Guild Wars 2

Ethics.4519:

Nope, my main is a mesmer, I’m fully aware of that.

You know, I was incredibly close to saying “And I’m sure maestro will pick a ranger or engineer so he can say ‘Hey look! We had a ranger/an engineer!’” But you know.

This test still proves nothing to me as you already know my core issue, which is with Anet. I just wanna see how this turns out now. I just don’t want this to be “Hey look, we did it on our 35 experienced alts so this dungeon is at the right difficulty”

In all honesty, good luck, should be an interesting video whether you succeed or fail.

I think you’ve plain lost sight of what exactly was agreed to be proven.Dictating terms and micro-managing stipulations is simply a ploy to unsettle the individuals from doing the test in he first place, who volunteered their time I might add.

Since we’re streaming this and it’s probably going to be REALLY BORING having a silent playthrough, do any of the nay-sayers mind if some of us hop into voice call? Or do we have to do everything through typing?

http://www.twitch.tv/aliettefaye

I will be streaming this on my Twitch for those that wish to watch.

I’ll do voice call. Don’t laugh at me when I die on my mes though, it may take a death to get used to it.

Talking is A LOT better than typing too.

I don’t believe any level #35 is that stupid not be able to use voice chat. But a person w/ personal vendetta could be that stupid to object that.

So just out of curiosity what is this supposed to be showing? Exp players on lvl 35-40 alts, who are familiar with the new changes, non-pug, with green lvl gears?

Essence Snow.3194:

So just out of curiosity what is this supposed to be showing? Exp players on lvl 35-40 alts, who are familiar with the new changes, non-pug, with green lvl gears?

It’s supposed to be showing that the dungeon is completable with the stats and abilities a level 35 character provides a player.

It is not trying to prove that you can play like an idiot and still easily complete AC, which seems to be what people are starting to demand. (y u no undergeared with 0 communication???)

How many lvl 35’s actually had Lvl 35 Rares when they ran AC explorer? It pretty much is a standard to be undergeared because thats what low levels do.

Ioflux.4369:

How many lvl 35’s actually had Lvl 35 Rares when they ran AC explorer? It pretty much is a standard to be undergeared because thats what low levels do.

Where is your proof of this? And before you collect your data, define what a low level is and what constitutes as being ‘undergeared’.

Leo G.4501:

Ioflux.4369:

How many lvl 35’s actually had Lvl 35 Rares when they ran AC explorer? It pretty much is a standard to be undergeared because thats what low levels do.

Where is your proof of this? And before you collect your data, define what a low level is and what constitutes as being ‘undergeared’.

I consider undergeared as wearing gear thats more than 5 levels lower than the monsters you are killing. This includes accessories/armor/weapons.

I dare you to survey every level 80 you find and ask them the questions:

1. Did you do AC exp at lvl 35? If yes go to Q2.
2. Were you wearing level 30-35 gear?

That is, if you care so much about proof.

Ioflux.4369:

Leo G.4501:

Ioflux.4369:

How many lvl 35’s actually had Lvl 35 Rares when they ran AC explorer? It pretty much is a standard to be undergeared because thats what low levels do.

Where is your proof of this? And before you collect your data, define what a low level is and what constitutes as being ‘undergeared’.

I consider undergeared as wearing gear thats more than 5 levels lower than the monsters you are killing. This includes accessories/armor/weapons.

I dare you to survey every level 80 you find and ask them the questions:

1. Did you do AC exp at lvl 35? If yes go to Q2.
2. Were you wearing level 30-35 gear?

That is, if you care so much about proof.

I certainly said yes to 1 and 2. Then again, I was in the Beta and I knew that Exp mode Dungeons weren’t cakewalks for lower levels.

Maestro.5376:

Ioflux.4369:

Leo G.4501:

Ioflux.4369:

How many lvl 35’s actually had Lvl 35 Rares when they ran AC explorer? It pretty much is a standard to be undergeared because thats what low levels do.

Where is your proof of this? And before you collect your data, define what a low level is and what constitutes as being ‘undergeared’.

I consider undergeared as wearing gear thats more than 5 levels lower than the monsters you are killing. This includes accessories/armor/weapons.

I dare you to survey every level 80 you find and ask them the questions:

1. Did you do AC exp at lvl 35? If yes go to Q2.
2. Were you wearing level 30-35 gear?

That is, if you care so much about proof.

I certainly said yes to 1 and 2. Then again, I was in the Beta and I knew that Exp mode Dungeons weren’t cakewalks for lower levels.

I fit in the yes to both 1 and 2 as well, but the kind of players that post on the forums are not the majority. The ones that need to be surveyed are the most common type of population from in game.

Ioflux.4369:

How many lvl 35’s actually had Lvl 35 Rares when they ran AC explorer? It pretty much is a standard to be undergeared because thats what low levels do.

Assume for a minute, this is “standard”. All that proves is that the player making the attempt at the instance is just handicapping themselves (or looking for a challenge).

If you want to take it seriously, you’ll do everything you can to give yourself the best chance of success.

Also, level 35 masterwork is trivial to obtain, so, it’s not beyond any reasonable expectation to assume a player wouldn’t equip themselves accordingly.

Nothing wrong with not being optimally geared, just nothing exceptional about being properly so.

Besides, if you ran Story Mode you were guaranteed at LEAST one rare piece of equipment at 35.

just a few things.

1) one of the “beauty’s” of this game is that with each party make up, your experience will be different. hypothetically, a group of “low levels” that clicked can do infinitely better than a group of 80’s geared in exotics that don’t care to work together

2) explorable dungeons were intended for the “hardcore”. and in thsi case, we’ll define hardcore as farmed for good gear, took the time to learn the dungeons and how to tackle them most efficiently.

3) persuant to (2), does this mean people can’t do them under-leveled (i.e. sub 80) and under-geared? no. will it be harder? most likely. i guess what i’m trying to say is, you can’t just say “do it naked with white weaps, then you’ll have made a point” because.. that is not the point of dungeons at all imo.

4) i made a conscious decision to upgrade my gear whenever i could so i was never 5+ levels outdated with armor / weapons. i tried to get jewelry as much as i could. dare i say at level 35, iirc, i was decently geared. but will EVERYONE do that? no. of course not. that being said, if i did complete a mission / event / dungeon successfully while having put forth the effort to get gear that was as close to my max level, does that make whatever i accomplished meaningless? that’s up to you guys to decide.

5) i think i’m just rambling now.. but just a few thoughts. for food. what? alrighty. back to lunch.

Ethics.4519:

None of this matters. The issue is that this is the very first dungeon to introduce new players to dungeon mechanics and how things work. You calling for “experienced” players completely negates this. How about you fraps 5 casual players who hit 35 on their first toon and want to see what a dungeon is like.

Five casual players who hit 35 on their first toon should expect multiple wipes on this dungeon. Because the game allows a level 35 a headstart on the tokens does not advertise, “FOR LEVEL 35 PLAYERS HURP.” The dungeon rewards tokens that will get level 80 exotics. Not level 35. Level 80. What did you expect from it? A cakewalk saying, “Here are your free level 80 exotics because this is a ‘starter’ dungeon?”

Brennus.1435:

Five casual players who hit 35 on their first toon should expect multiple wipes on this dungeon. Because the game allows a level 35 a headstart on the tokens does not advertise, “FOR LEVEL 35 PLAYERS HURP.” The dungeon rewards tokens that will get level 80 exotics. Not level 35. Level 80. What did you expect from it? A cakewalk saying, “Here are your free level 80 exotics because this is a ‘starter’ dungeon?”

Well technically you can use the tokens for level 35 rares. But I get what you mean.

AC exp is not the first dungeon, AC story is.

A few things..

The recommended lvl for AC exp is lvl 35 (according to the pop up window, not the meta).

I think the first rare grade stuff is lvl 30 available via crafting.

Regardless of whether they can do it or not, the data they gather in their attempts will be of great value.

I wish you guys well with your lvl 35 AC exp runs. Please share what you guys discover.

Softspoken.2410:

Essence Snow.3194:

So just out of curiosity what is this supposed to be showing? Exp players on lvl 35-40 alts, who are familiar with the new changes, non-pug, with green lvl gears?

It’s supposed to be showing that the dungeon is completable with the stats and abilities a level 35 character provides a player.

It is not trying to prove that you can play like an idiot and still easily complete AC, which seems to be what people are starting to demand. (y u no undergeared with 0 communication???)

Ty for the clarity on the purpose of this experiment. That aside I don’t really see the point in the experiment.

It should be a no brainer that in a best case scenario (lvl 35 aside) that ofc it’s possible. With practice, smooth runs would ofc eventually emerge. So I guess what I’m getting at is “what’s the point of an experiment that proves something that’s basically common sense?”.

Now if it were trying to test the most likely scenario that would be something different. I’m not exactly sure what that would be, so I cannot make a comment on it w/o further discussion.

I’m my mind it would be better to set out to question the intentions of the lvl barrier. Imo since only Anet can answer that, our conclusions are rather meaningless. If we had privy to the intentions, then we could set out to prove whether or not the content is suitable in correlation to the intention of the recommended/barrier lvl.

Leo G.4501:

Ethics.4519:

Nope, my main is a mesmer, I’m fully aware of that.

You know, I was incredibly close to saying “And I’m sure maestro will pick a ranger or engineer so he can say ‘Hey look! We had a ranger/an engineer!’” But you know.

This test still proves nothing to me as you already know my core issue, which is with Anet. I just wanna see how this turns out now. I just don’t want this to be “Hey look, we did it on our 35 experienced alts so this dungeon is at the right difficulty”

In all honesty, good luck, should be an interesting video whether you succeed or fail.

I think you’ve plain lost sight of what exactly was agreed to be proven.Dictating terms and micro-managing stipulations is simply a ploy to unsettle the individuals from doing the test in he first place, who volunteered their time I might add.

In fact, if you had any reading comprehension above a 4th grade level, you’d know that I’m admitting just the opposite. Maestro and I have discussed that I see the issue as more with what Anet is intending, and not Maestro’s actual claim. I’ve also already apologize to Maestro for being too harsh in the beginning.

Ethics.4519:

I see the issue as more with what Anet is intending

So this is probably off-topic to the thread, but I was just curious as to what you would hope the solution would be. That Anet gate off AC Ex at lvl 60? That they make AC Ex easier again?

Honestly I don’t see the harm in saying “This is a dungeon. We’re letting level 35s in, but don’t expect it to be easy at all; enter at your own risk.”

So the problem really is that at level 35, players really only have one thing that even comes close to AC Ex: AC Story. It’s a lower level dungeon (for level 30s) that prominently features silver-border mobs, and is likely the first time players will encounter a purple-border mob (Adelbern).

That being said, we have to look at what the difficulty jump from AC Story to AC Ex here is. I don’t think what people say about AC Story, that it’s face-rollingly easy, is as accurate as people think, and honestly I think that people are viewing it through rose-tinted glasses. Like AC Ex, it’s pretty easy for a party of level 80s going back, or even hopping on level 30 alts.

But I ran AC Story on my level 30 Necro with a bunch of other lvl 30-35 people and parts of that dungeon gave us hell. Most notably, Ralena and Vassar if you don’t continuously knock them down/know how to get them away from each other during the initial pull. There are also a few other things that get introduced in that dungeon that players won’t have seen anywhere else until then: Heavy amounts of cc, a melee mob that can wipe your party in one attack, and double champions with unikittenfects.

Gate Guard Nappa and the Ascalonian Lieutenants (Both the Bow and Hammer versions) will spam knockdowns and knockbacks, and novice parties often do not have a grasp of how important it is to avoid these, or how to counter them with judicious use of Stun Breaks. In fact, without experienced members in the party who know how to react to these mechanics, it’s extremely easy for party members to wipe. In fact, these fights haven’t changed drastically since release, and if it weren’t for Waypoint-Respawn abuse, these bosses would have been the cause of many wipes for level 30 parties.

Later on, the Greatsword version of the Ascalonian Lieutenant has an extremely punishing AoE whirl that will both carry her a fair distance and pretty much 1-shot any medium/light armor classes in your party. Keep in mind that at level 30, players are probably not used to the concept of “Res downed players extremely quickly or you risk losing someone for the rest of the fight.” Removing waypoint-spamming has probably encouraged new players to learn this, now, but back at release, this probably wasn’t the case. So again, you pretty much have everyone of medium/light armor dying to the lawnmower attack, and probably going into defeated states to subsequent collateral damage from the GS AoE afterwards.

And Ralena and Vassar…yeah, let’s not talk about them. Even parties with experienced 80s prefer to exploit the door and bug one of them out on one side, or spam boulders to keep one of them knocked down. At release, when they couldn’t be continuously CCed, it was pretty much instant death for any party that didn’t have their stuff together.

So honestly, I think AC Story is probably enough of a teaching tool to allow parties to go on and do AC Exp at 35. That being said, AC Exp is meant to be comparatively harder to a party of 35s than AC Story is to a party of 30s, which means that it should be more challenging.

If your issue is with the dungeon system being entirely too difficult for level 30s onwards at appropriate dungeon levels, then I’m not sure what to say. Trait limitations will necessarily make lower level dungeons more difficult to appropriately-leveled parties than high level dungeons, simply because build diversity isn’t that high at low levels yet.

Sorry Maestro, I didn’t bother reading the rest of the post because it’s kinda long, and I just wanted to directly answer your question at the beginning. I thought I posted this earlier, but I did go more in-depth on the suggestions thread forum.

I think explorable dungeon should range from easy to hard with different rewards. This would apply to all with minimum tokens being 10 and max being 60, but here’s AC for example

AC story – whatever, don’t care.
AC EXP P1 – Easy : 10 tokens
AC EXP P2 – Medium: 20 tokens
AC EXP P3 – Hard: 60 tokens

There would be a lot of work going into balancing, like putting more boss chests into P3 so better loot rewards (or even just higher percentage. So if there is 1 chest on all paths, say 10% rare in easy, 40% rare in medium, 75% chance for a rare in hard).

Also, they should all be around the same length (easier doesn’t always meaner shorter) to help detour ‘elite’ groups from running easy mode all day

Edit: Okay I went back and read it. I agree the jump from ac story to ac exp is too hard. The first two dungeons are arguably the hardest in the game, in my opinion, with respect to story mode.

I completely agree with Ralena and Vassar. They are ridiculous. They are hard enough as is, and last time I did AC story, twice they were far apart, bugged, and teleport right on top of each other. Then, no matter how many boulders I threw, they would just fall down and not get a knock back. The only thing that dungeon taught me was that boulders are OP

Ethics.4519:

I completely agree with Ralena and Vassar. They are ridiculous. They are hard enough as is, and last time I did AC story, twice they were far apart, bugged, and teleport right on top of each other. Then, no matter how many boulders I threw, they would just fall down and not get a knock back. The only thing that dungeon taught me was that boulders are OP

Well, they do teleport back to each other when one of them hits like, 50% health? And must be separated again.

However, pull mechanics are HORRIBLE in that fight, and often will not cause them to move, only to be knocked down.

Maestro.5376:

Ethics.4519:

I completely agree with Ralena and Vassar. They are ridiculous. They are hard enough as is, and last time I did AC story, twice they were far apart, bugged, and teleport right on top of each other. Then, no matter how many boulders I threw, they would just fall down and not get a knock back. The only thing that dungeon taught me was that boulders are OP

Well, they do teleport back to each other when one of them hits like, 50% health? And must be separated again.

However, pull mechanics are HORRIBLE in that fight, and often will not cause them to move, only to be knocked down.

So do you do you think the dungeon redesign that I mentioned would be better or worse than what it is now? Easy would be barely more difficult than story mode. Medium would be about what it is now (for some dungeons) and hard would be around arah path difficulty 1&4

Ethics.4519:

Maestro.5376:

Ethics.4519:

I completely agree with Ralena and Vassar. They are ridiculous. They are hard enough as is, and last time I did AC story, twice they were far apart, bugged, and teleport right on top of each other. Then, no matter how many boulders I threw, they would just fall down and not get a knock back. The only thing that dungeon taught me was that boulders are OP

Well, they do teleport back to each other when one of them hits like, 50% health? And must be separated again.

However, pull mechanics are HORRIBLE in that fight, and often will not cause them to move, only to be knocked down.

So do you do you think the dungeon redesign that I mentioned would be better or worse than what it is now? Easy would be barely more difficult than story mode. Medium would be about what it is now (for some dungeons) and hard would be around arah path difficulty 1&4

I’ll chip in and say I disagree. First and foremost, with the current DR mechanics on dungeons, this will require even more runs to get a full set of armor. Secondly, it is catering to the casuals that whine incessantly on the forums about how hard things are instead of trying to examine what might have been a problem with themselves. Everybody thinks that because they couldn’t down a boss, nobody else possibly can either. And it seems that everyone wants the Explorable Modes to be a cakewalk for whatever reason, even though before the game was even released ANet had mentioned that there would be no easy Explorable Modes. (Even though I completely disagree with that statement’s validity.)

There are so many more frustrating issues in the game that players actually have a right to be mad at, and it feels like spending time arguing whether or not an Explorable Mode should be moderately easy to complete at the bare minimum level is a little absurd.
There are still tons of bugs that are breaking DEs, trivializing Traits, and overall affecting Profession build diversity. There are tons of imbalances between weapons for nearly every Profession that shoehorn players into only being able to be of limited use. There are issues with Precursors that haven’t been fixed even though they’ve recognized them.
It just seems like arguing about a dungeon being difficult or not at minimum levels is a waste of effort that can be placed in valid areas.

I will agree, however, that relying on Grast is a terrible, terrible idea/mechanic. Would be fine if it worked 100% of the time, though.

Ethics.4519:

Leo G.4501:

Ethics.4519:

Nope, my main is a mesmer, I’m fully aware of that.

You know, I was incredibly close to saying “And I’m sure maestro will pick a ranger or engineer so he can say ‘Hey look! We had a ranger/an engineer!’” But you know.

This test still proves nothing to me as you already know my core issue, which is with Anet. I just wanna see how this turns out now. I just don’t want this to be “Hey look, we did it on our 35 experienced alts so this dungeon is at the right difficulty”

In all honesty, good luck, should be an interesting video whether you succeed or fail.

I think you’ve plain lost sight of what exactly was agreed to be proven.Dictating terms and micro-managing stipulations is simply a ploy to unsettle the individuals from doing the test in he first place, who volunteered their time I might add.

In fact, if you had any reading comprehension above a 4th grade level, you’d know that I’m admitting just the opposite. Maestro and I have discussed that I see the issue as more with what Anet is intending, and not Maestro’s actual claim. I’ve also already apologize to Maestro for being too harsh in the beginning.

So you want to counter your maturity of apologizing for misstating something by insulting someone else who wasn’t being rude? Don’t care what apology you may have made as I didn’t read the thread that sparked this one and only skimmed this one, but all in all I say you come out behind.

Snark begets snark, although I haven’t quipped back with anything to that tone. And your reply to the party make up was definitely snark.

Leo G.4501:

Ethics.4519:

Leo G.4501:

Ethics.4519:

Nope, my main is a mesmer, I’m fully aware of that.

You know, I was incredibly close to saying “And I’m sure maestro will pick a ranger or engineer so he can say ‘Hey look! We had a ranger/an engineer!’” But you know.

This test still proves nothing to me as you already know my core issue, which is with Anet. I just wanna see how this turns out now. I just don’t want this to be “Hey look, we did it on our 35 experienced alts so this dungeon is at the right difficulty”

In all honesty, good luck, should be an interesting video whether you succeed or fail.

I think you’ve plain lost sight of what exactly was agreed to be proven.Dictating terms and micro-managing stipulations is simply a ploy to unsettle the individuals from doing the test in he first place, who volunteered their time I might add.

In fact, if you had any reading comprehension above a 4th grade level, you’d know that I’m admitting just the opposite. Maestro and I have discussed that I see the issue as more with what Anet is intending, and not Maestro’s actual claim. I’ve also already apologize to Maestro for being too harsh in the beginning.

So you want to counter your maturity of apologizing for misstating something by insulting someone else who wasn’t being rude? Don’t care what apology you may have made as I didn’t read the thread that sparked this one and only skimmed this one, but all in all I say you come out behind.

Snark begets snark, although I haven’t quipped back with anything to that tone. And your reply to the party make up was definitely snark.

You join in the middle of the conversation without knowing the full story, and insult me directly. I never misstated anything. My apology is to Maestro, not you. You deserve the snarkiness I implied and then some. You have become severely off-topic and no longer will receive my snarky replies, after this one of course.

Ethics.4519:

Leo G.4501:

Ethics.4519:

Leo G.4501:

Ethics.4519:

Nope, my main is a mesmer, I’m fully aware of that.

You know, I was incredibly close to saying “And I’m sure maestro will pick a ranger or engineer so he can say ‘Hey look! We had a ranger/an engineer!’” But you know.

This test still proves nothing to me as you already know my core issue, which is with Anet. I just wanna see how this turns out now. I just don’t want this to be “Hey look, we did it on our 35 experienced alts so this dungeon is at the right difficulty”

In all honesty, good luck, should be an interesting video whether you succeed or fail.

I think you’ve plain lost sight of what exactly was agreed to be proven.Dictating terms and micro-managing stipulations is simply a ploy to unsettle the individuals from doing the test in he first place, who volunteered their time I might add.

In fact, if you had any reading comprehension above a 4th grade level, you’d know that I’m admitting just the opposite. Maestro and I have discussed that I see the issue as more with what Anet is intending, and not Maestro’s actual claim. I’ve also already apologize to Maestro for being too harsh in the beginning.

So you want to counter your maturity of apologizing for misstating something by insulting someone else who wasn’t being rude? Don’t care what apology you may have made as I didn’t read the thread that sparked this one and only skimmed this one, but all in all I say you come out behind.

Snark begets snark, although I haven’t quipped back with anything to that tone. And your reply to the party make up was definitely snark.

You join in the middle of the conversation without knowing the full story, and insult me directly. I never misstated anything. My apology is to Maestro, not you. You deserve the snarkiness I implied and then some. You have become severely off-topic and no longer will receive my snarky replies, after this one of course.

Where did I insult you? I said “I think you’ve plain lost sight of what exactly was agreed to be proven”. Translated could mean “what the OP wants to prove and what you want to be proven don’t match” or “I think you just changed your mind what you want proven”. Mostly, my intent was the latter.

And I KNOW your apology was to the OP, never said it was to me. I said I don’t care who you’ve apologized to as that doesn’t concern me. The snarkiness you spout wasn’t even at me, it was at the OP. But I replied to it because ‘snark begets snark’. The whole ‘I could see that party make up a mile away’ was about as necessary as anything I’ve typed, but at least I didn’t insult anyone for replying to it.

Great work there, bud.

Ethics.4519:

Maestro.5376:

Ethics.4519:

I completely agree with Ralena and Vassar. They are ridiculous. They are hard enough as is, and last time I did AC story, twice they were far apart, bugged, and teleport right on top of each other. Then, no matter how many boulders I threw, they would just fall down and not get a knock back. The only thing that dungeon taught me was that boulders are OP

Well, they do teleport back to each other when one of them hits like, 50% health? And must be separated again.

However, pull mechanics are HORRIBLE in that fight, and often will not cause them to move, only to be knocked down.

So do you do you think the dungeon redesign that I mentioned would be better or worse than what it is now? Easy would be barely more difficult than story mode. Medium would be about what it is now (for some dungeons) and hard would be around arah path difficulty 1&4

So this runs into the issue that Robert mentioned earlier where people always take the path of least resistance. People would rather spamrun the Easy path for tokens, even with Diminishing returns. But if you eliminated tokens altogether past the first x runs in a day, then of course you get people complaining about that too. There’s no easy solution.

I feel like the current difficulty rampup from Story to Explorable in AC is fine. I also think that for level 30s, SM is probably harder than most people are saying right now (since “most people” are level 80s talking through rose-tinted glasses), and the difference in difficulty between the old Ex and the new Ex isn’t as large as people think. I don’t think Explorable now would be “impossible” for even a first-time group of players. It might take a TON of time and cooperation, but it could be done. Even in beta, I wasn’t convinced that Ex was impossible, even when the Spider Queen did 3k ticks every half a second with her poison pools. For me, it was a matter of playing better, because that fight relied on fundamentals of positioning and dodging, and otherwise was fairly straightforward.

Mourningcry.9428:

Ioflux.4369:

How many lvl 35’s actually had Lvl 35 Rares when they ran AC explorer? It pretty much is a standard to be undergeared because thats what low levels do.

Assume for a minute, this is “standard”. All that proves is that the player making the attempt at the instance is just handicapping themselves (or looking for a challenge).

If you want to take it seriously, you’ll do everything you can to give yourself the best chance of success.

Also, level 35 masterwork is trivial to obtain, so, it’s not beyond any reasonable expectation to assume a player wouldn’t equip themselves accordingly.

Nothing wrong with not being optimally geared, just nothing exceptional about being properly so.

What you are failing to take into account is that most people do not upgrade because you have to do it so often until you reach 80. I was under-geared most of the game until I reached 80

Hillaan.6904:

Mourningcry.9428:

Ioflux.4369:

How many lvl 35’s actually had Lvl 35 Rares when they ran AC explorer? It pretty much is a standard to be undergeared because thats what low levels do.

Assume for a minute, this is “standard”. All that proves is that the player making the attempt at the instance is just handicapping themselves (or looking for a challenge).

If you want to take it seriously, you’ll do everything you can to give yourself the best chance of success.

Also, level 35 masterwork is trivial to obtain, so, it’s not beyond any reasonable expectation to assume a player wouldn’t equip themselves accordingly.

Nothing wrong with not being optimally geared, just nothing exceptional about being properly so.

What you are failing to take into account is that most people do not upgrade because you have to do it so often until you reach 80. I was under-geared most of the game until I reached 80

No, that type of play is completely accounted for in what I said.

Simply put, a player does not have to have optimal gear at any point in the game. However, by choosing not to do so they are knowingly creating a more challenging situation than they would otherwise have to deal with.

Mourningcry.9428:

Hillaan.6904:

Mourningcry.9428:

Ioflux.4369:

How many lvl 35’s actually had Lvl 35 Rares when they ran AC explorer? It pretty much is a standard to be undergeared because thats what low levels do.

Assume for a minute, this is “standard”. All that proves is that the player making the attempt at the instance is just handicapping themselves (or looking for a challenge).

If you want to take it seriously, you’ll do everything you can to give yourself the best chance of success.

Also, level 35 masterwork is trivial to obtain, so, it’s not beyond any reasonable expectation to assume a player wouldn’t equip themselves accordingly.

Nothing wrong with not being optimally geared, just nothing exceptional about being properly so.

What you are failing to take into account is that most people do not upgrade because you have to do it so often until you reach 80. I was under-geared most of the game until I reached 80

No, that type of play is completely accounted for in what I said.

Simply put, a player does not have to have optimal gear at any point in the game. However, by choosing not to do so they are knowingly creating a more challenging situation than they would otherwise have to deal with.

This. Arenanet doesn’t design their dungeons around shoddy gearing, and especially not EX dungeons. They design them around proper gearing and preparation. So saying that AC Ex should be doable with a team that is undergeared is like saying a Major League Baseball game should be winnable with a team that uses all plastic bats.

Maestro.5376:

This. Arenanet doesn’t design their dungeons around shoddy gearing, and especially not EX dungeons. They design them around proper gearing and preparation. So saying that AC Ex should be doable with a team that is undergeared is like saying a Major League Baseball game should be winnable with a team that uses all plastic bats.

That’s all fine and dandy, but designing a dungeon around being well geared is extremely poor design for a low level dungeon. You see dungeons while leveling up are usually designed around an average gamers gear at that point, which for most is a hodge podge of current level gear and lower level gear. Gearing up for a dungeon at level 35 is a huge waste of time/money considering in a few hours of play you’ll have out leveled that gear and replaced it.

You’re trying to equate this to a professional league baseball game when it should be a neighborhood pickup game. In a pickup game you play with whatever is available(trashcan lid is 2nd base!), including a plastic bat. Pickup games are how kids learned to actually play the game and the same is applicable to AC. AC should be where players learn how dungeons work and is doable with average gear and average specs. The second you need to have certain gear, certain specs, and/or certain classes the design has become incredibly bad.

If you guys wanted to actually test with average gear it’s quite easy. Level up to 35 without using the TP. You can use any gear you loot and you can only craft gear with the mats you find/harvest on that character. That would be an average players experience.

My necro alt is 14 right now, If you have no one by the time im 35 ill do it.

Distaste.4801:

Maestro.5376:

This. Arenanet doesn’t design their dungeons around shoddy gearing, and especially not EX dungeons. They design them around proper gearing and preparation. So saying that AC Ex should be doable with a team that is undergeared is like saying a Major League Baseball game should be winnable with a team that uses all plastic bats.

That’s all fine and dandy, but designing a dungeon around being well geared is extremely poor design for a low level dungeon. You see dungeons while leveling up are usually designed around an average gamers gear at that point, which for most is a hodge podge of current level gear and lower level gear. Gearing up for a dungeon at level 35 is a huge waste of time/money considering in a few hours of play you’ll have out leveled that gear and replaced it.

You’re trying to equate this to a professional league baseball game when it should be a neighborhood pickup game. In a pickup game you play with whatever is available(trashcan lid is 2nd base!), including a plastic bat. Pickup games are how kids learned to actually play the game and the same is applicable to AC. AC should be where players learn how dungeons work and is doable with average gear and average specs. The second you need to have certain gear, certain specs, and/or certain classes the design has become incredibly bad.

If you guys wanted to actually test with average gear it’s quite easy. Level up to 35 without using the TP. You can use any gear you loot and you can only craft gear with the mats you find/harvest on that character. That would be an average players experience.

Actually, the game becomes quite punishing if you don’t keep your gear up-to-date, especially if you go back to lower level areas. Because the scaling doesn’t take gear level into account and simply scales your stats back by multiplicative factors, you’re going to be severely kitten if you’re wearing gear 10 levels lower than your current level, and go back to a lower-level area.

There’s also the fact that in many games, there are quests that will award level-appropriate gear to players as they complete them so as to gear them out appropriately for the dungeon they are about to run. Since this game doesn’t have traditional-style quests, it’s up to players to browse the Karma vendors and such to provide themselves with their own gear.

Thus, it invites abit of research and planning before setting foot in a more advanced dungeon like AC Ex, which I am not averse to. I think the challenge is nice, and definitely not impossible.

Distaste.4801:

That’s all fine and dandy, but designing a dungeon around being well geared is extremely poor design for a low level dungeon. You see dungeons while leveling up are usually designed around an average gamers gear at that point, which for most is a hodge podge of current level gear and lower level gear. Gearing up for a dungeon at level 35 is a huge waste of time/money considering in a few hours of play you’ll have out leveled that gear and replaced it.

You’re trying to equate this to a professional league baseball game when it should be a neighborhood pickup game. In a pickup game you play with whatever is available(trashcan lid is 2nd base!), including a plastic bat. Pickup games are how kids learned to actually play the game and the same is applicable to AC. AC should be where players learn how dungeons work and is doable with average gear and average specs. The second you need to have certain gear, certain specs, and/or certain classes the design has become incredibly bad.

If you guys wanted to actually test with average gear it’s quite easy. Level up to 35 without using the TP. You can use any gear you loot and you can only craft gear with the mats you find/harvest on that character. That would be an average players experience.

I don’t think designing a dungeon to be a tutorial is good design…not a dungeon that offers any type of reward, that is. If you form a dungeon to be simple, with kiddie curve-balls that amount to a slap on the wrist…then apply end-game rewards to it, you get CoF path 1 but for every dungeon. It won’t be about learning or having fun, it’ll be about farming plain and simple. Granted there’s little you can do about this mentality but making it a tutorial dungeon with gold and tokens for gear only encourages farming more.

No, I don’t think any dungeon should be a tutorial. Don’t pull punches even at low levels. Instead, make more events like dungeons. That dwarf cavern with the torches and what not was actually a pretty neat ‘dungeon’ that ended with a climactic battle…need more of that instead.

As for the whole ‘only use gear that drops or from materials that you get leveling up’, how about karma? Do your heart quests, get exp and karma, spend it on stuff from the karma vendors you meet. I think that’s exactly what I’m going to do if I end up filling a spot on the team.

But honestly, does it matter? The effectiveness of the equipment is identical. Do you think ‘mis-match’ equipment is some sort of handicap? When you don’t have dedicated trait points for a solid build, it doesn’t really matter what you use because percision will boost your crit rate more than in high levels but healing power will do next to nothing. Vitality will gross higher returns while toughness not so much. The only thing mis-match gear introduces is stats you might not want and knowing this comes from experience not ‘beating’ the RNG for drops.

Just gonna throw this out there: http://www.ign.com/a...lans-to-survive

“In terms of PvE, the goal is far simpler; provide more challenging content for those who want it. “I think for players looking for more difficult content, that’s an area where we don’t have as much as I think that we could, and that’s going to be a focus of 2013; taking some of the optional areas and making those more difficult,” Johanson asserts.”

Probably talking about explorable dungeons. I am excited.

Levistis.8356:

Just gonna throw this out there: http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/03/07/how-guild-wars-2-plans-to-survive

FTFY.

Sounds like dungeons to me, too. I don’t mind higher difficulty, but I hope they make an effort to make dungeons more dynamic as well… I’ve always wanted dungeons to be different every time I do them. The same 3-4 paths definitely do get boring after a while.

@thread:

Good luck guys. I’ve been running AC exp on my (now level 40) Engineer since 35, and it’s not too bad. Minus than p3 glitches of course. I’ll admit that burrows portions are exceedingly hard without 80s though— need more damage than most 35s can put in, in a limited amount of time. It’s sad that while most new players would have the best experience with a (mostly) 80s team, few teams are willing to take them nowadays.

Where’s the link to the video? I am having trouble finding it.

DeathPanel.8362:

Where’s the link to the video? I am having trouble finding it.

I just made a new thread with all the info you’ll need.

http://www.twitch.tv/aliettefaye/b/376274889

Here’s the recorded stream of our run. Enjoy, all.

None of this matters. The issue is that this is the very first dungeon to introduce new players to dungeon mechanics and how things work. You calling for “experienced” players completely negates this. How about you fraps 5 casual players who hit 35 on their first toon and want to see what a dungeon is like.

I feel like there should be another dungeon before AC at around level 20. It should have bosses like ettins or the old kholer where their main attacks are slow and well telegraphed. This makes it very obvious when to dodge and would definitely help new players get used to it. AC difficulty is fine for experienced players, perhaps even too easy, but I agree that it is not suitable for players that just hit 35 and are new to the game.

tnarrant.9714:

I’ve pretty much given up on it. Too annoying for the payoff now. The whole game is moving that direction with each successive update, so I’m filling more of my time with other games, games that understand that fun should trump frustration. I seek out games to entertain myself, not to add more stress to my life.

This just about sums it up for me as well. AC is no longer a training ground, as the first dungeon really should be. I am concerned about the increasing “l2p” and “noob gtfo” attitude from the community as well. I have been playing since the Head Start, and the game is definitely fomenting and attracting an ever-increasing player base of hardcore elitists.

Regarding AC specifically, there was nothing wrong with the “old AC” for the role it was designed to fulfill: as a training dungeon. Not only is the revamped AC an unforgivably harsh environment for new players, AC suffers from a malady that is becoming more prevalent with each patch and it’s called “knockdown fever”. This is an overused, redundant and lackluster mechanic that, in most cases, is not telegraphed and it needs toning down. For instance, the incessant pulls in Orr were removed from mobs because it was far too much, and the dev team made Orr a much more explorable zone without nerfing the mob’s fighting abilities.

Of the game’s nine explorable dungeons, nearly half are considered elite, level 80 explorable dungeons: HotW, CoE, arah and fractals. Turning a training dungeon into a harcore zone to please a highly vociferous elite minority is a large mistake that will drive frustrated players straight into the next big MMO that hits the shelves.

This is just the opinion of one player, but if I had a company executive in front of me right now, I would heartily encourage this person to NOT continue down this path of elitist expansionism. You will never fully please the hardcore player base… Ever… There are perfectly challenging places within the game for all kinds of tastes. We did not need a training dungeon converted into a “noob gtfo” zone.

Trust me, your competition is taking very careful notes of all your successes AND mistakes. Don’t let them win. Give us the game you promised us from the start; a game that was promoted under the premise of “if you hate traditional MMOs, then you’ll want to check out GW2”. That’s a BIG statement, and engenders more than you may realize.

Training dungeon with one of the best rewards just doesn’t fit. It’s good to keep in mind that other choice would have been lowering the rewards (which would have also caused an uproar).

Wethospu.6437:

Training dungeon with one of the best rewards just doesn’t fit. It’s good to keep in mind that other choice would have been lowering the rewards (which would have also caused an uproar).

Indeed… So what to do? Well, perhaps for starters, keep the token amounts the same across all dungeons (fractals being a separate case), but adjust the probability of rare/exotic/precursor and gold drops according to a dungeon’s explorable level.

I agree. If they tune down AC again the need to remove any exotic reward from the dungeon. If someone fancies the skin he/she still can get it via transmutation stones.

carabidus.6214:

Indeed… So what to do? Well, perhaps for starters, keep the token amounts the same across all dungeons (fractals being a separate case), but adjust the probability of rare/exotic/precursor and gold drops according to a dungeon’s explorable level.

Kanako Davis.5364:

I agree. If they tune down AC again the need to remove any exotic reward from the dungeon. If someone fancies the skin he/she still can get it via transmutation stones.

ex:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gift_of_Ascalon

There are a lot of dependencies out there that are based upon the existing design. Would rather resources be spent elsewhere, rather than spent adjusting existing content which is entirely viable.

I think what everyone seems to be forgetting is that AC explorable is endgame content, all dungeons are endgame content. It’s not supposed to be hard. Even though the recommended level is 35, it is implied that you need to know EXACTLY what you’re doing to go in. In other words, if it is your first time in there, watch videos, read walkthroughs, ask your party, do your homework before you go in.

The thing is that usually nobody admits that he/she runs a dungeon the first time. There are so many elitist players out there that don’t want to have “noobs” in their group that they are afraid to tell the rest of the group it’s their first time doing a dungeon.
As i said in another post i run AC and CoF p3 on a regular basis and i teach people the basics and AC and the “running puzzle” in CoF p3. NO ONE ever asked me to do that. My PUG teammates never told me that they need help or that it is their first time. I had to do the first step. It is always me who is asking them if they need help and usually they’re grateful for it but with a player base we have right now people are afraid to ask for help.
I think thats the part where some change needs to happen. Not the dungeon system. As for me dungeons could get a little more difficult.