Guild Wars 2

So we are all aware of the problems with the current dungeon system. This topic is about core problems not about bugs/exploits.

First off let me address the overview of dungeon runners. As far as I can see they are split into 2 camps.
Casual – They just wanna run a few runs every night at maybe like 1hr per run to get gear.
Hardcore – They want the prestige that comes with mastering that dungeon therefore want the dungeon to zone out other people who aren’t as capable as themselves. And have the unique gear that very few other have to prove it.

My concept is this…2 dungeon modes, casual or hardcore and legendary armor.
Casual – Have the current dungeons drop the tokens same as before that can buy the current dungeon gear. Make the dungeon playable to the average player…longer, more obvious attack telegraphing.
Hardcore – Obviously for the hardcore there’s gotta be more bling at the end so add in legendary dungeon armor. Upgraded from the exotic version that looks even better. More about this later.

Dungeon paths – if the devs want us to run multiple paths there has got to be incentives, this is for the casual and hardcores alike. Why would anyone spend twice the amount of time to get the same rewards. If the other paths are just as rewarding time to token wise then people will do these paths. These changes have to be done in a certain way though.

Changes to dungeons – after farming a certain path then suddenly getting slapped in the face with a nerf is annoying to say the least. “Why must the devs make my life harder.” To this end buff the other paths by either making them more rewarding or to take the same amount of time. If a nerf mast be done then introduce it in stages to ease players in or tell us about exact changes in advance so we can prepare.

OK back to the part about legendary armor. Make legendary armor the same as making a legendary weapon, requiring mats and farming. Make the dungeon paths harder with more mobs or harder boss fights with unique chest drops required to craft legendary armor. Also to encourage the use of all paths make the chests drop specific items required for legendaries. Trash mobs can also drop items required for the legendary armor then players will actually have a reason to kill them. This would also provide more endgame to the players that feel that there is none.

To summarise,
Dungeon modes to satisfy both the casual and hardcore player.
Legendary armor can encourage players to not skip dungeon content and provide endgame incentives to those that desire them.
Players like to be kept informed of upcoming changes as precisely as possible.

In terms of higher tier gear, I’ve said that so many times and there seems to be this super staunch resistance to it. Even if you propose ways of making it so that this higher tier gear only stays in PvE somehow, people just don’t seem to get it and don’t like it…. so I would just say save your breath on this topic.

I don’t think you necessarily need modes since you have 4 paths in a dungeon, so make them of varying difficult and reward (easy, medium, hard, insane) and indicate those difficulties when players are choosing what path to take. Ideally, the paths should all be tuned to take about the same amount of time once you have a general idea of what to do (30-45 minutes or so). The concept is to give players a more gradual learning curve. Easy and Medium would be more forgiving in terms of little to no one-shot mechancis; the idea being to familiarize players to certain mob/boss mechanics that will be used throughout the dungeon and figuring out the best strategies to combat these obstacles. Hard and Insane would be more testing your skill, group coordination, and strategies… and thusly, more punishing.

As I said, the rewards scale to difficult… but I’m thinking more than just in terms of token drop amounts at the end of completing the run. Rares drops, additional tokens, and extra loot/coin-drops also scale with difficulty. So while easy is almost a guarantee to put coin your pocket, hard/insane will definitely give good payouts if you’ve truly mastered the dungeon mechanics.