Guild Wars 2

Why random blues for a content that was advertised as hard before launch?

Robert Hrouda.1327:

We are aware of the increase in FPS issues with catacombs and other areas of the game, and are actively working on a solution.

Also working on solutions to the following problems presented by the Ghost Eater in Detha’s chain:
1. Ghost Eater can get stuck in the traps
2. Sometimes after fulling charging the trap, the trap won’t go off if it becomes active with GE already inside of it. A temporary solution is to kite it out and then draw it back in, or get the trap fully charged without it being inside the trap when it happens.
3. Interrupting Rumblus does not stop his yell that brings down the ceiling collapse.

Robert,

Just a heads up… Ghost Eater also bugs out even when it’s not close to a trap. We had Ghost Eater glitch and simply stop moving and staying in one spot near the east trap. It was about 4 body lengths from the outside circle of the trap. It literally just stayed there until we waypointed away (after we got out of combat) and then got back and tried a few things until it unglitched.

just alerting you it glitches not just in traps but also outside of traps.

Robert,

In COE path 1 when you fight Bjarl the Rampager you will consistently see 2 versions of him. When he is knocked down you will see one version knocked down and you will also see one version of him standing with his arms straightened out at angles from his sides. After he rises there will again be two versions of him. They are always tied together but it makes his animations and moves a bit difficult to judge. I don’t have problems with him but newbies do since it is hard to tell which one you are actually fighting. This has only occurred post patch and it has happened every battle I see him.

Hadn’t seen that mentioned previously but I haven’t read all the other posts.

I took this from a post someone made that shows an image of what I am talking about.

http://i.imgur.com/B3Rqgzn.jpg

My issue isnt the gameplay mechanics, its the frame-rate drop involved with any larger group of graveling creatures that is very consistently present in every path and I am NOT alone with this issue.

Spider Hatchlings are invulnerable even when you’re on the ground.

My team on the Arah3 changes.

Iehova.9518:

My team on the Arah3 changes.

you mean path4 right?

NoTrigger.8396:

Iehova.9518:

My team on the Arah3 changes.

you mean path4 right?

No, I mean the undocumented changes to path 3 which were mysteriously left out of the patch notes.

Arah Path 4.
Priestess of Dwayna.
She is bugged.
STILL bugged.
She keeps hiding at 50% HP.

Now that she takes ages to recover, I hope devs finally believe those affected by he bug.

Every time I attempt the dungeon after an update, every time she keeps hiding at 50% HP.

This is getting beyond frustrating.

Why do you think path3 is so bad?

Robert Hrouda.1327:

JungleNin.8379:

It’s bad when even the staff can’t stick to the topic.

I think its worse when staff doesn’t say anything at all, but I can see where you are coming from. Figured I’d post it here since there have been a few threads and posts about it throughout the dungeon forum.

My point is, it’d be great if we could have the questions being asked answered rather than watching them being dodged.

There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to do a dungeon in exploration mode as soon as it becomes available to your level. Except you can’t, because the difficulty has been spiked severely.

It’s like running a game of Dungeons and Dragons. If you have one or two players out of six who are heavily optimized for combat? Then the DM needs to beef up combat to make it so things aren’t a breeze. The same thing has been done with dungeons. A relatively small percentage of the GW2 community finds dungeons easy. So what do the devs do? They spike the difficulty to make it harder for that small percentage of optimizers.

This is neither fun nor engaging for a majority. It’s a grind and becomes tedious. Especially when you need to do the dungeon 6-7 times to get a single item.

haviz.1340:

Why do you think path3 is so bad?

Not path3 in general. The line of unnecessary changes to the pre-Lupus bosses.

Okay, so why are the first two bosses bad now?

They can still be featured. Nuff said.

Thedenofsin.7340:

I challenge the designers to spec out a group of 5 level 35 characters with random world blues and greens and complete these paths without an excessive number of wipes.

Explorable mode most certainly is not dialed in to level 35 players.

I would gladly do this. Except random world blues and greens since that part makes no sense. You need to gear up when you go to the hard mode (explorable) dungeon. At lvl 35 there is rare gear available. There is no reason not to have this gear when you go into explorable mode dungeon.

I have a warrior on lvl 35 in full rare gear and I compared them to a lvl 80 elementalist geared in full exotic(my friend).

I had more power, more condition dmg, more armor and more health. He had more crit dmg which is much worse than condiiton dmg on lvl 35 since it is downscaled from 80 to 15%.

It means the only difference between rare geared lvl 35 and exotic geared 80 are traits, not stats.

Do you really think that the dungeon is doable only when you have access to certain traits? I dont’ think so. Anyway I’m up for a party of lvl 35 that would like to run the ac explo.

I don’t think I understood you.

I tried arah3 once since patch and crusher is still pullable to the first area (though he might res 3-4 silvers but they shouldn’t aggro you if you pull him properly) while hunter has like negative armour (though in reality it would make him taking negative damage, seeing as damage formula was made), I was hitting him for 7k with thief sword autoattack.

I prefer changes to stagnant gameplay.

Ohoni.6057:

Creating, improving and playing with your build is part of the game. I completely understand about only having a few hours a week to play, but why can’t those who DO have that time have an activity that they can work hard at?

You should. There should be “hard mode” content in the game. It just shouldn’t give rewards that you can;t get through “not hard mode” content. If all dungeons are converted into “hard mode” content then that means that many players will be unable to earn dungeon tokens at all, and that’s unreasonable. Basic dungeon explorer mode should not be “hard.” It should present a reasonable amount of challenge, it should not be completely trivial, but neither should it require absolutely hardcore expert skill, and it definitely shouldn’t require pinpoint coordination between multiple players.

If they want to add hard mode, one where it’s harder to complete than the existing dungeons, then that’s fine, but they should leave the existing dungeons as options, not make “hard mode” the new default.

Erm…
Story Mode = Normal Mode
Explorable Mode = Hard Mode

You can earn exotic items in this game without going to explorable mode dungeon.
Dungeon exotics are cosmetic reward for players that would like a challenge and a token of their success. The game failed on providing hard content due to many reasons but mostly class unbalance, poor AI and exploits. Now players think that explorable mode dungeon is a place where new player can easily earn their exotics… Please let the devs do their work and fix explorable dungeons…

I didn’t mind the Arah p3 Crusher fight though it was quite a bit harder. Thanks for not changing Lupi. I love that fight. I did p3 with three newbee’s in the group. It was painful at times but we did it.

I realllly hope p4 is not bugged i’m going to try again this weekend.

AC path 3 was a real nice challenge. I was brought in to help with the end boss Colossus. We did it even though everyone was swearing it was bugged. However I do think it is way above the skill lvl of a starter dungeon on lvl 35-40. i don’t see a party of lvl 50’s even winning that battle. We had 4 lvl 80’s and a lvl 45.

RakaNishoo.6071:

Erm…
Story Mode = Normal Mode
Explorable Mode = Hard Mode

You can earn exotic items in this game without going to explorable mode dungeon.
Dungeon exotics are cosmetic reward for players that would like a challenge and a token of their success. The game failed on providing hard content due to many reasons but mostly class unbalance, poor AI and exploits. Now players think that explorable mode dungeon is a place where new player can easily earn their exotics… Please let the devs do their work and fix explorable dungeons…

If they were cosmetic, they would have exactly the same stats as you could acquire from crafting. But they don’t. So they aren’t.

What is hard for some is easy for others. Making content exclusive to one skillset gives the idea of an elitist section of players and doesn’t make for a very good community.

I understand wanting to make dungeons hard but to the difficult that anet ramp it up to is ridiculous because were the difficult is set at this point will make veteran player stop playing or helping newer player i try taken 2 different groups of newer low lvl player into the dungeon and can make it past the first boss because the adds kill everyone in one hint

opieits.3815:

I understand wanting to make dungeons hard but to the difficult that anet ramp it up to is ridiculous because were the difficult is set at this point will make veteran player stop playing or helping newer player i try taken 2 different groups of newer low lvl player into the dungeon and can make it past the first boss because the adds kill everyone in one hint

I don’t mind making things harder, but taking away viable dungeon builds and nerfing the fun out of the game… WHILST making content harder is sort of a slap in the face.

Hi Rob,

There is a question in this thread that you didn’t answer. Let me reiterate it for your convenience: Is AC Explorable still doable with a group of 35s?

I am not an elitist who spends 8+ hours gaming in one sitting. To give you an idea of the demographic group I belong in, I am a casual gamer who spends 2 to 3 hours if I ever feel like playing. (This is my third MMO – the other 2 you’ll prolly guess right). I invited 2 rl friends tonight to AC (we’re all nubs – I was using my 80 Ele and they’re a little over the minimum lvl required, PUGed the rest), and even after reading the forums we still wiped a lot of times. Never finished P1. Wasted 3 hours on an unfinished dungeon.

We’re all like, “Who thought this was a good idea?” (You don’t need to answer that.)

Sincerely,

Caeluma

As long as it has lvl 80 dungeon rewards (or even better) I find it justified to be hard.

Caeluma.8724:

Hi Rob,

There is a question in this thread that you didn’t answer. Let me reiterate it for your convenience: Is AC Explorable still doable with a group of 35s? ...

To echo some other posts, at this point I would suggest that the Devs create an anonymous lvl 35 alt (equipped with rares). Each Dev should LFG a lvl 35 only group, so 1 Dev plus 4 pug, and run the dungeon.

The Dev is to play without voice chat unless the other 4 already have it, to play to the best of his ability but add no advice on how to clear the path(s)…feel free to post your results.

Theorick.2713:

Caeluma.8724:

Hi Rob,

There is a question in this thread that you didn’t answer. Let me reiterate it for your convenience: Is AC Explorable still doable with a group of 35s? ...

To echo some other posts, at this point I would suggest that the Devs create an anonymous lvl 35 alt (equipped with rares). Each Dev should LFG a lvl 35 only group, so 1 Dev plus 4 pug, and run the dungeon.

The Dev is to play without voice chat unless the other 4 already have it, to play to the best of his ability but add no advice on how to clear the path(s)…feel free to post your results.

So your definition of “high-end” content is that random bad people can get together and do it without proper communication?

EverythingXen.1835:

I’ve only managed to run p3 so far… and while I liked most of the changes, almost all our parties frustration revovled around Grast.

1. You basically get one good shot at Rumblus when Grast is at full health. If he dies it is extremely frustrating to make another attempt. He runs full bore back at CR with half health ready or not… after the party has likely used a good bit of their defensive cooldowns to stay alive long enough to rez him.

2. Consistently Grast would NOT use his shield when CR would use his rock attack. I’d see CR wind up his attack and instead of shielding Grast would be using his sloooooooow wind up hammer attack. Then the whole party, including Grast, gets knocked down and wiped. This caused a vast majority of our failed attempts

I can agree with these complaints. You had one job Grast.

If his bubble would interrupt / cancel his own hammer attack, I’d be very grateful, as well as if there could be some way to resurrect him without his instantly aggroing onto Colossus again so we could make a clean start of it.

For my own personal complaints: I think the spider hatchling spawn once the Spider Queen fight starts is a little cruel. It’s really important to clear them out ASAP, which is fine, but if you’re not experienced with the dungeon it is really easy to miss them until you’ve got a few spitting all over you. Maybe they spawned just a bit later into the fight (80% health?), or more visibly?

I just feel like you should help player realize there are suddenly 6(?) more spiders, because it’s too easy to pass one / two off as “spiders I happened to miss earlier”.

JungleNin.8379:

RakaNishoo.6071:

Erm…
Story Mode = Normal Mode
Explorable Mode = Hard Mode

You can earn exotic items in this game without going to explorable mode dungeon.
Dungeon exotics are cosmetic reward for players that would like a challenge and a token of their success. The game failed on providing hard content due to many reasons but mostly class unbalance, poor AI and exploits. Now players think that explorable mode dungeon is a place where new player can easily earn their exotics… Please let the devs do their work and fix explorable dungeons…

If they were cosmetic, they would have exactly the same stats as you could acquire from crafting. But they don’t. So they aren’t.

What is hard for some is easy for others. Making content exclusive to one skillset gives the idea of an elitist section of players and doesn’t make for a very good community.

I don’t agree.
First, they ARE cosmetic, because the unique stats you are refering to are not required to play the game. More than that -> nobody uses them I believe. And crafting is not the only source of gear. There are some unique combinations you can achieve from karma vendors as well as WvW. Finally there are items you get from world drops. Sure, it would be better if these items were just skins that you need to put on armor. Anyway I believe most players are using dungeons instead of crafting to gain same stats (Berserker?) because it is cheaper and faster!

Second, what is hard for some will be easy over time. I completely disagree that introducing an optional challenging activity has any negative influence on community. It is NOT the additional content in the sense of something new. Story mode of the dungeon is the way to go for players that don’t wan’t challenge and would like to do content. It is currently better, more interesting and in case of AC much easier. Putting harder to kill and harder hitting mobs in the EXACLTY the same location is only ADDITIONAL content in a way that it adds a difficulty and challenge element to the existing content. Your way of thinking leads to statement that entire game MUST be very very easy so that no matter how bad a player plays the game and no matter how many errors player makes he/she MUST succeed for the first time. This way of thinking leads to the game where you get bored to death very fast because you will learn to play no matter what. IMO You can’t just play the game and not getting better at it. So, you will be in a place where more experienced players are now -> you will have no content to play. This is why the game needs to have various activities of various level of play experience required.

Explorable dungeons (at least how I think they should be) are content in which you need to LEARN the encounters by failing them, THINK of a strategy, TEST and TRY your strategy and finally OVERCOME a difficulty. It does not require MAGICAL UBER MYTHICAL ELITE SKILLZ. The harder the challenge, the greater fun and the MORE content, because the more time you need to learn it and overcome it. I like to think of them as a riddle that when solved it is finished. There is no way you can have as much fun solving the same riddle for the second time.

Take a look at Demon Souls and Dark Souls series. You can complete the entire game in 90 minutes. But only after you spent countless hours practicing. This means that it has extremally large amount of gameplay hours because you will spend that hours improving your play. Only people that do not want to improve on purpose and are stubborn in that, and mentally disabled people can’t learn. Nobody here is mentally disabled, therefore everybody can improve. I play the dungeons with my wife and my father and I see how they improve they gameplay. At first they died in every encounter, now they are able to stay alive for the most of the time.

Finally, it takes months of development to put an update to a dungeon and I would expect that it will result in months of content for the players. Currently it takes 30minutes to “solve” the dungeon and that’s it. It is much better for the game and the players when developers are able to deliever more content in a shorter periods of time and this is the one way they can achieve that. To deliever the content that is so hard that players will need quite amount of time to solve.

Sadly the current state of the dungeons is that I have only once had a pug party that did not eventually complete the dungeon and the dungeon was pre-nerf SE path 1. Unfortunately we did complete this dungeon with a little more organized party after build change. This means that no matter how badly the group of players play, it is not possible to fail the dungeon. It is only the matter of how long it takes and how many times you die. Sure, the party can disband due to frustration, but that’s it.

Sparks movement on Dwayna fight still needs to be fixed.

Wethospu.6437:

Theorick.2713:

Caeluma.8724:

Hi Rob,

There is a question in this thread that you didn’t answer. Let me reiterate it for your convenience: Is AC Explorable still doable with a group of 35s? ...

To echo some other posts, at this point I would suggest that the Devs create an anonymous lvl 35 alt (equipped with rares). Each Dev should LFG a lvl 35 only group, so 1 Dev plus 4 pug, and run the dungeon.

The Dev is to play without voice chat unless the other 4 already have it, to play to the best of his ability but add no advice on how to clear the path(s)…feel free to post your results.

So your definition of “high-end” content is that random bad people can get together and do it without proper communication?

Bit bemused by your post, you think a level 35 dungeon path is ‘high end’?

No, my definition of a Level 35 dungeon is that a level 35 pug can do it, and pugs don’t use voice. A dungeon that requires the pug to be level-cap players in level-cap exotics is a level 80 Dungeon.

Are you suggesting that a level 35 pug without chat shouldn’t be able to complete a level 35 Dungeon?

Yes, that’s what I’m suggesting. I’m also suggesting that level 80 pug can’t do level 80 dungeons.
Dungeons were meant to be high-end, going with random kitten and still winning is not high-end.

Wethospu.6437:

Yes, that’s what I’m suggesting. I’m also suggesting that level 80 pug can’t do level 80 dungeons.
Dungeons were meant to be high-end, going with random kitten and still winning is not high-end.

Were anet to announce that all dungeons were only meant to be do-able by level-cap players, in exotics, in (semi)-static groups using voice chat I suspect they would be in for a rough time.

Whether you like it or not, if you make a level 35 dungeon it needs to be do-able by casual players; not easy, not effortless but do-able. At the moment it’s not, further complicated by the fact that a level-35 group could well level themselves to level 45 by the time they figured out a way to do it.

I do however favour the idea of a harder version of the dungeons specifically for level-cap, not that I can see it ever happening.

Regardless if the group consists of guild members on voice chat or random pugs, dungeons should at least require a certain amount of communication amongst members to get by. That would apply to all dungeons from AC to Arah.

With that said, there may be times when communication can be abbreviated if the answer to “Does everyone know this encounter?” is Yes for every member. It could even happen in random groups. If the random members know how to communicate and lead, then they could be just as efficient (if not more efficient) than an experienced guild group. We may hear of stories of bad pugs and such, but even some pugs out there can listen if you can bring across your commands without coming across as some condescending jerk. I find that most pugs tend to break apart not just by sloppy playstyles, but also by faults of the leadership. For me, if I see texts like “…” “sigh” and “facepalm” from the supposed leader of the group, that generally bring across warning flags for me of could be a shoddy leader. It would then lead to bossy attitudes and well … it just reminds me more of that 50 DKP Minus Guy— a person I probably wouldn’t take seriously unless I was in the military.

Back to the dungeon feedback at hand, I think I like the new AC. It feels refreshing. However, that’s not to say that the dungeon is perfect— it isn’t. I have yet to do this dungeon with a level 35 character, but I know it was initially crazy for a full level 80 group the first time I done it. At some point, a lot of us will figure out how this dungeon works, memorize the boss’ key movements, and it’ll be easy-sauce again; but I did felt that the fights were obviously different, but it was a good kind of feel instead of one of tedium.

Specifically speaking, I did notice Ghost Eater to bug out occasionally by not moving around. Our workaround was to burn off the boss’ defiant stacks and attempt to knockback it towards one of the traps. When the Ghost Eater enters the fleshy form, then the encounter unbugs itself.

The Cave Troll was another boss that felt moderately annoying, mostly due to Fear. If the Cave Troll spawns in a location Kholer, then it becomes annoying if you end up being feared off the ledge, and sometimes and oddly dying to falling damage because you landed on a small extension of the wall instead of the water.

Lastly, we experienced some heavy FPS drops during the event in which we had to use the traps in Detha’s path. I thought it might have been something on my PC that was lagging, but apparently my party members also experienced it as well.

Overall, I like the new changes. It might be interesting to see what the other dungeons would be like with these new changes.

The gavelings in AC are waaaay too powerful right now just due to the fact that all they have to do is hit you once, then at the howling kind they all group on you and you cant move because your stuck on the ground. and thats the only attack they EVER do. its quite annoying and i wasnt able to finish AC the other day just because of it.

oh AND the stalkers evade everything once they use their dig attack( i think ), whatever it is, it stay in one spot for awhile and evades every single attack you throw at it even though its not moving. it took 5 level 80’s just about as long to kill a boss as it did to kill one stalker in AC. Very very annoying.

phabsmula.4231:

The gavelings in AC are waaaay too powerful right now just due to the fact that all they have to do is hit you once, then at the howling kind they all group on you and you cant move because your stuck on the ground. and thats the only attack they EVER do. its quite annoying and i wasnt able to finish AC the other day just because of it.

Your group should try using: Weakness, Protection, Blind, Fear, Chill, Cripple, Stability, Knockbacks, Stuns, Immobilizes, and Stun Breakers, so that you don’t get caught and killed.

phabsmula.4231:

oh AND the stalkers evade everything once they use their dig attack( i think ), whatever it is, it stay in one spot for awhile and evades every single attack you throw at it even though its not moving. it took 5 level 80’s just about as long to kill a boss as it did to kill one stalker in AC. Very very annoying.

They gain evasion when their dig attack hits someone. If they don’t hit anyone, they don’t evade.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

I’ve said it before, and I will say it again: Our QA teams test the dungeons at the dungeon level, and at 80. They test it with different ranges of gear, and different people. I’ve watched non-QA groups do similar things, under various conditions. We have a review process.
Will 80’s have an easier time? Sure. They have more tools to use and more experience with the class. Our side-kicking system is something we are working on too, to ensure that things remain challenging for those folks and that their gear doesn’t make all the difference.
Will we ever release a video of our internal testing process? Highly doubtful. Just as I doubt we will ever post the builds, classes, and gear our testers test with.

One thing we see frequently with at-level people going into dungeons, is that while their character is the right level, their gear is often 10+ levels behind them. When you combine a low average gear level, not having all your skills/tools available, and not being as experienced with the class, it’s going to be significantly more difficult than what an 80 makes it look like.
We build dungeons for at-level players, and then reduce the strength of higher level players to bring them more in line with the players at that level. We do not balance for 80’s sidekicked down to at-level.

Long story short. The hundreds of posts regarding AC atm being a stepping stone isn’t relevant. The “feedback” he gets from QA testers reflects players more accurately than the feedback from the players themselves.

And we wonder why, GW2 hasn’t quite hit the mark yet in terms of implementing whatever there is… completely, and not stopping a yard short in terms of dailies, dungeons etc etc. There’s just too many to name.

So stick with your QA. That says enough already.

I tried the new AC paths last night, and this is how I feel.

The CC spam from gravelings now is particularly annoying. I also find the tunneling mechanic particularly annoying now too, as we fought this one Graveling that tunneled constantly and evaded 90% of our dps if only because 90% of the fight he spent underground. Either he was using the skill far too often, or his mechanics were just meant to waste time. It wasn’t a fun encounter. In a sense, I miss the leap knockdown from the Scavengers before because the tell was obvious and it rewarded paying attention. Now, the knockback from some Gravelings has no tell (or perhaps the constant culling my team was experiencing is to blame for that….) and just knocks you around everywhere. All of this CC is annoying, it’s not really challenging (The gravelings don’t take advantage of the CC, they just do it to you constantly).

Spider web laser was an amusing special effect, and her poison wells are a lot more threatening now. I’m also happy that you’re forced to fight her and can’t skip her. That said, her fight is still a faceroll if you have a decent team (we melted her in less than 45 seconds). Not bad, but didn’t really feel new and fancy at all.

Kohler appeared to not have changed at all besides getting a lot weaker. I guess he spawns adds now, but they died so fast in the heat of the battle that I didn’t even actively target them, just punched Kohler. Also, I’m not sure if it’s because I’m awesome or Kohler’s a lot weaker, but twice when he did his spin-to-win… I tanked it. I didn’t even move, I just kept wailing on him in melee. He applied his conditions, and when he was done I cleansed it and that was that. Is this intended to be so weak? (I was playing a half-berserker geared warrior, for reference)

Troll is annoying as all hell now. His attacks stun, his jump launches shockwaves that deal a ton of dps and can layer, and he has this really annoying AOE fear for like 8 seconds. Jeez I hate him now. He’s not even hard, he just mitigates damage by making the team run away for 1/3 of the fight and CCing everything else. I miss the old troll. He was one of the few bosses where it actually paid to use aggro to your advantage (getting him to chase X player as the others shot him).

Howling King apparently spawns adds and we have to lure them into the fire rings? Well, what we did was simply line up the add spawn points to be on the opposite side of the rings as where we fought the HK, and so totally ignored the adds altogether. We melted HK in ~55 seconds. Not a very impressive fight.

Colossus Rumblus was AWESOME. Probably the only thing in this dungeon that I felt visibly and strategically impressed by. We actually wiped our first time because we didn’t realize that Grast has to be alive to save us! Very exciting. We wiped first time, then once we knew what was going on, we played it up by keeping Grast safely behind us but within bubble range of where we fought CR. CR went down in ~1:20 minutes, but largely this was because his melee attacks really hurt now! I like this fight.

Anyway, not bad, but I am kind of disappointed. I was expecting and hoping for bosses more like GL with phases and large scale battles. I was hoping Kohler would teleport around and do something epic with his super sweet arena, or that Spider would climb on walls or something. I don’t know, I feel really let down as a whole outside of CR. Good try, though. Maybe the revamps of the other dungeons will be better.

Rising Dusk.2408:

…we fought this one Graveling that tunneled constantly and evaded 90% of our dps if only because 90% of the fight he spent underground. Either he was using the skill far too often, or his mechanics were just meant to waste time. It wasn’t a fun encounter.

When it goes underground and pops-up, if it hits someone it gains evasion. So the key is that everyone in the party needs to evade the attack so it doesn’t gain evasion every time. I think it may also be blockable and blindable but am not certain.

People need to learn avoid getting hit and not just tank with their faces. At level 35, it is probably time to start learning that. It may not have been you but it could have been a teammate.

Wow, that was a lot of changes to one dungeon. While I raged when our usual group ran it for the first time, I believe, just like every NEW dungeon we encounter, it just takes learning it.

We wiped on the spider queen because we weren’t expecting the increase of hp on the hatchlings, but after that initial wipe we managed to get past it. While its doable, I guess I just don’t understand the point of increasing the health of the spiders. If one wasn’t paying attention the constant poison attack could make players fall anyway. It just seems like an effective way to make the dungeon last just a little longer, and maybe make it a little bit more expensive with repairs since there’s no way to help clear out the mobs with the new ‘not on the same level’ mechanic added to the game without being dead in the center of the attacks.

The new champion boss is annoying, but doable without dying. And I’m sure with a little practice we’ll learn to dodge the circles on a consistent basis so he’s not invisible/invulnerable for most of the fight.

Kholer seems just about the same, the adds don’t really add much to the fight, but Kholer has always been an interesting fight to me.

The boss at the end with the infinite spawns and rings of fire was doable after we figured out what to do. But I would like to agree with other groups that tried to fight this boss the way it was meant to be fought (we found it easier eventually just to kite the mobs where they spawned and just have three people on the boss) that the rings of fire don’t last nearly long enough. By the time we could get a group into the fire, it was gone. Either that or they simply refused to follow us into the fire-and since it still damages US, that didn’t seem like a very practical way to do things. The fight is new and interesting, but the fire really does need to last a little longer.

I would really appreciate some level of restraint on the amount of CC that random mobs now have. I’m not a fan of watching my character pinball across the tunnel until she’s dead. I’m sure eventually, we’ll find a good way to encounter this problem, but i can’t see us doing it without specific builds and specific classes to do it properly.

To sum it all up, all these changes I’m sure will be fine after time is devoted to learning all the changes and compensating for all the knockdowns. The problem is, that a beginner dungeon with unimpressive items for tokens, I don’t plan on devoting that kind of time to AC. Its main purpose for most of my guild was to introduce new members to their first explorable dungeon (I really don’t suggest AC anymore), and to level up low levels which seems impossible if they’re not geared up expensively, and why bother when you have to change their armor in 5 levels anyway, or you know how to play them to the best of their abilities, because lets be honest, who knows that much about a level 35 character?

So I guess TA is the new dungeon for new players and leveling, because CM has NEVER been a level 45 dungeon.

So, I haven’t read every single post in this thread yet, but am I the only one who thinks AC is easier overall now? Enemy damage is generally lower, health is generally lower.

Yes there have been mechanical changes to attacks and such, but once you learn it, it’s no big deal. I think a lot of people just can’t handle change. Sometimes it’s better. Fights are more interesting now.

I do, however, still think it is a little too hard for level 35s, but that was true before the patch.

Lucky.9421:

Rising Dusk.2408:

…we fought this one Graveling that tunneled constantly and evaded 90% of our dps if only because 90% of the fight he spent underground. Either he was using the skill far too often, or his mechanics were just meant to waste time. It wasn’t a fun encounter.

When it goes underground and pops-up, if it hits someone it gains evasion. So the key is that everyone in the party needs to evade the attack so it doesn’t gain evasion every time. I think it may also be blockable and blindable but am not certain.

I figured that out, but I mean, while it is underground it is also immune to all forms of damage. The problem was that as soon as it would pop out from underground, it would go back understand 1-2 seconds after. The issue was never that he was evading once he came up (my guild knows how to dodge blatant attacks!), but that he kept going under.

Lucky.9421:

So, I haven’t read every single post in this thread yet, but am I the only one who thinks AC is easier overall now? Enemy damage is generally lower, health is generally lower.

No, I definitely think it is easier. For example, I facetanked Kohler for the first time ever post-patch; he was pathetically low-damage.

I love the new changes to AC personally, you may wipe a few times sure but it’s fun figuring out new mechanics and watching your group become more organized through communication in just a matter of minutes.

Overall love the force of communication (I primarily pug) and the new challenges. I hope they make similar changes to the other dungeons because if they swap out a bunch of mechanics I know a lot of players (by a lot I mean a few, but I like the direction so I’m going to say a lot) that will revisit explorer modes simply for a new challenge.

Sincerely,
Golgruk Steelshaper
That Char with the Quaggan Backpack

Thanks for responding, Rob. I sincerely appreciate it.

That said, can’t help but quote the following for people who follow my line of thought:

Robert Hrouda.1327:

One thing we see frequently with at-level people going into dungeons, is that while their character is the right level, their gear is often 10+ levels behind them. When you combine a low average gear level, not having all your skills/tools available, and not being as experienced with the class, it’s going to be significantly more difficult than what an 80 makes it look like.

I have a problem understanding what you meant by “low average gear”. My 80 ele was in full exos. And my friends were in random greens and rares of appropriate levels. But to give you a hint of how gamers like me think at this level, here it is:

Pho Crimson.9487:

To sum it all up, all these changes I’m sure will be fine after time is devoted to learning all the changes and compensating for all the knockdowns. The problem is, that a beginner dungeon with unimpressive items for tokens, I don’t plan on devoting that kind of time to AC. Its main purpose for most of my guild was to introduce new members to their first explorable dungeon (I really don’t suggest AC anymore), and to level up low levels which seems impossible if they’re not geared up expensively, and why bother when you have to change their armor in 5 levels anyway, or you know how to play them to the best of their abilities, because lets be honest, who knows that much about a level 35 character?

If new gamers are to spend time gearing up for a lvl 35 dungeon, trust me they will have to spend more hours into the game before they can afford rares at lvl 35 (unless of course they resort to buying gems to get gold). There is no way anyone (new gamer, that is) could get enough gold for a full set of rares at lvl 35 (last I looked, the median price for each piece was 33 silver 88 copper to be exact), and you have to admit heart vendors at this point are not much help.

Which brings us back to the question: Is AC Explorable still doable with a group of 35s?

You probably get the drift by now.

Sincerely,

Caeluma

PS: Last night left a bad taste in my mouth, but hey, I am going to give it another try today.

I’ve said it before, and I will say it again: Our QA teams test the dungeons at the dungeon level, and at 80. They test it with different ranges of gear, and different people. I’ve watched non-QA groups do similar things, under various conditions. We have a review process.
Will 80’s have an easier time? Sure. They have more tools to use and more experience with the class. Our side-kicking system is something we are working on too, to ensure that things remain challenging for those folks and that their gear doesn’t make all the difference.
Will we ever release a video of our internal testing process? Highly doubtful. Just as I doubt we will ever post the builds, classes, and gear our testers test with.

One thing we see frequently with at-level people going into dungeons, is that while their character is the right level, their gear is often 10+ levels behind them. When you combine a low average gear level, not having all your skills/tools available, and not being as experienced with the class, it’s going to be significantly more difficult than what an 80 makes it look like.

You should hire more testers that aren’t very good at the game. Ones that do things wrong most of the time, just to create a realistic experience. If you can’t hire any bad gamers, then just have one of them roleplay, pretend that he doesn’t speak English (or just never checks the box), has no idea what the mechanics are and just swings wildly at anything that moves. When the rest of the group can still get through, it’s good to go.

Also make sure that you do test it “at level” with “level -10” gear on, since as you note that is a very common loadout. I haven’t run any dungeons with her yet, but I just noticed that my level 40 Warrior had been using a green level 14 Greatsword the whole time (but of course I didn’t notice earlier since she was still out-damaging any of my other level 40-ish characters).

Dear Robert Hrouda,

since you’re seemingly the man in charge when it comes to dungeons, would you kindly stop abusing broken mechanics that punishes certain classes, until the class devs have been able to actually fix these broken class mechanics?

Yes, I’m primarily talking about rangers, or rather, their pets.

By designing your dungeon encounters in such manner that one class in particular gets punished for a, in many ways, broken class mechanic, thereby abusing this weakness and making these encounters harder, is imho kinda cheap.

I think you’re fully aware of the issues I’m talking about here, right?

Until a fix for all the issues that involves pets has been pushed out to live servers, I strongly suggest you design your dungeons in such a way that no encounter abuses this broken mechanic.

You do realise that many rangers gets kicked out of groups just because of their class, or more so, because of the core mechanic that comes with this class?

So, in all fairness, if an encounter becomes a lot harder to deal with because of pets, or due to the fact that there’s simply no way to keep a pet alive during some encounters (and please remember, the ranger class is balanced around having their pet alive and working), then please stop designing your encounters in such a manner that they constantly put the ranger class at a major disadvantage!

Having issues with this? Then please go ahead and talk to the guys responsible for designing/balancing the classes about this. Just letting things go on in a broken state month after month is indeed very tiresome.

Thanks for reading.

Hey Robert,

I haven’t made my Ranger yet, but some of the complaints I’ve heard from Rangers tend to be in FotM. Agony hits their pets and they’re made useless pretty quickly. This is also true to other summons, though since pets have been mentioned as what Rangers are balanced around, it’s a bit strange that they’re made so useless in FotM when agony starts hitting.

That’s just one I’ve heard Rangers complain about.

Could this be ArenaNet repeating the mistakes of old?
In the first game, when you got your armour ascended, they didn’t take into account your pet.
They eventually fixed this.
Unbelievable that they would make the same mistake twice. I guess it really IS a completely different team.