Guild Wars 2

Now, I like the level of difficulty for the most part, but there are a couple things that could be fixed.

1) It seems like in each dungeon, there is at least 1 path that is much easier than all of the others. for instance: In HOTW, path 1 takes around a half an hour to complete and the bosses are pretty straightforward and simple. But paths 2 and 3 take much longer to complete because the final boss is underwater, and they have much more health. One time I fought the final boss of path 3 for an hour. The underwater bosses are not more difficult really because the mechanics are fairly simple, but they take forever due to the amount of time it takes to kill them as opposed to path 1. Also, in CoE, people favor paths 1 and 2 because there is a boss in path 3 that takes a crazy amount of time to take down.

These things should be fixed, because players should not be discouraged to play one of the paths, they should be able to play all three at around the same difficulty. Now, before people say “Don’t change it or the game will become too easy”, keep in mind that fixing the problem could either mean making the easier paths harder as well as making the hard paths easier. I am not asking them to tone difficulty down, I just think they should keep the 3 paths within a dungeon around the same difficulty and completion time.

2) Story mode is supposed to be fairly easy to get through. It is an introduction to the dungeon, as well as a way for the character to learn the story of Destiny’s Edge. I wanted to do the stories all in the correct order, so I did AC, CM, and TA. AC was very difficult, but that is understandable because that is the first dungeon of the whole game and everyone that level has any dungeon experience. CM was very fast and easy, and I think that CM was closer to the difficulty that story mode should be. TA was easy except for a few trash pulls. I got to this pull where there were several nightmare hounds, and that fight was harder than each boss fight combined. It was an unneeded difficulty spike. If there is going to be a random increase in difficulty, it should be at a boss (if anything). Also, I hear that CoE is the hardest of all of the story modes by far because of some crazy first pull.

After TA, I quit because I decided that if I am going to be doing something this challenging, I might as well do explorable modes where I am rewarded with gear. The point of this, is that before launch, story mode was advertised as a way for players to get their feet wet, and explorable poses a big challenge for more experienced and skilled players. When I began doing story modes, I wasn’t expecting to be naked at the end of the dungeon, I was expecting to die once maybe twice and have a smooth run where I can see how the Destiny’s Edge gets back together. And when I went into HOTW, I wasn’t expecting it to be so easy, especially compared to the story modes.

Now, what could be done is to tone down the story modes, and make them all the same difficulty, and more around the difficulty of CM story mode. And all explorable mode paths should be harder than every story mode dungeon.

Bottom Line:
Make story mode dungeons easier so people can actually do them and experience your dungeon content without too much trouble. And make explorable modes all around the same general level of difficulty so people can be willing to do all 3 paths of a dungeon and not favor 1 or 2, never to do the hardest of the 3. And make explorable modes harder than story modes, that way they seem like much more of a challenge than story.

What does everyone think?

Yeah HotW bosses tend to have too much HP. I’m not sure if this is a ‘difficulty’ issue. Perhaps they should get harder but with less HP.

Here’s a tip from someone who runs HotW everyday. For path 2 boss, depending on your class, your downed skill might be more damaging than your underwater alive skills, so be sure to check that out. The mesmer one is particularly powerful. The boss RARELY attacks a downed player.

For path 3, there are some areas you can actually stand on to be above water, some wood pieces that jut out. You can stand on that to spam dps above water.

First a disclaimer for my post: I’ve gone through AC on story mode and one other dungeon on story mode so I’m not super all pro at dungeons. On the other hand, I’m not completely kitten or handicapped when I play, I rarely die in PvE or WvW. Hope this gives a little bit of back round to my opinion.

Ok, in the very little experience I’ve had with the dungeons, I’ve found them to be quite a bit more difficult than I was expecting for story mode. I haven’t bothered to go back and do the rest because of the perceived difficulty. I do not nor have I ever played a glass cannon build (Engineer) but I was, as the OP stated, naked, very quickly in my playthroughs.

I have no problem with the explorable mode being very difficult (rewards need to be earned), but as it stands right now the story mode seems like a bit too much for the average player.

Like Forty Seven Ninjas.6982:

I have no problem with the explorable mode being very difficult (rewards need to be earned), but as it stands right now the story mode seems like a bit too much for the average player.

Only problem is that dungeon rewards for explore mode, outside of tokens, aren’t good enough to justify some of the super difficult paths.