This meaning decent players using good communication that are use to playing with each other and work well together. Currently i do the EM’s with Pugs. Granted before we do any area thats kinda harsh we take the time to explain the fight and figure out what we need to do that fight to make it as easy as possible. Most zones i dont see more than a death or two. This is doing it with pug’s.

Hellkaiser.6025:

@dogblaster:

Could you MAYBE show a little tact in your responses? we get it, you’re an angry serious hardcore 1337 game lord

I would love to see his attitude without his guild rofl. Or when his god-like team quit, forcing him to recruit new players (with maybe lower god-like performance) or join noob pugs. I guess he will be the one acting as a pro yelling other people’s class pretending to teach them. God bless me to group with this kind of players, lol, i hope all of them will quit as fast as they joined our game trashing it
This post of Hayden, fit perfectly for him too.

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.

This game is meant to be community open, having fun all together, even with random people. Not an elitism like WoW and their idiot raid racism even in-guild

Only thing that I found hard with randoms is Giganticus. After 5 hours each time. We can’t kill him.

Once you get team work down, dungeons are easy. Perhaps too easy lol.

Precisely! Well said people! GW does not need elitism or rank/guild discrimination. I was a hardcore HA player and when I play in HA, I had to rank discriminate. I had to do it even though I felt really bad about it, since it was one of those necessary evils in the game. It’s just not fun and I do not wish to see it making a return.

SiNoS.2147:

Pokerjoker.7246:

I just wish they made a dunguen that is not for the casual gamer. A dunguen that is Mission kitten impossible. That way, the casual gamers can keep theire story modes, and the “few” rest of us, can get a real challange.

Crafting end-game.Legendary = you all know how much time that takes.
PvE end-game today =Explorer mode. Which is easy for alot of people.
is it realy that hard to understand?

If you have a level 80 character, you have more than enough time to play this game.

Realy, is it so difficult to understand that we want a dunguen you simply cannot complete? unless you spend houres and weeks prepearing tacs. we play this game to get new experiance, and to get challanged do we not?.

I realy wish they made a Hardcore dunguen on steroids, where the normal story mode is the same challange that Explorer mode is today., and that the Explorer of this dunguen was hardcore mode was on steroides. That way it is acctully a prestige to complete it Explorer mode… Most players out there will not complete everything in this game. Thats how simple it is. While others want more challange right away. Challanges that not everyone will be able to complete.

Actually you play the game to have fun. If you dont enjoy a part of the game dont play it simple as that. As for the dungeons they are made for your average group of COMPETENT players. Notice i said competent. This meaning decent players using good communication that are use to playing with each other and work well together. Currently i do the EM’s with Pugs. Granted before we do any area thats kinda harsh we take the time to explain the fight and figure out what we need to do that fight to make it as easy as possible. Most zones i dont see more than a death or two. This is doing it with pug’s.

Wow I think you missed my point in every aspect. we are a group that communicate well, and we have farmed right about everytihing that isent bugged, for mains and alts.

We are looking for more challange.
That beeing said, I allso explain every fight down to the detail, perhaps to detailed for sertain people to make the dunguen less of a nightmare when going with Pug’s.

So tbh, I did not see your point, for my wish for a hardcore dunguen one bit. Do you refuse me to have a hardcore dunguen?

I’m curious to know what profession the people that say “dungeon difficulty should be higher or stay the same” use. My guess: Guardians, Warriors, and Mesmers. Just a guess.

I think as the classes are better balanced the dungeon’s will become more easily completed.

Noone doubt one day, when most bugs (and dungeon exploits) will be fixed, we will see a legendary mode with 5-7 level higher enemies. I said it yet. Why not, lv90+ enemies around us, so fun… One day..

SteepledHat.1345:

I’m curious to know what profession the people that say “dungeon difficulty should be higher or stay the same” use. My guess: Guardians, Warriors, and Mesmers. Just a guess.

I think as the classes are better balanced the dungeon’s will become more easily completed.

I’m a mesmer, and if you read my post on page one, I think they should be re-balanced so that they feel slightly easier. Keep in mind I’ve done a fair chunk of dungeons.

Pokerjoker.7246:

SiNoS.2147:

Pokerjoker.7246:

I just wish they made a dunguen that is not for the casual gamer. A dunguen that is Mission kitten impossible. That way, the casual gamers can keep theire story modes, and the “few” rest of us, can get a real challange.

Crafting end-game.Legendary = you all know how much time that takes.
PvE end-game today =Explorer mode. Which is easy for alot of people.
is it realy that hard to understand?

If you have a level 80 character, you have more than enough time to play this game.

Realy, is it so difficult to understand that we want a dunguen you simply cannot complete? unless you spend houres and weeks prepearing tacs. we play this game to get new experiance, and to get challanged do we not?.

I realy wish they made a Hardcore dunguen on steroids, where the normal story mode is the same challange that Explorer mode is today., and that the Explorer of this dunguen was hardcore mode was on steroides. That way it is acctully a prestige to complete it Explorer mode… Most players out there will not complete everything in this game. Thats how simple it is. While others want more challange right away. Challanges that not everyone will be able to complete.

Actually you play the game to have fun. If you dont enjoy a part of the game dont play it simple as that. As for the dungeons they are made for your average group of COMPETENT players. Notice i said competent. This meaning decent players using good communication that are use to playing with each other and work well together. Currently i do the EM’s with Pugs. Granted before we do any area thats kinda harsh we take the time to explain the fight and figure out what we need to do that fight to make it as easy as possible. Most zones i dont see more than a death or two. This is doing it with pug’s.

Wow I think you missed my point in every aspect. we are a group that communicate well, and we have farmed right about everytihing that isent bugged, for mains and alts.

We are looking for more challange.
That beeing said, I allso explain every fight down to the detail, perhaps to detailed for sertain people to make the dunguen less of a nightmare when going with Pug’s.

So tbh, I did not see your point, for my wish for a hardcore dunguen one bit. Do you refuse me to have a hardcore dunguen?

Sorry it actually wasent aimed at you. I agree with what you said. Ment to actually say that and kinda forgot i had quoted. by the time i got done with the first little statement. The rest was explaining to the other players who and what the dungeons are aimed at and how to get threw them. Dident mean to offend ya as it was actually just to reiterate your point and add to them.

I think what we really should have here is that certain dungeons are harder than others. Arah, for example, should basically be a 5 man raid. As it is, most of it is rather easy, just rather long. Meanwhile other events (Magg’s door buster event) are just broken (assuming you do it the “proper” way). There really should be a difficulty scale for the explorables. Arah should be balls hard. AC should be relatively easy. The others should fall somewhere in between with appropriate bumps in difficulty between them. As it is now… they’re just kinda random. Even from encounter to encounter in the same dungeon.

Really the same could be said for the story modes. Why are parts of AC ridiculous while CM is generally a cakewalk? The difficulty scales just don’t make a lot of sense.

I like hard. Some stuff should be hard, but it should also be balanced. Giganticus Lupicus is an absolutely perfect example of a difficult but well balanced fight. It requires coordination and communication and people are going to go down. However, its possible to learn and do consistently.

Other fights are simply clusterkittens where the difficulty comes from unavoidable and random events. Don’t misunderstand, a feeling of chaos and randomness is okay as long as its done in such a way that you can utilize skill and coordination to negate the randomness. Throwing a cluster of mobs with more HP and damage than is physically possible to deal with and then saying “you’re supposed to kill those” is not balanced, and honestly I can’t blame people for finding alternative methods to such encounters.

Basically, the dungeons don’t need buffing. They also don’t need nerfing. What they need is some individual tuning. Saying all the dungeons need to be harder or all of them need nerfed does no good for anybody. Criticism needs to be on a per dungeon and per encounter basis.

First … I am not elitist or hardcore player by any means, I am avarage gamer thats all I am. But I use brain and i have some experience from past mmorpgs, or other games.

Second .. I have done Arah and other explorables with randoms too, its not immposible. You just have to explain or find out what to do right.

My first run with my friends, we spent 4 hours at lupicus wiping, we gave up. Next day, 2 of us respected from glass canons to more survive build so no one get one shots.
When we tryed Arah again we managed to kill lupicus on first try and finish arah for the first time. From then on, its just easyer and easyer.

If you think that me and everyone who managed to complete Arah is just minority you are wrong. We are players that put some effort into it, we are not by any means elitist or hc players.

I am like the only one from my friends and guild who is visiting these forums, thing is .. those who are satisfied doesnt come to these forums. Cause if they would, you would see more people disagree with you.

Like someone said, some explorables should be easyer but Arah, CoE .. these are ment to be the hardest one and players who want equip from here, they should put some hard effort to do so. Because if it was so easy to obtain, you would just make new alt or quit game after you manage to get it.

Easy and simple.

You can say what you want those who whine at forums and make posts about how hard things are, how they quit, how game is bad etc .. I saw thousands of you for past 8 years in EVERY mmorpg i have played.. Nothing changed Even my gf complain less and she never played any mmorpg.

Anything I say or prove wont change Anet minds, so its only their decision if they make GW2 another casual friendly game, where everyone without any effort will have full Arah gear in 2 days. So all I can do is waiting to see what they decide for ..

Thats all.

Have a nice day guys

Just to say, i have done almost nothing but dungeons from 30-40 on my warrior, starting explorable modes at 35. I did not read on a Wiki the tactics, i just walked in with a group of strangers, mace and shield in hand, and we gave it our all. There were a few deaths, a few wipes, but fight tactics were either discovered in battle or revised after a fight where we got to see the action take place.

So AC explorable: Completely do-able by Pugs and i was doing it from level 35. I have enough tokens to buy exotic level 80 armor and i only just hit 40. At this rate, im going to be max geared as soon as i hit max level, in a swanky armor set.

People might assume i was carried by others, but while they were offering pretty high damage, i was constantly avoiding dangers which OHKO most other members, i rez’d more allies then anyone else, and my control was able to land crucial 2 second stuns on bosses and completely lock down non-defiant enemies.

At this rate, im going to say explorable dungeons are A-OK right now, a hard mode should probably be thought of if it is wrong that i am able to complete it so enjoyably with a pug.

From the wiki on AC explorable:
“Lieutenant Kohler
This enemy is the bane of unorganised groups. Attempt to pull him away from his lackies by bringing the fight to the lower area, near the chain that deactivates the traps. His grab attack will destroy an entire team and must be dodged at all costs. "

This 1hit-KO’d my 35 mesmer with the max points I can put into inspiration for that level, and was not well broadcast before I ended up on the receiving end. If it’s meant to 1hko you, then it needs to be much more obvious what’s going to happen, and it needs to be audible, as you may have people focusing on the two adds.

If it’s not meant to 1hko you, then the damage needs a nerf so people have a chance to get up and catch their breath, even if they’re wheezing at 10% after.

If you want to punish glass cannon builds that’s one thing, but I traited quite a bit of survivability into my mesmer and honestly did not feel I was given the opportunity to factor skill into the encounter.

I still don’t understand how people can miss the telegraph for Kholer’s pull after getting caught maybe 1-2 times once he’s alone.

If you’re not confident enough to dodge, bring a stun break so you can break out of the small knockdown at the end of the pull and get away, bring stability so you don’t have to care about dodging, or you can even use a block/aegis to avoid being pulled.

Hobocop.1508:

I still don’t understand how people can miss the telegraph for Kholer’s pull after getting caught maybe 1-2 times once he’s alone.

If you’re not confident enough to dodge, bring a stun break so you can break out of the small knockdown at the end of the pull and get away, bring stability so you don’t have to care about dodging, or you can even use a block/aegis to avoid being pulled.

The telegraph is visual.
There are two other foes in the arena, both of which can cause pain to clothies.
Even if not told to focus them down, you still have to deal with them if they decide you look tasty.

In the mean time, the camera distance allowed in this game is rather short and restrictive, meaning focusing on one foe will very likely blind you to others.

plasmacutter.2709:

From the wiki on AC explorable:
“Lieutenant Kohler
This enemy is the bane of unorganised groups. Attempt to pull him away from his lackies by bringing the fight to the lower area, near the chain that deactivates the traps. His grab attack will destroy an entire team and must be dodged at all costs. "

This 1hit-KO’d my 35 mesmer with the max points I can put into inspiration for that level, and was not well broadcast before I ended up on the receiving end. If it’s meant to 1hko you, then it needs to be much more obvious what’s going to happen, and it needs to be audible, as you may have people focusing on the two adds.

If it’s not meant to 1hko you, then the damage needs a nerf so people have a chance to get up and catch their breath, even if they’re wheezing at 10% after.

If you want to punish glass cannon builds that’s one thing, but I traited quite a bit of survivability into my mesmer and honestly did not feel I was given the opportunity to factor skill into the encounter.

Feedback kohler as he winds up, that should be what you do if you can use it, is your job in that fight it’s a pretty obvious job, and it’s necessary

If you’re not able to feedback him due to cooldown, then that’s fine, you should have either another anti ranged skill, or all be ready to dodge the attack, as long as he’s kept weakened or debuffed, that should be ok and you can dodge roll from it pretty quickly and avoid SOME damage.

No it’s not always your fault or your groups fault, but if they’re not using the right utilities then it’s not the “games fault”

SiNoS.2147:

They have also said all along that dungeons are not ment for everyone. They said that they were ment for well rounded groups of players. They said that everyone had to carry there own weight. They never once said anyone could just go into a dungeon and complete it. People who have/had this expectation the fault rests entirely with them.

Would you like to try again?

I’ve read every single piece of GW2 news pre and post release, and Arenanet has not stated, anywhere, that any dungeon would not be playable by the entire playerbase.

If they have stated that anywhere, prove it, link it, show evidence. You may find that difficult though, as no such statement has ever been made.

Dungeons are the last bastion of PvE challenge in this entire game. So far, they’re really the only activity that requires the player to have a knowledge of all of their weapon and class skills. The tuning will come with time, but they should NOT be nerfed across the board.

Granted, I haven’t done all of the dungeons, I have done AC and HotW explore modes. They were all hard but not impossible (some were easier than others). The strategies needed to complete the dungeons are simple, but have little room for error.

So far I have been quite pleased with the experience other than getting bugged numbers of tokens at the end, but I can overlook that for now because the dungeons are fun.

By the way, I did all of these explore modes in PUGS, and we finished them successfully. In a dedicated dungeon group, I feel like they could definitely be speed run.

One thing that most people are forgetting here is the level/gear difference of players and their opinions. Once you get to level 80 and have some exotic gear, explorable modes in dungeons become way easier.

The real issue with most players and ‘explorable mode’ is the sidekicking system in conjunction with players that are functioning just fine out in the world but have “okay” or sub-par gear. When you’re sidekicked down with sub-par gear, you’re worse off than a player on-level with sub-par gear. If you’re on-level with decent gear, you’ll do better than someone who is sidekicked down with decent gear.

Sidekicking seems to work well outside of dungeons; but its unusual system of decreasing stats is grossly inaccurate in the mid-range of the game.

I love challenges but sometimes it feels like certain fights (in the same instance) are too easy while others are overtuned and too long.

Even in story mode: CM trash is 10x harder than any of the bosses. Like way, way over the top and annoying death zergs. I get that it was too easy before, no need to make it undoable for fresh 40s as punishment to those who farmed it at release.
TA: spider guy and last fight might be a little over tuned for story mode, while the spider boss and the 1st/3rd champions are a complete faceroll.
SE: mostly fine except… Kudu fight is too long and too many opportunities for a wipe; golems could do with quite a bit less hp. It also bugs the most of any place I’ve been to and haven’t even finished yet.
CoF is actually quite consistent (decently challenging without being TOO over the top… except maybe the whirling sword boss, that fight is annoying as hell for a clothie to get randomly chain ganged by swords and his whirl thing) and a pleasantly interesting/unique end boss fight to boot.
HoTW… perfect example of inconsistency. Some bosses (second last one) total pushovers, while others (the frost aoe/missile spamming one and the last bird guy) are corpse races unless you have a pro group.

I don’t think story modes in general are all that hard, just inconsistent in many parts, and should be made ‘accessible’ to the general public in their entirety, without needing a choreographed guild group to finish. That is for EM.

For any explore mode, my only complaint is death by RNG. It’s fine to have a perfectly telegraphed one shot move … on a boss. Trash (especially packs of multiple trash mobs) should never EACH be able to oneshot you, or chain cc you into death. Completely random oneshots of untelegraphed moves (and ranged abilities that are spammable), also not fun or challenging, just really frustrating (and expensive).

I disagree with what you say, OP. The majority of people I’ve encountered in pug groups do not think the dungeons should be made easier.

Now, I’m not saying that they say the dungeons should be harder, but they are absolutely fine with the dungeons the way they are.

To be honest, the only dungeon I’ve ever had trouble with was AC explorable.

Everything else I have finished (always with pug groups) on our first run through, with only a few deaths here and there.

I think dungeons are made to be a challenge of skill. Sure, you can zerg a dungeon, dying and dying and dying, but you end up losing more silver than you make in the end.

I am perfectly content with the difficulty of dungeons the way it is right now, and hope that they don’t not change this in the future.

I’d rather not see everyone running around wearing the same exotic dungeon armor because it was accessible to everyone with no difficulty.

I would rather see people get better with their classes, learn which skills they are best with/which skills are best for the role they want to play/which skills are best for dungeon, and overcome dungeons that way.

I think the majority of people complained at launch that dungeons were too hard, and now that most of us have learned how to play our chars better, have no issue with it.

Now I feel as though it’s a minority of people complaining that dungeons are too hard and that they are the vocal ones, not the other way around.

Please don’t nerf the dungeons so that it’s a cake walk. Without those, the only challenge in the game will be pvp, and you need to have a good balance between both.

~Fin

Dungeons already perfectly doable with PUG. If you need something extra: Make a 24h free team speak server and tell them to go there.

You get lots of jokers running builds that flat out are inferior to everything else available, like 30 points into beastmastery to “make the ranger pet not die that quickly”, or slotting useless skills into utility slots that don’t contribute significantly to damage, healing or utility like Prayer to Lyssa(yes, I have seen people running this skill in dungeons).

Then you get players like our OP, who complain that easy dungeons are too hard for them running all these inferior builds and strategies.

If one runs a decent build, doesn’t go glass cannon, and brings in like-minded players, while focusing on dodging mechanics rather than standing in one spot blindly dpsing, dungeons are manageable even for the subpar group.

ImariKurumi.5761:

I know everyone has a choice, but im sure every sane sensible human being will not go melee, unless you’re a masochist.

Or a guardian given you really hurt your self in most cases going with the ranged option for more than just support buffs.

This is how things are:

the dungeons are too easy at the moment. I log in day by day, KNOWING I’ll just farm my 180 TA tokens so I can gear myself with the armor I want. There is no fun, no challenge involved. When I think about it, it does feel like a chore.

My intelligence is not challenged, my gaming skills are not challenged and believe me, after only a few days it became very stale. As I tend to say, we need much more COMPLEX mechanics/encounters in both DEs and dungeons.

The cool part, in WoW for instance (while the dungeons and raids were still good back in the day), was that you needed MONTHS to “crack” an encounter. Yes it was hard, yes not everyone could do it. But that’s the point. When you are having a hard time obtaining something or achieving something, and you FINALLY do it, the fun factor kicks in. You are happy you did something not everyone could, or at least not everyone could right away.

The way you set things now, ANet, is that you are degrading your own work! You made those instances, but you trivialized them beyond belief. The fact remains that you definitely need deeper, more complex mechanics for both bosses and mobs alike.

I join a PUG and we complete everything without any problems. I have the time to do all 3 paths in explorable mode in only one evening. I hardly pay attention to what happens anymore, it became a routine. And for how long has GW2 been out now? Is that what you really wanted to achieve?

People complaining how it’s hard shouldn’t be taken into account. Because it’s supposed to be hard, and IT ISN’T. If it isn’t hard everyone will stomp over available content, and then what? What happens when it becomes a boring routine for everyone, like it has for me? What do I do in GW2 now? For the moment, I need a chest piece and a hammer. Once I get those, what do I do? I move on to another routine, and farm CoF for an example? Is that fun, challenging?

One more thing: you took away the surprise/thrill factor when you removed the chance-to-drop items. It’s too predictable, knowing what and when you’ll get with the token system. A proposition: leave the token system as it is, but add chance-to-drop items (LOW chance) which are better than those you can obtain with tokens. That will be the incentive to run the dungeons over and over again, and people will always be on their toes, hoping they’ll get the drop they need.

You made a huge, huge mistake by trivializing everything, making everything available to everyone. Easy is bad. We need it difficult, or at least SOME instances really difficult. But please change your philosophy of what difficult means. It’s not huge HP pools and hard hitting mobs, OR swarms/zergs that overrun your party and poison-stun everything. Use your imagination, I’m sure you can do a lot better.

I think Anet made a mistake naming the dungeons. Story mode should have been called dungeon mode and explorable should have been called raid mode.

People are expecting to lol their way through explorables with every random glass cannon they find, while watching TV (WoW dungeon finder style).

Explorable mode should require co-ordinated groups and VoIP. Those are exactly the people Anet said explorables were designed for. They did not at any point say that explorable mode is for bad pugs and that everyone who logs in should have the dungeon gear in 2 days.

And could people please stop saying that “casual” players can’t do explorables. It’s not true. A lot of explorables can be done in an hour, with a decent group who know how their class works and how to dodge. Plenty of social guilds can do this. Before I get the “I don’t have time to join a raid guild! I have a life!” reply, social guilds don’t have the mandatory attendance requirements that raid guilds have.

Also, to Anet – please add more interesting raid style boss mechanics to explorable modes!

It’s a sad fact that while the “casual gamer” is a source of revenue for the game companies, they are at the same time destroying the games they play.

“I don’t have all day to play!!” Well guess what…that means you don’t get all the same things that people who DO have all day to play get. This whole idea that everyone gets a trophy just for showing up is what’s wrong with both games and society.

No Skippy, life’s not fair. Deal with it.

I like that game companies are developing more and more content for casual players. It means I have to grind less to get the things that I might want and were out of reach before.

This doesn’t mean I dislike grind, because I did still farm an armor set despite the broken DR system. I just don’t mind if things were made faster, so that I could enjoy other aspects.

I also enjoy games due to a close-knit group of friends, and they do not like grind. So when they don’t play, I am less likely to as well.

I can understand how such games might be less appealing to those who would like their accomplishments and achievements within a game to mean something, but I kind of grew past that. Games come and go. There’s always a new shiny to get. While I do get a kick out of being able to say, “I did XYZ way back when,” who cares?

If you like challenging, there’s always challenging content. You can even self-impose challenges. If you want everyone to see and play games the way you do, you’re being a bit selfish.

I don’t see a problem with having some things for top tier players—and actually, it’s necessary—, but things should be balanced in a way so that no one is excluded. This doesn’t mean that developers should balance everything for everyone. It means that they should balance in a way to provide each type of player with their own comfortable niche.

There is a difference between challenge and grind. Content should be challenging (difficult) but not grindy (tedious).

Some exploration mode bosses are perfect example of this difference. They are simple and relatively quick in duration, but challenging in execution.

I actually wish they would just split the servers. Make casual servers where you faceroll through 6 dungeons and get a full armour set, while collecting thousands of gold and levelling to 80 in 4 days. People seem to want a private server with the xp & drops turned up, so give it to them. Then make hardcore servers where people can earn things in a challenging environment without constant cries for nerfing.

I am being entirely serious here. FPS games have hardcore servers with special rules, why can’t mmo’s?

Separate difficulty modes on the same server just don’t work. This arguing always turns up on the forum, whether it’s GW2, WoW, SWToR…

Dungeons are easy and hard at same time. For some players harder, for some easier. For instance: Arah path 3 is ‘’peace of cake’’ if you know what to do you can clear it in less than hour. On other hand Arah path 1 is incredibly long and extremely dificult and it can take up to 3 hours with very good group. Dungeons needs some balance or they should be more rawarding. Getting 60 shards for path 3 is ok number compared to effort, but 60 shards from hardcore route one is just silly.

So basically we need these hardest parts to be more revarding than the easier ones. Even with DR system it is faster to run path 3 three times and get 60+45+30 than go path 1. You have to think about this basic equation effort + time spent = reward

Those are my two cents, but overall I’m very satisfied with these dungeons.

You can have difficult dungeon without it taking four hours to complete.

Every single PUG I’ve been in takes about 3-4hrs. Thats not EASY in any way. If my group finished the dungeons within 2hrs or less. Then I would say its easy. The only reason people would consider this easy is because of the way anet makes it hard. Such as adding tons of health to a enemy. Hey we made it hard! Then they added tons of enemies that get boring after trying to get tokens that most people pass up on their third runs.

Thats why I don’t get the DR system at all. What is it like 300 tokens for a chest piece in Arah? You put items in the game that require you to farm. Yet you don’t want people to farm?

People shouldn’t defend this stuff. We should all want to have a fun experience in the game. No matter the type of game play you like to play.

SiNoS.2147:

Michael Fejervary.8576:

Jim Travakh.7495:

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

Actually the fault lies with the game designers and developers for creating the very casual game that those like you keep saying you left to come here for.

They made the overworld way to easy with no step up or preperation to the skills that would be essentially needed in the dungeon while allowing entry into the very first one at a low level that did not take long to reach, and again left the player with nothing to really train or prepare them for what was about to happen.

Most I have talked to in game and in guild understood they were meant to be hard, but none of them expected such a drastic and huge jump in design.

Would you like to try again?

They have also said all along that dungeons are not ment for everyone. They said that they were ment for well rounded groups of players. They said that everyone had to carry there own weight. They never once said anyone could just go into a dungeon and complete it. People who have/had this expectation the fault rests entirely with them.

Would you like to try again?

Actually I would.

Now other than to grief me your reason for a reply to my post was?

Right, to grief me, because you all you did was state what I put in the last line of what you qouted, but with just a whole bunch more words.

As I have stated elsewhere. Many of us that came from this game were from Guild Wars 1, and we followed this games every teaser, tidbit, etc since its announcement and the release of EotN.

Those of us who have played GW1 since its release did not expect what came in this game. We expected hard, and for most of us that was never the issue, but we also expected a lot more than just how overall CAREBEAR the game is.

Again, as stated in other threads. GW1 by design did a much better job of leading players through content and ramping them up for the harder areas to come.

THIS GAME DOES NOT.

So don’t bother trying again. You already blew your chance by being non-constructive.

The balance in GW1 was much better.

Things were difficult, but you would know when to expect it. When I was going through Prophecies with my friend, the missions slowly got harder and harder. At one point, we couldn’t progress any further without grouping with strangers, so we decided it was a good game but not for us due to the amount of time needed (I came back when HoM rewards were released and stomped everything with 7 heroes). And that’s fine.

The nice thing about GW1 was that it slowly prepared you for the difficulties ahead. It trained you. You weren’t surprised when you hit a wall. You knew, at the very least subconsciously, that it was coming. That’s the way I want Guild Wars 2 dungeons to be.

As it stands, a lot of people are disgruntled. Dungeons are too hard for players who are less skilled, dungeons are too easy for people who are, and there’s not a lot of middle ground.

That’s a problem.

Michael Fejervary.8576:

SiNoS.2147:

Michael Fejervary.8576:

Jim Travakh.7495:

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

Actually the fault lies with the game designers and developers for creating the very casual game that those like you keep saying you left to come here for.

They made the overworld way to easy with no step up or preperation to the skills that would be essentially needed in the dungeon while allowing entry into the very first one at a low level that did not take long to reach, and again left the player with nothing to really train or prepare them for what was about to happen.

Most I have talked to in game and in guild understood they were meant to be hard, but none of them expected such a drastic and huge jump in design.

Would you like to try again?

They have also said all along that dungeons are not ment for everyone. They said that they were ment for well rounded groups of players. They said that everyone had to carry there own weight. They never once said anyone could just go into a dungeon and complete it. People who have/had this expectation the fault rests entirely with them.

Would you like to try again?

Actually I would.

Now other than to grief me your reason for a reply to my post was?

Right, to grief me, because you all you did was state what I put in the last line of what you qouted, but with just a whole bunch more words.

As I have stated elsewhere. Many of us that came from this game were from Guild Wars 1, and we followed this games every teaser, tidbit, etc since its announcement and the release of EotN.

Those of us who have played GW1 since its release did not expect what came in this game. We expected hard, and for most of us that was never the issue, but we also expected a lot more than just how overall CAREBEAR the game is.

Again, as stated in other threads. GW1 by design did a much better job of leading players through content and ramping them up for the harder areas to come.

THIS GAME DOES NOT.

So don’t bother trying again. You already blew your chance by being non-constructive.

You clearly dident read what i posted. To simplify it for you since you dont seem to understand.

The point of my post came down to this. They said that the Dungeons would be on a whole different level than the rest of the game. They made it a point to say that this content unlike the rest of the game required a lot more understanding of the game and its workings, and skill to use them than the as you referred to it “carebear” content thats found in the rest of the game. In final people overlooking this and complaining is not the fault of the dev’s but the people and only with them.

Your clearly the one who’s being non-constructive as i only responded to you in the exact same way you have reacted to others. If you want to set down and have a constructive debate about it i’m more than willing to treat you as an adult. Till then ill treat you as a kid.