Guild Wars 2

I just came back to this game after a 1 year hiatus to find it as amazing and beautiful as ever. That said, I can’t believe the dungeons are still in the same condition they were when I left. I just played through Arah a few times to much frustration and disappointment.

It’s not the best analogy, but if I may, GW2 is like an amazing mansion. The dungeon side was arguably one of the best “wings” of this mansion from it’s inception. Huge and sprawling, filled with the finest furniture, art, and decorations. And on day one of the home being complete, it’s as though they found a wiring problem and just abandoned it all together. Okay, bad analogy over, my point being, why are things still the same three years after they were discovered to be broken?

The intent of this post isn’t to just complain, but rather give an opinion and hope for an improvement to this element of the game. The following are a few suggestions:

-Clear out the trash mobs. Everyone just runs or bugs past them and they are pointless time sinks.

-Change some of the dynamics of boss fights. I know this is easier said then done, but are we really supposed to settle on stacking in the corner for half of the fights in the game?

-I know this game is different and relies on movement over health to keep yourself alive, but maybe change some of the dmg output so you aren’t 1-2 shotted.

-Make the story mode soloable…please

-Make the paths a little bit clearer…Arah comes to mind.

These are just a few ideas, and I may be way off, but I really want to see this become a more enjoyable part of the game.

Lets go through these in order:

-Remove trash mobs: Why? The mobs are there so that the players who can’t/won’t skip have an alternative, and can clear them out for loot. As it is now, both those who want to skip and those who don’t can have their way. Don’t change what isn’t broken.

-“Change boss fight dynamics”: here you’re clearly referring to the “Cardinal sin” that is stacking. Once again, there is nothing wrong with stacking, and adding collision between mobs/players would add a great deal more problems than it solves, let’s be real.

-Changing damage output of mobs : Most encounters in the game are already incredibly simple, what would be the advantage of simplifying them even further? At least with one-shot mechanics players need to be a little active with their playstyle and dodges, rather than just spamming 1 like in open world events.

-Soloable story modes: A large majority of them already are. If you don’t believe me, check gw2dungeons.net where they even host solo speedrun times of many of those paths. And making it so that people are encouraged to play alone in an massively MULTIPLAYER online game, would be sort of removing the meaning of the genre, don’t you think?

-Clearer paths: So you’d prefer a more linear approach in dungeons which are already pretty simple, what with waypoints and quest markers? What would this accomplish, other than simplifying the game further?

To add to Lorgus,

1. This is a challenge aspect, skipping in say Arah isn’t always easy, and it creates a want for Stealth, it promotes diverse parties or the use of skills you don’t slot in combat, it’s a good thing.

2. No, you’re not, you’re being lazy if you do that, most fights in the game aren’t better done with stacking, there are various reasons to do it, but most of them come down to simply being lazy. You’ll go faster if you don’t.

3. Tank up!, if youc an’t handle the one shot mechanics this is exactly why there are various options for gear. Again, it’ll be slower but you’re given the option of easy vs fast, take your pick.

4. What Lorgus said

5. This is quite the opposite of what I would like, I’d like some more complex dungeons where I have options on going left or right, where we might split up the team, going strait forward and it just being a matter of looking for the event marker isn’t really what I consider good design.

Lorgus.6148:

Lets go through these in order:

-Remove trash mobs: Why? The mobs are there so that the players who can’t/won’t skip have an alternative, and can clear them out for loot. As it is now, both those who want to skip and those who don’t can have their way. Don’t change what isn’t broken.

-“Change boss fight dynamics”: here you’re clearly referring to the “Cardinal sin” that is stacking. Once again, there is nothing wrong with stacking, and adding collision between mobs/players would add a great deal more problems than it solves, let’s be real.

-Changing damage output of mobs : Most encounters in the game are already incredibly simple, what would be the advantage of simplifying them even further? At least with one-shot mechanics players need to be a little active with their playstyle and dodges, rather than just spamming 1 like in open world events.

-Soloable story modes: A large majority of them already are. If you don’t believe me, check gw2dungeons.net where they even host solo speedrun times of many of those paths. And making it so that people are encouraged to play alone in an massively MULTIPLAYER online game, would be sort of removing the meaning of the genre, don’t you think?

-Clearer paths: So you’d prefer a more linear approach in dungeons which are already pretty simple, what with waypoints and quest markers? What would this accomplish, other than simplifying the game further?

sorry, but number 2? bosses arent that well designed here. There are few interesting ones, but most of them are fairly boring.

Didn’t mean to make this into a tit-for-tat scenario, but here goes:

Trash mobs: I realize some people want to spend a good amount of time clearing everything, but when the vast majority of ppl just skip past everything, I don’t think I’m far off when I say it’s broken.

-Boss dynamics: So stacking is the intended outcome? I think I’m being pretty realistic when I say this is a problem and not “fun.”

-Dmg output: With regard to encounters being “incredibly simple” I don’t know if I’d necessarily agree with you. Plenty of ppl still seem to have problems with them(which isn’t necessarily a bad thing), but getting one shotted doesn’t really help you learn as much as watching your health dramatically tick down as you stand in the wrong place.

-Solo story modes: Didn’t realize they were soloable and I’ll def check out the vids. As far as the multiplayer aspect goes, I don’t think every activity NEEDS to be with other ppl. If I recall correctly, the original GW had NPCs you could hire for dungeons. The personal story is solo only, and the story mode dungeons tie into that.

-Clear paths: Fair enough…I just thought this could be helpful to those who were new to the dungeon.

My hope is that dungeons will become more accessible to the masses. When the vast majority of dungeon posts state “exp only” I think it’s fair to assume there are more levels of complexity then you may realize.

My thoughts since I enjoy dungeons/fractals

-Clear out the trash mobs. Everyone just runs or bugs past them and they are pointless time sinks.

I don’t think the trash mobs are that bad, I don’t mind them and it increases loot chances overall. I can’t think of a dungeon that the trash mobs get to a point of being annoying. I think some of them (particularly ascalon) it’s fun to be running like mad through the graveling tunnels.

-Change some of the dynamics of boss fights. I know this is easier said then done, but are we really supposed to settle on stacking in the corner for half of the fights in the game?

It’s less ‘boss dynamics’ than stop the exploiting of being able to stack in a spot that the Boss can’t use it’s special skills on, or is at significant disadvantage. This has gotten fixed a good bit in Fractals, but dungeons need their exploit spots eliminated.

-I know this game is different and relies on movement over health to keep yourself alive, but maybe change some of the dmg output so you aren’t 1-2 shotted.

Disagree, I think that if you’re in pure zerker, you should have an opportunity for being 1-2 shot. If you’re in a full PVT set, in that case yes you shouldn’t be 1-2 shot, but maybe only 2-3 shot.

-Make the story mode soloable…please

Personal story I found completely soloable until Zhaitan. Living story 2 I enjoyed the difficulty increase and requiring help to get the achievements. (I was able to solo the whole thing except for the final LS2 boss)

-Make the paths a little bit clearer…Arah comes to mind.
Will agree with this, I never found it very confusing, but can see how it can be.

Deluvian.1068:

Didn’t mean to make this into a tit-for-tat scenario, but here goes:

Trash mobs: I realize some people want to spend a good amount of time clearing everything, but when the vast majority of ppl just skip past everything, I don’t think I’m far off when I say it’s broken.

-Boss dynamics: So stacking is the intended outcome? I think I’m being pretty realistic when I say this is a problem and not “fun.”

-Dmg output: With regard to encounters being “incredibly simple” I don’t know if I’d necessarily agree with you. Plenty of ppl still seem to have problems with them(which isn’t necessarily a bad thing), but getting one shotted doesn’t really help you learn as much as watching your health dramatically tick down as you stand in the wrong place.

-Solo story modes: Didn’t realize they were soloable and I’ll def check out the vids. As far as the multiplayer aspect goes, I don’t think every activity NEEDS to be with other ppl. If I recall correctly, the original GW had NPCs you could hire for dungeons. The personal story is solo only, and the story mode dungeons tie into that.

-Clear paths: Fair enough…I just thought this could be helpful to those who were new to the dungeon.

My hope is that dungeons will become more accessible to the masses. When the vast majority of dungeon posts state “exp only” I think it’s fair to assume there are more levels of complexity then you may realize.

1. Again, nothing broken about it, removing them would simply mean you’re running with no resistance, what’s the point? Why not make just a series of rooms with bosses. Having trash creates 3 options. Kill them (long/boring/unrewarding), Stealth (changes your group dynamic), or You just run for it, meaning you likely pull out some skills you might not otherwise use again contributing to diversity and knwoing what to use when.

2. Again, stacking isn’t optimal in the vast majority of cases. A few come to mind though. Kohler for example has a dodge which you can force him to not move by keeping him in a corner. Alphard has a nasty AE in her spin phase which is easily avoidable by using certain corners (though good groups will just burn her where she stands). Subject Alpha you can maintain positioning to prevent double ticks of the teeth provided you fail to dodge. There are a few benefits on some enemies, but generally you’re better off fighting in the middle than waiting for it to get to a corner, even Subject alpha in good groups will be fought in the middle.

3. You’re supposed to learn tells and avoid damge. If you need help grab some tankier gear, If you go tanky enough you can facetank most enemies without much concern. Learn the tells or tank up till you do.

4. Dungeons are the ONLY group oriented PVE, it’s meant to be like it is, but yes you can solo most, a few have little mechanics that force groups like CoF1, Arah1, and Arah Story but grab a friend or 4 and get it done.

5. It may help those who are new, but should everything be handed to them on a platter? This is the only content we have in the game that provides any kind of real challenge. It’s supposed to require some learning. It’s a good thing. The only reason people speed through them now is because people have spent so much time learning them and documenting them that now things have become relatively easy.

Deluvian.1068:

-Clear out the trash mobs. Everyone just runs or bugs past them and they are pointless time sinks.

Trash mobs are mostly fine as they are. Some of them have a bit too much CC and are a pain in the kitten, but they’re a part of the challenge and we have a number of ways of dealing with them.

-Change some of the dynamics of boss fights. I know this is easier said then done, but are we really supposed to settle on stacking in the corner for half of the fights in the game?

Stacking is mostly outdated, PUGS just haven’t bothered to change up their tactics after the FGS nerf. Apart from that, changing boss dynamics would be interesting at first but ultimately have one of two outcomes – players either figure out a simple and efficient way to beat them, or the bosses become frustrating time sinks (the HotW troll is a fine example of this). For every person who wants a proper challenge, there’s ten who’d prefer to stack-n-whack then collect their gold coin and be done with it. I’m not in favour of anything that could discourage people from running dungeons, it’s often hard enough to get a proper group together as it is.

-I know this game is different and relies on movement over health to keep yourself alive, but maybe change some of the dmg output so you aren’t 1-2 shotted.

There’s ways around this. Soldier and Knight gear will enable you to take an extra hit or two. Use these as ‘training wheels’.

-Make the story mode soloable…please

Disagree with this. Dungeons should remain group content. There aren’t enough small-group oriented activities as is.

-Make the paths a little bit clearer…Arah comes to mind.

This is somewhat reasonable, but it’s really a matter of practice and familiarity. Run any path often enough and you’ll know it as well as your own neighbourhood.