Guild Wars 2

Dungeons are incredibly poorly designed.

Skipping and glitching are rampant and there is no reason NOT to do it since loot is terrible and has been since release. Having another set of unique looking dungeon gear that can randomly drop from any enemy (double chance drop in chests) would fix a lot of this problem. Additionally giving all mobs a small chance to drop tokens or better chance at rare materials would help.

There is no progression in the dungeon system. Dungeons should unlock other dungeons when they are completed. For example if you finish all 3 paths to an explorable in the same week you unlock and elite dungeon that is unique and not in the SAME PLACE AS THE 3 EXPLORABLES cuz we were promised unique paths that we didnt get and its getting downright boring…

No consistent aggro mechanic (not just threat) makes them chaotic and feel like you cannot control the combat. This makes it impossible to design specific encounters around something the players can be presumed to know and also makes it impossible to have certain trash mob groups handled with strategy. Everything is just a clusterkitten which is not fun, especially for new players. And before you say “monsters attack the closest damaging threat to them hur dur” they dont… they have that system and it is overridden by every monster having a “unless someone has higher toughness” or “unless someone is healing” or instead “attack the highest dps/lowest health”. There is NO consistent mechanic for players to understand how fights will unfold or control the flow of battle

Support builds are….well they dont do much that players cant already do for themselves.

No class roles, which I’m not saying I like the trinity or want it but there is a reason it existed. When anyone can do everything no one is special

Mechanically boring, 90% of all dungeon encounters are “Hey zerg that thing!”

Nothing feels impactful

Telegraphy and skill: 90% of the time this is non-existent. Difficulty is more based on cheap brutality than hard mechanics or timing. EVERY hit hitting for 30% of your health is just stupid. Monsters should auto for about 10%-15% of your lifebar and have special telegraphed moves or conditions that need to be taken care of tactically and avoided.

All dungeons should scale you up to 80 so we can have a BASELINE from which to balance instead of scaling you down.

I actually like gear treadmills, but with the understanding that most people dont I would suggest we need about 300% more weapon/armor skins in the game and some of them need to drop exclusively in dungeons and world bosses (IE champs and dragons). The embarassing lack of interesting weapons/armor skins is a purely horizontally progressive game is just staggering and stupid.
-This is not in dungeons but i also think every ZONE of the map should have 1 set of unique light/med/heavy armor. The level of sameness while leveling is lolworthy.

All gear should have hidden gear ratings on it. These ratings are averaged and put into an algorithm along with your level to determine equivalent monster stats. By doing this you adequately accommodate any level of player while keeping an even level of difficulty throughout all levels of players in a dungeon setting

Most of this has been said before and it will be said again, unfortunately I don’t see it changing because it requires core design changes that I don’t believe Anet will go through with at this point

Many encounters have decent mechanics. Issue is that they are NOT doing enough damage (or enough threatening) so you can just ignore them.

So much truth in this post +1

Gated dungeons have been a big problem in other MMOs. It restricts the game play options of groups of players just to suit an ethos of elitism.

Rump Buffalo.2594:

I actually like gear treadmills, but with the understanding that most people dont I would suggest we need about 300% more weapon/armor skins in the game and some of them need to drop exclusively in dungeons and world bosses (IE champs and dragons). The embarassing lack of interesting weapons/armor skins is a purely horizontally progressive game is just staggering and stupid.
-This is not in dungeons but i also think every ZONE of the map should have 1 set of unique light/med/heavy armor. The level of sameness while leveling is lolworthy.

this part atleast is a complete universal truth. all dungeons should have an exclusive skin drop inside them in addition to the token skins, and zones need exclusive skins too. there should be much much more, also pet skins.

After more than 7 months with Gw2. And with 8 characters. I am kind of bored with the repetitive nature of the game. All the daily are like a chore now and reward are just bad.

To make matters worst, dungeons are just mostly annoying instead of fun.

My main is an Ele, used to be fun, and now I find it more like a WvW support nurse.

Building my mesmer now, which I find is getting boring also, not really fun to level. Game is all about skins. Yuck. Drop’s also sucks. this makes repetitive nature of the game even worst.

Please do something RIGHT. Try not to think like a programmer. Don’t make stupid changes like what you did with AC Path 2 with the last boss fight. It’s an insult to ghostbusters. Just like WoW insulted KungFu Panda.

Some on the skill trigger animation are just un-necessarily long (too long). After playing a some time, you will find it annoying. Cut shot the silly dancing and excessive dumb animation.

I find the dungeons to be fun. The thing that kills the fun for me is how no one wants to actually do the dungeon. Everyone just wants their tokens.

I understand that people want to their gear as fast and as easily as possible… But why do people choose to do the dungeons in the most boring way possible? Seems like no one wants to play the game, they just want better gear.

CoE was so much fun before I learned how to “run it properly.” I can understand skipping certain mobs so you can get to the boss faster, I can understand using certain mechanics to make it easier. But why would you want every boss fight to be as boring as possible? Is having a cool character more important then actually playing the character?

If we are breezing through a dungeon, why do you want to make it easier by stacking and dodge against a pillar or standing where the boss can’t hit you? Makes me sleepy. Just my opinion.

UmbraVictor.9842:

After more than 7 months with Gw2. And with 8 characters. I am kind of bored with the repetitive nature of the game. All the daily are like a chore now and reward are just bad.

UmbraVictor.9842:

Some on the skill trigger animation are just un-necessarily long (too long). After playing a some time, you will find it annoying. Cut shot the silly dancing and excessive dumb animation.

I think you have been playing just too much. Have you tried doing something different for a change? There is absolutely no game on the market, none, that will give you that many different things to do, and that you like doing, by playing this excessively. Every game you will ever play will become boring and repetitive one day, simply because if you want to continue playing you will need to redo things you’ve done before. And you’ve hit that day.

UmbraVictor.9842:

Please do something RIGHT. Try not to think like a programmer. Don’t make stupid changes like what you did with AC Path 2 with the last boss fight. It’s an insult to ghostbusters. Just like WoW insulted KungFu Panda.

As a lot of people know by know, the pandaren character appeared on Warcraft III some time before the first movie of the KungFu Panda.

krowik.8053:

I find the dungeons to be fun. The thing that kills the fun for me is how no one wants to actually do the dungeon. Everyone just wants their tokens.

I would really love to +1 your whole post much more than once.

krowik.8053:

If we are breezing through a dungeon, why do you want to make it easier by stacking and dodge against a pillar or standing where the boss can’t hit you? Makes me sleepy. Just my opinion.

Stacking as a technique is done because buffs, heals, condition removals, etc. that help teammates are usually at no range and are in a relatively small area. To benefit from them, it helps to be close to the team.

As to why people use certain tactics… people tend to repeat things that worked for them in the past. People don’t like to fail, they don’t like their character to die, they don’t even like to do the dungeon slower than they know it can be done. If they know some tactic works, they will use it, over and over and over …

I think the dungeon design discourages against completing everything.

One example from my experience was joining a group doing AC exp path 3 for the first time. They had never done any AC exp before and wanted no tips from experience or the internet; just wanted to figure it out for themselves. I respected this even though I had completed AC exp several times.

First boss the spider, we chipped away at the spiderlings with many wipes until I basically ended up duoing the spider down.

Next was Kholer. I let them know that he was optional, but they wanted to try. So we tried and they quickly figured out the pull mechanic from Kholer. Still, we all kept wiping, as I still have trouble with Kholer myself. Eventually one member said let’s skip and we did.

Finally at the last boss after a pretty long run we insta-wiped twice from the cave-in or whatever. So I volunteered a way to beat the last boss from stacking at a column where you couldn’t be hit by the cave-in. We tried that and cleared the dungeon.

I could tell that the group of new players were pretty underwhelmed by the experience. They went in not wanting to skip or glitch, but did so because not skipping was just yotoopunitive.

IndigoSundown.5419:

krowik.8053:

If we are breezing through a dungeon, why do you want to make it easier by stacking and dodge against a pillar or standing where the boss can’t hit you? Makes me sleepy. Just my opinion.

Stacking as a technique is done because buffs, heals, condition removals, etc. that help teammates are usually at no range and are in a relatively small area. To benefit from them, it helps to be close to the team.

As to why people use certain tactics… people tend to repeat things that worked for them in the past. People don’t like to fail, they don’t like their character to die, they don’t even like to do the dungeon slower than they know it can be done. If they know some tactic works, they will use it, over and over and over …

I understand why people stack and use the tactics they use. I’m not saying its a bad idea.

It just seems like those should be saved for speed runs or as a last resort. The “stack here and follow these specific steps not to die” doesn’t seem like it should be the go-to option for dungeon runs. It should be used if the dungeon is too hard for your group.

I’m not the best dungeon runner in the world. I really only just started doing them regularly. I have screwed our groups a couple of times with accidental pulls or standing in the wrong spot. What I’ve found though is a lot of people who are telling everyone in the group what to do and know every step of the dungeon (which I’m not complaining about, I don’t mind having a pro help the group,) if you mess up their plan then they will get worked because they cant seem to adapt. They die or they tell everyone to run out and reset it. Makes me wonder, are people actually good at this dungeon/game…Or are they good at following the guide?

krowik.8053:

IndigoSundown.5419:

krowik.8053:

If we are breezing through a dungeon, why do you want to make it easier by stacking and dodge against a pillar or standing where the boss can’t hit you? Makes me sleepy. Just my opinion.

Stacking as a technique is done because buffs, heals, condition removals, etc. that help teammates are usually at no range and are in a relatively small area. To benefit from them, it helps to be close to the team.

As to why people use certain tactics… people tend to repeat things that worked for them in the past. People don’t like to fail, they don’t like their character to die, they don’t even like to do the dungeon slower than they know it can be done. If they know some tactic works, they will use it, over and over and over …

I understand why people stack and use the tactics they use. I’m not saying its a bad idea.

It just seems like those should be saved for speed runs or as a last resort. The “stack here and follow these specific steps not to die” doesn’t seem like it should be the go-to option for dungeon runs. It should be used if the dungeon is too hard for your group.

I’m not the best dungeon runner in the world. I really only just started doing them regularly. I have screwed our groups a couple of times with accidental pulls or standing in the wrong spot. What I’ve found though is a lot of people who are telling everyone in the group what to do and know every step of the dungeon (which I’m not complaining about, I don’t mind having a pro help the group,) if you mess up their plan then they will get worked because they cant seem to adapt. They die or they tell everyone to run out and reset it. Makes me wonder, are people actually good at this dungeon/game…Or are they good at following the guide?

There are also some players who just do not want to take up any advise or listen to any instructions. I’m inclined to believe it is an ego thing. Not saying that you one of these ppl. I am just stating an observation.

Nikaido.3457:

You are conflating two very different things. Standing in a place where the boss can’t hit you is an exploit, and arenanet works hard at fixing them. Stacking is a legitimate tactic to get the most out of the abilities and support of the group.

Look at it this way. Boon/support abilities have a range, and if you don’t push a boss against a wall, with everyone dodging in random ways (dodging being a core mechanic in this game), you don’t really gain the benefit from support. Look at a guardian with a hammer. He can give permanent protection, but that’s only if everyone is in the range of the symbol. Fight the boss without getting him on a wall and it’s not going to work as well.

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to put stacking and exploiting in the same light. I don’t consider stacking to be an exploit.

I understand the reasoning behind it. I think it’s a valid strategy. I just think it’s boring and it isn’t necessary to stay stacked all the time in every scenario.

I don’t like how every encounter has a preset strategy that even dictates where you stand in some cases. And everyone chooses this as their preferred method of running a dungeon and they just want to reset or they get wiped if something goes wrong. It feels a lot like WoW to me.

I’m not trying to ruffle any feathers or anything. I just feel like a lot of people stop playing GW2 and start playing WoW when they get to the endgame. I don’t feel like this is 100% ArenaNet’s fault. I feel like part of it is the player’s perspective of the game.

mosspit.8936:

There are also some players who just do not want to take up any advise or listen to any instructions. I’m inclined to believe it is an ego thing. Not saying that you one of these ppl. I am just stating an observation.

I see how you could draw that conclusion from my posts. There are definitely those people. I don’t feel like I’m one of them.

I’m not going to do my own thing and ruin the game for everyone else. I play the game to have fun. Starting an argument and having your group hate you isn’t fun to me lol. But I can’t lie, I have started arguments with people who yell at the “stupid effin noobs” and such. I always regret it lol.

I highly prefer to have a vet in the group that can carry the team and direct if it gets too rough.

krowik.8053:

IndigoSundown.5419:

krowik.8053:

If we are breezing through a dungeon, why do you want to make it easier by stacking and dodge against a pillar or standing where the boss can’t hit you? Makes me sleepy. Just my opinion.

Stacking as a technique is done because buffs, heals, condition removals, etc. that help teammates are usually at no range and are in a relatively small area. To benefit from them, it helps to be close to the team.

As to why people use certain tactics… people tend to repeat things that worked for them in the past. People don’t like to fail, they don’t like their character to die, they don’t even like to do the dungeon slower than they know it can be done. If they know some tactic works, they will use it, over and over and over …

I understand why people stack and use the tactics they use. I’m not saying its a bad idea.

It just seems like those should be saved for speed runs or as a last resort. The “stack here and follow these specific steps not to die” doesn’t seem like it should be the go-to option for dungeon runs. It should be used if the dungeon is too hard for your group.

I’m not the best dungeon runner in the world. I really only just started doing them regularly. I have screwed our groups a couple of times with accidental pulls or standing in the wrong spot. What I’ve found though is a lot of people who are telling everyone in the group what to do and know every step of the dungeon (which I’m not complaining about, I don’t mind having a pro help the group,) if you mess up their plan then they will get worked because they cant seem to adapt. They die or they tell everyone to run out and reset it. Makes me wonder, are people actually good at this dungeon/game…Or are they good at following the guide?

Some people form the tactics based on knowledge of their class, situational awareness and in some cases observing the cause of failure and adapting. Some of those people make the guides. Others follow the guide, or follow what the last (successful) group they were in did. Many will follow the path of least resistance, so they will use the tactic that works best, whether it makes the fight too easy or not.

Wethospu.6437:

Many encounters have decent mechanics. Issue is that they are NOT doing enough damage (or enough threatening) so you can just ignore them.

This is part of interesting mechanics. In order to be interesting the mechanics cannot be simply ignored for whatever reason

krowik.8053:

I find the dungeons to be fun. The thing that kills the fun for me is how no one wants to actually do the dungeon. Everyone just wants their tokens.

I understand that people want to their gear as fast and as easily as possible… But why do people choose to do the dungeons in the most boring way possible? Seems like no one wants to play the game, they just want better gear.

CoE was so much fun before I learned how to “run it properly.” I can understand skipping certain mobs so you can get to the boss faster, I can understand using certain mechanics to make it easier. But why would you want every boss fight to be as boring as possible? Is having a cool character more important then actually playing the character?

If we are breezing through a dungeon, why do you want to make it easier by stacking and dodge against a pillar or standing where the boss can’t hit you? Makes me sleepy. Just my opinion.

The fun will fade unfortunately due to the dungeons not being all that interesting.

No one wanting to run them is directly because there is no reason to actually do the content.

You get tokens at the end no matter what. This is why you need RARE SKINS and LOTS of them that look cool. Right now there is no reason to do anything more than once in the game.

I agree with the comments here that say mobs should give us better loot. Either skins or coins (or a bit of both). But a 3 hour run for just one path is too much, as I said on the other topic. Just for the sake of the other content the game has.

I, for example, like to do my daily, run a dungeon (or a fractal) and spend the rest of time I have left on WvW. I am not saying the game should adapt to my tastes, that is not what I meant, but a 3-hour run means I would have to sacrifice the other content (or the dungeon itself). And I am pretty sure more people on this game, with other real-life duties, feel the same.

Why are you doing a three hour run then? Everything can be completed in about 20-40min with the exception of Arah… which with a good enough team and skipping can also be done in 30-40 minutes

The rewards need to be better- Coin amount needs to be higher, Rare & exotic Drops needs to be better & increased- especially in Arah; honestly that dungeon isn’t worth the time unless you have a solid group of regulars found in your guild- not randoms.
I would be more willing to put up with that dungeon only if there was better loot.

see the problem with “better loot” is that the vertical scaling of loot is extremely shallow. It isn’t that hard to get exotics and once you get a level 80 exotic/ascended you have best in slot… so there really isnt a reason to continue looking for gear at that point. You max out on armor very quickly so there really can’t be better loot… SKINS now THERE is an idea.

Rump Buffalo.2594:

see the problem with “better loot” is that the vertical scaling of loot is extremely shallow. It isn’t that hard to get exotics and once you get a level 80 exotic/ascended you have best in slot… so there really isnt a reason to continue looking for gear at that point. You max out on armor very quickly so there really can’t be better loot… SKINS now THERE is an idea.

There is already dungeon specific loot in the game in the form of recipes dropped only by bosses of specific dungeon paths. Granted they are not skins but they could possibly be. Thing is the RNG associated with them are pretty bad and there are absolutely no other way of obtaining them via a progressive nature.

Fotm weapon skins are also only obtainable via Fotm and is completely RNG driven. There are some threads around here that discuss the fact that the associated RNG is very bad as well.

Be careful of what you wish for.

People complain about anything and everything that is even minutely difficult to do or obtain in this game… it’s really sad how casual and easy the community seems to want the game to be.

I think the tokens work great, but I think having special skins, not necessarily gear, that drop off RNG is fine as long as the chests have a decent chance of dropping them and stop dropping blues all together.

But honestly the gear is a secondary concern to me, although I do find the rewards in this game to be very underwhelming. The primary concern is the mechanical shortcomings of almost every encounter outside of fractals and the inability to create engaging or difficult (without being stupidly brutal and unfair) content. I am someone who loves Giganticus Lupicus, but also thinks he is very easy once you have 10min to analyze his skillset. He, to me, is the baseline for what ALL bosses should be.

If you remember listening to Anet talk about the dungeons (explorables in particular) they were supposed to be a set of very hard dungeons requiring skill and communication to overcome. they were supposed to be unique paths from the story mode, they were supposed to have a loot system that made it so that you got stuff you wanted and not just crap you couldnt use all the time. They were supposed to be engaging and challenging while making party synergy important and have random DEs that could unfold at any moment….

I have yet to see one of those things in a dungeon.

If you remember listening to Anet talk about the dungeons (explorables in particular) they were supposed to be a set of very hard dungeons requiring skill and communication to overcome. they were supposed to be unique paths from the story mode, they were supposed to have a loot system that made it so that you got stuff you wanted and not just crap you couldnt use all the time. They were supposed to be engaging and challenging while making party synergy important and have random DEs that could unfold at any moment….
I have yet to see one of those things in a dungeon.

The main issue here being the talk and hype before and after release. The key focus, after a few months live play, is no longer supposed to be a challenging, useful loot dropping, alternative and engaging dungeon promoting synergy.

I have no idea what the key goal of dungeons are anymore, and I wouldn’t be surprised if any of the dungeon team did either.

They want us to synergise, but we often do less damage or do not hit that dps threshold for specific parts of dungeon paths. (Hello average MMO mechanic. Hello Hodgins path burrows)

They want us to be challenged but give us nothing worth the time or effort involved.

They want(ed) us to think about changing the method of corpse-running, then add mobs that can literally juggle you with knockdow+cripple+bleed combos.

Etc. Etc. Etc.

Rump Buffalo.2594:

People complain about anything and everything that is even minutely difficult to do or obtain in this game… it’s really sad how casual and easy the community seems to want the game to be.

If this is directed at ppl “complaining” about how rare recipes and fotm weapons skins are, have you tried actively getting any of these? I have 2 dungeon recipes and 6 fotm weapon skins but it doesn’t mean I agree with their methods of acquisition. Oh and RNG =/= Difficult. If anything RNG means grind without progression.

Rump Buffalo.2594:

I think the tokens work great, but I think having special skins, not necessarily gear, that drop off RNG is fine as long as the chests have a decent chance of dropping them and stop dropping blues all together.

Unfortunately based on ANet’s track record for creating RNG drops, what I am trying to say is that RNG drops can get rather extreme. Similar to the 2 examples I given. Hence “be careful of what you wish for”.

i understand the be careful what you wish for point however RNG doesnt have to be bad. Fractal weapons are a bit absurd just because not only do you have to actually get the skin it has to be a skin that you want as there are no means of training. What i think most would like to see is how fractal rings are handled , in the sense you can get one through rng quickly or if lucky is not on your side then you can get it through a predictable means such pristine fractals.

But bosses are really unrewarding in normal dungeon, 3 tokens are a joke. Now if it was say 10, dungeons with more bosses may not look so bad. First existing rewards need to scale properly in that the more difficult the path the better reward the path should give…perhaps difficulty is not the proper word to use but a mix of difficulty and length. Perhaps challenge is the word……regardless.

Once you got the token rewards worked out, then you can start adding some more loot drops off the mobs, but at the same time you add a way to obtain them through tokens as an light at the end of the tunnel system.

To take a page from fractals and as someone else mentioned having vertical progression within the dungeon would be nice in that you unlock additional paths after completing other paths or unlocks another set of different dungeon paths . For example using the living story ,once you do SE and CoF explore mode then the new fushion dungeon is unlocked and its paths.

Then there comes difficulty which many of us want is something of a challenge , this is to take a page from fractals again in by having levels of difficulty but not nearly to the extreme of 50 some odd levels because honestly that is just absurd as it makes difficulty between levels to tiny. Lets say for the sake of discussion we have 5 or 10 and each has its resistance it requires (gating mechanic ) but increases in challenge, note i said challenge not difficulty. So none of this just turn the health and damage nobs up but rather mechanics are added and must be followed. Then much the same way pristine fractals exist you can have a similar system by having for example Pristine Symbols of Kodan .

Now you have tiered difficulties, vertical progression, and proper rewards. Then if you want to add a little more then toss in recipes that require items that only come out of that instance much like how mist essence is for fractals.

The real key is vertical progression is something a fair bit of us want, if anything to just have a area that challenges can exist and its ok for it to exists as long as the progression is within the dungeon.

Warruz.8096:

i understand the be careful what you wish for point however RNG doesnt have to be bad. Fractal weapons are a bit absurd just because not only do you have to actually get the skin it has to be a skin that you want as there are no means of training. What i think most would like to see is how fractal rings are handled , in the sense you can get one through rng quickly or if lucky is not on your side then you can get it through a predictable means such pristine fractals.

I did not say RNG is bad. I am trying to say ANet is capable of making bad RNG.

Anet seems to be capable of only having really good ideas and then mucking them up…