Guild Wars 2

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I’d like to see dungeons where tons of people can simply join in, much like the rest of the game.

There are a couple of those in the game (ex., Barradin’s Vault, Flame Temple Tombs), although most seem designed for groups of 3-10 people, so if you get 30 people in there it will probably get a bit messy.

Lucas Ashrock.8675:

the shiny drop is what we chase and play for.

Maybe it’s what you chase and play for, but that “we” there certainly doesn’t include me. I’ve been playing RPGs for about 25 years and “loot” has never been my main focus (except when said loot was necessary to complete some quest or defeat some specific enemy, etc.).

Yes, some aspects of GW2’s reward distribution seem unfair (ex., gold disparity between dungeons and WvW, the way all dungeon tokens drop from the last boss even for players who didn’t fight the previous ones, etc.), but that’s totally unrelated to dungeon design. Generic “loot” (the kind you can buy at the TP or sell for gold) is part of the game economy.

Lucas Ashrock.8675:

you cannot play a dungeon wasting 6/8 hours (arah path 4) coming back to LA with.. a bunch of blues, some green, if lucky 1-2 rares, if uberlucky a lode, and a bunch of T5 junk?

Er… if you feel that the time you spent playing is a waste, then have you considered looking for some form of entertainment you enjoy more?

Or, if you’re that willing to “waste” 6-8 hours of your day doing something that you see just as “effort”, then maybe you could use those 6-8 hours of effort to do something a bit more palpable, with better rewards (i.e., actual work, or a hobby that helps other people or is profitable, etc.).

If you enjoy the game, great, but the way you describe it sounds like you’re suffering through hours of pain (or, at best, boredom) just because you need to get some pixels at the end. It’s as if you don’t care the least bit about the gameplay and will continue to put up with 6-8 hours of non-enjoyment as long as they give a few more pixels at the end.

There are already far too many “Skinner box” MMOs out there, IMO. I think this thread (and all GW2 players) would benefit a lot more from suggestions about how to improve the actual gameplay. Or do you feel that the 6-8 hours you spend playing will always be a waste, and can never be turned into something enjoyable?

Account.9832:

-snip-

Agreed on almost 100%. Summed up pretty nicely.

Khristophoros.7194:

Did you play D3 at all? They kept buffing the drop rates and the feedback remained “Drop rates suck” Well duh people, your drops are going to suck compared to the rest of the economy unless you put in top 1% grinding hours. It’s just how it works no matter what the drop rates are.

Exactly.

Dungeons already have a better drop rate (both in terms of items and gold) than most other aspects of the game. Still some number grinders put “more loots” as their main priority to “improve dungeons” (as if the loot somehow made the gameplay better). If the developers follow that advice, the only thing we’ll get is more inflation, more people complaining that WvW and open-world events need “better loots”, and so on. And we’ll still have the same boring dungeons with broken mechanics and buggy code.

Cbomb.4310:

Theres definitely mobs/bosses that feel like they need some health tuning but once you learn encounters they’re generally all easy enough

The issue isn’t being hard; in fact, most bosses in GW2 dungeons are easier than the groups of mobs between them. The issue is being boring. Once you get their health down to 50%, you’ve probably figured out the fight, and the rest just feels repetitive.

They need either less HP (so it doesn’t get boring), multiple phases with more interesting behaviours (and more interaction with their environment, etc.), or both.

Why on earth do Fractals still use that stupid RNG drop system? I thought this was gonna be reprimanded?

Why on this green earth does it use the crappy RNG system instead of tokens? The fractal tokens aren’t even good for anything because the exotics you can get with them aren’t worth the obscene amount of tokens needed when you could just grind and pray to the RNG gods to give you an ascended item.

I’m just so disappointing it’s here to stay. I was hoping that Anet was better than this.

My voice is give an option for the solo player to witness the content in the dungeons. I don’t care about loot but like a lot of solo players we want to explore and be challenged. I could ramble for days but why have a game where it’s foundation appears to be based on flexible gameplay and then have the crown jewels force a certain type of game play. To me I don’t see why the story mode shouldnt be about the story and let people solo it (can leave as is just have NPC’s join you to give a full party of five) and have explorer mode for teams and have the uber loot only in explorer. Well that’s my wish for Christmas at least. Peace.

Rhukong.9547:

I’d love to be able to get Lodestones with the tokens from that dungeon. Ex: CoE tokens can be used to get a Charged Lodestone.
I think with the right token price it could work well. It would encourage more people to do dungeons also. Right now I never get a group for a dungeon that is solely from people within my own home world server.

Also, it would drop some of the prices for them on the TP, especially the ridiculous Charged Lodestone and give people a way to obtain them rather then simply buying them or hoping for the RNG to favor them that day. It would make the progression of actually getting all the lodestones you need actually feel like your progressing towards your goal as you would KNOW that you will get another lodestone by getting enough tokens rather than hoping for it to drop randomly.

This please. Please please please. I have ran CoF and SE so many times to not get cores or lodestones.

Ursan.7846:

I think it’s been brought up somewhere, but an option to turn in 3-4 tokens of Dungeon A into 1 token for Dungeon B.

So if someone really wants Dungeon B’s armor but hates doing Dungeon B, he can do other dungeons and still earn his armor. But it should obviously take longer, because he’s not doing THE dungeon.

I agree with Ursan. A bunch of people from the guild I am in were having this discussion and we all agreed that it would be WONDERFUL if you could take dungeon tokens that you don’t want and trade them for tokens that you -do- want. At least then you can help your friends run through dungeons they need and still profit.

Of course, some dungeon token conversions may be harsher than others, due to discrepancies in difficulty for acquire.

Hello community,

I did not real every reply as there is so many! Here are my main concerns with dungeons:

1- The story mode gives very little motivation to re-do. As was suggested before we should receive the standard 60 tokens. This will increase the amount of people helping others with story mode.

2- Lets take Twilight Arbour as example. When you are level 55 you are eligible to run explore mode. However, a group of people who are getting ready to run Exp mode will be reluctant to accept a level 55 player because they do not trust what he/she knows about the game and they know for a fact that he does not have the 30 skill point elites, the exotic armour perks and all the full traits available. I believe that a player that enters Exp mode that is below 80 should get some buff that would give him an extra perk, just to stop the level prejudice and make the higher levels less afraid that they will have to carry the player on their backs.

In GW1 there were countless dungeons. But the 2 that never lost their appeal were Underworld and Fissure of Woe. Why were these 2 the only dungeons that remained popular from day 1 to now? Put loot aside (most of the dungeons was very rewarding, even if you did not get Ectos you could use the cash you got from the dungeon to buy the ectos). They were OPEN concept. Meaning: you were not forced to follow steps 1-2-3-4-5-boss. They were very much like an explorable area, but with special goals.

After the start of the dungeon (defending the ghost in FOW and clearing the room in UW) you were free to do what you please, go in any direction you feel like and have your own order of how and when to do things. You could go in there for partial objectives, like to fight to get the FOW armour-smith to spawn and then call it quits, or just kill some spiders in the forest on a solo ranger. You could go there for a full clear. You could go there with some friends to play around and see how far you get with experimental builds. And unless you were with a determined speed clear group, you never felt punished if you whipe.

I believe that this is the kind of a dungeon that is much needed in GW2, especially since you have the lore ready for UW to open in the swamp

Marzipanic.4269:

Ursan.7846:

I think it’s been brought up somewhere, but an option to turn in 3-4 tokens of Dungeon A into 1 token for Dungeon B.

So if someone really wants Dungeon B’s armor but hates doing Dungeon B, he can do other dungeons and still earn his armor. But it should obviously take longer, because he’s not doing THE dungeon.

I agree with Ursan. A bunch of people from the guild I am in were having this discussion and we all agreed that it would be WONDERFUL if you could take dungeon tokens that you don’t want and trade them for tokens that you -do- want. At least then you can help your friends run through dungeons they need and still profit.

Of course, some dungeon token conversions may be harsher than others, due to discrepancies in difficulty for acquire.

Or more importantly the ones with 70-80 rare gear you can buy to smash for ectos, compared to the underleveled stuff from the other dungeons.

Reign in the weirdly difficult so I can run all of a dungeon without having to plan for a totally different night compared to other dungeons.

You want to make dungeons better? Remove the swamp fractal entirely in fotm. I’ve only done fotm twice and both times my final fractal has been swamp, leading my previously fun dungeon and group to be a massive moronic ragefest and dissolve without getting any rewards. It’s just absurd. And since you can’t add people to your fotm group when others leave, one guy leaving means the group is over. I’m not doing fotm again until the swamp fractal is either made significantly more pug idiot proof, or preferably removed from the game entirely. I’m just done with that bs. /endrant

I liked it in GW1 when you completed a dungeon and the end chest usually gave you something good (and random). You can complete a dungeon here and get nothing but blues and greens. Yes there is the token system, but people should be doing dungeons for fun and for a chance of getting good loot, not solely for grinding tokens.

In short, the loot is terrible.

(loot in fotm seems to be much better)

Because I feel this should be seen in this thread:

Rewards (Bad): This is the area where I take issue with the most because it’s a root of a host of the other major problems. It’s primarily because of needless trash that people do speed clears, finding legitimate or illegitimate ways to bypass the trash so they don’t have to waste additional time that is unreasonable by nature to spend for little to no reward. For the white knights out there claiming people should just suck it up and play how it was designed: why keep poor design especially when people circumvent it at every step?

Further with rewards. As I said, the karma vials and money pouches were a step in the right direction in an effort to provide players with an extra incentive upon killing a boss but I don’t feel that it’s nearly enough or in step with what players can do with their time otherwise spent outside of a dungeon. The incentive is simply not good enough. It’s a nice gesture though.

Lastly tokens. Token costs for armor is more than reasonable (I’d almost say that the cost for armor / weapons is about 20% too low) however, diminishing returns NEED to be done away with. Players should not have an artificial – developer designed soft cap in place to limit how or what players do with their play time. Especially when there are 8 different dungeon currencies and they cannot be swapped (swapping currency should not be the fix here. Removing diminishing returns should). The rationale for keeping the diminishing return system in place is patently by practice, faulty and oppressive. This is no different than limiting players on how many jump puzzle chests they can open in a day based on how quickly they made it through the puzzle. Inherently, you end up effecting far more players negatively than you do by successfully putting a halt to “speed clears” which would easily be fixed by addressing the actual problem as opposed to putting a band-aid fix on it with diminishing returns for token rewards.

Tldr; players should be encouraged – not forced into tedious unrewarding efforts. Mob AI (even most bosses) would have to undergo a massive overhaul to make the task worth the completion to be deemed fun, especially if you’ve done it 5+ times. Diminishing returns needs to go away entirely. There should be no way of exchanging tokens en-mass. 25-50 at a time would be okay, but only until massive dungeon overhaul is made to existing dungeons. Just as there should be avenues for trading various currency. The more choices people have, the better off the game will be.

I think dungeons could follow the design AC/CoF/HoTW have. They are not very long and are actually nice to return there even if you don’t need tokens anymore. The monsters health pool don’t feel giganormous and they take around what… 40 minutes top to do. That seems fine to me in a loot/time graphic. Some other dungeons feel really overtuned and most people just avoid them like the plague(Arah, CoE sometimes). In the overtuned examples I’d probably would reduce monsters health and a little bit of damage, one good example would be Arah. The dungeon feels very long by map design already, most people get so fed up on killing trash that they just prefer to run, deagro the trash and fight a boss, so maybe also reducing some trash mobs would also improve it. Dungeon loot seems fine imo. I just wished tough that we coulda get rid of Magic Find attribute in gears(I think on food and banners is fine tough). I hate it in every game I play(d2, d3, this one). This is some sort of problem that could be fixed with a nice RNG mechanic and some people don’t feel like they’re just carrying people around in their back that just want some decent loot due to bad RNG and want to resort to MF gear. On the RNG chance from loot from bosses I think it’s actually pretty fine. Better than when the game was launched, that’s for sure. I’d maybe change the token costs from gear tough. for example(150-helm/gloves/feet,180-shoulder, 210 – Leggings, 240 – Chest and maybe 210-1h weapons/offhands, 240 2h Weapons).

Overall I feel like FoTM and the rhythm it provides was a nice addition and it would be nice if the old dungeons/new incoming dungeons could follow that rhythm.

Get rid of DR across the board, legit players, including myself have suffered the effects of this garbage, most of the bots are gone, so why is this still needed?

Suggestion: Add more waypoints to dungeons. I’ve noticed on some paths of explorables there is literally a SINGLE waypoint and that’s just insane the amount of running to do if you wipe at the endboss.

There are a number of things holding this game back when it comes to dungeons that I have observed in my time doing them.

1- Blocked access to a large portion of dungeons. Arah is a good example of this. It requires a series of chain events to finally unlock it. This in turn requires a large group of people to do so and maintain it being open. The point of dungeons are to be a fun activity with friends. Not a waste because you have to be on at the right time when the dungeon is open because your server finally decided to open it or for that matter you spending a lot of your time you should be spending running the dungeon in just getting it open. That takes away from the fun of it really quickly.

2- No LFG tool. This hands down is my and many of the people I have played with’s number 1 beef with the way the game is going right now. Spamming LFG in map chat is really stupid and getting annoying very quickly. A LFG tool is something that is near required in MMOs these days and this game not having one is wasting peoples time and patients. People should be enjoying the dungeons and this game. Not be spamming map chat in a major city to get a group to finally go do the content they want to do. This is a number 1 item to be working on in my book going forward. Also don’t give me the go use that lfg website stuff. If a website has to be made for a feature that should be in game then something is very very wrong. That website is a dead give away that this should be a feature that should be worked on post haste.

3- Ease of access to different parts of the dungeon with waypoints. Killing a boss should mean a waypoint as way of a checkpoint for ease of getting back to where you were if you wipe/die.

4- Loot, loot, loot. Ok this is a bit misleading really. You are working on the loot system for dungeons and have come a long way since the beginning. But, lets consider what gets people into doing dungeons. It is the loot. Further more there is also an opportunity to add some items to the vendors to help with that. First is mini pets. Not every mini pet in the game needs to be tied to the gem store. Another idea is crafting mat bags. Tier 6 mats are required in large amounts for all higher end gear. Providing another method of getting them via the dungeons would be a great move and would help in making the markets easier for the average player to enter. Lodestones in some way too would help a lot.

Anyways these are my four main points for dungeons I have. Get these down and people would be doing dungeons more, people will get into dungeons easier and would greatly improve quality of live for all in this game.

My request is simple. Since I mostly play open world PVE and WvW do not limit the Ascended gear stats to only the FotM dungeon runs. In my opinion gear of the same stats should be attainable through all avenues of the game be it Crafting, WvW or Dungeons.
The fix is simple in concept.
a) Have a base ascended stat for gear
b) For FotM or for that matter any dungeon keep the Agony specific stat that way those that want to run dungeons have an incentive to grind through them. This could be through the same method you have now. Unique items from that dungeon crafted in the mystic forge.
c) For Crafters, make it so gear with ascended base stats can be crafted. The same principal can be applied as the game already has. So instead of say 5ea of an exquisite jewel to make an exotic ring it is now 10ea or even 15ea. Crafters now can make an ascended stat gear item. (no agony stat)
d) For WvW simple, turn in “x” amount of badges or some other token for the ascended stat gear. Make new vendor for this. (no agony stat)

Stability: By far the most annoying thing in dungeons is the bugs. Specifically the disconnect bug in Fractals and the various intermittent bugs in Arah are the most egregious. Everyone would like to be confident that if they start a dungeon that technical issues won’t be the thing holding them back from completing it.

Loot: I’m not sure why this is difficult to understand at Anet but people don’t do dungeons simply to kill the same mobs over and over again. They want loot. Clearing a leg of a dungeon then killing a boss can take a decent amount of time. Being rewarded with a chest that has a handful of greens and blues in it is ridiculous, even if you have a chance at getting an exotic. I would personally give up any chance at gear loot for guaranteed wondrous bags or some other known quantity.

Some good suggestions to the boss chest loot tables have been made here, but I’d like to make one more: have bosses drop something not available outside dungeons. It could be a special crafting mat, boe mini, something for the mystic forge, whatever. Make it more worthwhile loot wise.

LFG Tool: GW2lfg.com is not the answer here. Many people actually find it amusing that the post directing people there was given a sticky. Why an in game grouping system does not exist despite the ability to form groups across servers is confusing to everyone except the rabid fanboys that desperately don’t want this game to incorporate features found in WoW and other competing MMO’s.

Polish, Polish, Polish: Friends, people in my guild and many people from pugs have said the same thing about GW2 dungeons: they are gorgeous to look at but the bugs make them unplayable and downright painful to play.

From the start it felt like the the explore mode dungeons were an afterthought in the overall game design of GW2. It seems to many people who were accustomed to dungeons being the center of the game experience in other MMO’s that GW2’s buggy and frequently unbalanced high level dungeons weren’t given as much thought and attention as the story line dungeons were given despite the fact that explore mode is the most frequently used mode on the dungeons.

Dungeon Difficulty: Assuming a dungeon doesn’t bug in some way all of the dungeons are fairly easy if you are on voice chat and have exotics (which regardless of what anyone says are also easy to acquire). Most (but not all) bosses can be graveyard zerged and that is just silly. A more legitimate chance of failure when taking on a boss would be much appreciated.

Boss Design: Why are complicated boss skill mechanics only really present in a few bosses in the highest level dungeons? Many of the bosses, even in Arah are little more than a few dodge rolls with 5-8 minutes of auto attacks away from victory. It seems like bosses fall into one of two categories: either the huge health pool with an instant kill mechanic or a novel avoidance mechanic that trivializes the boss’ dps. Part of a satisfying dungeon experience, aside from loot and everything else mentioned above is having bosses that are fun to fight. Working together as a team and coordinating attacks is more fun than whittling away at an enormous health pool.

Why are some dungeons more rewarding then others. Lets compare armor set vendors of CoF and Arah, both sell berserker set affixs. CoF is way more farmable than Arah. While Arah is a end game dungeon, it’s rewards and benefits are the same as CoF. It also takes longer to finish Arah. I would love to see Arah as a more rewarding dungeon compared to other dungeons.

A possible way to make Arah more rewarding, is to give it twice the amount of badges it gives already. Or simply make it drop fractal shards or increase it’s drop rate to fractals mob’s drops rates.

Sellonic.1798:

Why are some dungeons more rewarding then others. Lets compare armor set vendors of CoF and Arah, both sell berserker set affixs. CoF is way more farmable than Arah. While Arah is a end game dungeon, it’s rewards and benefits are the same as CoF. It also takes longer to finish Arah. I would love to see Arah as a more rewarding dungeon compared to other dungeons.

A possible way to make Arah more rewarding, is to give it twice the amount of badges it gives already. Or simply make it drop fractal shards or increase it’s drop rate to fractals mob’s drops rates.

The argument could be made that Arah takes longer and is more difficult so there is more prestige in sporting the dungeon skin.

Fighting Lupus in Arah…
At least accommodate for players that don’t live close to the physical location of the servers.
Being Australian, it takes me 17 hops to connect to the sever. Fighting him is extremely frustrating as I die over and over because I’m unable to dodge/time his spells (esp. in Phase 2) correctly, as I’m always sitting between 250 – 400 ping.
Let alone lag, getting wiped against him only calls for more frustration. It takes quite a while to walk back to him and doesn’t typically allow a respawned player to get back to him in time to maintain aggro, thus stopping his health from regenning.

I said this in my post earlier. But after beating Simin I found to have the same garbage as I do in ac or wherever (about 2 blues and a green). If Simin is harder, should there be better loot?
For example after beating Simin there will be 3 random lodestone waiting in the chest in addition to other stuff. Now there is an incentive to beat him.
Please install a loot table sys based on difficulty of dungeon, boss, paths, etc. it would be so much better cuz so far it is better to run around a party in cursed shore farming than in dungeons. At least u get better mats.

Detailed all my thoughts in this thread: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Why-I-find-explorable-modes-unsatisfying/first#post1050888

Make dungeons story mode account bound as well as fractal difficulty setting. The way it is now just punishes those who enjoy having more than one character.

The game is not grindy, at least the devs state that, then why must i run a dungeon dozens of times, the same, already beaten dungeon? I have been told the developers have “Hundreds of years of experience” between them, i could throw out an analogy but i would get infracted by the spitefull headmaster of this forum.

That said why are dungeons like they are? Rote action grind fests for loot? First i give nothing away for free because devs simply gobble up what customers post as ideas. Why should i have to post better ideas than the devs with hundreds of years of experience freely? Why do other customers post ideas freely and let them take what they want, to make the game better? Shouldnt they already have the THE idea, THE special thing going for a game like this in this decade.

So to address the Anet employee that states he will be following this thread, i am not going to give the ideas or needed mechanics away, i will tell you what is wrong with the dungeons.

On storymode, this should be optional, enough said there, nothing wrong with this part as it is after all, a storymode.

Dungeons:
1. They do not scale between 1 or 100 customers. Meaning if i want to go solo or with as little as three or as many as a hundred, they should do that. Customers should get the idea.
2. The dungeons are not randomized, all paths are the same, everytime, same art, same stupid rock by the same wall by the same crack, same mobs, bosses, power, etc. Absolutely no imagination in these dungeons, what is wrong with the devs.
3. Must every single dungeon be a fight? Again, no imagination developers, shame on you.
4. Loot blows, plain and simple. A customer must grind to get anything, no imagination, again.
5. These dungeons smack of things created 20 years ago. No change in the mechanics of the dungeon, nothing but grind.
6. Mechanics should have already been in place to prevent players spending lengthy time in the dungeons from DC’ng and not being able to collect loot, this from other posts but a supremely valid point being this problem is decades old.
7. Why isnt there ingame voice communication? The excuse should be hilarious to read.
8. Where is the imagination and humor in these dungeons? Has the hundreds of years of experience soured everyone at Anet? I am noticing a theme regarding imagination.

It makes me wonder if the game engine used simply isnt up to the task at hand if the devs imaginations and ability to program are up to snuff, that must be the explanation. A game like this, with artwork and sound so high up in quality, yet dungeon mechanics and simple..lack of fun, cast a shadow on everything else. Some dungeons are not work, most are.

I work cheap Anet, i am retired and get a decent retirement check, you contact me ingame and i will give you one idea for free that would make the customers you have love you and help your dungeons for just a moderate amount of work on your part. What have you got to lose? Except customers, laugh.

The audacity of me, i know.

The biggest issue with dungeons are pretty much as follows:

-Boss HP is way too high, lowering it doesn’t make them easier, just a bit quicker. For example, the first time I see a mechanic, I may fall victim to it. The second and third time I will know better and learn how to avoid it. After 4+ times it just drags the fight on.
-Trash mob HP is way too high and generally favor burst damage, all at little to no reward, hence players skip it all and run through the content. Less trash mobs would probably be a big boon to several paths, as well.
-Events that surface while running dungeons, such as the cave troll in AC or the bridge guards in CoF are skippable, and almost always skipped to save time. Making them not skippable, or preferably, worth killing, would help.
-Heavily focused on combat while ignoring the puzzle and interaction elements.
-Time difference between dungeon paths (Ex: CoF/1 takes 10 minutes while Arah takes over an hour, with the same rewards, causing players to ignore long dungeon paths).
-Diminishing returns, while a good idea, severely hurt players who enjoy dungeons over other content.
-Objectives which require destroying non-mob objects heavily favor certain classes since they can not take condition damage. A warrior can take out a graveling burrow by himself quickly, while a necromancer has a very tough time even taking one out before getting overrun with gravelings. This becomes a huge issue in AC/3, for example, when quickly destroying such objects is mandatory for advancement. Having too many non-melee characters can be a show-stopper here.
-If the updated dungeons still use waypoints rather than checkpoints like in Fractals, then add more of them. Sometimes, reviving a dead player is simply not feasible, and they have to run back. TA is terrible for this, since not only is the closest waypoint half the instance away generally, there is also a boatload of explosive flowers that the player has to clear before they can jump back into the fight, which could take several minutes.

The good news? Fractals barely has any of these issues. It is a very good model dungeon to base the other dungeon revamps off of.

More music on dungeons. And why Zhaitan, the final boss of gw2, has no music?

Besides that dungeons are perfect and fun, but there could be more epic music. And you have the power to do that, c’mon your music producer is awesome, i’m sure i can put on some really epic music on dungeons

List in no particular order.

1. Dungeons are always contested (e.g. Citadel of Flame) It’s worse if no one else is around to help unlock it. My party often consists of players from other servers so they can’t help. Extend the duration of access.

2. Some mechanics of the dungeon need to be adjusted. For example Cof (again current one I’m grinding on now), in path 2 drawing aggro away from Magg is annoying when the mobs hit so hard. I don’t have the best gear nor is my build defensive, but I do my best to stay alive with the appropriate ultilities. However, I hardly last a few seconds. I feel like I barely contribute to my party.
In path 3 my pug was stuck at the torch part. There are too many trash mobs that interrupt you and they respawn too fast. The window of time to light the torch is too short.

3. Reduce DR. I understand you want people to play on all paths, but some paths have some really annoying dungeon mechanics…Some paths are just better than others.

4. Trash mobs in certain dungeons hit way too hard (AC).

5. Make a Dungeon Finder. I know you guys said you were looking into it and I know we have a website for it, but it really should be an in game feature.

6. Create deposit slots for dungeon tokens.

I have never done fractals and I can’t find a group at lvl 1

@ Naii
1: agree
2: path 2 the event is overtuned
path 3 at the flames kill everything but 1 mob at every torch, then hit the mob to low health(below 10 percent) and finish all 5 mobs at the same time, by writing 1,2,3 in the chat or so
then just do the 1,2,3 thing at the torch as you have at least 10 seconds until the mobs respawn again
the harder thing at path 3 is the defense of the area that comes a bit later, as some of the silver mobs hit very hard here and the way you need to walk is pretty long

Naii.9810:

3. Reduce DR. I understand you want people to play on all paths, but some paths have some really annoying dungeon mechanics…Some paths are just better than others.

Then the answer isn’t to reduce DR but make harder paths more rewarding, and even higher reward for doing all of them, and even higher reward for doing all dungeons on all paths. People grinding a single path because “it is easy” has to stop, but DR isn’t the answer, for incentive to run the others is the answer

This DR bullkitten should’ve been scrapped on the 2nd design meeting. Why is it still in-game is beyond me.

I think that weapon drops at bosses would not fit in the system. It will be a battle all over again. But it would be nice to award players for co-op play. There should be a bonus in the currency for players that work together. I know it would be a bit hard but it would boost the game experience since players would be rewarded for helping each other and not speed runs or ditching bosses. Dungeons are weary well designed maybe it would be nice to see a bit more randomness in the encounters and paths.

Lutheran.9687:

1- Blocked access to a large portion of dungeons. Arah is a good example of this. It requires a series of chain events to finally unlock it. This in turn requires a large group of people to do so and maintain it being open. The point of dungeons are to be a fun activity with friends. Not a waste because you have to be on at the right time when the dungeon is open because your server finally decided to open it or for that matter you spending a lot of your time you should be spending running the dungeon in just getting it open. That takes away from the fun of it really quickly.

yes, this is a great example.

making dungeons contestable is a poor design choice when it’s players vs NPCs type of conflict. this design only somewhat passes for legitimate when a dungeon is bounced between player-only factions in which case it becomes an incentive to pvp.

my suggestion is to drop contestable dungeons in their current form. if they want a big event to attract large portions of people i suggest the following:

add places of power that, while held, add a small percentage of magic find to everyone in the area and related dungeon.

everyone loves magic find

that alone could be enough to bring orr back to life and stop the frustration of seeing arah being contested.. again.

In the grand scheme of things, the only reason we play dungeons is for the skins of armor or weapons. There are a couple that you may need to run, I think the Magic find from CoE may be only place to get that but I am not sure as have not checked. Other than that you can make / karma any gear in game. So we play for the skins of the armor.

If you are starting out and cant make or buy armor, can always get into AC and farm Pow,Tough, Vit gear which is good starter set, and some builds use it at end game anyways. This allows you to gain survivability to progress to other dungeons and it does not take much. If you have run the zones that are listed in game that end level is 70 or higher and run a zone complete, you will get exotics and some money as well. You can sell or breakdown exotics to sell the materials and sigil/runes to buy gear as well. So getting close to the end game gear you feel you have to have is not hard when it comes to stats.

So we run dungeons for skins. Some dungeons are a joke, some are imbalanced in time. CoF P1 takes 8 min or less with a group that knows how to run. Not a dungeon really, a minor inconvience between me and my tokens. Compare to CoF3 same tokens, longer boss fight in CoF3 than a complete run of CoF P1. CoF is desired because it is so fast and easy and has flames on armor and is a berserker set, yet as far as dungeon progression it is the 3rd to last you unlock and it may be the easiest.

Arah is a challenge, bosses are very easy, just some areas you have to fight the trash and they are very hard at times due to where you position to not agro more. A lot of Arah can be run skipped by which is good because even those parts that are not able to be skipped are pretty rough. Most run just P3 as it is fast ie 30/40 min or so. Path 2 is long, unless there are shortcuts and I don’t know em. Alot of people wont run P2 as it is so long, but I don’t have a problem with that, if they dont want to then fine. I have not completed P1/4 yet, tried 4 a couple of times. Just never done P1 as only so much time in day.

So I run for skins, but if I want a dungeon grind that is a challenge I can try Arah 1/2/4 and if I want just speed to say I am cool I can do CoF 1/2 in the time it takes for one Arah P3 good run. Not everything has to be as easy as CoF or AC, if you get a coordinated group you can farm Arah P3 daily and get em 60 at a time. It will make you much more appreciative of the armor when you do get it.

Three other quick things:

I wish there we some EASY way to tell what dungeon story mode had been completed on EACH character.

Allow tokens to be auto deposited, with like maybe 8 slots per dungeon or something as it takes more than one stack to buy certain armor or weapons.

Certain classes, such as a guardian running with Soldier Runes (need 6 for remove cond ability), cant really use Magic Find in a dungeon and thus get bad drops, where as my mage can go full magic find if I want to increase loot drops. Most of time though I am not worried about magic find as I just want them done nice and smooth and hope for enough loot to cover any repair bills I may have.

Tips…Elems cans create Frost bows for them and another, great at taking out dens and other things.
Sometimes easier to just kite mobs on keep alive timers than fight them. Basically any mob can be snared or rooted in place, it is your friend. Big attacks generally have slow animation times, sometimes instead of running out of range, just step behind the mob. Pillars, rocks, boxes good to get out of sight. Dodge when you have to, but keep moving mostly and save dodges for when you have to have. fyi, torches CoF 3 I think, just kill 2 at each spot leave one, then all go to a separate one, kill the one and light it and done.

A lot of the lower level dungeons are dreadful to run at the level they’re opened to you. (I.e., who wants to run Twilight Arbor at Lv. 50-55.) Some are even horrible on Level 80s because you’re reduced down to a lower level and yet still treated like you’re level 80. Getting swarmed by a ton of respawning mobs that can all darn near one-hit you and take forever to kill because of their high HP makes groups want to just run through the dungeon instead of actually do the dungeon. And that makes me not want to ever go back, personally.

kKagari.6804:

If you’re gonna have super high hp bosses give them all phases. If I can down a boss 20% without trouble its unlikely I’ll struggle with the last 80%.

I agree with this whole-heartedly. Some of the story bosses are so interesting, because they have steps and you have to change things up. Even something like the reviving Gherron boss fight is interesting because you have to go back and forth a little (but the fight doesn’t take forever). Citadel of Flame is easily the most fun dungeon of the bunch. It’s challenging without being soul-shattering, and it’s relatively quick.

Suggestions
1)The parry and riposte skill available with the greatsword (skill #4) has an amazing animation and gameplay mechanic. Imagine bosses using a similar skill/exciting animation against the player.

2) A boss could get its weapon stuck in the ground or building wall/pillar, at which point players would need to run up the blade/arm and strike at the head before the boss frees his weapon.

3) Three of the five players would need to use a chain/net weapon to ensnare the boss and hold the chains, while the other two attack. The boss would occasionally break free and rampage knocking everyone down etc. until he can be ensnared again.

Complaints
A big theme which you’ve probably noticed is “Time/Effort vs Reward”—right now, the dungeon fights bore, not only from the sheer lack of imagination in those fight mechanics, but also the length of the fights. Then to top it off, the rewards for enduring it are inexplicably disheartening.

Bottom line; Create exciting, interactive battles and the community might forgive heartbreakingly lackluster rewards. But dishing up both boring content and rubbish rewards is unforgivable.

I’ve finished grinding for the exotic gear I like and done each dungeon path for the achievement.

There is nothing really there to encourage me to redo them, especially the hard ones like ARAH, SE or COE.

If doing a path once a day(No more until the next day) gives me ectos or a lodestone that would be more encouraging than whats on offer atm. (maybe even some themed skins maybe?)

You get at least 1 ecto nearly every fractal run and they aren’t even limited to dailys.

Adding an “extra” dungeon path only accessible for parties that do the other 3 in one day, with a hard boss there, that has a very very good DAILY reward, would be nice. More like putting the “Fractals” basic mechanic into the old dungeons.

Count me in the minority, I play for the experience not the loot. With that said I’d like to see:

The #1 fault of this game is the lack of voice chat. Just about every Single Player game with a ‘multiplayer mode’ has some sort of voice chat. Do the DEV’s honestly expect us to stop dodging AoE’s and attacks to (sic) TEXT CHAT with our playmates?

(What? We need our ‘captain’ to some how hide somewhere within the battle area but in viewing distance of the actual battle so they can type out instructions?)

The #2 fault this game has is the NPC targeting. Simply be the 1st person in ARG range or that attacks and the NPC will LOCK onto that player until he/she is dead or moves out of range. While this mechanic works fine in a single player game or when/if only a single player is attacking the NPC however the NPC ought to switch its attack focus to which ever player that is dealing it the most DPS.

Lastly, I think rewards/drops ought to be given out only on COMPLETION (IE: fully cleared) of a dungeon. Not complete=no reward. Furthermore it might make the dungeons more interesting if the difficulty actually scaled with how well (or not!) the party is geared. (Lvl30 dungeon with Lvl30 gear=normal, Lvl30 dungeon with Lvl80 gear=insane)

YMMV.

Rhukong.9547:

I’d love to be able to get Lodestones with the tokens from that dungeon. Ex: CoE tokens can be used to get a Charged Lodestone.
I think with the right token price it could work well. It would encourage more people to do dungeons also. Right now I never get a group for a dungeon that is solely from people within my own home world server.

Also, it would drop some of the prices for them on the TP, especially the ridiculous Charged Lodestone and give people a way to obtain them rather then simply buying them or hoping for the RNG to favor them that day. It would make the progression of actually getting all the lodestones you need actually feel like your progressing towards your goal as you would KNOW that you will get another lodestone by getting enough tokens rather than hoping for it to drop randomly.

This! This would be awesome: specific dungeon tokens for specific lodestones. People could do dungeons to earn them to use or sell and people could have their choice of grinding a dungeon or grinding general money to buy them on the TP.