Guild Wars 2

Agreed with everything.

Tungsten Monarch.6058:

Support roles are weak and underpowered.
There are no control roles.
DAMAGE Warriors is about the only viable build.

Anet, you lost your way.

Sorry but you are wrong about this, after update full zerker wars are useless because of the crit heal food nerf. I stopped using mine and went to guardian (a support role) to do my daily dungeons then swap over to war if i have time, use to be other way around.

At least for pugs, which im guessing your talking about.

Tungsten Monarch.6058:

There is some reverse trolling here, the Dungeons are way over the top difficult for the average player. Those thanking the Devs for increased difficulty are trolling the average players.

There was no need to increase the difficulty of AC or any other Dungeon. If you want them difficult then add a hard mode, and for regular mode add a sixth member or reduce the difficulty by 40%.

Right now all paths, all dungeons are absurd, GW1 was nothing like this, and this game had so much potential.

I will be looking at ESO, leaving and not returning.
ANET does not have their act together. Yes you may have my money, but you won’t be getting my money from the BLTC.

You cannot be serious. Normal mode UW, FoW, the Deep, DoA, etc. were ALL harder than GW2 dungeons.

Not to mention no other MMO I’ve played has had easier dungeons than GW2. If you believe AC, even the new AC, is exceptionally difficult then you really need to take a step back and evaluate your play.

The average player is perfectly capable in AC. There is a guy in my guild who is 65 years old and has a condition that leaves him in terrible pain most of the time. He is physically incapable of handling 10 skill keys so he clicks all of his skills. He still just does just fine in dungeons and is only missing Arah for his dungeon master title. If you cannot come close to matching even his level of play, I have no sympathy for you.

Tungsten Monarch.6058:

There is some reverse trolling here, the Dungeons are way over the top difficult for the average player. Those thanking the Devs for increased difficulty are trolling the average players.

There was no need to increase the difficulty of AC or any other Dungeon. If you want them difficult then add a hard mode, and for regular mode add a sixth member or reduce the difficulty by 40%.

The issue isn’t the difficulty. The issues that that those areas were on massive farm causing inflation.

Right now all paths, all dungeons are absurd, GW1 was nothing like this, and this game had so much potential.

I will be looking at ESO, leaving and not returning.
ANET does not have their act together. Yes you may have my money, but you won’t be getting my money from the BLTC.

Support roles are weak and underpowered.
There are no control roles.
DAMAGE Warriors is about the only viable build.

Anet, you lost your way.

Sounds like your absurdly broken 1-button zerker farm got nerfed and you /ragequit over it. Yeah bye, and don’t come back. Quite seriously we need more people like you to quit.

And for the record: GW1 dungeons were way harder than anything GW2 has to offer.

some misconceptions here.
1) Our Guild of 250+ players don’t usually use warriors.
2) Support roles are usually Ele’s and if Guardians are in they are required to bring Battle Presence, just to ensure some survivability for not just themselves, but others.
3) very rarely do we bring warriors in dungeons.
4) Most members don’t bother bringing their Engineer’s even if they enjoy playing them, because they can’t survive.
5) Most Theif’s are 1 hit down’d, as well as most Guardians, Ele’s and always Pet’s (making pets useless in a dungeon).

If the Dungeons were balanced for all warrior teams, then there is a disconnect with under balancing other classes.

Hi everyone,

Please be nice to each other and try to post in a civil way.

Thanks for your help.

Have a look at our forum Code of Conduct here

x per fection x.2096:

Tungsten Monarch.6058:

Support roles are weak and underpowered.
There are no control roles.
DAMAGE Warriors is about the only viable build.

Anet, you lost your way.

Sorry but you are wrong about this, after update full zerker wars are useless because of the crit heal food nerf. I stopped using mine and went to guardian (a support role) to do my daily dungeons then swap over to war if i have time, use to be other way around.

At least for pugs, which im guessing your talking about.

GC warrior still works, just takes bit more skills since you need to dodge bigger portion of the attacks.

Tungsten Monarch.6058:

There is some reverse trolling here, the Dungeons are way over the top difficult for the average player. Those thanking the Devs for increased difficulty are trolling the average players.

There was no need to increase the difficulty of AC or any other Dungeon. If you want them difficult then add a hard mode, and for regular mode add a sixth member or reduce the difficulty by 40%.

Right now all paths, all dungeons are absurd, GW1 was nothing like this, and this game had so much potential.

I will be looking at ESO, leaving and not returning.
ANET does not have their act together. Yes you may have my money, but you won’t be getting my money from the BLTC.

Support roles are weak and underpowered.
There are no control roles.
DAMAGE Warriors is about the only viable build.

Anet, you lost your way.

just to let you know,
story mode is for the average player. explorer mode is for the hardcore player and guilds.
but explorer mode is still too easy.

right now all paths, all dungeons are a joke. because all you have to do to finish them is autoattack. there is no difficulty.
if u have a hard time doing ac explorer, then you dont understand the game and you probably dont know where your dodge key is.

a little quote here for you

“For me, I always felt explorable mode was supposed to be hard mode and I would like to see us fix the dungeons to the point that they really fall into that category more than trying to add another mode on top of it.”

“For a lot of people their answer for playing the game has been “it’s really fun, but there’s not enough challenging stuff for me to do,” and I think for people who are looking for challenge, we need to build in more of that optional content that is challenging. Optional is the key, right, we don’t want to make it so that casual players don’t feel like they can’t play the game. But we’re trying to go back and rebuild a lot of stuff to just make it a lot more optionally challenging for people who are looking for that"

Eliyahu.1467:

Tungsten Monarch.6058:

There is some reverse trolling here, the Dungeons are way over the top difficult for the average player. Those thanking the Devs for increased difficulty are trolling the average players.

There was no need to increase the difficulty of AC or any other Dungeon. If you want them difficult then add a hard mode, and for regular mode add a sixth member or reduce the difficulty by 40%.

Right now all paths, all dungeons are absurd, GW1 was nothing like this, and this game had so much potential.

I will be looking at ESO, leaving and not returning.
ANET does not have their act together. Yes you may have my money, but you won’t be getting my money from the BLTC.

You cannot be serious. Normal mode UW, FoW, the Deep, DoA, etc. were ALL harder than GW2 dungeons.

Not to mention no other MMO I’ve played has had easier dungeons than GW2. If you believe AC, even the new AC, is exceptionally difficult then you really need to take a step back and evaluate your play.

No they were not, we had parties of 8 players. We had damage mitigation from BONDS, Direct Heals, Protective Spirit, Spirits, 50% blocks, and other forms of protection. This meant it was possible to fight Mallyx and still only take 10% of your total health in a single hit, with spirits as a passive. We even had shouts from Paragons that had damage mitigation and constant though a Yellow Way build, or Permagons spams. You really know very little of the different meta’s in GW1. Not to mention Necro’s with 11 minions, or Ritualists with 7 Spirits.

A common guild build or solo build with HERO’s could put out an army 55 bone horror minions from 5 necro’s and 16 spirits from the other 3 Ritualists, not to mention 8 players that could survive easier, than what the current game offers.

In the old game I remember doing the above dungeons with all Ranger Teams and the pets survived just fine, in this game, Pet’s are 1 hit wonders. They are hit once, they die,, you summon the next pet, they are hit once or run though an AoE, and they die.

I think it’s great that Warriors can be warriors in this game, but it takes away from the game, when all there is left, is the warrior zerg fest.

The design goals of this game included any class, any team, any dungeon.

If players want a Hard Mode, GREAT! I’m all for it, but design it for the small % who are good enough to meta game the dungeons. Meanwhile reduce the health and damage of what is currently the S&M Anet calls dungeons.

If a member of A Net would like to join our guild some time and run with us, we run dungeons almost every night, and we would love as a guild to provide in game feedback and our concerns though open chat in our TS server.

Most of our people don’t bother with the forums for obvious reasons. People don’t like making a legitimate complaint, and being trolled for it.

I agree that some dungeons should be nerfed, to make it viable for average players at the minimum level, geared with greens (so that it takes off the pro factor while geared better), to go through it (the new AC is absurd). Especially story modes are way more difficult than explorables.

Tungsten, support is weak stand alone, more people are bringing zerkers cause they read somewhere it’s the cool thing to do, most of these people are not panning out to know how to play those zerkers and sadly for me to admit, most of those zerkers are leveling as zerker build so not really a zerker, they seem more like Zer….., It’s terrible the only groups I have not been able to get through AC with were 4 Zerker levelers and myself what ever toon I’m on. Sure 4 Zerks and a Mesmer can speed farm CoF at 80 geared, but sadly even the leveling guides out there don’t focus around what kind of build would be useful in a dungeon at >40, 40-60, they all focus on 80. So a lot of people try to use optimal 80 builds at adept traits… when I level a character I consider 3 builds along the way, hell you get a repect when you by the book, why not. Support is a great thing when multiple players use some and can coordinate it, stand alone 1 person trying to be supportive while 4 try to be glass cannons and also don’t know the instance is for the birds. You are in a large guild so you may not have to deal with this.
It does suck for engies that they have so few weapon choices, a lot of people end up running with a shield plus their short range does make them a high threat so a lot of people become discouraged with the profession. 1 hit downs are usually certain boss abilities that can be avoided when someone is on top of things, I have seen so many people stand still on the Cave Trolls new stomp/shockwave ability. the stomp is easy to see, everyone is pretty much looking at the troll or their ui, there are no other adds unless he is kited to them, the shockwave travels kinda slowly and yet, 3 players downed again… how do I get in close to revive these idiots? It does not matter what profession you are against this ability, if everyone is a glass cannon, it’s dodge or die. I don’t feel it’s lazy on Arena Net like some other posts have mentioned out there, I feel it’s lazy on the player to say kitten Anet, I’m not gonna do this mechanic properly.

NoTrigger.8396:

Tungsten Monarch.6058:

There is some reverse trolling here, the Dungeons are way over the top difficult for the average player. Those thanking the Devs for increased difficulty are trolling the average players.

There was no need to increase the difficulty of AC or any other Dungeon. If you want them difficult then add a hard mode, and for regular mode add a sixth member or reduce the difficulty by 40%.

Right now all paths, all dungeons are absurd, GW1 was nothing like this, and this game had so much potential.

I will be looking at ESO, leaving and not returning.
ANET does not have their act together. Yes you may have my money, but you won’t be getting my money from the BLTC.

Support roles are weak and underpowered.
There are no control roles.
DAMAGE Warriors is about the only viable build.

Anet, you lost your way.

just to let you know,
story mode is for the average player. explorer mode is for the hardcore player and guilds.
but explorer mode is still too easy.

right now all paths, all dungeons are a joke. because all you have to do to finish them is autoattack. there is no difficulty.
if u have a hard time doing ac explorer, then you dont understand the game and you probably dont know where your dodge key is.

a little quote here for you

“For me, I always felt explorable mode was supposed to be hard mode and I would like to see us fix the dungeons to the point that they really fall into that category more than trying to add another mode on top of it.”

“For a lot of people their answer for playing the game has been “it’s really fun, but there’s not enough challenging stuff for me to do,” and I think for people who are looking for challenge, we need to build in more of that optional content that is challenging. Optional is the key, right, we don’t want to make it so that casual players don’t feel like they can’t play the game. But we’re trying to go back and rebuild a lot of stuff to just make it a lot more optionally challenging for people who are looking for that"

Whoever made that quote, is arrogant. I suspect that is an ANet employee. They should be ashamed of themselves. Most player’s work for a living in a job they don’t care much for, stressed, and look forward to their 3 hours of escape, and casual conversations over Team Speak with people they only know through voice chat. They don’t wish to study the current Meta’s, and turn the game into a second job.

If this is really the attitude of A Net, then they shot themselves by arrogance and ignorance of the average frustrations to the average joe player.

Again our Guild welcomes anyone from A Net to join in our runs and get real feed back from the average player. Not the elite of the game, as our guild will not start discriminating players going into dungeon based upon high or low skill. Gaming is a social behavior, not an exclusion.

Jabiacas Horologium.4976:

Tungsten, support is weak stand alone, more people are bringing zerkers cause they read somewhere it’s the cool thing to do, most of these people are not panning out to know how to play those zerkers and sadly for me to admit, most of those zerkers are leveling as zerker build so not really a zerker, they seem more like Zer….., It’s terrible the only groups I have not been able to get through AC with were 4 Zerker levelers and myself what ever toon I’m on. Sure 4 Zerks and a Mesmer can speed farm CoF at 80 geared, but sadly even the leveling guides out there don’t focus around what kind of build would be useful in a dungeon at >40, 40-60, they all focus on 80. So a lot of people try to use optimal 80 builds at adept traits… when I level a character I consider 3 builds along the way, hell you get a repect when you by the book, why not. Support is a great thing when multiple players use some and can coordinate it, stand alone 1 person trying to be supportive while 4 try to be glass cannons and also don’t know the instance is for the birds. You are in a large guild so you may not have to deal with this.
It does suck for engies that they have so few weapon choices, a lot of people end up running with a shield plus their short range does make them a high threat so a lot of people become discouraged with the profession. 1 hit downs are usually certain boss abilities that can be avoided when someone is on top of things, I have seen so many people stand still on the Cave Trolls new stomp/shockwave ability. the stomp is easy to see, everyone is pretty much looking at the troll or their ui, there are no other adds unless he is kited to them, the shockwave travels kinda slowly and yet, 3 players downed again… how do I get in close to revive these idiots? It does not matter what profession you are against this ability, if everyone is a glass cannon, it’s dodge or die. I don’t feel it’s lazy on Arena Net like some other posts have mentioned out there, I feel it’s lazy on the player to say kitten Anet, I’m not gonna do this mechanic properly.

Look, the only reason I’m even bothering posting, is I see the frustations of the guild runs I do.

As a single player, I consider myself within the top 5% of the meta gamers. Most of my toons have 2 to 3 sets of exotics for various builds situations etc… Heck I even change armor and weapons between fights to get the most optimal DPS, or SUPPORT I can possibly muster. I’m a Munchkin and not ashamed to be one.

That said. I stand by my complaints, as it’s taking a toll on the average player, and guilds who would not otherwise come here and make a complaint, as they really don’t wish to be trolled by others telling them how much they suck. Their complaints are legitimate complaints.

There is zero reason for players to be forced to endure boss fights with boss’s having overwhelming health, and boss’s who hit and down almost any non warrior in the game. There is no reason to engage a team of 8 or more silver’s who spread so much AoE it party wipes non warrior builds or teams.

the issue is not the warrior, the issue is either the other classes natural debuff in comparison in their ability to soak damage, or the health, and damage of the mobs they face.

I agree fully with the OP. Almost all changes made to this game increase my frustration and increase the time to do things in the game, with no increased enjoyment. I do not play games to have a second job that adds stress and forces me to spend countless hours perfecting skill use. I don’t mind challenges, but I do mind that most hurdles seem to be targeted toward the most hardcore players, leaving everyone else to fall behind badly and have less things to be able to do in the game.

For me and most groups I was in, AC before was a nice challenge, with sufficient (but certainly not extravagant) reward. Now it is significantly more difficult with no increase in the reward. The hurdle bar has been raised for no apparent reason beyond appeasing the most skilled and elite, ignoring the masses that play the game.

Wow Dungeons being hard? Only dungeon thats remotely interesting is Arah. Rest take around 1 hour to finish apart from a few paths i think. And thats with a low DPS group.

Most of the dungeons are based around, dont stand in the red circles and dodge this 3 sec animation the boss do.
Unless ppl are blind, you should be able to move, dodge, teleport or turn on a block skill when you see any of those things.
Yes most of the dungeons are “hard” the first time you do them, you need to learn their mechanics. Soon after they become farmable with any setup.

Know my guild loved AC before the patch. Why? Because it was so easy, that we could chit chat constantly not focus on the game while playing.
It pretty much still is. We just need to relearn the mechanics again.

Oh and yeah we mostly use Warriors, Mesmers and Guardians as thats what we also use in WvW.

Also that the class balance it horrible, especially when it comes to damage, doesnt make the dungeons hard. Its a class issue, not a “dungeons are to hard” issue.

Tungsten Monarch.6058:

NoTrigger.8396:

Tungsten Monarch.6058:

There is some reverse trolling here, the Dungeons are way over the top difficult for the average player. Those thanking the Devs for increased difficulty are trolling the average players.

There was no need to increase the difficulty of AC or any other Dungeon. If you want them difficult then add a hard mode, and for regular mode add a sixth member or reduce the difficulty by 40%.

Right now all paths, all dungeons are absurd, GW1 was nothing like this, and this game had so much potential.

I will be looking at ESO, leaving and not returning.
ANET does not have their act together. Yes you may have my money, but you won’t be getting my money from the BLTC.

Support roles are weak and underpowered.
There are no control roles.
DAMAGE Warriors is about the only viable build.

Anet, you lost your way.

just to let you know,
story mode is for the average player. explorer mode is for the hardcore player and guilds.
but explorer mode is still too easy.

right now all paths, all dungeons are a joke. because all you have to do to finish them is autoattack. there is no difficulty.
if u have a hard time doing ac explorer, then you dont understand the game and you probably dont know where your dodge key is.

a little quote here for you

“For me, I always felt explorable mode was supposed to be hard mode and I would like to see us fix the dungeons to the point that they really fall into that category more than trying to add another mode on top of it.”

“For a lot of people their answer for playing the game has been “it’s really fun, but there’s not enough challenging stuff for me to do,” and I think for people who are looking for challenge, we need to build in more of that optional content that is challenging. Optional is the key, right, we don’t want to make it so that casual players don’t feel like they can’t play the game. But we’re trying to go back and rebuild a lot of stuff to just make it a lot more optionally challenging for people who are looking for that"

Whoever made that quote, is arrogant. I suspect that is an ANet employee. They should be ashamed of themselves. Most player’s work for a living in a job they don’t care much for, stressed, and look forward to their 3 hours of escape, and casual conversations over Team Speak with people they only know through voice chat. They don’t wish to study the current Meta’s, and turn the game into a second job.

If this is really the attitude of A Net, then they shot themselves by arrogance and ignorance of the average frustrations to the average joe player.

Again our Guild welcomes anyone from A Net to join in our runs and get real feed back from the average player. Not the elite of the game, as our guild will not start discriminating players going into dungeon based upon high or low skill. Gaming is a social behavior, not an exclusion.

there is no elite in this game. and to be good at this game you dont have to have skill.
you dont need 300apm and you dont need brutal aiming. all you have to do is think.
and i guess every human being is able to think.

Simple, OP you are below average player.

I can’t be the only one who finds story mode harder can I…..?
The amount of wipes my party had in TA/ HOTW….:(

Tungsten Monarch.6058:

Most player’s work for a living in a job they don’t care much for, stressed, and look forward to their 3 hours of escape, and casual conversations over Team Speak with people they only know through voice chat. They don’t wish to study the current Meta’s, and turn the game into a second job.

If this is really the attitude of A Net, then they shot themselves by arrogance and ignorance of the average frustrations to the average joe player.

Again our Guild welcomes anyone from A Net to join in our runs and get real feed back from the average player. Not the elite of the game, as our guild will not start discriminating players going into dungeon based upon high or low skill. Gaming is a social behavior, not an exclusion.

THIS!!! The game is supposed to be fun. When it stops being fun because it becomes so hard that only the leetists and/or well-geared level 80s can do the first dungeon in the game, you will lose so many players and get such bad word-of-mouth that the game will die. I have seen about 10% of the newbies in our guild quit because they had to wait so long to be able to run a dungeon – not being able to do anything but story mode since no one but our guild would group them for explorable. Several of them I know were long-time MMO players who had just come to GW2, enjoyed it, then lost interest because of AC, and that was BEFORE the difficulty was put up higher.

People do realize that explorable modes were supposed to be the “hard mode” in the first place right?

Trust me after a few runs and with anyone who is borderline competent these dungeons are mindnumbingly easy.

The problem is that the Anet team seems to have tried to derive difficulty through harder hitting monsters and huge health pools, but that does not define difficulty. Without a true aggro system (not talking about tanking) there is no way they can make really interesting mechanics so in the end it just boils down to simplistic fights.

New AC is a step in the right direction but it did enough or really changed all that much.

What these snarks who are so precise they piddle on a plate and make no splash can’t seem to rub two brain cells together to comprehend, is that AC is listed as a lvl 30 dungeon in SM. No way in hell’s half acre is a lvl 30 group in greens at best gonna do that mess. Hell, in explorer they list it as 35. Go make a vid of your lvl 35 group sailing thru the new changes, then get back to us on how awesome sauce you are.

NoTrigger.8396:

Tungsten Monarch.6058:

There is some reverse trolling here, the Dungeons are way over the top difficult for the average player. Those thanking the Devs for increased difficulty are trolling the average players.

There was no need to increase the difficulty of AC or any other Dungeon. If you want them difficult then add a hard mode, and for regular mode add a sixth member or reduce the difficulty by 40%.

Right now all paths, all dungeons are absurd, GW1 was nothing like this, and this game had so much potential.

I will be looking at ESO, leaving and not returning.
ANET does not have their act together. Yes you may have my money, but you won’t be getting my money from the BLTC.

Support roles are weak and underpowered.
There are no control roles.
DAMAGE Warriors is about the only viable build.

Anet, you lost your way.

just to let you know,
story mode is for the average player. explorer mode is for the hardcore player and guilds.
but explorer mode is still too easy.

right now all paths, all dungeons are a joke. because all you have to do to finish them is autoattack. there is no difficulty.
if u have a hard time doing ac explorer, then you dont understand the game and you probably dont know where your dodge key is.

a little quote here for you

“For me, I always felt explorable mode was supposed to be hard mode and I would like to see us fix the dungeons to the point that they really fall into that category more than trying to add another mode on top of it.”

“For a lot of people their answer for playing the game has been “it’s really fun, but there’s not enough challenging stuff for me to do,” and I think for people who are looking for challenge, we need to build in more of that optional content that is challenging. Optional is the key, right, we don’t want to make it so that casual players don’t feel like they can’t play the game. But we’re trying to go back and rebuild a lot of stuff to just make it a lot more optionally challenging for people who are looking for that"

While there is merit to these thoughts, the problems are:

• People have expectations about dungeon content from other games where just about anyone can do them.
• If anything, GW2 as an experiment has proved that people will not do repeatable content without rewards, and story mode offers little to nothing to entice people back once they’ve done the dungeon to see the story. Seeing it on an alt isn’t even enticing.
• Dungeons are being used to farm because people look to make as much gold in as little time as they can. Story mode doesn’t cut it for that, and harder explorable dungeons mean having to relearn mechanics. Add that to DRgate and it looks like farming is being nerfed again. Maybe chest reward guarantees will alleviate this over time, maybe not.
• One of the repeating complaints about GW2 is lack of content. Having a significant portion of the existing content with rewards that make them worth repeating as skilled-only means less content for those who don’t like the difficulty.

Doubtless, there are more issues, but those are the ones I think bear most on the issue.

I am not advocating dungeons be made easy. I think there needs to be content that skilled players can play and feel challenged. I do think there should be some group, instanced content for those who prefer a more relaxed experience. Maybe this can be done through easy/hard mode, maybe it would require different dungeons entirely, maybe story mode can be revamped to include incentives.

I do know that catering only to those who prefer easy or catering only to those who prefer hard is not going to be good for the long-term health of the game.

Sleel.8365:

What these snarks who are so precise they piddle on a plate and make no splash can’t seem to rub two brain cells together to comprehend, is that AC is listed as a lvl 30 dungeon in SM. No way in hell’s half acre is a lvl 30 group in greens at best gonna do that mess. Hell, in explorer they list it as 35. Go make a vid of your lvl 35 group sailing thru the new changes, then get back to us on how awesome sauce you are.

I run AC as a level 35 in explorable and do just fine, on a thief no less. I really dont see what the problem is.

Granted i wish the dungeons were ACTUALLY hard and much better designed with interesting content and random events and hard fights like we were promised… not just STAND THERE AND SPAM AND GET 1 SHOT

also i’m one of the few people who, after coming to this game realized, that I want a gear treadmill, or some form of progression in a game… hit 80 got exotics…bored. This made me not even want to level anymore because what’s the point? There’s nothing to look forward to and the dungeon content is just bad.

Rump Buffalo.2594:

I run AC as a level 35 in explorable and do just fine, on a thief no less. I really dont see what the problem is.

Your statement could be true if the rest of the team you were in were in all exotics/ascended gear and lvl 80s.

Otherwise I don’t believe you.

I agree with the OP.

Some of us are “casual” (And Rangers bleh) gamers, not the hardcore gamers some of you claim to be, who feel we are excluded from dungeons.

There should be more than one mode, yes of course the rewards should be less, but we should’nt be excluded altogether.

I did every explorable path with a PUG using my RANGER. Some are very difficult but just right(I’m talking to you Subject Alpha). That aoe delay gets me all the time haa haa.

If they are difficult to the point where you need a guild to complete then I’ll have an issue.

Guilds now have bountys and stuff.

The point being, dungeons are too difficult for the average player.

The rewards aren’t good enough to encourage them to keep playing dungeons if they keep dying.

They’ll get discouraged and likely end up leaving the game for something else, like the OP.

This is why ArenaNet needs to fix them.

All players are encouraged to do the story mode dungeons (when reaching the “minimum” level, no less) by the game itself.

Try doing story mode AC with some fresh level 30s. See if you still find it so easy.

That’s the point.

Other games make content easily accessible for shorter periods of time. I don’t have to devote hours to play a dungeon in another MMO.

Raid? Yes. Dungeon? No.

Other games are even splitting the PUG raids into multiple parts to make it easier on players with time-constraints.

The average player can’t devote hours of their time to do a dungeon, nor can they be expected to keep up on the latest strategies for taking down each and every boss.

And, yet, the average player is the one that’s expected to pay for YOUR experience. Keep this in mind when you diss someone the next time.

TL;DR: Most “hardcore” players probably are going to buy gems with gold rather than cash. (As they have more gold to begin with.)
Thus, “average” players are the ones expected to pay for the game.
If there’s no one playing the game, then the game will die.

AC Story Mode was done by nearly everyone who first hit 30 in beta and quite a few 30s groups at release, and yes it was difficult for some, but certainly not ridiculously hard like people here are claiming. AC EXP mode in beta was much harder than it is now (even with the new patch) for example the Spider Queen had even higher damage poison and summoned silver elite spiders constantly, and Kohler had no wind up or cue on his Scorpion Wire + Daggerstorm. Still, AC EXP was doable then so it should be easily doable now (and that was without using any level 80s in your group).

Kyredwen.5480:

Tungsten Monarch.6058:

Most player’s work for a living in a job they don’t care much for, stressed, and look forward to their 3 hours of escape, and casual conversations over Team Speak with people they only know through voice chat. They don’t wish to study the current Meta’s, and turn the game into a second job.

If this is really the attitude of A Net, then they shot themselves by arrogance and ignorance of the average frustrations to the average joe player.

Again our Guild welcomes anyone from A Net to join in our runs and get real feed back from the average player. Not the elite of the game, as our guild will not start discriminating players going into dungeon based upon high or low skill. Gaming is a social behavior, not an exclusion.

THIS!!! The game is supposed to be fun. When it stops being fun because it becomes so hard that only the leetists and/or well-geared level 80s can do the first dungeon in the game, you will lose so many players and get such bad word-of-mouth that the game will die. I have seen about 10% of the newbies in our guild quit because they had to wait so long to be able to run a dungeon – not being able to do anything but story mode since no one but our guild would group them for explorable. Several of them I know were long-time MMO players who had just come to GW2, enjoyed it, then lost interest because of AC, and that was BEFORE the difficulty was put up higher.

You have Skype, Facebook and other things, maybe some players are having fun having challenges? This is game, not a therapy.

Rump Buffalo.2594:

Sleel.8365:

What these snarks who are so precise they piddle on a plate and make no splash can’t seem to rub two brain cells together to comprehend, is that AC is listed as a lvl 30 dungeon in SM. No way in hell’s half acre is a lvl 30 group in greens at best gonna do that mess. Hell, in explorer they list it as 35. Go make a vid of your lvl 35 group sailing thru the new changes, then get back to us on how awesome sauce you are.

I run AC as a level 35 in explorable and do just fine, on a thief no less. I really dont see what the problem is.

Granted i wish the dungeons were ACTUALLY hard and much better designed with interesting content and random events and hard fights like we were promised… not just STAND THERE AND SPAM AND GET 1 SHOT

also i’m one of the few people who, after coming to this game realized, that I want a gear treadmill, or some form of progression in a game… hit 80 got exotics…bored. This made me not even want to level anymore because what’s the point? There’s nothing to look forward to and the dungeon content is just bad.

I said you lvl 35 group. Not lvl 35 thief being carried by his buddies who aren’t.

Sleel.8365:

I said you lvl 35 group. Not lvl 35 thief being carried by his buddies who aren’t.

You have to ask how often he got rezzed while not being in stealth. Seriously its players like these that make me want to stop playing GW2 and ANet actually considering their input doesnt help either.

dungeons aren’t fun for me. They are varying levels of frustration. I can honestly say, I don’t understand how anyone can enjoy the mechanics of the them.

All I see are people either exploiting, getting one shotted or doing the one method to defeat the encounter. How is that good game design?

I love just about everything in gw2: wvw, pvp, pve, the event systems.. But dungeons and fractals are almost like a completely different game. First time I did a fractal, i was where is the fun in this?

shrug Maybe i’ll memorize the correct patterns/places to stand then it’ll be fun for me too.

Tungsten Monarch.6058:

There is some reverse trolling here, the Dungeons are way over the top difficult for the average player. Those thanking the Devs for increased difficulty are trolling the average players.

There was no need to increase the difficulty of AC or any other Dungeon. If you want them difficult then add a hard mode, and for regular mode add a sixth member or reduce the difficulty by 40%.

Right now all paths, all dungeons are absurd, GW1 was nothing like this, and this game had so much potential.

I will be looking at ESO, leaving and not returning.
ANET does not have their act together. Yes you may have my money, but you won’t be getting my money from the BLTC.

Support roles are weak and underpowered.
There are no control roles.
DAMAGE Warriors is about the only viable build.

Anet, you lost your way.

Last time i checked explorer mode is “hard mode” Story mode is made for the casual player and explorer is meant to be the hard end game content that cordinated groups can attempt to conquer. The fact that every single dungeon path is doable with a pug shows how far off they missed their mark. The GW1 dungeons were the story missions as well, they had a hard mode after u beat the story sure, and that’s what explorer is suppose to mimic.

Support roles are in no way or form weak your just not supporting the correct way. If u just mean healing then yea its a bit weak, but stacking 25 might on your team as well as fury, protection and swiftness as an elementalist while cleansing conditions on top of heals hard to say support isn’t strong.

Control roles do indeed exist and are OP on everything except bosses. Have you ever Line of sighted enemies and had them form a perfectly tight mob that you can then proceed to perma blind or stun and just laugh as not a single person on your team took a lick of damage?

Damage warriors aren’t that much better then any other class except for one particular dungeon. My ele in a mix of berserk’s and beryls hits for about 4k crits on autos as well as providing max might, fury, prot, swiftness as well as some spotty regen . While my warrior auto attacks for 6k at a much slower rate, with an occasional 35k burst (over 4 seconds) and offers no team support at all except 3 stacks of might, and a 40% uptime on fury. Idk why people think warriors are gods of everything.

As someone said in this topic, most dungeons in GW2 are about avoiding red circles.

The same could be said of the entire game, in general, to be honest.

One issue with dungeons is that there’s no clear explanation of what you’re supposed to do in any particular boss battle (which is something I never had an issue with in the other MMO). Just the basic knowledge to avoid red circles.

I feel that’s why boss battles aren’t as interesting as they could be. There’s no system to inform the users what to do.

As a follow up to that, most bosses are “difficult” simply due to either:

1. One-hitting everything.
2. Having an insane amount of HP.

Neither are particularly interesting. Yes, very good players can dodge everything from now until eternity, but it doesn’t make it enjoyable.

Another issue is, the game’s dungeons aren’t rewarding enough to be difficult or time consuming. (See: risk vs. reward)

So much rage.

The change to AC EM wasn’t to outright increase their difficulty, but to make the fights more interesting, considering how many of us have been complaining about the dull dungeon designs of GW2 compared to, say, WoW. However, the change to gravelings created an unintended consequence: multiple CCs from every thrash pack plus boss adds caused a severe spike in difficulty, especially for a dungeon tuned for level 35.

Now, to clarify: dull dungeon design does not equate to easy dungeon design.

Take for example the change to Ghost Eater (AC P2).

Pre-change, Ghost Eater was a tank-and-spank. You literally did not need to dodge anything, nor use the traps laid by Detha. The toughest part was actually the trash mobs prior to the encounter. Dull design.

Post change, they introduced the new Traps and the mechanic actually involving them. Your party had to assign people to alternate between Lifting and Pulling the slimes (previously thrash mobs nobody batted an eyelid for) and avoiding the boss’ devastating attacks until it changes phase. Interesting design.

To the OP, may I ask what kind of sample are you using to define the “average” player? Because I myself run dungeons with many of what I consider as “average”, including guild mates who play 5 hours a week, and they do fine once they get used to a particular mechanic.

Sub-80 characters always complain Explorable mode dungeons are “too hard” and proclaim that only 80s with full exotics can complete them with ease. I always challenge this statement by asking for their equipment and utilities. More often than not, people gear out their sub-80 characters in a mismatch of gear stats, e.g. a longbow Ranger with Condition Damage and Healing, or a Condition Necro with Critical Damage and Magic Find. 9 times out of 10, a Mesmer or Guardian complaining CM EM is impossible didn’t even equip Feedback or Wall of Reflection. Story Mode is where you can bump around blindly and see the pretty cutscences; in Explorable Mode, prepare accordingly.

Warriors are OP damage wise, so they’re the best class for speed clear purposes, like CoF 1 farming. The ones that do every dungeon with these OP full damage builds are actually the elite minority, those skilled enough to survive without investing on passive damage mitigation, HP or healing.
The “average player” (which I don’t find so average btw) you mention, shouldn’t give a kitten for that speed. If you’re having a bad time with dungeons, your goal should be just on completing them, and for this matter, warrior is not OP, not even close.
If you just want to complete dungeons, Guardian is your best bet BY FAR.

It surely sounds stupid, but you can’t compare this game with GW1. While GW1 was absolutely build centered, GW2 is much more about the player.
You can’t take GW1 as an example of what the difficulty shlould be, because once the 7-hero team was available, 95%+ of the content on that game was beatable without actually playing. You could just walk and open the fights which whatever attack you wanted for a good hero setup to follow you and demolish everything.

Here, you don’t need to learn any meta because there’s nothing close to that on this game besides a little optimization for speed clear groups. Meta-wise, you only need to group 5 well rounded, general purpose individual builds.
What you really need are 5 not terrible brains to understand those builds, 10 not terrible hands to use them and a little bit of communication.

Tungsten Monarch.6058:

There is some reverse trolling here, the Dungeons are way over the top difficult for the average player. Those thanking the Devs for increased difficulty are trolling the average players.

There was no need to increase the difficulty of AC or any other Dungeon. If you want them difficult then add a hard mode, and for regular mode add a sixth member or reduce the difficulty by 40%.

Right now all paths, all dungeons are absurd, GW1 was nothing like this, and this game had so much potential.

I rarely ever come to these forums, but this is exactly what I was thinking when I came here. The vast majority of players just want to have fun. The more serious players are always going to take something hard, and run it so many times that it becomes easy for them. So what’s the point in making things hard for the casual player? It’s just going to turn them off of the game completely.

I’ve actually only recently begun running dungeons, and they remind me of WoW raids, where everyone is expected to be fully prepared for each encounter. Only CoF has been actually fun for me. The others I’ve tried (AC and TA) are ridiculous. Why are there so many things that will one shot you and come out of nowhere? It’s so incredibly annoying for a new player.

These last few weeks of attempting dungeons has seriously made me miss other MMOs, and I find that to be a shame.

the issue is the same….

Some players with a fixed Group having some OP support builds asking for difficult content.

Obviously they don t play that much with random players.

I think their situation is completely the opposite of what should happen in a mmorpg…
MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER is not, “play with your few friends”, should be about knowing new players and adapting strategy to different party team and different players.

That is the fun and that is the challenge.

If you just play with your 4 friends every time in the same way its obvious the game SEEMS easy.

The reality is just you know how to face the limited AI and do not add variables to the game thus making it easy.

Unfortunately ANET gave credit to the wrong players it seems…..

But the thing is, once they will have learnt how to face ac, it will be uber easy again.

P.S. also we need to face the guardian in PvE issue……..if you have one in party it can carry the Whole party.

I think the majority of players I know that have left this game left because of the dungeons. I’ve had fun in them but when I first went into AC I was more than kittened off at how hard it seemed.

I don’t know how new players are going to get through AC ex now.

Ojimaru.8970:

So much rage.
To the OP, may I ask what kind of sample are you using to define the “average” player? Because I myself run dungeons with many of what I consider as “average”, including guild mates who play 5 hours a week, and they do fine once they get used to a particular mechanic.

Sub-80 characters always complain Explorable mode dungeons are “too hard” and proclaim that only 80s with full exotics can complete them with ease. I always challenge this statement by asking for their equipment and utilities. More often than not, people gear out their sub-80 characters in a mismatch of gear stats, e.g. a longbow Ranger with Condition Damage and Healing, or a Condition Necro with Critical Damage and Magic Find. 9 times out of 10, a Mesmer or Guardian complaining CM EM is impossible didn’t even equip Feedback or Wall of Reflection. Story Mode is where you can bump around blindly and see the pretty cutscences; in Explorable Mode, prepare accordingly.

I couldn’t have said it better. Dungeons take planning. All of your gear has to be up to level and matching the stats you want (greens are fine!). Knowing which utilities to slot for each fight is also important. Lastly, the difference between a good dodger and a bad dodger is the difference between a good dungeon runner and a bad dungeon runner.

Eliyahu.1467:

Ojimaru.8970:

So much rage.
To the OP, may I ask what kind of sample are you using to define the “average” player? Because I myself run dungeons with many of what I consider as “average”, including guild mates who play 5 hours a week, and they do fine once they get used to a particular mechanic.

Sub-80 characters always complain Explorable mode dungeons are “too hard” and proclaim that only 80s with full exotics can complete them with ease. I always challenge this statement by asking for their equipment and utilities. More often than not, people gear out their sub-80 characters in a mismatch of gear stats, e.g. a longbow Ranger with Condition Damage and Healing, or a Condition Necro with Critical Damage and Magic Find. 9 times out of 10, a Mesmer or Guardian complaining CM EM is impossible didn’t even equip Feedback or Wall of Reflection. Story Mode is where you can bump around blindly and see the pretty cutscences; in Explorable Mode, prepare accordingly.

I couldn’t have said it better. Dungeons take planning. All of your gear has to be up to level and matching the stats you want (greens are fine!). Knowing which utilities to slot for each fight is also important. Lastly, the difference between a good dodger and a bad dodger is the difference between a good dungeon runner and a bad dungeon runner.

Too casual for that, I should be able to mash my face on keyboard and win tokens.

I think that GW2 has a quite different skill differential compared to some other MMOs we’ve seen in the past. In some MMOs you could swap one Paladin, say, with another and know that they would both do the Paladin skills in much the same way and do a job for a group. This is not true in GW2. This is probably what leads to the different perceptions between players of how difficult the dungeons are.

This disparity might make it difficult for Anet to make dungeons that cater for all skill levels, however they’ve just got to do it. Some dungeons, or some paths of the lower level dungeons, should be at an entry level for beginners to learn their skills. If they designed each dungeon so that the easier paths were longer, and the difficult paths were shorter, it would probably please everyone.

I think dungeons are too easy since you don’t realy depend that much on other players in your team at all. Sure they can ress you, heal you a bit or take agro away from you but mostly it all revolvs around how well can you take care of yourself. Dungeons really ask too little team effort other than light torches at the same time or activate consoles to deactivate lasers at the same time. Combofields and finishers are too insignifcant to actually make team execute them on demand, they just happen from time to time. Both dungeons and combos need to get buffed and hardened so players could actually start play more like a team and less like a group of individuals.

If you ask me game is too casual, and if yuo have hard time beating cotent i think you should practice harder.

Chyrch.5470:

Tungsten Monarch.6058:

There is some reverse trolling here, the Dungeons are way over the top difficult for the average player. Those thanking the Devs for increased difficulty are trolling the average players.

There was no need to increase the difficulty of AC or any other Dungeon. If you want them difficult then add a hard mode, and for regular mode add a sixth member or reduce the difficulty by 40%.

Right now all paths, all dungeons are absurd, GW1 was nothing like this, and this game had so much potential.

I rarely ever come to these forums, but this is exactly what I was thinking when I came here. The vast majority of players just want to have fun. The more serious players are always going to take something hard, and run it so many times that it becomes easy for them. So what’s the point in making things hard for the casual player? It’s just going to turn them off of the game completely.

I’ve actually only recently begun running dungeons, and they remind me of WoW raids, where everyone is expected to be fully prepared for each encounter. Only CoF has been actually fun for me. The others I’ve tried (AC and TA) are ridiculous. Why are there so many things that will one shot you and come out of nowhere? It’s so incredibly annoying for a new player.

These last few weeks of attempting dungeons has seriously made me miss other MMOs, and I find that to be a shame.

I have to agree. The Dungeons here are just ridiculous and not fun. While I still log into GW2, the game actually inspired me to resubscribe to DCUO. I’d rather run FoS2 or Gates than do another Dungeon in here.

I’m pretty sure explorable dungeons were advertised as hardcore dungeon content for coordinated groups, not casual pugs.

Croth.6287:

I’m pretty sure explorable dungeons were advertised as hardcore dungeon content for coordinated groups, not casual pugs.

I am suprised too. Dungeons in this game are bad joke difficulty wise. WAY TOO EASY. Rarely ever any strategy needed except going full DPS and pressing V every now and then.

Dungeons are not that hard in this game, I don’t see what the OPs problem is. However, I do believe that there are a lot of bad pugs in this game and at this point, most pug groups are full of fail because the skilled players who grinded and learned the dungeons all those months ago have moved on to other things or only run with guild groups. That leaves your average person with nothing but fail groups full of lol100bladeslol warriors, tunnel vision auto attacking rangers, and other glass cannon specs that don’t know any of the encounters becasue they’re used to either being carried though the instance or skipping all of the content. Oh and warriors who are only used to doing cof path 1 speed runs.

Recently made an elementalist and am now trying to get it ptv gear. Decided to run AC exp but that was a joke. Most guildies have moved on from that dungeon and I’m forced to either wait for the occasional weekend guild run for money or pug it. Over the past weekend I think I’ve made about 6 attempts at all the paths of AC exp. Yesterday I was able to finish all three paths and I about kitten my pants. Today I managed to finish the first two paths, but not without going though about 4 groups before finding one that was competent enough to complete it. Even then, they barely squeaked by, and still not able to do path 3.

I’m not trying to be a dick here but in all honesty dungeons are a pretty huge joke. I’m assuming a majority of players in GW2 have never played EQ or WoW to experience really difficult encounters. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to put GW2 players in the roles of raiders and try to accomplish bosses like 40 man 4 Horseman, Muru or 0 Hardmode Mimiron. Those fights were difficult… Not these GW2 fights…

Anyways at the Meet N Greet over the weekend I was given the opportunity to speak with one of the dungeon developers. We discussed how dungeons will be changing and some will be getting more difficult while others will be reworked. Also we might even get to see “phase” fights like Luppi from Arah. I for one welcome this change!

The point is for all you guys complaining about the difficulty… Either learn new methods of playing your class effectively, actually USE PARTY CHAT, or just group with better players. These dungeons are not difficult… Playing with people who expect everything handed to them for no work makes them hard…

I swear kids these days! Grumble Grumble

Xionaz.7065:

I’m not trying to be a dick here but in all honesty dungeons are a pretty huge joke. I’m assuming a majority of players in GW2 have never played EQ or WoW to experience really difficult encounters. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to put GW2 players in the roles of raiders and try to accomplish bosses like 40 man 4 Horseman, Muru or 0 Hardmode Mimiron. Those fights were difficult… Not these GW2 fights…

I played EQ before even the first expansion came out. I’ve joined the mandatory hardcore raiding guilds where you have to raid 4-5 hours a night and need max lvl and at least 150+ alternate advancement levels and must be flagged for all the key dungeons to join.

I’ve done 100+ player raids before where a single mistake by one person could wipe the whole raid in seconds and undo hours of work.

Been there done that. Never want to again, and neither should anyone with any sanity or any hopes of having a social life.

GW2 is NOT EQ, and that’s one of the biggest reasons why I play it.