Guild Wars 2

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I come to you today with some thoughts on Dungeon Improvement. When Anet rolled out the Fractal design, they said they were experimenting with tweaked dungeon design. Some of it was a big hit, some of it was a bit of a miss, so I’d like to discuss some potential improvements both sides of the coin could make by learning from each other, as well as other sources. We being with all things dungeon delving, and the simple axiom…

Everything one needs to know about improving dungeons can be learned from Legends of the Hidden Temple.

1) Entangled Paths.  Within each explorative run, present the players with a series of randomly generated encounters.  At three distinct stages, they will be given a choice between two activities.  These can range from mini bosses to horde rushes, tricky trap segments to jumping puzzles.  The initial choice allows them to approach the dungeon as they desire, encountering new things or avoiding hated situations as they choose.  It will also keep each explorative run unique and interesting, allowing players to choose more difficult and more rewarding segments or walk the path of least resistance as desired.

2) Obtain the Pendants of Life.  Corpse running is bad for the game, obviously, but a total loss for a split second error may not be fair either.  The simple compromise is a system of “lives”.  Each dungeon run begins with a single Pendant (or appropriately named token) which allows the party to resurrect at a waypoint if they are all slain, with no ability to return to a waypoint while the rest of the party is alive.  Each party revival consumes the token, but players can earn more in certain parts of the explorable by completing bonus objectives, taking more difficult paths, or completing certain checkpoints.

3) Cash Value for Prizes.  Everyone loves loot, but sometimes people want different shiny objects.  To make dungeons highly appealing, provide a better selection of potential rewards for dungeon tokens.  Allow them to be converted into lodestones and shards, raw ectoplasm, as well as one or two appropriate rare crafting materials per dungeon.  If dungeon running is infinitely more fun than farming, allow it to achieve similar goals for those interested in crafting rare items or legendary weapons.

4) Keep Track of Leaders.  Introduce a Challenge Mode to the dungeons which rotates a series of bonus objectives on specific, unrandomized paths.  Each week, different paths on each dungeon are given different bonus conditions, such as speed clearing, highest damage spike, least damage taken, etc.  Some of these bonuses would be specific to that explorable, while some would be global.  Leader boards track the best participants of each challenge throughout the week, as well as the three top groups of all time for that specific event.  Shiny rewards and glowing recognition await the best dungeon delvers out there.

By increasing the amount of variation in both challenges and rewards, each dungeon can become a font of endless possibilities.  Explorable runs become more interesting for the casual player and dedicated runner alike, and challenge modes provide a way to push your PvE skills to the competitive limit.  Fractal formulations help keep Dungeons dynamic.

And in turn, dungeon durability can make Fractals more fun.

The fractal system offered some bright ideas and some painful drawbacks, requiring further polish to be rid of the latter.  The current difficulty method is severally lacking in both community cohesion and practical application.  Cranking the numbers up on all the monsters feels far more like fake difficulty than actual danger and forces everyone to run bunker builds.  Meanwhile, the linear upgrade has already split the community, and the upcoming change will simply ensure that people have far less reason to trust one another.  Fortunately, a few adjustments could overall the system dramatically.

1) Consider a Difficulty System similar to Bastion.

For those who have not played it, Bastion is an excellent isometric hack and slash RPG with a nifty method of providing replayability.  Bastion allows you to unlock shrines of the gods which can be activated as you choose, each making the world a little more difficult via specific rules.  One will make enemies harder to kill, another will make foes move faster, a third will make each enemy explode on death, etc.  The more shrines that are activated, the more reward the player gets for progression.

Perhaps a similar approach to Fractals would improve gameplay.

Eidolons could be arranged within the Fractal hub, each corresponding to a particular nefarious effect, each with individual levels.  One might add healing and condition removal, another upgrading attack power, a third producing nasty environmental traps. Players can choose whatever combination of Eidolons they like for each run, activating the various levels of power of each condition to face a formidable fight on their terms.  Unfortunately for them, the random nature of fractals will fight back, preventing them from picking a perfect run.  Monsters get buffed accordingly, with slightly enhanced stats for each tier of Eidolon activated and all relevant buffs and skills applied.  In turn, a more difficult run is more rewarding, allowing the activation of higher tiers of Eidolons and providing more shiny, shiny loot.  Speaking of…

2) Ponder the potential of Spiral Knights heat loot.

The Random Number Generator is a harsh and uncaring mistress.  Her callous disregard for players leaves many unfulfilled, since they require the approval of a random loot generator to find the ascended items they need in the stats they require.  The system could be far better.

For instance, consider the way Spiral Knights handles heat.

In this adventure game, player weaponry increases in power based upon the heat generated through each adventure.  Running dungeons allows the heat to build until the weapon ranks up to the next tier.

In a similar system, players might achieve ascension not through RNG, but by wool gathering the essence of the Mists in their travels.  Add another “gathering” slot on inventory screen which allows the placement of ascending items.  Points are added onto these items in an inverse of the way points are reduced from gathering tools, with the exact number based on the difficulty of each Fractal run.  When the item is filled to the brim with misty essence, it can be mixed with another item (just jewelry, for the moment) to upgrade it to the ascended tier.  Likewise, certain infusion items can be equipped into the same slot to boost them up to the level of infusing a slot.

3) Embrace Fragmentation

To continue adding spice to the fractal concept, there are several ways to ensure that each run becomes a unique experience and nothing is ever old hat.

-Amp up the random deviations.  Several fractals vary between two modes, such as the underwater darkness/dolphin pairing.  These should be increased and expanded, so that each individual fractal has several possible scenarios.

-Randomize all bosses.  Take the swamp fractals’s variable finale and expand it to include all fractals, so that each one has different possible endings.  Some may include a change in boss type (face a giant enemy crab or shark with a laser beam strapped to its head instead of a giant jellyfish in the water fractal), while others may have different inner mechanics (the dredge power suit might have several ways to make it vulnerable, from pouring lava to planting mines, playing sonic chimes, or using another power suit in a rock ’em sock ’em bout).

-Reward flexibility.  Replace the concept of a daily run with weekly bonuses for each Eidolon.  Even if players find a specific sequence for optimal runs, they will still be rewarded for trying out all potential difficulty enhancements.

Taken together, this should help Fractals become a kaleidoscopic experience full of endless possibility.  Combine it with a little bit of love every season to intermix new Fractal zones, and the dungeon will remain interesting throughout the lifespan of the game.

Hey, some nice ideas in here, congratulations. I think the current fractals respawn mechanic would work well for regular dungeons, as a limited lives system could be too hardcore for some people. The entangled paths is something I really want to see as you can check in my post, and while I suggest randomly generated content, being able to choose between killing a boss or doing a jumping puzzle (for example) could make dungeons more popular for different player types. I am mixed with the ladder idea, though; I tend to prefer keeping competition away from cooperation in PVE.

I hope Arenanet doesn’t focus too much on fractals, I didn’t bought “Fractal Wars” hoping to hole up all the time inside dungeons.
There’s a HUGE and vastly unused world to make more appealing, with some things like story-quest chains (they can continue many interesting things you partially see in your “personal” story)
Nothing against your suggestions, I’m just against the idea to develop the fractal more than the rest of the game

what it lacks is character. the dungeons have been pretty boring so far. especially boss battles. They should look more into World of Warcraft’s good voice actors and scripts that tell players when a certain attack is happening (it usually involves something insulting or witty that has entertainment value) a DPS chart would be nice addition as well (alot of people are fond of pushing their damage) and a map that can display enemy locations. The bosses lack telegraphing attacks that tell players what attack is happening next. For a game that requires skill its pretty kitten random. For example in fighting games it’s true you can’t tell what your opponent will do next but if you understand the player then you can predict the moves but in pve it should never be so unpredictable. It has to have logic for it to be a game of skill rather than luck. The game also punishes melee way too much. AoE around the monsters happens way too often, completely neutralizing melee dps. There should be instances where ranged characters are forced to go near rather than always keeping distance.

A lot of my friends already stopped playing this game because it stopped being fun for them after we finished the dungeons once. The dungeons aren’t fun is what they all said. So I hope that you get back into these dungeons and reevaluate them and improve upon them so that they be in sync with the core principles of gw2. Skill based fun.

I’m not fond of World of Warcraft and people may flame me for simply saying those words but you have to admit they are pretty good at making interesting characters and dungeons. And I believe that polishing the dungeons to the point where playing them is entertainment enough rather than the grind for gear, a very good goal for GW2.

Right now what’s left of guild wars 2 is the gear grind for Legendaries. I don’t mind getting one shotted by a boss if the move was telegraphed and I didn’t dodge properly but getting one shotted without one just feels unfair. There’s a fun challenge and there is also an unfair challenge. The first one should be GW2’s goal.

Entertain us not by shiny in-game items. Any game can do that. Entertain us with the memories we will get playing the dungeons. Funny characters, epic events, arrogant bosses, WTF moments. It requires well thought of mechanics and lore that meld beautifully together. The only good thing i remembered about a dungeon was in AC where we dragged the troll to fight the whirly dude in the center. the troll won then we killed the troll. That was fun but it was definitely unintended so no points for that. Arah story mode was pretty ok until we reached the end where it was very anti climactic. You really should avoid draggy fights. Longer isn’t always better. If you were studying marketing they’d tell you keep it short and sweet. It should also apply to games.

P.S. I really hope the developer would be able to read my comments regarding dungeons in GW2. Oh and the fuch is up with Legendary ranged weapons, can’t we have more so that no one is forced to get the same crap. I’m not against rainbow bows or anything but kitten please be decent enough to match twilight, sunrise and eternity. Greatswords get all the kitten love. Peace out.

Pendant of Life sounds like a game over mechanic.