Guild Wars 2

I believe that the majority of posts in this section are created from a misunderstanding of WHAT explorables are. We need a direct and advertised response from Anet on what they want Explorable dungeons to be. There are multiple factors that need to be addressed.
1) Are they for PUGs?
2) What level gear should I have?
3) Should this be prestige? or simply “the next level” of armor/gear.
4) Should we need voice comm?

I believe the answers to these questions are needed from Anet directly on a largely advertised post on the main site and in game mail, not here in the forums section buried under the rest of the pile of topics spewed forth from the community. I know this is long, but I think it is worth the read.

1) I do not think all explorables should be for PUGs. Have one or two be Pug oriented, with corresponding lesser appealing gear.

2) I don’t think gear should matter. Skill is a big part. Now I will sound like an elitist who thinks himself better than everyone else, but I went through a progression in CoE. first I ran in my full gear, paid insane repair bills after alpha fights, and was bitter. next came the naked phase, where I sacrificed my stats bonuses and took off my armor for the dungeon in order to save the repair bill. Now I wear my full gear for the entire run and usually have 2 piece damaged, with none being totally broken. I can make it through each alpha fight without being defeated usually. TL;DR Skill is the determining factor, not gear.

3) I think the dungeon gear should be prestige. I think they should not be “the easiest and most efficient way” of getting exotic gear.

4) voice comm. I have run CoE with varying amounts of voice com, from 4 of us to two of us in mumble and even one attempt at a full PUG group. in my experience, It has been tremendously difficult to run with PUGs, simply because they haven’t learned the mechanics of the game or dungeon yet. mechanics like dodging, following targets, and even quickly respawning and returning to the action. I enjoy voice comm, and honestly it is necessary for the first few runs and EXTREMELY helpful for CoE. SHOULD it be a requirement? that should be determined by Anet’s goals for Explorable dungeons.

So please Anet, tell us what you intended.

Posted by game director Colin Johanson

“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“

SOURCE: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Do-NOT-nerf-please/first

I’ve read that multiple times, and though it does say that they want them to be more difficult, it doesn’t directly answer any of the questions. it is ambiguous enough to encompass PUG or no PUG, Voip or no voip, and says nothing about the armor rewards and what gear you should need. What I’ve seen around the forums is people interpreting everything differently, and molding it to their own game life.

If someone is a casual, they complain about dungeons being too difficult and time consuming. If someone is hardcore or even moderate, there are complaints about ease. the problem here is that dungeons haven’t been labeled as “casual” or “hardcore” and have therefore left everyone to debate with each other in the common internet style.

I do not know what universe ‘one-shot killer’ mobs and ‘15+minute-to-kill’ mobs are ‘difficult’ in such a mild way…but it isn’t. It is complete and utterly ridiculous and it needs to be toned down…no one wishes to spend an hour playing their character on the ground or wasting money repairing their armor 20+ times to finish a dungeon. This is to the producers and creators of the game…responses from other players will be against this, only because it isn’t the popular, but is the most logical, response to such ridiculousness in the dungeon make.

First Reason: It gives no credit to your character and their make. I shall explain this because many might take this the wrong way. When you have a character…that spanked dragons…yet in a dungeon…a hunting dog one-shots you? It’s a joke.

Second Reason: It does not reward skill if you dodge 2 attacks…only to die from a 3rd hit in an enemy combo in one hit. It leaves no room for error…and human beings that are actual humans with lives…make errors.

Third Reason: Not everyone is a hardcore player. Not everyone wishes to break the bones in their hands just to win a fight after a good 20-30 minutes against one mob.

Fourth Reason: Rewards are a joke. You don’t even get Rares! You get Masterwork or less! Sometimes you don’t even get ANYTHING!

Fifth Reason: Having to do it 5-6-7 times just to get ONE piece of exotic gear that LOOKS good? Yet another joke.

Now…the normal pve content is borderline crazy in it’s damage and mob ganking as well…I can see against a dragon…but just because a rabbit…or a squirrel has ‘Champion’ over their heads, doesn’t mean they should be jumped by 10+ players to be defeated. This? Is yet another joke. All in all? This is Warcraft 3.0…much better than it’s predecessor, but still has that joke mechanic of ‘ranking’ mobs that do not deserve said rank. That said…what about a player having said rank for a change? Why not have a player be strong enough to hold an enemy face to face after earning such power? It gets old laying on the ground, watching the fight from there, because you just got one-shotted or mobbed by 3-10 enemies at once.

/controlled rant over.

ANet has said multiple times that explorable modes are meant for a coordinated group of individuals. That doesn’t mean you need a voip program as the in game chat works just fine.

I would go into detail to answer your questions but I already have a nice, long answer in my signature. Read the Dungeon Tips link and you should be set.