Guild Wars 2

If explorable modes are meant to be super hardcore “endgame” type content, it would be nice if the game actually SAID THIS anywhere. It would also be nice if it made any effort to teach players what skills are required to succeed in dungeons in general, since they are clearly very different from playing out in the world.

Not all of us have been following this game for 5 years. My friends and I tried AC explorable because we were the right level for it, and had no idea that it required “perfect coordination, perfect combination of classes, and consumable buffs.” It took 4 hours and it was not fun at all. If you made it clear in the game that this is your version of raiding (and a very punishing and, IMO not fun version of raiding for that matter) then we would not have bothered trying it when we don’t yet know the game very well and have to pug people whose skill level we don’t know.

Furthermore, if you make a game where the mechanics are so unlike every other MMO, it would be really nice if the game tried to teach you the concepts necessary to beat it. As it stands, even the story mode dungeons can be hard for first time players because half the time we have no idea what is going on or what we should be doing to not get destroyed.

You can have hard dungeons if everyone already knows what they should be doing, for instance the dungeons in Cataclysm were pretty hard before they were nerfed, but doing them was always fun and challenging for me because when you failed it was pretty obvious what you did wrong and how to fix it. This was only true because everyone playing already understood the basic ideas needed to succeed from years of playing WoW and other similar MMOs. If your mechanics are so unlike every other game, it would be nice to have the game put in some effort to teach you what those basic ideas needed to succeed are for your game.

Yeah, I agree about the trash mobs too. Either fr0zen or I could both solo mobs 12 levels above us in pve with relative ease. We go into a dungeon, and it takes forever to kill just the trash mobs in some instances. During that time whatever boss exists is trying to ruin our day.

At least most games are honest and put an appopriate level next to the mobs names that reflects their actual difficulty whether its your level or not. The dungeon mobs aren’t even close to your level half the time. It took an entire team of people above the dungeon level to kill one mob half the time.. like 30 seconds of every player beating on them. The mobs aren’t even veteran.

Sahfur.5612:

Yeah, I agree about the trash mobs too. Either fr0zen or I could both solo mobs 12 levels above us in pve with relative ease. We go into a dungeon, and it takes forever to kill just the trash mobs in some instances. During that time whatever boss exists is trying to ruin our day.

At least most games are honest and put an appopriate level next to the mobs names that reflects their actual difficulty whether its your level or not. The dungeon mobs aren’t even close to your level half the time. It took an entire team of people above the dungeon level to kill one mob half the time.. like 30 seconds of every player beating on them. The mobs aren’t even veteran.

The sad thing is that you spend more time killing trash than you do killing the bosses. Its even more saddenning that Anets definition of ‘hardmode’ is to give the said trash mobs 1-hit KO power and bottomless pools of health.

As someone has stated about DoA, soon we will probebly have specific builds that classes are requested to be used. Think along the lines of Banner/Shout – heal warrior which makes surviving a dungeon much easier. Does this mean we only have a few viable builds if we want to complete dungeons?

Kimhyuna.1035:

Sahfur.5612:

Yeah, I agree about the trash mobs too. Either fr0zen or I could both solo mobs 12 levels above us in pve with relative ease. We go into a dungeon, and it takes forever to kill just the trash mobs in some instances. During that time whatever boss exists is trying to ruin our day.

At least most games are honest and put an appopriate level next to the mobs names that reflects their actual difficulty whether its your level or not. The dungeon mobs aren’t even close to your level half the time. It took an entire team of people above the dungeon level to kill one mob half the time.. like 30 seconds of every player beating on them. The mobs aren’t even veteran.

The sad thing is that you spend more time killing trash than you do killing the bosses. Its even more saddenning that Anets definition of ‘hardmode’ is to give the said trash mobs 1-hit KO power and bottomless pools of health.

As someone has stated about DoA, soon we will probebly have specific builds that classes are requested to be used. Think along the lines of Banner/Shout – heal warrior which makes surviving a dungeon much easier. Does this mean we only have a few viable builds if we want to complete dungeons?

If you read what the Game Designer posted, like, at all.. you would understand that what you stated about particular traits, classes, and skill-sets is precisely what he’s talking about being required for EXP-mode. It’s right there, he says it pretty cut-and-dry.

Not saying I agree- I don’t at all and think it goes against the very core message of the game – but that’s what they have, apparently, decided makes you “hardcore” and “end-game” material.

It needs to be fixed because it will lead to classes becoming more desired, less player variation and a horrible in game economy. It ruins games.

It can ruin this one just as easily and everyone will go to some new mmo which will actually succeed in dethroning WoW. Probably Archeage.

Its healthy for the game for them to look at these issues and fix them.

If you want good instances, play DDO. There is no game that offers similar fun in instances. The prequests for the red dragon raid are still my favourite computer game experiences I ever had.

Hard quests are not about heavy hitting mobs with huge amounts of hit points. They are about puzzles, cool areas secret doors, levers – stuff like that. GW2 has this when you explore the map. This is IMO the strength of this game. Just running around, looking at the great scenery and experiencing what’s going on there.

But instances? Uh… well, what I have seen looks very cool. And it is doable. But it is not really cool.

Complainers, complainers everywhere…What are you doing in the forums instead of playing the game? Iam happy Colin addresed my post and now i don’t have a single doubt.

This game just lunched!kittenit will get even better, just give the devs time.

Love you guys and thank for all the hard work.

@Colin:
I’m new, mostly just cruising around the forums to do a little research before logging in, but I’ve got a question: if consumables make such a huge difference, why did you make cooking such an expensive profession? You get a warning about it being more costly and difficult to do the second you select it. If your dungeons borderline require it, making it the most difficult profession to learn (and easiest to profit off of by selling ingredients on the market for whatever it will bear) seems, well, less than bright tbh.

You don’t have to level cooking yourself to take advantage of the items you get from cooking. Buying just about any food from the Trading Post is dirt cheap; the most expensive I’ve seen so far tops out at about 2~2.5 silver, and most (especially those in the level 30-40 range) literally sell for somewhere in the area of 2 copper.

For dungeons specifically, you want the potions of [X] slaying, for each specific dungeon (eg: Ghost Slaying for Ascalonian Catacombs). The more powerful ones increase your damage by 9-10% and reduce incoming damage by 8-10%. Most of those are well under a silver in cost, and they last 30 minutes, so it’s unlikely that you’ll need more than two or maybe three to last through a whole dungeon.

They’re far from necessary, but they can pretty easily push you over the line from “respawn rushing everything” to “a couple wipes at most per dungeon”, or later on, from “making it through a dungeon without any major wipes” to “watching TV and not really paying attention”.

Anyway, I’d much rather have difficulty obtained through complexity than difficulty obtained through mobs with high attack damage and hit points. Thats just my personal opinion.

This thread made me happy inside. Thank you so much for sticking to your guns, Anet.

I’d just like to point out DoA in it’s current form (at least earlier this year, and this goes for most of GW1’s elite areas over the years) has been played via exploiting the AI and very niche party set ups and strategies. Most of the “casual” content of GW2 I’ve experience, with big DEs etc are a lot more engaging , exciting and enjoyable than GW1 elite areas, because you didn’t design them to be so hard players searched out really exploitable niche strategies which eliminate all the risks it becomes tank and spank (my last few runs through DoA were exactly this, it gets really boring after a while). Many of the threads I’ve read about taking on certain dungeon bosses have been to pull the boss out of a certain area and DPS it safely from a certain location (on stairs, behind doors etc) which completely removes the challenge and difficulty. This is how GW1 elite areas are done and I really hope this isn’t your intention for GW2 dungeon difficulty because I find that incredibly disappointing, it’s not challenging, it just relies on an exploit which needs to be figured out resulting in it becoming trivial.

One of the worst consequences of GW1 elite are design was it often resulted in classes becoming very undesirable for groups (or, resulting in the same situation, some classes so desirable others couldn’t compete) so some player classes saw no end-game action unless the biggest challenge could be overcome – finding a group with a less optimised class.

shaidyn.4016:

This thread made me happy inside. Thank you so much for sticking to your guns, Anet.

will it make u happy inside when no one wants to do these dungeons?

“will it make u happy inside when no one wants to do these dungeons?”

Won’t bother me in the least. I play with my friends, family, and the guildmates who’ve come over from wow. I don’t pug. There’s about 40 of us, and we greatly enjoy the dungeons.

If people find them too difficult, too long, too boring, or just too whatever, power to them. They’re welcome to pvp, craft, explore, or simply leave. Doesn’t matter to me.

The dungeons are great as they are. Anet thinks so too. This makes me happy inside.

well collin good 4 u this game has good pvp , cause u just answered my ? on whether or not i should even get involved with your pve or not, and wheather or not i would spend any more money on this game or not, no offense to u dude but im 33 yeaars old and when i play a game i want to have a good time not get my butt handed to me over and over, the only thing i can think is u all must have made enough money already, and i hope u did cause your un willingness to work with casual gamers isnt going to make u any more. im sure i speak 4 a lot of others as well.

Talon Vector.5748:

no offense to u dude but im 33 yeaars old and when i play a game i want to have a good time not get my butt handed to me over and over

I’m 31 and a fulltime student. When I play a game I want a challenge, not a digital pat on the back for doing kitten all. This game is GREAT for casual players. It’s not great for BAD players.

If a player is not good enough to play the game, they should find an easier game to play.

Talon Vector.5748:

well collin good 4 u this game has good pvp , cause u just answered my ? on whether or not i should even get involved with your pve or not, and wheather or not i would spend any more money on this game or not, no offense to u dude but im 33 yeaars old and when i play a game i want to have a good time not get my butt handed to me over and over, the only thing i can think is u all must have made enough money already, and i hope u did cause your un willingness to work with casual gamers isnt going to make u any more. im sure i speak 4 a lot of others as well.

please dont say you speak for all of us. I like the difficulty of the dungeons. its the cost of repairing armor and poor rewards that bumb me out.

i said i speak 4 a lot of players not all…. why dont u read it again homie.

and i could really give a crap, just a little dissapointed i gave this company my money….

The difficulty would be fine if some of the boss fights weren’t so buggy.

We just did CoF Explorable and went the Save the Engineer route. Did just fine until the final boss. Problem was that he was spawning 2-3x the amount of crystals as normal. Could get him down to 30% but could not kill him or crystals fast enough—he was spawning crystals so quickly there was nothing we could do.

Combine that with that half the time his attacks aren’t telegraphed (so you get knocked down without seeing any projectile at all) and the crystals drop so quickly that they cannot be dodged, and it turns into an impossible fight.

It’s not the difficulty that is the problem, ArenaNet. It’s that there are some nasty bugs in your dungeons. Fix those and the difficulty will be fine.

and i like the pvp, at least i dont have to fight a bubble hearthing paladin, i just dont like it that they dont want to work with us, and yessss i know u r happy that they arnt blah blah blah….

EnderNerdcore.5308:

The difficulty would be fine if some of the boss fights weren’t so buggy.

We just did CoF Explorable and went the Save the Engineer route. Did just fine until the final boss. Problem was that he was spawning 2-3x the amount of crystals as normal. Could get him down to 30% but could not kill him or crystals fast enough—he was spawning crystals so quickly there was nothing we could do.

It’s not the difficulty that is the problem, ArenaNet. It’s that there are some nasty bugs in your dungeons. Fix those and the difficulty will be fine.

lol ran into one bug where an instance wouldn’t occur forcing us to leave the dungeon. we weren’t happy after that xD. well as time goes on im sure future updates will fix these issues.

Talon Vector.5748:

and i could really give a crap, just a little dissapointed i gave this company my money….

i hear ya… this games dungeons are forcing me to go back to wow.

I thought explorable mode was just that…. Why should it be uber gear also? Quite frankly, I played with all my gear off yesterday and I didn’t notice that huge of a difference… Which is nice for a change. I hate when gear is all it’s about. (I mid paragraph “THANKS” to ANet for NOT allowing inspections or having online Armory.) I’m tired of PvP also being evaluated before a match starts. You know when you get people looking up your gear online on their side laptop before a match starts…

This game feels more like it’s being real to the gamers. Not the amusement park riders. We already have plenty of MMOs that fit that bill. Instead of turning this one into another one, I’d rather you go play those… Or better yet, stay here and learn to be a gamer. Why can’t you all let games have their differences. WoW is already there if you want a nerfed ride…

Im not hatin on collin or the game im just a little dissapointed. i really like running dungeons, its just a nice small group thing to do, to work together, maybe if they had story mode set gear that drops i would b happy, let u guys that think u r somethin have the token gear, but just runnin a dungeon 4 the story…… if i want a good story i will whatch a movie, anet has a long way to go to catch up with spielberg. =)

Oxe.6142:

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

Forcing the overwhelming majority of dungeon content to require this level of competency and cooperation will hurt the longevity of this game. There are only 8 dungeons, 3 max level and the scaled down versions don’t give proper rewards. Dungeons are the only thing that you can do as an organized group outside of PvP. Having 3/4 of the dungeon content unpuggable severely limits peoples options to just pick up the game and play. If all explorable modes are this difficult and require this much synergy to complete the overwhelming majority of the community won’t do them. There isn’t much else to do. Arena Net should take a serious look at their design philosophy and ask themselves if they really want to be the “best MMO ever” because a game that nobody plays due to of lack of accessible content won’t be.

There’s a whole world outside of dungeons, with events that anyone that doesn’t intend to spend 15 minutes setting up a group can join.

I think it’s time to stop saying the same stuff overt and over.

Here’s what we have.

1. Anet is happy with the general difficulty of explorable dungeons and won’t be nerfing them at all.

2. Anet is not totally happy with the balance, waypoint running, and some of the boss encounters in general. They will work on these.

3. In light of this. Yes. If you cannot handle it, as someone said in this thread- Go back to WoW for your dungeons which require very little effort or coordination. OR stop playing the game. Simple. There’s a massive game to explore, there’s tons of gear to get. Deal with it.

4. GW2 will survive without the people who leave because of this. Trust me. Anet has made their point. There is a difficulty. You either overcome the difficulty of the HARDEST CONTENT SUPPOSED TO BE IN GAME. Or you give up, and leave, and cry.

So a recap. Difficulty not being changed. Mechanics being changed for some stuff.

Nothing more to discuss.

Has dungeons been redefined by other games? It “used to be” a sense of accomplishment for the reward.. I remember doing BWL just to see druid gear chest drops for weeks but wow, that first time beating Nef was great feeling and all I needed… To say I did it…

I think it would be awesome if GW2 would give people special capes to wear on the back slot that shows what you have accomplished. These pieces really don’t offer much other than look with some slightly decent stats.. But the cape though shows off you’ve done this or this other dungeon and ONLY place you can get them…

But now it seems, it’s about easier dungeons and superior loot drops……. WTF????

I really wanna see it go back to the other way……… There’s no pride in farming dungeons… Means you just got more time than anyone else…

Menaka.5092:

There’s a whole world outside of dungeons, with events that anyone that doesn’t intend to spend 15 minutes setting up a group can join.

So much this.

I have no idea how people can’t grasp that concept.

Two points then:

1. Nerf trash mobs, especially situations where you have like 5 of a given mobs whom all have KB, stuns, huge blasts
2. Nerf repair cost. I dont mind wiping and learning new fights, as long as I dont have to pay tenfolds for it. Honestly, given the bad loot drops and the meager token rewards, what really incentivices me to do a dungeon if I know in general I will maybe just break even money wise, IF we clear the whole dungeon?

So sure, keep difficult bosses, but please look at the above two points to make the general experience more worthwhile.

“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.”

Oh, so this is what separates the middle/lower class from the upper class?

So basically you’ve made the dungeons for elitists and/or special guild folk. Or wait, better yet, BORED GW1 players! I would bet that a good half of your players, like myself, are just plain ‘ole PuG people that are new to your game and are looking to contribute to your franchise and have fun, but are feeling a tad displaced particularly when I am on the ground dead in a dungeon….oh, several times over…because I was one-shotted. Where is my one-shot? How come I can’t shoot people behind me without looking at them? Why can’t I walk through walls?

How about this: While I’m learning how to become skilled and organized (because that’s a process, right?) that you reimburse me for my armor damage costs?

Or, how about just starting all your dungeons at Level 80? That way, by the time everyone gets to 80, they will be ‘highly-skilled and organized’ from learning through difficulty-tiered dungeons that start at 30 (should you create them)??

I can fairly guarantee that most everyone who is telling you to not change a thing, has come from GW1. But in your error, you are not being fair to your new players. An even distribution of learning would seem an amicable solution.

My only problem is the length of explorable dungeons. They are way too long, 3-4 hrs? That’s a large chunk of time.

WhiteQueen.5062:

“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.”

Oh, so this is what separates the middle/lower class from the upper class?

So basically you’ve made the dungeons for elitists and/or special guild folk. Or wait, better yet, BORED GW1 players! I would bet that a good half of your players, like myself, are just plain ‘ole PuG people that are new to your game and are looking to contribute to your franchise and have fun, but are feeling a tad displaced particularly when I am on the ground dead in a dungeon….oh, several times over…because I was one-shotted. Where is my one-shot? How come I can’t shoot people behind me without looking at them? Why can’t I walk through walls?

How about this: While I’m learning how to become skilled and organized (because that’s a process, right?) that you reimburse me for my armor damage costs?

Or, how about just starting all your dungeons at Level 80? That way, by the time everyone gets to 80, they will be ‘highly-skilled and organized’ from learning through difficulty-tiered dungeons that start at 30 (should you create them)??

I can fairly guarantee that most everyone who is telling you to not change a thing, has come from GW1. But in your error, you are not being fair to your new players. An even distribution of learning would seem an amicable solution.

This is the biggest load of entitled kitten I’ve ever read in my entire life. And that’s saying something. I don’t know how you’ve managed to not starve to death, since you obviously spend your days waiting for someone to spoon feed you.

The only thing separating the player base is SKILL. And Anet cannot give you skill. Ever. They can’t do it. You can’t patch stupid. The only way you are ever going to fully enjoy this game, is to improve yourself.

If other people can clear the content, YOU can clear the content. If you can’t, then you’re not good enough, and you don’t deserve it.

ColinJohanson, I think you should read this thread.

I actually want dungeons to be made even harder and with increased rewards :/

The rewards in this game on a whole are lousy.

Rhazmuz.8637:

2. Nerf repair cost. I dont mind wiping and learning new fights, as long as I dont have to pay tenfolds for it. Honestly, given the bad loot drops and the meager token rewards, what really incentivices me to do a dungeon if I know in general I will maybe just break even money wise, IF we clear the whole dungeon?

lolwut? I seem to always make more even in fail parties… I just sell the crap gear to vendor (without breaking it).. Seems to render more money than any repair cost on my crappiest runs.

Rhazmuz.8637:

Two points then:

2. Nerf repair cost. I dont mind wiping and learning new fights, as long as I dont have to pay tenfolds for it. Honestly, given the bad loot drops and the meager token rewards, what really incentivices me to do a dungeon if I know in general I will maybe just break even money wise, IF we clear the whole dungeon?

lolwut? I seem to always make more even in fail parties… I just sell the crap gear to vendor (without breaking it).. Seems to render more money than any repair cost on my crappiest runs.

arcaneclarity.5283:

The rewards in this game on a whole are lousy.

I think someone missed my comment about being naked… How can drops improve “A LOT” if the gear doesn’t affect the char that much in the whole? Personally, I like this fact too… I hate 2 pieces of gear making or breaking a dungeon.. Gear should matter yes, but should not be the be-all end-all…

Shiren.9532:

I’d just like to point out DoA in it’s current form (at least earlier this year, and this goes for most of GW1’s elite areas over the years) has been played via exploiting the AI and very niche party set ups and strategies. Most of the “casual” content of GW2 I’ve experience, with big DEs etc are a lot more engaging , exciting and enjoyable than GW1 elite areas, because you didn’t design them to be so hard players searched out really exploitable niche strategies which eliminate all the risks it becomes tank and spank (my last few runs through DoA were exactly this, it gets really boring after a while). Many of the threads I’ve read about taking on certain dungeon bosses have been to pull the boss out of a certain area and DPS it safely from a certain location (on stairs, behind doors etc) which completely removes the challenge and difficulty. This is how GW1 elite areas are done and I really hope this isn’t your intention for GW2 dungeon difficulty because I find that incredibly disappointing, it’s not challenging, it just relies on an exploit which needs to be figured out resulting in it becoming trivial.

One of the worst consequences of GW1 elite are design was it often resulted in classes becoming very undesirable for groups (or, resulting in the same situation, some classes so desirable others couldn’t compete) so some player classes saw no end-game action unless the biggest challenge could be overcome – finding a group with a less optimised class.

Spot on.
+1

I love how all u elite dudes here cant stand a good point and your only tactical deffense to it is treating some other person like crap for what they said, i guess that just goes to show u what (some) of the people r like that actually think dungeons r good the way they r. but seriously the only way to truly b successful is to keep every 1 happy, and sense we didnt make the game, thats u alls job anet. u cant just give 1 or the other the finger. but seriously u should consider a way to make every 1 happy, i mean after all u have different modes already, why not an easier explorable mode or something, im not saying changing the hard. just add something, i mean seriously would keeping every 1 happy b that bad 4 buisness………

I have completed every explorable in the game. They are not too hard. In fact in my opinion they are too easy. All of the boss mechanics are extremely easy to figure out and are reused so much in every dungeon, it becomes a snore fest. The last week, my group and i have been running them in our pure magic find gear just to get more loot and make them more challenging.

We aren’t gaming elite either. We just aren’t stupid.

Talon Vector.5748:

I love how all u elite dudes here cant stand a good point and your only tactical deffense to it is treating some other person like crap for what they said, i guess that just goes to show u what (some) of the people r like that actually think dungeons r good the way they r. but seriously the only way to truly b successful is to keep every 1 happy, and sense we didnt make the game, thats u alls job anet. u cant just give 1 or the other the finger. but seriously u should consider a way to make every 1 happy, i mean after all u have different modes already, why not an easier explorable mode or something, im not saying changing the hard. just add something, i mean seriously would keeping every 1 happy b that bad 4 buisness………

Dude. I’m not even one of these guys you are talking about, but you don’t even have any real point. You want the hard content in the game easier. It’s not going to happen. Also there is an easier mode. It’s called story mode. That’s a competent challenge for people who can’t do explorable. When will you guys get that, some thing can be hard? Why do you actually think you should be able to complete everything in the game easily?`Please explain. Explain that attitude. The content is there… go do it.

Shiren.9532:

I’d just like to point out DoA in it’s current form (at least earlier this year, and this goes for most of GW1’s elite areas over the years) has been played via exploiting the AI and very niche party set ups and strategies. Most of the “casual” content of GW2 I’ve experience, with big DEs etc are a lot more engaging , exciting and enjoyable than GW1 elite areas, because you didn’t design them to be so hard players searched out really exploitable niche strategies which eliminate all the risks it becomes tank and spank (my last few runs through DoA were exactly this, it gets really boring after a while). Many of the threads I’ve read about taking on certain dungeon bosses have been to pull the boss out of a certain area and DPS it safely from a certain location (on stairs, behind doors etc) which completely removes the challenge and difficulty. This is how GW1 elite areas are done and I really hope this isn’t your intention for GW2 dungeon difficulty because I find that incredibly disappointing, it’s not challenging, it just relies on an exploit which needs to be figured out resulting in it becoming trivial.

One of the worst consequences of GW1 elite are design was it often resulted in classes becoming very undesirable for groups (or, resulting in the same situation, some classes so desirable others couldn’t compete) so some player classes saw no end-game action unless the biggest challenge could be overcome – finding a group with a less optimised class.

This, so much.

Colin, there has ALWAYS been a question on my mind and I’d like you to answer it, please.
Rest of DoA aside, do you really think Mallyx is a well designed encounter? A boss that renders one class’ primary attribute COMPLETELY useless?
Because if this is ANet’s idea of good design, I have nothing else to say.

I might be wrong after so many years, but I followed DoA threads on Guru very closely after release. To my knowledge for about 6 months no group defeated him without an exploit, or they didn’t feel like sharing the knowledge.
Only with AotN and PvE skills people started killing Mallyx without an exploit.

I also really dislike your idea of a “Hard Mode”, which means only buffing damage and health of mobs. That’s cheap.
Look at LotRO, Challenge Mode is about… surprise… challenge. There’s an additional requirement to fulfill it. THIS is good design. Multiplying mob’s attributes is just cheap.

Also please keep in mind a distinct difference between GW1 and GW2 that actually made it’s dungeons accessible for more casual, while still experienced, players: no repair costs, no retrait costs.
Comments from my friends after 2h of wiping in Doa? “kitten that was hard. But we got through one more group this time! Next time we WILL make it!”
Comments from my friends after just a few wipes in GW2? “By the kitty, I can’t afford that!”

Creepjack.2851:

Menaka.5092:

There’s a whole world outside of dungeons, with events that anyone that doesn’t intend to spend 15 minutes setting up a group can join.

So much this.

I have no idea how people can’t grasp that concept.

Or perhaps those people notice that half the events in Cursed Shore and other areas are broken and have been for days.

I’m stuck at 98% completion because even one of the skill point events is broken. There’s a broken escort quest where constant waves of enemies spawn that people farm for an hour until the anti-farming code kicks in.

I love GW2 and I’m going to be playing it for a long time, but it’s frustrating having people say “well just go do something else!” when a large portion of the higher level content in the game is broken. When that stuff is broken, it’s hard to get the awesome skins I want, or to even start getting stuff put together for a Legendary item.

For those of you who’ve had good luck and not run into gamebreaking bugs while doing explorables, great for you! I’ve done several without problems as well. Which I think qualifies me to be able to see when things are simply broken rather than hard… and there’s a lot of broken stuff right now.

Pikafan.3792:

Most bosses in this game are either too easy, too hard, or just plain exploitable.

Easy is tank and spank the entire fight, set autoattack and wail away for 5 minutes until the boss dies.

e.g. Fyonna in TA second path

Hard is a boss that does 2k ranged autoattacks on guardians that have an attack speed rivalling that of a ranger’s shortbow on quickness buff. God forbid you are a squishy profession, you get to take 3-4k damage instead.

e.g. Caster boss in HotW first path with unlimited adds, Greater Nightmare Vine in TA with 15-30 second respawn timer blossoms.

Exploitable is….well, pretty much all the dungeon paths being farmed at the moment. Most bosses there are downright bugged and not working the way they should, or just too faceroll.

All of these hard bosses are more than doable, I must say this, but they are obviously flawed and frustrating to deal with. For that caster boss in the first path of HotW, you must have projectile reflection, or you exploit it by a method I will not elaborate here.

I like difficulty by means of combat mechanics. Not by artificially inflating damage of a boss then trying to pass it off as something intellectually and emotionally engaging.

God see this post is the perfect example of bad gameplay. Instead of trying to exploit bosses why dont you do them correctly. Dont pull Fyonna out of the room. Kill her where your supposed to and take the adds like a man. Its extremely easy.

As for the caster in HotW, here 2 ideas that we use to kill him.. bring a thief with smoke screen(btw this ability is the best thief ability they have for dungeons) or bring a ranger and hav the ranger get a bear pet out. Put the pet on no attack and then keep the bear between you and the boss. The pet will take every hit. It works for us for 3 ranged. Is that exploiting? Nope. Its using the abilities you have in a legit way.

I think Colin is right on point when he politely tells all of you to “L2P”

EnderNerdcore.5308:

I’m stuck at 98% completion because even one of the skill point events is broken. .

Just go to another server to get that skill point…

Rainfall this pertains to u and others like u that just dont understand we all have different opinions. that dosnt make 1 right and the other wrong. But when 1 side is being catered to and the other side ignored it causes problems. We all payed for the game, there fore there should b some type of balance, or different modes, and please dont say story cause that is excluding people from a part of the game. mind u im not name callin or dissin people, nor should u or any others, the simple fact is. is we just want to play what is there, plain and simple, and from our point of veiw explorable mode is to difficult. mind u thats our opinion. no better. but also no worse then yours.

Just wanted to say that I agree with the fact that explorable mode is hard, it’s the hardest end-game content. In that case, it’s not for me. So in the way I see it, story modes are for the more casual players.

But I can’t really see myself going back to any of the story modes :/ the rewards are really lackluster. I think alot of people will agree with me, as almost nobody is doing story modes anymore :c

Pikafan.3792:

Loviatrix.1589:

I hope you don’t nerf zerging completely to hell right away before I get to figure out the mechanics hehe. Maybe a cool down on waypoints would be a happy medium, so you cannot keep using the closest one and the more times you die you have to start further back if you release to run back?

I’m super stoked to see some dev responses in this thread, and I’m glad to know that you are looking at the dungeons! Coming from a long time raiding background I’m really enjoying the challenges and I do hope that you take a look at the rewards. I ran CM story this morning twice in a 25 minute period and the reward is the same as Arah which took my group over 2 hours last night. I’m not advocating exotic drops etc, but the cash reward at the end needs to be at least the same as 2 hours spent grind farming overworld zones.

Story mode should be something you do once and never return unless you want to help others to begin with.

So the more casual players can’t have dungeons?

I would like every boss type encounter in the dungeon drop tokens at least. Running into the hunting dog to only get blues is kinda weak.