Guild Wars 2

Besides Jumping Puzzles the BEST thing about this game is how hard Dungeons are. I like telling my friends this is the Dark Souls of MMO’s. Dungeons are hard, they are supposed to be, but they are not Inferno D3 hard. There are plenty strategies for every situation and sometimes is trail and error, but once you learn the animations and how to dodge, counter skills, etc it’s doable and satisfactory.

For example yesterday i was playing SE (Story Mode) And the Fire Golem was impossible (at first) some left butthurt, we found replacements, brought our A-game (for the fifth time) and actually realized how to kill him and it was the most satisfying experience ever.

So back to the nerfing, i read a lot of people are complaining. I understand reparing gear is expensive, finding a good group is hard. But isn’t that obvious!? This is the “End Game” and you are not supposed to pubtrain it. I havent play all explorables so there might be some insane and annoying things iam missing. But instead of nerfing theres always better options.

Iam still missing a part that is not doable, and once you get the skill, as i said before, it turns a lil easier.

Stop QQing and man up

Are we playing the same game? Dungeons are artificially long and grindy, but far from hard. The hardest part of the dungeons is trying to enjoy them, because they have been stretched out far too long for the content they offer and offer far too little intellectually compelling moments.

What I would call ‘hard’ was trying to run Domain of Anguish and Mallyx with a balanced setup in the first weeks it was released. Many people called it impossible, but it was a heck lot of fun to do! Why? Because it offered veriety and fluid gameplay, quick and deadly like it should be. Not kiting a mob for 2 minutes and then walking into the next mob rinse and repeat.

Fox.1054:

Are we playing the same game? Dungeons are artificially long and grindy, but far from hard. The hardest part of the dungeons is trying to enjoy them, because they have been stretched out far too long for the content they offer and offer far too little intellectually compelling moments.

What I would call ‘hard’ was trying to run Domain of Anguish and Mallyx with a balanced setup in the first weeks it was released. Many people called it impossible, but it was a heck lot of fun to do! Why? Because it offered veriety and fluid gameplay, quick and deadly like it should be. Not kiting a mob for 2 minutes and then walking into the next mob rinse and repeat.

Um, you do realize that once you get the mechanics of the fights down, as well as everyone properly bringing the correct skills into a fight, dungeons only take 30-40 mins tops

Just did SE Story, and once we figured out the Kudu golem fight, hes pretty quick. (bring at least 1 spammable condition removal, some projectile protection / reflection abilities, and learn what each golem does, and its a breeze)

Well it seems we are playing diferent games. I have enjoyed every dungeon besides CM.

At the moment, me and my guild can finish all paths in AC explore in 40 mins with no deaths

oh look another thread by some guy that beat like 2 dungeons.
gj champ.

HellHound.5480:

Um, you do realize that once you get the mechanics of the fights down, as well as everyone properly bringing the correct skills into a fight, dungeons only take 30-40 mins tops

COE would like to have a word with you.

kulle.6542:

oh look another thread by some guy that beat like 2 dungeons.
gj champ.

I’ve done all paths in AC, CM, TA and SE on story mode and explorable and I agree with the OP I can honestly say they are very much doable with determination and a good group of people. I would NOT like this content to be nerfed. There’s a whole world out there ready to be explored that is generally easier to do than dungeons plenty of content there for casuals.

If the dungeons are too hard for you find something else to do. They are only a small portion of the game so I don’t understand why people get so upset by not being able to do Explorable. Same with the jumping puzzles, If you can’t do it there’s plenty of other content out there for you to enjoy.

Leave some really hard content in for the gamers who like a challenge or who are skilled and deserve a reward for that. The dungeons are the closest thing we have to raiding so they should stay hard.

For those who complain story mode is too hard, It’s a joke. I’ve seen plenty of non hardcore, Casual gamers being able to complete them as long as there is one person at least who knows what they’re doing so this all just comes down to the patience of individual players who leave after a single wipe. Beside this is quite normal for all MMO’s where a lot of players give up as soon as something requires effort.

End game? Is this why the first explorable dungeon is at 35? Sure it’s part of the end-game as well, but not everyone is at “end game” level when they’re doing these instances.

It’s easy enough to say “well, just do the right things and you won’t die!”, but that’s really not particularly helpful. There are too many instances where the slightest delay in response triggers instant death, or finding out your group is missing a certain ability turns a normally smooth dungeon run into a debacle.

Right now the dungeons are all over the place in difficulty from what I’ve experienced. CM for instance, we choose the butler path, which was easy enough for us to complete, but the second boss (Shotgun Sammy or whatever) was about 15x harder than the end boss, whom we simply just stood at range exchanging shots with for about 5 minutes without a death among us.

Not to mention the room with 6 billion bandits, which we ended up just bypassing with my mesmer’s stealth.

Aggro seems to be completely arbitrary. I hear people say that it isn’t, maybe I’ve just not figured it out, but it sure seems that way to me. In CM story, our first runthrough a group member got targetted by one of the snipers, and they just focused him down before he did anything. I got him back up, they put him down again, got him up again, they shot him again, rinse repeat until he is running back from the WP, when he gets there? Bang – killed again.

What is someone supposed to do in that situation? Stack toughness and vitality in the off chance that someone’s going to put a bounty on his head in some random dungeon we’re doing while he’s leveling?

If these were just endgame instances I’d agree with you to be honest, as people can focus on building decent sets of armor, will have access to all their traits, etc. Anything below 80, especially story mode? No.

Basically the way dungeons are in this game it’s the equivalent of playing Super Mario Brothers for 2 hours, going to a bonus level, and suddenly dudes pop up in your living room and start blasting you with paintball guns. It doesn’t play at all like the rest of the game, it’s jarringly more difficult and requires an entirely different skillset than what you’ve been building up while leveling from the start.

Your post Treize shows to me you fail at realizing strategies. When theres a big bunch of elites and adds you aoe blind em to hell. Mesmers Signet, Necros Well of Darkness, etc. And i dont think its broken to bypass em with Mass Invisibility its part of the game.

And by “End Game” i meant hard content enought to keep you bussy and happy. By “End Game” i meant the Hardcore part of the game, which not everyone can complete.

As Fay said, theres plenty of content for casual players.

Aerel, there is definitely no end game content to keep anyone busy and happy.

Aerel.6471:

By “End Game” i meant the Hardcore part of the game, which not everyone can complete.

But everyone can complete it and that’s not the issue. The issue is that it has to be completed far too many times.

If this was Dark Souls, the equivalent would be farming slabs, ironically, down in Old Anor Londo for 75 hours just to get an item that is purely cosmetic. Go down, kill all the Darkwraiths, maybe get a few shards, port back to the bonfire, reset, repeat. For 75 hours. Dark Souls is difficult because of the combat mechanics, not because of mindless repetition.

The only difficulty involved is maintaining interest in the goal and the game over such a lengthy section of pure repetition. This is not what i bought the game for. This is not how they advertised the game.

It is amazing how much people complain over. I havent reached 80 and iam having a blast with the game. The repetition is only there if you want all the epic sets. And this post wanst about the grind. It was about keeping the content hard.

I would rather ask them to drop the price in the tokens than make it easier for you to grind.

I havent even grasped all the content in the game, iam working towards 100% map completition before goin crazy for dungeons and wvw. There is way too much content for 60$.

But lets keep the topic in track, DO NOT NERF hard content please

Aerel.6471:

It is amazing how much people complain over. I havent reached 80 and iam having a blast with the game. The repetition is only there if you want all the epic sets. And this post wanst about the grind. It was about keeping the content hard.

I would rather ask them to drop the price in the tokens than make it easier for you to grind.

I havent even grasped all the content in the game, iam working towards 100% map completition before goin crazy for dungeons and wvw. There is way too much content for 60$.

But lets keep the topic in track, DO NOT NERF hard content please

these forums should be for people only level 80…

Aerel.6471:

It is amazing how much people complain over. I havent reached 80 and iam having a blast with the game. The repetition is only there if you want all the epic sets. And this post wanst about the grind. It was about keeping the content hard.

I would rather ask them to drop the price in the tokens than make it easier for you to grind.

I havent even grasped all the content in the game, iam working towards 100% map completition before goin crazy for dungeons and wvw. There is way too much content for 60$.

But lets keep the topic in track, DO NOT NERF hard content please

So…you haven’t even reached 80 or done the dungeons(explore mode)…yet you are forming an opinion on it……

…cool

Agree with OP, i really liked SE the first time i did it, challenging yet fun dungeon.
And then people here are saying it’s super hard and not fun, hope they don’t nerf. Im all in for buffing rewards though.

kulle.6542:

these forums should be for people only level 80…

why?

Treize.7026:

Aggro seems to be completely arbitrary. I hear people say that it isn’t, maybe I’ve just not figured it out, but it sure seems that way to me. In CM story, our first runthrough a group member got targetted by one of the snipers, and they just focused him down before he did anything. I got him back up, they put him down again, got him up again, they shot him again, rinse repeat until he is running back from the WP, when he gets there? Bang – killed again.

What is someone supposed to do in that situation? Stack toughness and vitality in the off chance that someone’s going to put a bounty on his head in some random dungeon we’re doing while he’s leveling?

If these were just endgame instances I’d agree with you to be honest, as people can focus on building decent sets of armor, will have access to all their traits, etc. Anything below 80, especially story mode? No.

Basically the way dungeons are in this game it’s the equivalent of playing Super Mario Brothers for 2 hours, going to a bonus level, and suddenly dudes pop up in your living room and start blasting you with paintball guns. It doesn’t play at all like the rest of the game, it’s jarringly more difficult and requires an entirely different skillset than what you’ve been building up while leveling from the start.

Aggro is not random, it’s weird but not random. Heard health is one of the factors, like if you have low health some mobs will focus you. (specially ranged mobs)

You can level up pretty much with any build really, though i think anet needs to implement double spec.

I wouldn’t mind a dungeon nerf, because most of my runs have been lots of dying and lots of mindlessly attacking while chipping away at trash mob health. I wouldn’t mind a tweak either, because what I see is the problem is with the numbers being used for stuff like health, spawn rate, damage, and less in terms of mechanics. And maybe better ways of conveying information. For example “The floor is trapped, try and stand on something to protect youreslf from the spikes. Those pillows look like they’ll do the trick.” Cause I had no freaking clue what was going on with that room other than the bombers throw way to many freaking bombs to dodge.

Oh so iam 70 and i cant form an opinion? Sure mang you know more than me. Im only asking in this thread to not fall for noobs asking for mindless nerfs. Nerfs are needed if something is undoable or extremely hard unless you have specific gear.

In the end what i truly mean is keep hard content HARD.

That is all.

Difficulty is very subjective, though I firmly believe that some aspects of dungeons are in need of fine tuning. I have faith that the developers are working on that, though. I do think that certain classes need a greater amount of survivability, though. The difference between what my warrior can withstand compared to my thief or mesmer is a little ridiculous, particularly when one considers that this game is claiming to break the dreaded trinity.

Aerel.6471:

Your post Treize shows to me you fail at realizing strategies. When theres a big bunch of elites and adds you aoe blind em to hell. Mesmers Signet, Necros Well of Darkness, etc. And i dont think its broken to bypass em with Mass Invisibility its part of the game.

And by “End Game” i meant hard content enought to keep you bussy and happy. By “End Game” i meant the Hardcore part of the game, which not everyone can complete.

As Fay said, theres plenty of content for casual players.

Um… and you evidently fail at reading comprehension. Please point out where I said I thought it was broken to bypass those mobs, also please point out where I said I had no idea how to fight a huge mass of creatures. I just chose not to, because it’s ridiculous. Increased difficulty when done properly isn’t “Hey, here’s a billion of something!”, that’s just the laziest way to implement it.

I understand you just wanted to show us how amazing you are with your brilliant strategic mind, but it might help to keep the comments relevant to the posts you’re quoting.

As to your second point, just so we’re clear here, “End Game” is defined as “what makes Aerel happy”, right?

kulle.6542:

Aerel.6471:

It is amazing how much people complain over. I havent reached 80 and iam having a blast with the game. The repetition is only there if you want all the epic sets. And this post wanst about the grind. It was about keeping the content hard.

I would rather ask them to drop the price in the tokens than make it easier for you to grind.

I havent even grasped all the content in the game, iam working towards 100% map completition before goin crazy for dungeons and wvw. There is way too much content for 60$.

But lets keep the topic in track, DO NOT NERF hard content please

these forums should be for people only level 80…

The game starts at level 1, not 80. Their opinion is as valid as anyone else’s. Also, chances are if they don’t think the dungeons they’ve done are too hard at level, they aren’t going to have a change of heart about those dungeons by level 80.

Science.4207:

Aerel.6471:

By “End Game” i meant the Hardcore part of the game, which not everyone can complete.

But everyone can complete it and that’s not the issue. The issue is that it has to be completed far too many times.

If this was Dark Souls, the equivalent would be farming slabs, ironically, down in Old Anor Londo for 75 hours just to get an item that is purely cosmetic. Go down, kill all the Darkwraiths, maybe get a few shards, port back to the bonfire, reset, repeat. For 75 hours. Dark Souls is difficult because of the combat mechanics, not because of mindless repetition.

The only difficulty involved is maintaining interest in the goal and the game over such a lengthy section of pure repetition. This is not what i bought the game for. This is not how they advertised the game.

I whole-heartedly agree with this post. There comes a point when even the most difficult dungeon dances become programmed into your brain, allowing your consciousness to stagnate and withdraw; and, when that time comes, all that’s left is to ask yourself a question: Why am I still doing this? That’s when you stop playing Dark Souls.

On a side-note, just reading the words “Anor Londo” makes my hands shake. Sometimes I wake up screaming about stringy, pink gargoyle-bat-weasel man-things.

I feel dungeons are TOO easy. Case in point….. I have solo’d most of explorable arah, and completely finished CoF explorable mode solo.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Necro-solos-CoF-exp-now-on-Arah-exp/first#post122461

Skill in this game makes all the difference.

Aerel.6471:

I like telling my friends this is the Dark Souls of MMO’s.

No one said this was supposed to be the Dark Souls of MMO’s. We weren’t expecting it and weren’t prepared. If they told us this was how it’s going to be from early on, then you’d probably have a lot less of the QQ. Setting player’s expectations should have been a higher priority.

ColinJohanson.2394:

“What I would call ‘hard’ was trying to run Domain of Anguish and Mallyx with a balanced setup in the first weeks it was released. Many people called it impossible, but it was a heck lot of fun to do! Why? Because it offered veriety and fluid gameplay, quick and deadly like it should be. Not kiting a mob for 2 minutes and then walking into the next mob rinse and repeat.”

I’ll point out ironically, when we first turned on DoA back in Gw1 the posts you’re seeing in this forum from a few folks about difficulty were the exact same comments everyone had about DoA. It was “impossible, mobs were just tuned to do insane damage and have huge HP, there was no tactics to defeat DoA”, etc. I went back and read through the original DoA launch feedback and it was literally identical to the comments folks on the forums are leaving now.

We made the choice back then to stick with the difficulty, and give people time to learn how to play the dungeon better and overcome it. A few months later, people viewed it as the most fun thing in the game and totally reasonable without us changing anything.

We’ll be doing the same with the Gw2 explorable dungeons, our own internal testing teams and alpha test groups learned to beat them using a combination of player skill, synchronous builds, strong use of cross-profession combos, use of cooking/consumable buffs (these make a huge difference!) and well formed player tactics. By comparison, after having months to play the game and the time our alpha was complete, some of our better dungeon groups felt the explorable dungeons were too easy for launch, we decided not to make them any harder given the expected player skill on launch.

We’re actively monitoring every dungeon and working on balancing issues we encounter appropriately. We’ll be keeping an eye on bosses we think don’t have enough varied mechanics to warrant their large health pools and updating them over time to make them more varied/interesting fights. We’ll be monitoring, and continually tweaking/adding to dungeon rewards over time and of course balancing where we see the need. And of course, we’ll be looking at adding more dungeons as well!

All of that being said, the game is VERY new for most of our players, and I can absolutely promise with more knowledge of the game and advanced player skill, the explorable dungeons can all be overcome by being skilled groups. We’ve seen many groups do it just fine in our internal alpha test once they had time to learn how to play the game well. Just like Domain of Anguish in Gw1, it takes time and practice to learn how to overcome stuff as hard as our explorable mode dungeons, and that’s exactly the kind of players they are designed for.

If DoA was any indication, a couple months from now, many of you will likely be posting saying most of the dungeons are too easy and you need better challenges

Ty! Just more reasons for me to want to have ArenaNets babies. (you guys are starting to make my husband jealous!)

I agree with you Colin, but some of the encounters are just silly.. take TA explorable, 3 Nightmare Knights synchro Earthshaker without any adren buildup and killing the first player they see, then the do the same jump again, on next player.. Are enemies not using the the same mechanics we are using? Cooldown and Adrenaline on Warrior based creature seems atleast in TA to be broken.. But both me and my friends are enjoying the dungeons and the difficulty they offer, and we adopt and adapt to them in a very nice way! Teambuilding is so nice! Thank you for the challanges!

ColinJohanson.2394:

“What I would call ‘hard’ was trying to run Domain of Anguish and Mallyx with a balanced setup in the first weeks it was released. Many people called it impossible, but it was a heck lot of fun to do! Why? Because it offered veriety and fluid gameplay, quick and deadly like it should be. Not kiting a mob for 2 minutes and then walking into the next mob rinse and repeat.”

And do you recall what happened to DoA? as well as what happened to EVERY elite area in GW1?

Every elite area in the game became places were you were forced to run specific classes with very specific builds in order to get a group.

Elite areas in GW1 were something not for everyone, but something only for people who made a dedicated character specifically to fill a pre-set, and very conforming, pre-made build.

Anyone who didn’t follow the build was ostracized, and many classes were entirely barred by the collective community from doing ANY elite area because they didn’t fall into the build.

Are you really saying that you want GW2 to turn out the exact same way?

If Dugneons in GW2 became the same as Elite areas in GW1, aka places were the only way to do it is glaveway, or w/e the build was for DoA for the longest time, then I fail to see any reason to do them as it goes entirely against the rhetoric Anet has been spouting about GW and being able to play it your way.

ColinJohanson.2394:

" our own internal testing teams and alpha test groups learned to beat them using a combination of player skill, synchronous builds, strong use of cross-profession combos, use of cooking/consumable buffs (these make a huge difference!) and well formed player tactics.

So what your saying is that a player with average skill or a PUG should just avoid explorer modes…

Got it.

The one thing that bothers me is “use of cooking/consumable buffs (these make a huge difference!)”

This was the main thing I really violently hated about the endgame in Tera during the brief time I played it. The endgame was entirely dependent on having expensive consumables and this was a huge annoyance and money sink for the whole community, you were basically lucky to break even in the raids, let alone profit at all. Maybe the fact that these consumables are player made instead of being sold by an NPC, and that GW2 doesn’t have the ungodly gear grind that Tera had, but I still feel like for the dungeons to be an enjoyable challenge, they should be based entirely on skill, not how much gold you can throw at them.

Doktar.2718:

ColinJohanson.2394:

" our own internal testing teams and alpha test groups learned to beat them using a combination of player skill, synchronous builds, strong use of cross-profession combos, use of cooking/consumable buffs (these make a huge difference!) and well formed player tactics.

So what your saying is that a player with average skill or a PUG should just avoid explorer modes…

Got it.

Yes. That is exactly what he is saying. ArenaNet has said from the very start that explorable modes are intended for the most skilled players only and intended to be beaten by coordinated groups.

That’s why the gear they offer isn’t any better, statistically, than the gear you can craft or get with karma. In fact, in many cases it’s worse. Its entire purpose is to look unique so that the most skilled and dedicated players have something to work towards. You’re not guaranteed to be good enough to acquire it, and you’re not supposed to be. This isn’t a game where you need dungeon exotics to succeed.

I do have one suggestion for Colin, though:

Something needs to be done about graveyard zerging. Right now, many explorable mode bosses can be defeated simply by dying and running back while the rest of the team stays alive. In some cases—like Giganticus Lupicus—this is becoming an “accepted” tactic. As long as players are able to cheese fights and complete them, they’re never going to be forced to learn to use coordination and combos to do the same thing, because simply zerging from the graveyard is so much easier and much more obvious.

Though it seems extreme, I think disabling all waypoints except for the one at the dungeon entrance during a boss fight is the best solution. While this unfortunately means that “dead is dead” during a boss fight in an explorable dungeon, since the game lacks any hard resurrect skills that work on players who are dead and not just downed, it works to prevent players from taking an unfun shortcut and never learning how to properly tackle a fight.

Tobias.8632:

The one thing that bothers me is “use of cooking/consumable buffs (these make a huge difference!)”

This was the main thing I really violently hated about the endgame in Tera during the brief time I played it. The endgame was entirely dependent on having expensive consumables and this was a huge annoyance and money sink for the whole community, you were basically lucky to break even in the raids, let alone profit at all. Maybe the fact that these consumables are player made instead of being sold by an NPC, and that GW2 doesn’t have the ungodly gear grind that Tera had, but I still feel like for the dungeons to be an enjoyable challenge, they should be based entirely on skill, not how much gold you can throw at them.

Consider the cooking and potion buffs to be another equipment slot. Right now, every crafting profession at least tries to offer something that every profession can use. If cooking and potion buffs weren’t “necessary” for explorables, cooks and artificers would be among the least desirable professions—nobody would really need them.

Given that explorable dungeons are meant to be completed only by coordinated and skilled groups, it seems believable that you may have a cook and/or artificer in the group of people you play with. They should be providing the party with food and potion buffs so that everyone does better.

Random one shots from Giganticus lupicus, what you’re saying Colin is that, if I get better at this game I’ll be able to survive them ? (I’m not talking about the AoE on the ground or his charge, I’m talking about the random missiles hitting for 13k+)
My only option is to buy/craft special gear with vitality / toughness for 1 boss only. (as I can clear the rest of the instance with my normal gear.)

… A couple months from now, many of you will likely be posting saying most of the dungeons are too easy and you need better challenges.

Doubt it!
Endless whines on the forum will make you tweak some numbers to make everything really easy and please the casual gamer masse.

Qtin.6940:

Random one shots from Giganticus lupicus, what you’re saying Colin is that, if I get better at this game I’ll be able to survive them ? (I’m not talking about the AoE on the ground or his charge, I’m talking about the random missiles hitting for 13k+)

Protection lowers all damage you take by 33%. Aegis entirely nullifies the damage from one hit. If your team is good they’ll know how to time the use of buffs like these.

So yes: if you get better at the game, you will be able to survive them.

Qtin.6940:

… A couple months from now, many of you will likely be posting saying most of the dungeons are too easy and you need better challenges.

Doubt it!
Endless whines on the forum will make you tweak some numbers to make everything really easy and please the casual gamer masse.

They didn’t in Guild Wars 1. Why would they now?

Agent Noun.7350:

Consider the cooking and potion buffs to be another equipment slot. Right now, every crafting profession at least tries to offer something that every profession can use. If cooking and potion buffs weren’t “necessary” for explorables, cooks and artificers would be among the least desirable professions—nobody would really need them.

Given that explorable dungeons are meant to be completed only by coordinated and skilled groups, it seems believable that you may have a cook and/or artificer in the group of people you play with. They should be providing the party with food and potion buffs so that everyone does better.

Another thing that makes me reallykitten off that so many people leveled cooking to 400 back when karma vendors sold really cheap ingredients for a pittance and anyone who wants to start now has to spend a hell of a lot more time or money. That whole situation almost makes me want to never touch crafting, ever, even though I’ve been harvesting and saving up materials all the time I’ve been playing.

Edit: lol, kitten? Nice wordfilter

Agent Noun.7350:

Protection lowers all damage you take by 33%. Aegis entirely nullifies the damage from one hit. If your team is good they’ll know how to time the use of buffs like these.

So yes: if you get better at the game, you will be able to survive them.

No. Have you tried giganticus ?
You’re getting one shot RANDOMLY, I have protection in my traits (ranger trait – after a dodge roll i have protection for few seconds) It is no help at all. You can NOT predict when he will one shot you, it is RANDOM, you’re there, dodge roll an AOE, and BAM dead, missile coming from nowhere.

Qtin.6940:

Agent Noun.7350:

Protection lowers all damage you take by 33%. Aegis entirely nullifies the damage from one hit. If your team is good they’ll know how to time the use of buffs like these.

So yes: if you get better at the game, you will be able to survive them.

No. Have you tried giganticus ?
You’re getting one shot RANDOMLY, I have protection in my traits (ranger trait – after a dodge roll i have protection for few seconds) It is no help at all. You can NOT predict when he will one shot you, it is RANDOM, you’re there, dodge roll an AOE, and BAM dead, missile coming from nowhere.

You make it sound completely impossible when it clearly isn’t. Players have been defeating Giganticus Lupicus without having to run back from graveyards by managing his aggro and using defensive boons.

All of the bosses in a way are graveyard zergable due to the waypoint system.
We shouldn’t be able to spawn during a fight until everyone is downed, make the spawns contested if a boss is under attack.

Agent Noun.7350:

You make it sound completely impossible when it clearly isn’t. Players have been defeating Giganticus Lupicus without having to run back from graveyards by managing his aggro and using defensive boons.

Did I say it is impossible ? No. I said that if I want to kill that specific boss, my team and I need to have a specific gear set with vitality and toughness.
You can’t ask that from pick up groups.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Yeah graveyard zerg and some bosses having a few balance issues (or needing more varied skills at various health percentages so they are fun to fight for their large health pools) are absolutely things on our radar. Make sure to note specific locations/bosses when leaving feedback on the forums!

As for the question about PuG’s for explorable dungeons, we’ve said all along that explorable dungeons are intended for highly organized/skilled groups of players. That is absolutely the case

Are you guys addressing the lack of boss mechanics in general? A lot of bosses simply don’t have enough mechanics or none at all. Too many tank n spanks.

EDIT: Also are you guys looking at Arah explorable? Why do we get less tokens for twice, sometimes triple, the amount of time and effort? I don’t mind the length of the dungeons if we got 8 or 10 tokens per boss or something. Right now the best farming strategy is just killing the first boss then jumping over terrain to skip trash and fight the 2nd boss.

That would be unfair to those who just cant get a group to do it. you have the attitude of HAH i got mine lets make it un-doable by anyone that isn’t leet! So that only the cool kids will ever have pretty gear.

I didnt say make thekittenthings a cake walk just adjust them to have a less lethal option so that in time average players could afford to by something for the bazillion hours of attempts.

I consider myself an average player, better then alot of others and nowhere near the best. And while I can learn stuff and how to avoid things some of the mechanics are odd. I watched a AC-EX video and the bosses didn’t do all the stuff that they did on the run I was on. So yes the video looked easy. Went to run it again and the last boss would pull everyone in and do his spinny move repeatedly every 6-10 seconds…. and for anyone who knows how long it takes your cooldowns to come up and how long it takes to regen from dodging it was stupidly difficult. But in that video he only did it once or twice. Each encounter is never the same. either the killshot mechanic is in overdrive or you get lucky and it doesnt trigger every 10 sec. Another example was in CM-EX butler path i think what was the first boss, the fight is not forgiving. If you manage to not avoid the shot you get knocked down and its like 3 seconds before you get up by the time you are able to use an ability BAM shot again. This time your downed, and if your team isnt Jonny on the spot with the rez, 3rd shot is probably gonna kill you.

Maybe instead of making changes to them someone put out a well written guide explaining encounters or how to avoid stuff can help people learn to progress.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Yeah graveyard zerg and some bosses having a few balance issues (or needing more varied skills at various health percentages so they are fun to fight for their large health pools) are absolutely things on our radar. Make sure to note specific locations/bosses when leaving feedback on the forums!

As for the question about PuG’s for explorable dungeons, we’ve said all along that explorable dungeons are intended for highly organized/skilled groups of players. That is absolutely the case

Thank you! Graveyard zerging is among my bigger concerns, so I’m glad to know it’s being looked at.

ColinJohanson.2394:

As for the question about PuG’s for explorable dungeons, we’ve said all along that explorable dungeons are intended for highly organized/skilled groups of players. That is absolutely the case

And don’t you see how entirely contradictory that is to the, literally, entire rest of the game that is designed with dynamic scaling and a “everyone can join in” model?

The dungeons are contradictory to the entire rest of GW2’s design.

You cant try to push two entirely contradictory game models in one game, it makes the entire staff look inconsistent, and like yall are just trying to save face over a bad game design with PR propaganda.

Doktar.2718:

That would be unfair to those who just cant get a group to do it. you have the attitude of HAH i got mine lets make it un-doable by anyone that isn’t leet! So that only the cool kids will ever have pretty gear.

They’ve said since announcing the dungeon system that explorable modes are only for the most skilled and coordinated groups. There are good-looking armor sets available in many other ways. Hell, the crafted light armor exotic set is one of the better-looking light armors in the game, in my opinion.

Sajuuk Khar.1509:

ColinJohanson.2394:

As for the question about PuG’s for explorable dungeons, we’ve said all along that explorable dungeons are intended for highly organized/skilled groups of players. That is absolutely the case

And don’t you see how entirely contradictory that is to the, literally, entire rest of the game that is designed with dynamic scaling and a “everyone can join in” model?

The dungeons are contradiction to the entire rest of GW2’s design.

So people who are highly skilled and want a challenge in PvE should just have no content to do?

Sajuuk Khar.1509:

ColinJohanson.2394:

As for the question about PuG’s for explorable dungeons, we’ve said all along that explorable dungeons are intended for highly organized/skilled groups of players. That is absolutely the case

And don’t you see how entirely contradictory that is to the, literally, entire rest of the game that is designed with dynamic scaling and a “everyone can join in” model?

The dungeons are contradiction to the entire rest of GW2’s design.

I think that’s the point, though.

A lot of people ragged on GW2 for being a “casual” mmo where anyone can jump in and have fun.

Of course they want to appeal to the hardcores too, so they have this challenge “raid” content, only in keeping with the guild wars style the gear there doesn’t make you naturally more powerful because that would be unfair. It’s a really nice balance.

The only thing I’m really worried about is that whole business about specific party builds being created and being the only thing people will take with them in groups while maybe some classes that are seen as less useful like say, mine, necromancer, being unable to do this content, but hopefully anet will make sure that doesn’t happen. Please.

ColinJohanson.2394:

As for the question about PuG’s for explorable dungeons, we’ve said all along that explorable dungeons are intended for highly organized/skilled groups of players. That is absolutely the case

So, having to buy specific gear, consumables, or having to use special builds is intended ? I have no problem with that, whatsoever, I just want to know if I have to look for a “hardcore” PVE guild, to find ppl willing to spend alot of time and money in dungeons.

(I’ve been raiding in hardmore for almost 2 years on World Of Warcraft, I have no problem with having to find a guild dedicated to PVE, I’m just a little bit worried about those guilds existing in the first place, as the only rewards for investing so much time and efforts and money is a skin for your armor / weapon)

Sorry for my english.

Tobias.8632:

Sajuuk Khar.1509:

ColinJohanson.2394:

As for the question about PuG’s for explorable dungeons, we’ve said all along that explorable dungeons are intended for highly organized/skilled groups of players. That is absolutely the case

And don’t you see how entirely contradictory that is to the, literally, entire rest of the game that is designed with dynamic scaling and a “everyone can join in” model?

The dungeons are contradiction to the entire rest of GW2’s design.

I think that’s the point, though.

A lot of people ragged on GW2 for being a “casual” mmo where anyone can jump in and have fun.

Of course they want to appeal to the hardcores too, so they have this challenge “raid” content, only in keeping with the guild wars style the gear there doesn’t make you naturally more powerful because that would be unfair. It’s a really nice balance.

This is exactly right.

The game’s “anyone can do anything” design works great in open world PvE, but if it were applied to “hard mode” dungeons, those dungeons would be comically easy, and that would be a shame. It’d leave nothing at all for more “hardcore” PvE players to do.

If you’re not good enough at the game for explorable dungeons you can either do something else or practice and get good enough.