Guild Wars 2

I have played a couple of mmo’s and WoW being the one that I played for the longest. When I 1st heard of gw2 having dungeons I was really looking forward to running one being that dungeons is my favorite thing to do in mmo’s.

When I started in gw2 almost 30 days ago,I asked about the dungeons and at what level will I be able to run my 1st, and many advised me to wait to hit level 40,because of how hard the dungeons are, waited to level 40, but to keep getting kicked by level 80’s, and when I finally got into the level 35 dungeon,all I was doing was dying over and over,and this is by fire traps that come from the walls and spikes that come out of the ground. 1 hit and I was dead. Annoyed for sure.

I was so annoyed on how much damage I was taking, I mean I was getting hit once and died, I left after I died 5 or more times. I was new to it and the players were not waiting for me at all. And did not even offer any tips,there were not talking at all to say the least..

So I waited to I hit level 80 to then get into the level 30 story dungeon with a couple of low levels, players were level 64,54 and 35. We skipped so many bosses and mobs, and still it took nearly 1 hour to complete.

Then I join the level 35 dungeon to come find my self with all level 80’s, and to see them using a stair way and a pillar to hide and kill the spider boss. It annoyed me a ton to have seen that, but I learned fast why they were hiding, and it’s because the spider hits like a truck. Then came the small mob of lizards that roam a hall way that has many spiked traps coming up from the ground,the hallway that its before the troll in level 30 story dungeon. We climbed up some stones on the hall way entrance to be able to kill them lizards.

Then the last boss a big lizard, to also have to hide in a corner so we can kill it. Even my wife was confused on why this dungeon is so hard that even level 80’s skip 95% of the dungeon, and then use what is clearly a cheat to kill a boss.

Annoyed is an understatement, I kept telling my wife that this is the worse idea ever made and used for a dungeon design. It is labeled as for level 35’s, but yet 80’s hide because if not they will mostly die and have to restart from last waypoint.
Clearly Arena Net did not think this carefully,because it is a horrible design, and it is not enjoyable at all.
From all the dungeons that I ran in WoW, if they get titled level 15 dungeon, it means level 15’s can run it. If it said level 35 dungeon it meant that level 35’s could run it with no need of higher levels coming to help. The difference was on if the characters where geared ok and if they knew what they were doing with there skills. Because if you were not geared good and had only low level gear, but knew what the fights were like and how to use your character, the dungeon will get done no matter what.
I can only say that from all my runs in the dungeons as level 80 in gw2,only 1 was completed and only 3 bosses where killed and skipped all the mobs, and that was because all the level 80’s were geared up good.

Today I got into the level 35 dungeon to find a group of 3 80’s,my self 80 and a level 54. We did not complete the dungeon because the level 80’s quit on the area that we have to protect the npc from the lizards,which by the way all the lizards do is throw you around and eat at your health while your on the floor. Annoyed again is an Understatement.
After I left the dungeon I quit the game, logged in to quit again. Been thinking hard now if to even play gw2, I mean the questing is fun, purchased gw2 for my wife as well.
We have been completing each area to 100% before moving one to the next area.
But!! I ask my self, why play gw2 and not be able to enjoy it to the fullest?. Exploring can’t be the only thing gw2 can offer, it will get boring fast.
Let me also explain before any 1 jumps to say,>well did you try out wvw. My answer is Yes,,,, I tried WvW and what an unfairness it is to low levels, when facing a geared up level 80 not even 3 low levels can take one out, stay long enough and wind up dead too.

So that really got massively annoying too, when I played wvw most players where under level 80, we had some 80s but we were no match to the other server, we were outnumbered massively,we had 40 players and they had what I could see as double that. They just ran thru and we simply died, only the level 80’s in our group lasted some good 30 seconds if much.

I really do hope that Arena Net gets something done with the dungeons. Because if not I don’t see my self spending no time in gw2. My motto is simple, give me a reason to stay and I will stay, don’t and I am out.

Open world play leaves you woefully unprepared for dungeons. Once you learn the basic mechanics of each dungeon, they’re fine. Watch some videos or find a dungeon mentor to teach you (there are many in this forum).

If you don’t like stacking/skipping, say so in your LFG and you’ll get to play with like-minded people … let all the others play the way they want to play just as you would like to play the way you want to play.

As for WvW: Ascended gear and Applied fortitude/strength give WvW veterans an enormous advantage over those who are upleveled. And the worst part is even when you hit level 80, you need to put in some serious grind to get these for your toons.
We warned Anet about both these features. They didn’t listen.

The 80s are not hiding they use a tactic called stacking if you dont like it post your own lfg and say no stacking ,same with skipping past mobs . If you dont like this playstyle dont do it but dont force us the players who like stacking,skipping to play how you want. Also stacking is not cheating is a tactic.
If you dont find dung fun anyway go play dungeons in wow,problem fixed.

Legion.6503:

I was so annoyed on how much damage I was taking, I mean I was getting hit once and died, I left after I died 5 or more times. I was new to it and the players were not waiting for me at all. And did not even offer any tips,there were not talking at all to say the least…

3 ways to deal with this. Look up a guide online, tell people you’re new when you start the dungeon or join a mentor run. The mentor thread is stickied at the top of this sub-forum.

Legion.6503:

Then I join the level 35 dungeon to come find my self with all level 80’s, and to see them using a stair way and a pillar to hide and kill the spider boss. It annoyed me a ton to have seen that, but I learned fast why they were hiding, and it’s because the spider hits like a truck.

They’re not hiding, they’re stacking. There’s a simple reason for this on this boss. Her poison AoE is evil but it only activates when her target is out of melee range. Stacking there allows you to always be in melee range and removes the annoyance of the gargoyle heads in the room. You can get the same results in the room she spawns by just all going close and meleeing, but then you have to watch out for the gargoyle heads or just kill them but it takes a lot longer.

Also as a side note while you’re stacking in that corner you can still dodge. Highly advisable you do. You can see her rear back to attack, so learn that tell and dodge. Bam no damage.

Legion.6503:

Then the last boss a big lizard, to also have to hide in a corner so we can kill it. Even my wife was confused on why this dungeon is so hard that even level 80’s skip 95% of the dungeon, and then use what is clearly a cheat to kill a boss.

Once again stacking not cheating or hiding.

Legion.6503:

From all the dungeons that I ran in WoW, if they get titled level 15 dungeon, it means level 15’s can run it. If it said level 35 dungeon it meant that level 35’s could run it with no need of higher levels coming to help. The difference was on if the characters where geared ok and if they knew what they were doing with there skills. Because if you were not geared good and had only low level gear, but knew what the fights were like and how to use your character, the dungeon will get done no matter what.

Level 35’s can run it with no help from higher levels. I regularly do low level runs when I’m levelling a character. As soon as I get to 30 I’m in story mode. 35 I’m in explorable mode. 40 and I’m in the story of Caudecus’ Manor etc.

Legion.6503:

I kept telling my wife that this is the worse idea ever made and used for a dungeon design.

I’m sure she thought long and hard after this discussion.

I can fully understand topic author on his point. I think the problem isn’t the difficulty of dungeons – this can be made by exotic 80’s with pleasure – but lack of dungeons for low-level players.

When I was first leveling my main, that wasn’t a big deal at all as I was very excited about the world and events. So I could abadon doing dungeons. But now, while exping my 4th alt, I WOULD LOVE TO have some dungeons from level 10 to 79. With normal difficulty level. Honestly, this would bring a new level of fun and motivation to play on my alts, as I am already bored of doing 100% regions, events, personal story and hearts. This would bring me into the game again.

So, taking info accideration, leave your extra-hard 8 dungeons if you want, but please, insert some normal-difficulty dungeons for low levels, too. You can name them different way (“trip” or something), but you have to do this to keep the new players in. Really.

And you zerkers don’t hate him because it’s easy for you. Why you are sending him back to wow? Its good that he helps improving the game – use your brain. Try to understand the other side also. I am an old player but have a lot of friends in game who started to play 1 month ago – they all agree that dungeons difficulty is CRAZY (for low lvls). This will not keep ’em in.

Don’t get me wrong here:

The dungeon difficulty is of another kind then wow. Let’s be honest, there are no difficult dungeons in wow and people are used to simply speedclear every dungeon in wow (Not talking about Raids). I played wow the last half year again and it is awful. Those dungeons are not fun. There is no skill related to anything in wow dungeons until you get into HM max level and even then it’s cheese, as you need at most 10 runs until you outgear that stuff. This is simply not possible in GW2, you can not outgear anything which leads to the assumptions that the dungeons are tough. They are simply not getting a lot easier by gearing up, except the difference from gear by leveling up, which is a big boost and an understandable big problem for new players. A lot of my friends quit after lvl 35 as they realized this is not wow dungeon style. We held through until 80 and realized those dungeons are not meant for a full group of low level guys. But you can still bring a friend that is just 35 while you are running it on 80.

Secondly, GW2 dungeons depend on a lot more then just tanking, healing brain afk dps. You have to dodge and use active defenses in the right time. You have to really know what kind of build is viable in the dungeon or for this boss. You have to learn most mechanics to be able to beat the boss without too much trouble. Again in WoW you simply outgear most stuff and if not, somebody else most likely is. And even if all are running in low equip, you can mostly still manage to run the dungeon without learning too much new stuff. Boses in wow often have one defining mechanic that is easily figured out and beaten.

Third: GW2 Dungeon/Boss mechanics are gimmicky, bad and in need of a major redesign. Things like defiance and condition damage come to mind. It’s shamefull that after nearly two years this stuff is still not solved nor on the agenda. Ai of enemies is also a joke, very simple scripts and one hit attacks are not fun and the whole system is exploitable with skips and stacks. Even though sometimes stacking is a good tactic and imposed But most times stacking is simply used to “exploit” the boss mechanics and make it a sandsack. Only ANET is to blame here, not the user that are using this tactic.

I don’t think you have been to Arah yet.

Lindbur.2537:

I don’t think you have been to Arah yet.

Shhhhhh, don’t give him ideas!

ah….no, from what i’ve read, seem like OP only been to AC, let not mentioned arah yet.

edit:
@OP:
Did you mention in any of your group that you are new?

Get a guild, it solves all your problems.

Dalanor.5387:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8loznS38Xg8

edit:
@OP:
Did you mention in any of your group that you are new?

Very nice. But still it’s level 80, not 35.

Go do Arah Explorable. I think you’ll have a ton of fun.

In all seriousness, uhhh, it’s quite possible the dungeons in GW2 just aren’t for you. They’re legitimately pretty hard. They weren’t kidding when they said this MMO foregoes the Trinity in favor of everyone pulling their own weight. You’re expected to keep track of your own health, dodge and mitigate damage with your class abilities, and do as much damage as you can within your own personal skill level.

I think one of the issues with GW2 is that, because there’s no trinity, but mobs still run around doing tons of damage, you have to do some pretty creative things to mitigate damage. For instance, with no tank to ball up aggro all on himself, LoSing entire pulls behind corners becomes even more important since it’s one of our only tools to control aggro in a manageable way. Flawed, for sure, but that’s just how it is. I suggest looking at some dungeon guides (even these really old ones will do: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzYy8FVzP3HbRLyaW41fgKvvcBivmXUYD) and see how the dungeons are done. It’s a different game, and it’s perfectly understandable if you find it’s just not for you. However, if you still want to try and enjoy the dungeons, you’d best try and find out how they’re generally done efficiently, and see if you can’t glean some knowledge from that.

However, even though many of us enjoy the dungeons in this game, it is quite possible you just don’t have the skill level or playstyle to enjoy them, which is fine. They’re very different from other MMOs and require a really different sort of way of thinking, but if you’re insistent on learning how to do dungeons, my suggestion is watching some video guides, going to http://gw2dungeons.net for an up-to-date text guide, and then go looking around for speedclear, ‘meta’, or dungeon builds for your class.

OH, and most importantly, find a good guild that’s willing to run dungeons with you. Running with friends is better than PUGing.

A player wants to clear a dungeon for the first time. He joins a party and despite his complete lack of experience he expects the group to use the tactics he wants even though he has no idea what he is doing. He also expects to faceroll the content on his first run because thats what he could do in another game. Does anybody else find this logic to be unreasonable?

Clumsy.6257:

A player wants to clear a dungeon for the first time. He joins a party and despite his complete lack of experience he expects the group to use the tactics he wants even though he has no idea what he is doing. He also expects to faceroll the content on his first run because thats what he could do in another game. Does anybody else find this logic to be unreasonable?

Exactly. People are weird. Oo

OP, for what it is worth, I can empathize with you, but I think you are being too impatient. Dungeons are “end game” content meaning that they represent some of the hardest content in the game. To me they are actually the most fun thing in the game at this point. That said, I went through the same growing pains as you in not understanding why people were stacking in certain places and why I couldn’t clear a level 35 dungeon with a bunch of other level 35 players at all.

I think the big problem is that the leap from PVE running around fighting things to dungeons is a HUGE step up. Unless you are soloing champs in PVE you haven’t really seen fights that will match what you see in dungeons. Further more, nothing out in PVE encourages (let alone requires) team coordination. If you want to prepare yourself I might suggest finding a partner and tag-teaming a couple of champs in mid to harder PVE zones so you begin to get used to watching your partner’s buffs and conditions alongside your own and then learn to watch boss mechanics so you can dodge/block/interrupt/etc.

Once you have that down then head back into dungeons because you will be more aware of what is happening. AC path 3 is probably not a great learning dungeon because of all the safe spotting but realize that people have been doing these dungeons for well over a year so they have found the “easiest” way to do some of these fights. I would suggest to try AC P1 instead so at least you get an open fight where you can see the mechanics of the last boss (unless the team shoves it into a wall which can happen). If you are up for it, SE P1 is also a really good learning dungeon in my opinion as well because there are a couple of bosses in there that have basic mechanics that will force you to do more than just stack and try to faceroll.

As has already been said here too, start your own group and advertise that you are new. I know there are a lot of people that will join in and show you the ropes if they know going in that it is a group of new people. Ask lots of questions when you get a group like this with an experienced person so you can learn why things are done the way they are and get tips about fights, character builds, etc.

But don’t give up. You are just getting to the fun part of the game and I think if you invest just a little bit more time you will really enjoy the dungeon experience in GW2.

They do this because it is easy and efficient.

ANet couldn’t design dungeons in a way to avoid stacking and thus we have garbage gameplay like this.

AC is perfectly doable with a full lvl35 group.
Players probably need, however, a deep understanding of each encounter, the comabt system and the charcaters themselves, which is something that often requires several runs and would push new players far beyond lvl35 (and not exactly through a pleasant experience).
On top fo this, some of the tactics used by lvl80 groups might not work at their best.

runeblade.7514:

They do this because it is easy and efficient.

ANet couldn’t design dungeons in a way to avoid stacking and thus we have garbage gameplay like this.

You can’t prevent stacking. You could introduce mechanics that punish people for standing close together but that becomes irrelevant in coordinated groups and will only hurt newbs and pugs. You could also remove all corners to prevent LoSing but that would leave all dungeons as wide open shapes which would be incredibly boring. So basically preventing stacking is impossible. The only half workable solution would be to improve AI to make mobs run out of AoE but this still only hurts newbs and pugs because trash dies too fast in speed.runs and wouldn’t be able to run away.

Neko.9021:

They weren’t kidding when they said this MMO foregoes the Trinity in favor of everyone pulling their own weight. You’re expected to keep track of your own health, dodge and mitigate damage with your class abilities, and do as much damage as you can within your own personal skill level.

This.

@OP I am sure that there is always room to improve in dungeon desing and many other areas but you shoul first try to learn about the mechanics of the game like Aggro Reflect Evade Block Unblockable. Hope it can help you in your future dungeon runs if you try it again.
The problem you may find then is that most people build and play his characters in a way that does not help the group, and the only result to it is a slow and painful fight wich will end in a wipe of your party leaving tanky/healing the last to die not because they have better builds/gear but because they will be ignored by the AI since damage as you can read in the aggro link is in place 2-3 of the aggro table.

Watch out for the red circles on the ground, that means there are spikes or other nasty things there. As for flame walls, watch out for them, run as soon as they go off.

Yeah, the way dungeons are handled in this game is awkward.

On the plus side, they’re more versatile and interactive than what you see in a lot of MMOs. Most defense is active, so you have to constantly be aware of positioning, telegraphs, and AoEs. Several bosses have gimmicks, with some being more interesting and unique than others. Many bosses are just a difficult fight. You get rewarded riskier and braver actions, and the lack of roles means that the outcome of any fight is chaotic and unpredictable.

On the minus side, the best way to run them is counterintuitive to what one would normally expect. Corner pulling isn’t anything new, but all stacking on bosses to avoid mechanics, pushing skills into walls for maximum damage, wildly disproportionate damage between ranks of enemies and kinds of enemies, disproportionate reward distribution between enemies… it makes the whole thing very random and off-putting. I can easily see how someone wouldn’t find dungeons that entertaining to them.

Legion.6503:

I was so annoyed on how much damage I was taking, I mean I was getting hit once and died, I left after I died 5 or more times. I was new to it and the players were not waiting for me at all. And did not even offer any tips,there were not talking at all to say the least..

here’s some tips
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgyk71VRoUE

The combat is a perfectly serviceable means to interact with the other features and social systems in the game. And those systems are so legitimately genre redefining, it’s worth sticking around just to experience them.

Living Story? Slowly but surely became excellent. Microtransaction model? One of the best I’ve ever seen. Fostering cooperation over competition? Brilliant. Megaserver system? A technical marvel.

The combat?
/gestures vaugely.
Eh.

If it makes you feel any better, as a non-subscription game you could always play until the things you are enjoying have lost their luster, duck out for a few months, and come back later to see if something new piques your interest.

OP, there are a couple of problems that you are experiencing here. One is that Ascalonian Catacombs got a bit of a buff about six or so months into the game. Unfortunately it doesn’t work as a very good introduction to dungeons. It can be done quickly, but when it was first revamped there were people complaining that it was now too hard.

The second is that after 18 months players have become very efficient with optimal strategies. Dungeons were intended to take about 30 minutes for a good team, but these days I consider twenty minutes a bit on the long side with pugs. Wipes on lower level dungeons are far less common than even six months ago with PuGs.

There are a number of principles to dungeon running that you won’t be familiar with, which the rest of us have acquired quite slowly. To this end try the dungeon mentors group. They can tell you about why Line of Sight, stacking, blinds, timing dodges and boons are all important and how to incorporate into your play style.

I feel your complaints have definite merit (LoS exploits poor AI for instance) but I promise there is more to dungeon running than you have experienced so far.

IMO, Anet could learn a few things from WoW, it’s dungeon system is great:

• The game alerts new players of dungeon mechanics most of the time, as well has how said mechanic should be dealt with. i.e. players dont need to keep explaining the dungeon mechanics to newbs over and over again.
• Random dungeon queue: convenience that trumps many forms of elitism.
• Random dungeon queue: also gives currency for every “dungeon gear set”
• Random dungeon queue: ensures all dungeons are played
• Penalty for leaving early
• You queue for a dungeon and enter a dungeon, none of this: is it open on ur map? its locked out on mine.
• multiple types of viable builds, instead of gw2’s “direct dmg or gtfo”

Clumsy.6257:

runeblade.7514:

They do this because it is easy and efficient.

ANet couldn’t design dungeons in a way to avoid stacking and thus we have garbage gameplay like this.

You can’t prevent stacking. You could introduce mechanics that punish people for standing close together but that becomes irrelevant in coordinated groups and will only hurt newbs and pugs. You could also remove all corners to prevent LoSing but that would leave all dungeons as wide open shapes which would be incredibly boring. So basically preventing stacking is impossible. The only half workable solution would be to improve AI to make mobs run out of AoE but this still only hurts newbs and pugs because trash dies too fast in speed.runs and wouldn’t be able to run away.

>Says can’t prevent stacking.
>List ways to prevent stacking.

Okay.

The biggest problem holding back GW2’s dungeons is their low difficulty. Anything intended as a challenge is still designed to be accessible to 90 percent of the players. To kill Zhaitan I stand at a turret and click fire over and over. Really? WTF.

GW2 is a button mash except for a few of the bosses who require either a map geometry-exploit or some specific kind of stacked spamming.

I would rather be playing GW2 than WoW, but the dungeons in GW2 have never once been as challenging or as enjoyable as WoW’s, and it really all does come down to design decisions.

In WoW, you had to be very careful what you pulled in a dungeon, and generally based upon your party there was some optimal plan of attack that each group could stick to. The mobs were fewer but tougher, and the fights were slower paced but they really punished mistakes; a single bad fear that you failed to cure/evade could wipe your party.

And wiping mattered. You didn’t just restart from the last checkpoint some kind of Wii platform game. You almost always had to go far back and have to do something boring or tough all over again. You could even miss your chance for loot from a particular encounter. In GW2, wipes are nothing, especially since armor repairs became free. You just run right through the half-dozen respawns and you’re almost good as new. Why even have death anymore, just give a revive on cooldown that we can shorten with $10 gem upgrades? ;P

Specific enemies required tactics. And once you were in a fight with them, based on their enemy class/race, you would have to use different skills. One particular sub-boss might require the group’s mage to keep up the freezing and drop it at just the right moment, for example. There were even cycles of attacks where multiple party members would have to coordinate – or you might not win. Never really had anything like that in GW2. Any pug I go with can get through anything unless someone just doesn’t have a clue, and even that doesn’t matter if you have more than one warrior.

And then there’s the loot. In WoW, the random rolls for equipment were part of the excitement, and that equipment was so scarce that wearing it would make you stand out. It was great but it makes more sense in a subscription game than a pay as you go like GW2. GW2 rewards crafting for gear instead of looting; you’re not going to build up your stock with drops from dungeon bosses, you’re more likely to sell off or salvage everything. Why can’t there be super-rare unique rewards from some of the hardest bosses? It doesn’t even have to be gear – it could be a companion pet, a chest of buffs, a new skin, a new title to select under your name if you had some kind of difficult achievement…could be anything.

All it would take to save GW2’s dungeons is someone going through and reorganizing the NPC positioning and stats so that it’s more important to have a plan than to have raw damage output, which as of now just melts its way through every map.

runeblade.7514:

Clumsy.6257:

runeblade.7514:

They do this because it is easy and efficient.

ANet couldn’t design dungeons in a way to avoid stacking and thus we have garbage gameplay like this.

You can’t prevent stacking. You could introduce mechanics that punish people for standing close together but that becomes irrelevant in coordinated groups and will only hurt newbs and pugs. You could also remove all corners to prevent LoSing but that would leave all dungeons as wide open shapes which would be incredibly boring. So basically preventing stacking is impossible. The only half workable solution would be to improve AI to make mobs run out of AoE but this still only hurts newbs and pugs because trash dies too fast in speed.runs and wouldn’t be able to run away.

>Says can’t prevent stacking.
>List ways to prevent stacking.

Okay.

You should probably read a post before you comment on it. I clearly stated the possible fixes for stacking and why they wouldn’t change anything for organized groups but would hurt pugs. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for attempting these fixes (except the “remove all corners” idea) if only for the reason that it would force pugs to actually play better or not be able to finish.

It wouldn’t be a bad idea to include “Infantile Mode” to dungeons that lets people practice. Instead of loot reward, award a skill point and like 5 silver. I have a lot of trouble with some bosses, and it would be perfect if the game alerted me to the mechanics for practice.

there is no way you should be getting one hit in dungeon unless you are going zerk or closer to that end… outside of a few bosses

if not ready for full damage then put more stats into surviveability

spikes in floors have red circles….what was the rule in wow? dont run ahead and dont stand in red stuff

There are a few fun dungeons and quite a number of boring dungeons with stacking mechanics in guild wars 2.

Interesting ones are some in fractals and TA aether path(tough but really fun imo) as far as I can remember, been out of game since late last year. Overall I feel they still need to improve the dungeons somehow to make them fun, challenging and rewarding at the same time as most of them at the moment feels like a grind.

I agree with the guy above that loots can be further improved, to make the game more exciting.

Clumsy.6257:

runeblade.7514:

Clumsy.6257:

runeblade.7514:

They do this because it is easy and efficient.

ANet couldn’t design dungeons in a way to avoid stacking and thus we have garbage gameplay like this.

You can’t prevent stacking. You could introduce mechanics that punish people for standing close together but that becomes irrelevant in coordinated groups and will only hurt newbs and pugs. You could also remove all corners to prevent LoSing but that would leave all dungeons as wide open shapes which would be incredibly boring. So basically preventing stacking is impossible. The only half workable solution would be to improve AI to make mobs run out of AoE but this still only hurts newbs and pugs because trash dies too fast in speed.runs and wouldn’t be able to run away.

>Says can’t prevent stacking.
>List ways to prevent stacking.

Okay.

You should probably read a post before you comment on it. I clearly stated the possible fixes for stacking and why they wouldn’t change anything for organized groups but would hurt pugs. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for attempting these fixes (except the “remove all corners” idea) if only for the reason that it would force pugs to actually play better or not be able to finish.

I did read it. All I see is how you list ways to prevent stacking with minor consequences.

As if any solution isn’t going to have any consequences at all.

1. GW2 is based around dodging which has many consequences all of which have been complained about endlessly: nothing matters but DPS stats b/c mobs 1-shot regardless of gear, content becomes trivial once you learn the boss attacks, content is too hard when you don’t know the attacks, healing is worthless, etc.

2. Rewards are crap except the completion reward (gold). So skipping everything to run the dungeon faster is the best policy. Anet made the stupid decision to have mobs deagro (if mobs did that in WoW everyone would skip as well) so skipping seems to be encouraged.

3. The dungeons actually are intended for the given level. However, a) they didn’t do a good job balancing b) downscaled 80’s are significantly more powerful than 35’s and c) see point 1.

Oakwind.6187:

It wouldn’t be a bad idea to include “Infantile Mode” to dungeons that lets people practice. Instead of loot reward, award a skill point and like 5 silver. I have a lot of trouble with some bosses, and it would be perfect if the game alerted me to the mechanics for practice.

Too much effort. ANet really doesn’t care about dungeon balance. Warrior, guardian, elementalist still top dogs after all this time and game still revolves around skipping mobs with berserker gear.

runeblade.7514:

I did read it. All I see is how you list ways to prevent stacking with minor consequences.

As if any solution isn’t going to have any consequences at all.

Your still not getting it. I listed “possible” solutions to stacking and why they would fail. The only solution that would actually work with a 100% guarantee would be removing all walls, corners, and terrain from dungeons. There isn’t a way to remove stacking (aka LoSing, something that’s in every mmorpg ever released) without making dungeons visually unappealing or creating an insane difference in the time it takes pugs and organized groups to run dungeons.

I kind of read your post the same way runeblade did.
I think it depends on whether you consider ‘being bad for newbies’ a dealbreaker or not.

You kind of just let that hang in the air as though it were a conclusion. But, technically, the word of god on dungeons is that they’re supposed to be spaces for organized play. So, encouraging more organization at the expense of approachability seems pretty in-line with their stated goals. If you wanted to make your suggestions seem like failures, you would had to have to gone a little farther and spelled out why unorganized-pug-busting would be a downside and not just how organized play normally works.

(Admittedly, it seems you don’t actually think that’s a downside. I’m just saying, there’s where the communication breakdown happens).

Maybe I’m phrasing my arguments badly. I don’t care if Anet introduces mechanics that completely eliminates all uncoordinated groups from being able to complete dungeons (Actually I’d be all for this idea but that’s another topic) In fact I’d love it if Anet tried to introduce these ideas to dungeons. The most obvious solutions to attempt to stop stacking are adding anti-AoE mechanics to trash mobs/bosses or adding incredibly punishing PBAoE, both of which would stop all stacking in pug groups. Neither of these “solutions” would stop stacking in organized groups. Coordinated CC, active defenses, and high DPS would keep either of those solutions from working. Stacking can’t be removed unless Anet redesigns the entire games combat.