Guild Wars 2

I love gw2 and am here to stay. I enjoy playing games while conducting myself with honor; I wish to play the game as intended. I want to seek the challenges dungeons can provide and overcome them.

How dungeons are currently ran by the community conflicts with my beliefs. This is in reference to things like taking The Howling King in AC up the stairs to the gap and range killing him down while bypassing all of his fight mechanics among other encounters where you can be 100% safe from the boss while successfully killing them.

I have voiced my opinion that these tactics are exploitive, and I have heard all the arguments to counter it. “It’s just using the terrain.” “It’s easier this way.” “Anet has had time to change it and hasn’t.” I understand what these players are saying, but in my eyes that doesn’t mean that these excuses make it right.

Does Anet view these as exploitive as well? Is running through half the trash mobs imtended? Am I way off-base and these were intended tactics for the community to find? Are there other players who feel as I do on this subject?

I would love to have an official answer on this and will accept it whichever way it goes. Please gw2 community, feel free to express your opinion on the subject. Thank you.

When you look for a group, find like minded players and don’t join speed run groups. State this in the message on gw2lfg.com or when people join. Completionists and speed runners need to stop partying with each other.

Problem solved.

At the end of the day if I were asked to summarize the GW2 dungeon experience in a sentence, it would go something like;

/sucks in a breath through teeth. Well…

And no, I don’t think that’s okay.

when I’m pugging and someone suggests doing that in AC I just ruthlessly mock them as big whiny range-fighting babies. that usually convinces them to just melee the boss

however, running through trash mobs is totally acceptable imo. if they gave loot I’d kill them.

I suggest finding a Guild of dungeoneers if you will frequent dungeons a lot. If we can get more newbies/LFGers into Guilds that have the time to teach the right mechanics, it might improve the overall player base. I mean, there is no reason why you cannot use Grast’s mechanic in P3 anymore. I know it had some errors when the patch came out, but now his shield bubble is reliable and works fine.

The trash run part, what Broadicea said, I agree with.

I am much more understanding of running through/skipping trash mobs, and I think that this is a way speed runs can be distinguished from a more casual and/or completionist run. A key difference between skipping the trash mobs and the boss exploits I mention above is that the trash mobs can still do damage to your group, still knock you down, and kill you. If you choose to skip, you need to keep with the group, know exactly where you’re going, when to dodge etc.
If you want to maximize your group potential/DPS and get through the dungeon quickly with experienced players that’s fine. I do not agree, however, with using obvious exploitive tactics to do it.

Raspin.6527:

I am much more understanding of running through/skipping trash mobs, and I think that this is a way speed runs can be distinguished from a more casual and/or completionist run. A key difference between skipping the trash mobs and the boss exploits I mention above is that the trash mobs can still do damage to your group, still knock you down, and kill you. If you choose to skip, you need to keep with the group, know exactly where you’re going, when to dodge etc.
If you want to maximize your group potential/DPS and get through the dungeon quickly with experienced players that’s fine. I do not agree, however, with using obvious exploitive tactics to do it.

To kind of reiterate what I said earlier, I would just tell your group how you plan on completing the dungeon before you actually start it. That way you can find a new group or people can leave if needed.

That being said, it’s kind of dumb to use the stairs on the P1 boss because it’s so much quicker to kill him the normal way. The only time I’m really ok with using the stairs is if the PUG is so full of fail that they aren’t able to kill the boss normally after 1-2 wipes and I really just want to complete the dungeon instead of disbanding. I have no problems with using the pillar on P3 though. That boss is kind of a mess for PUGs and I don’t even bother with P2.

Raspin.6527:

This is in reference to things like taking The Howling King in AC up the stairs to the gap and range killing him down while bypassing all of his fight mechanics among other encounters where you can be 100% safe from the boss while successfully killing them.

What “mechanics”???

It spawns 5 Scavengers now and most classes don’t have perma Stability nor does “stun breakers” get you out of it. Don’t blame the community for this one. This is 100% the Dev’s faults for not PvE splitting Stability to more PvE skills for more classes in PvE while drowning the Dungeons in Pull & Knock down causing Mobs.

Also for not giving us in-game Teamspeak so we can atleast yell “GET THIS THING OFFA ME” the instant one lands on us….

I do agree with most of what you say. There is way too much bypass/not doing it the intended way.

Personally, I am of the camp that will blame ANET. That doesn’t mean I am excusing player behavior completely. However, the dungeons are a mess in many ways because of glitches, unfixed exploits, imbalance in not only length but time/reward and just poor and boring design. ilr certainly brings up a good point about that particular encounter ^^

The one thing I will definitely disagree is running past mobs. That is just using the agro mechanic, which is used in the open world all the time to run past enemies. And, as was said by someone else above, if the mobs dropped worthwhile loot, people would stop to kill them. Who wants to get into repeated and boring DPS battles with mobs and not get rewarded for it?

I don’t mind exploiting mistakes in the ai, or safe spots where the boss can’t reach you. After suffering from annoying invulnerable harpies several times, and having bosses regenerate back to full health while they are in combat, I’ve lost all sympathy for these baddies. If they play unfair, then we can play unfair too.

“Does Anet view these as exploitive as well? Is running through half the trash mobs imtended? Am I way off-base and these were intended tactics for the community to find? Are there other players who feel as I do on this subject?”

Anet fix these eventually but players always seem to find more. I’ve seen any number of different positions used in the dredge fractal for the armored car fight, probably because there it is so tedious that players are desperate to cut it down. I think these exploit positions are symptomatic of more general problems with combat movement, obstacles, and terrain and they perhaps need to change their development culture to bottom it all out.

Running through some of the trash in probably intended but I’m not sure the developers expected players to skip absolutely everything. Some skips are removed when Anet bug fix the dungeons. PUG players often are their own worst enemies and do bad skips that will eventually cost more time when people wipe, but that’s a different problem.

The exploits are cheesy and yes they shouldn’t be used. Many PUG players know they might get kicked if they object so they just tag along, meaning the exploits enter common usage quickly. I’m guessing the majority of players are so accustomed to these exploits that they don’t think they are exploits any more. If Anet can prevent most of the exploits with consistent quality of design then the culture will change too, so that players see exploits as the exception rather than the rule.

With all my tactics and out-of-the-box thinking, the primary method I use to tackle dungeons is actually really straightforward: if it is in front of me, kill it.

And I prefer this method. Sure, it can take longer than if you just skip all of the mobs. But, it can also be shorter. I’ve seen it happen time and again when someone dies, and then they have to run back to the group, but they can’t run back to the group because there’s a hundred enemies that keep cutting them down between the two. And then someone runs back to help them, all the while an elitist is whining and writhing on the floor about the whole ordeal, and those two players can’t make it past either. Eventually after I’ve made myself a sandwhich and half eaten it, that guy manages to come back after dealing with all the repair costs, and then we eventually continue on. Only for the next enemy group we skip to snag someone, kill him, and repeat the process.

You see, I play the game to do one thing: Play the bloody game. Running past all of the content and waiting for people to catch up isn’t fun. It isn’t rewarding. It complicates things almost needlessly. You are skipping the game, and not playing it. If you just kill the enemies in front of you, then get their loot, when someone dies and has to run back they don’t get interrupted by a hundred enemies that everyone else has run past. You only get the full token reward once a day, so you might as well spend an extra few minutes getting additional loot from enemies, making everyone’s life easier.

Some of the funnest times I’ve had was figuring out how to kill an inordinate amount of bandits while inside of the den on Caudeceus Manor. So many people hate that section and skip that section, lacking both the creativity to come up with a solution and the will to come up with a solution. Instead, we have to go through some ineffective bypassing maneuver that takes over an hour and then everyone quits because no one can do it.

The fact that people insist on doing these bypasses when they just make things harder half the time baffles me.

I think parts of it are okay. I definitely think skipping trash is okay. I think pulling bosses, mobs, stacking, LOS, are all perfectly okay as well.

I don’t think obvious bugs like stacking in a place so that the boss does not attack is okay. That’s more of an exploit than strategy.

I agree very much with the things a lot of you are saying. Blood Red Arachnid, I’ve been in that situation so many times. You have a few ppl who absolutely insist you skip past all the trash in a pug where a newer player is less experienced and/or isn’t as good with skipping. You then proceed to wait a half hour when you could have killed the trash and had a chance for a little extra money. I’ve encountered the same mentality with exploiting the bosses.

The Howling King reference I make in the original post is a good example. Pug group insisted we do it, then made fail after fail in attempts to pull him up there. Good 20+mins is spent on this and nobody wants to listen when I say we could have killed it properly and been done 18 minutes ago.

I want to play the game, not just earn free rewards. Sure, with a coordinated group it can be great to save time if you know how to avoid trash mobs. I’m okay with skipping as an option if the group prefers it, but am never okay with purposely exploiting as in examples players have already brought up in this thread.

We need incentives for 100% mob kill in dungeons, fixes to current exploits, and a stronger stance from Anet, giving penalties for engaging in exploitive behavior to really change what has become the “standard” dungeon runs in our community.

Raspin, if you ever need me for a dungeon run, please feel free to PM me. I usually log in at night time (I live in NY).

I believe the same as you, and there are many that believe the same. You are not alone.

I’ll give you an example: The other day I decided to go on an AC run for my daily, none of my guild mates were logged in at the time. I went with a random group on LFG and well, they decided to stack on spider queen. I told them its ridiculous to stack on such easy boss, but they all disagreed and basically threaten me to get kicked if I didnt follow. I just went in for the amusement (I really didnt care about getting kicked at that point). Turns out spider queen slaughter them all, and I ran for my dear life when I saw things blow to hell. I got kicked almost instantly (although I did stacked).

From that moment on, I knew I would NEVER run with a random group, instead I would make a group myself on LFG with the rules of playing the game THE WAY IS SUPPOSED TO BE PLAYED. Man, I found myself a group after that and we slapped spider queen like trash, killed kholer while laughing, and no wipes, downs or anything like that. So much fun.

Aden Celeste.3650:

Raspin, if you ever need me for a dungeon run, please feel free to PM me. I usually log in at night time (I live in NY).

I believe the same as you, and there are many that believe the same. You are not alone.

I’ll give you an example: The other day I decided to go on an AC run for my daily, none of my guild mates were logged in at the time. I went with a random group on LFG and well, they decided to stack on spider queen. I told them its ridiculous to stack on such easy boss, but they all disagreed and basically threaten me to get kicked if I didnt follow. I just went in for the amusement (I really didnt care about getting kicked at that point). Turns out spider queen slaughter them all, and I ran for my dear life when I saw things blow to hell. I got kicked almost instantly (although I did stacked).

From that moment on, I knew I would NEVER run with a random group, instead I would make a group myself on LFG with the rules of playing the game THE WAY IS SUPPOSED TO BE PLAYED. Man, I found myself a group after that and we slapped spider queen like trash, killed kholer while laughing, and no wipes, downs or anything like that. So much fun.

Good job, that was once instance. I’ve stacked many times on spider queen and have never once wiped. The fight, stacking, takes about 2-3 minutes while I’ve had PUGs fighting normally taking up to 30 minutes due to wipes and running back.

You play the game how you want, I’ll play how I want, but you’re ignorant and arrogant if you’re going to tell me I’m playing the game incorrectly.

Why would you want to kill trash and get rewarded with junk? There’s nothing wrong with skipping, exploit on the other hand is wrong. But, it’s hard to fight bosses that one shot you, it isn’t fun to get instakilled.

People always try to find ways to justify why they exploit. It happens all the time in the real world when people justify why they committed a crime.

Skipping is so much fun for me.

Killing a million trash mobs is boring because I know I can kill them. They don’t give me anything useful, they take up precious time, and there is no doubt in my mind that the outcome will be dead mobs and me alive. Skipping entire sections of dungeons where applicable is great for me because how the enemy moves, where I am in relation to the other players, my cooldowns, and everything matter so much. The pressure of knowing that if I fail I will bring the group down and the personal pride I feel every time I totally crush a skipping section make that so much better an experience for me. If skipping were removed, I’d probably stop playing certain dungeons altogether.

And why can’t both player types coexist? Why can’t I skip in my runs, and you kill everything in yours? I don’t understand the argument here. Join / form groups / guilds based on what you want to do! Don’t join / form groups / guilds for things you don’t want to do. That seems obvious to me, but yet still people complain about this, so I am left wondering what more I can say that will emphasize it sufficiently.

P.S. For the record, exploits that require you range a boss to death are stupid. It’s faster to melee the ever-loving kitten out of the enemy, and at least fifty times as enjoyable.

P.P.S. LoSing a mob/boss is not an exploit (confirmed by ANet forever ago), it is a valid stacking tactic.

Same as what was said above. State what kind of run you want when making your lfg. Fir some groups it just took everything they had even make it to the final boss and if standing on the stairs is what they need to do then that is fine. In the end I just dont want to deny anyone that cool feeling when they finish it.

Blame Anet for crappy dungeon designs that can be beat so easily not the players imo.

Dungeon design is flawed in many ways, its the dev’s fault, not the player’s.

Hell, Defiant is a kittened backward system that really needs replacing.

I agree @Rising Dusk

I consider skipping trash mobs a skill/strategy that allows you to do a dungeon one way, similar to how you kill a boss. If you cannot skip trash mobs, then you lack the ability to finish a dungeon this way. Of course the other way is killing all the mobs you encounter, and by all means do so.

There are norm ways that PuGs have found to be the optimal way of doing things, like skipping trash after 1st boss in Arah P3. Most players consider it not worth the time, if you think otherwise make your own group. It’s by dungeon design that it has come this way, not the players’ fault.

It’s all about time vs reward. I can do dungeons with or without those things you call “exploit” – and I’ve ran groups that is not doing it. I still prefer to do it whichever takes fastest though… Time is gold..

A lot of these dungeons are just long corridors with boring trash mobs in them anyway. So understandably players will want to take short cuts, and skip what ever is not needed. They’ll cheese their way through boss encounters by abusing flaws in the design. But that’s just it, it’s flawed design. It’s up to the level designers to make sure that the design is water tight, and that the level encourages players to not skip enemies. But the rewards for killing all that trash are so poor, that they are a waste of time.

I’ve been on both sides of this issue. I’ve done the CoF speed runs, which are very profitable (and I didn’t mind skipping everything one bit). I’ve also been in Fractal groups that wanted to bug the boss at the Colossus Fractal. I’ve sometimes been able to convince the group to just fight the boss as intended. And I really dislike the groups that want to exploit the dredge Fractal by performing weird platforming antics, and then kicking you if you fail the jump.

In the end it all boils down to design flaws, and the level designers are ultimately responsible for these emergent trends.

Just to clear things up: Skipping mobs in some cases works. Skipping mobs is not an exploit exactly, but bringing a boss to a stair so that it can no longer fight the players, or bringing spiderqueen to a corner and glitch her out, etc. Thats just methods that I cant agree with. However, everyone is free to play the way they want to.

Oh and Ethics, I expressed my opinion and you call me ignorant? Play as you wish, but the OP is expressing his thoughts about the current mentality of dungeon runners. I myself had terrible experiences with pugs that just want to skip everything, and then turning into a disaster and a waste of time.

Aden Celeste.3650:

and then turning into a disaster and a waste of time.

Usually though, it only turns into a disaster due to people not knowing how to skip through mobs properly, since there aren’t any skip parts in dungeons that are impossible.

Aden Celeste.3650:

Just to clear things up: Skipping mobs in some cases works. Skipping mobs is not an exploit exactly, but bringing a boss to a stair so that it can no longer fight the players, or bringing spiderqueen to a corner and glitch her out, etc. Thats just methods that I cant agree with. However, everyone is free to play the way they want to.

Rob Hrouda confirmed long ago that any time you can damage an enemy but the enemy is incapable of damaging you back is considered an exploit. So, for example, the Howling King range thing is definitely an exploit. However, pulling a mob around a corner and having everyone on the team melee it so that it doesn’t activate a range-only skill isn’t an exploit. That is taking advantage of the boss mechanics to best defeat it, and is a strategy that has been confirmed long ago to not be an exploit.