Guild Wars 2

OK so I understand the need to limit the ability to corpse run a boss. It encourages some people to run back to an encounter and zerg the boss until it’s dead, with the giant repair bill at the end. It’s a frustrating experience for the players and it doesn’t encourage them to play skillfully and learn how to dodge or deal with boss mechanics. Keep in mind I am thinking of Twilight Arbor as I write this post, although it’s not the only dungeon which has this issue (some other dungeons, such as Ascalonian Catacombs, are a lot better).

I’m sick of there being few or no waypoints in a dungeon aside from the first or maybe the second which spawned a good 2 minutes run away from the encounter which spawned it. If I die or my group wipes, I don’t enjoy running for 2 minutes. It’s a pain and I don’t feel more incentive to play better, I feel like I’m wasting my time compared to a situation where a closer waypoint could have been given. I don’t feel like corpse running is a more desirable strategy, just wiping isn’t as an unnecessary waste of my time as before. I understand that if they are implemented incorrectly, waypoints can trivialise boss fights (such as Lupicus in Arah) by rewarding corpse running but I think the cost (my time wasted) is more than the benefit.

Why doesn’t the game use a boss gate system? Close the gate in the boss room once the encounter begins and anyone who is defeated either has to be resurrected or can’t get back in until the encounter is over (either a wipe or a win). This allows for more convenient placement of waypoints (right before the boss room) while preventing the corpse running issues. It has the side bonus of bosses having to be fought in their rooms where the boss mechanics take place rather than allowing players to pull them to locations which make them easier (such as taking Fyonna in TA away from her spider egg sacks). Some encounters don’t take place in rooms (such as Leurent, although once you jump down the platform before him you can’t get out, so you could stop players from going down that) and would be hard to create boundaries, but in general the game could do a much better job of placing waypoints throughout the dungeon. There are several locations in dungeons where a trade off like this can be made.

I can see the potential for something like this to destroy the success of many PuG groups, so with the current difficulty of dungeons and the frequency at which I PuG I would be scared of something which had the potential to eliminate the only route some of my co-players have to finishing dungeon paths (many groups will have two people who can handle the encounter fine while the other three can only contribute by corpse running), so it’s worth considering whether the trade off is worth the potential cost.

A final sacrifice would be the ability to reset an encounter without wiping. Currently if my group fails the Nightmare Tree in TA I can disengage and res the close ones and wait for the others. If we get a bad start and get a lot of early defeated or downed players we can back off and res or wait for others to run back. A gate would prevent this, although a waypoint right before the boss would alleviate the problem of removing the ability to res (by allowing people to res in a safe and close location while preventing them from rejoining the fight).

Are you all happy with the location of waypoints in dungeons? Do you think corpse running should be a viable strategy? Should it be a viable strategy to move a boss out of their room? Would boss gates make some encounters too punishing for people who don’t corpse run but do need a few people to be allowed to corpse run to finish some events? Is there another solution to this subjective problem?

Dungeons were presented as the “hardest” content in the game, but as long as waypoint zerging remains there’s no way they’ll be able to stop people from rez zerging unless you make the waypoints further and further away which is just annoying.

Agree with what you say, lock the bosses in a room. That’ll stop the pulling bosses out of the room nonsense, and add a challenge to the encounter rather than cheesing. Should they do this, I feel they should lower the boss HP to compensate somewhat. Fighting subject alpha for 10+ minutes would be highly stressful (not saying you couldn’t do it) , but with lower HP you would still have to keep everyone alive.

I agree completely, I hope they’ll do a dungeon rework in the near future to add doors that close when you start a boss, and a waypoint very close if you do wipe.
The long waypoints don’t really affect me when I’m doing explorables with my usual group, but it’s kind of annoying when PUGing.

It would be enough if the closest waypoint to the boss would get contested as soon as the fight starts. There don’t need to be any doors that magically close as soon as you attack a boss and then open again when you died.

nachtnebel.9168:

It would be enough if the closest waypoint to the boss would get contested as soon as the fight starts. There don’t need to be any doors that magically close as soon as you attack a boss and then open again when you died.

Doors already exist, such as Alphrad in Mursaat path of Arah exploration.

It feels like they are trying to implement this, but they are not being consistent with it.

Doors already exist, such as Alphrad in Mursaat path of Arah exploration.

That door doesn’t prevent you from entering after the encounter starts. It just takes an extra 5 seconds to get in there.

SgtSarcasm.1653:

Doors already exist, such as Alphrad in Mursaat path of Arah exploration.

That door doesn’t prevent you from entering after the encounter starts. It just takes an extra 5 seconds to get in there.

Never said it prevents you from entering, it is a fairly large oversight and obviously unintended for that jump to be there. Already opened a bug report regarding that issue almost a month ago.

Again, my point still stands that there are doors, wish they would just make more of them so CoF Magg/Gigantipus etc would be done the intended way

nachtnebel.9168:

It would be enough if the closest waypoint to the boss would get contested as soon as the fight starts. There don’t need to be any doors that magically close as soon as you attack a boss and then open again when you died.

I love that idea. I didn’t even think of that. It’s an eloquent way of creating closer waypoints allowing people to return from a wipe but also preventing them from using them to corpse run the boss while at the same time solving the problem of many bosses not being in room all while using a pre-existing game mechanic. PuGs can still run from a farther waypoint if a couple people can survive long enough to take on the boss for them to return maintaining the ability for PuGs to beat bosses and keep this content accessible to more people.

Well, when it comes to Twilight Arbor specifically. I think the protracted waypoints are just a countermeasure for people who “skip” all the trash mobs leading up to the boss. It’s risk/reward trade off. (This is also why I insist on clearing most mobs leading up to these encounters)

As far as run times are concerned, that makes it all the more important for teammates to have a third eye out for their other teammates and get them up as soon as they’re downed. Or at the very least make them aware of strategies in which to rally (i.e. killing a volatile blossom, or binding root)

So I guess that means I agree, zombie rushing a boss shouldn’t be doable. But I highly doubt anyone really enjoys that sort of play-style.

I agree, the time it takes to run back is frustrating. TA forward, forward path I ran yesterday comes to mind.

I think the downed state should be removed entirely and if you die in a boss fight, if you release, you can’t get loot. Any accomplishment of someone running back to a fight after they have died is cheapened with this.

I have to say I disagree with all of these complaints about “cheesing,” since the entire design of a bunch of these events and bosses comes straight from the dairy aisle, too. One-shot kills, carpet bombs, one-shot carpet bombs, “escort” quests with elite zergs… all “cheese” mechanics.

I agree that being able to respawn on a waypoint mid fight and go back one of the many things wrong with the dungeons.

I expect major changes in the upcoming months.

i say let them graveyard rush. they’re actually losing money per run and it takes hours to do it this way.

negative revenue + inefficient from a time perspective. graveyard rushing is possible, but so is selling everything in stock at a loss for no reason.