Guild Wars 2

So I already did Molten Weapon Facility with my guild, and to be honest it was fun till the end fight, where I was dead for about 80% of the time.

But I digress. Tonight I asked a few friends, who have not finished it, if they wanted to go run it and the response was unanimous : no its too hard, and not fun. This got me thinking, because these same people would run dungeons in our previous MMO all the time, and sometimes even raid. That was an MMO with trinity.

So my question is, are dungeons not for casual “fun” play in Guild Wars 2, and is it because of the no trinity system.

I consider myself “casual” and they are fun for me. If you die because you didn’t know something about the dungeon that doesn’t make it hard. Dungeons or this game isn’t at all that difficult imo.

Those who know or learn the final boss mechanic don’t find this dungeon too hard. We had one guildie who ran a couple of groups before I took her through it. She vowed never to go in there again, but I convinced her to give it one more try.

We had two people down on the final boss and no deaths at all. And I’m not a “leet” player. I just know what works for me.

It’s like anything else. It’s hard until you know how to do it.

Ran it at least 45 times (not including the four or so times we got kicked out). Never had any trouble when people knew what to do.

I actually ran it on my full-tank guardian with runes of superior mercy so I could revive people as quickly as they were dropping. Thing is, I hardly ever got downed on the final boss even on my pure glass thief.

Stay out of firestorm’s AoE pools, burn it down while avoiding ’serker’s fairly weak melee and jumping/dodging his stomps (very easy to do). Phase two, stack directly under ‘serker for his stomps (you can also jump them, it’s just safer to stack). Very simple formula.

Compared to even TA’s required first boss encounter, it’s laughably easy. Doesn’t mean I didn’t have to spend most of my time reviving people who weren’t familiar/wouldn’t follow advice, but I myself learned with the first run.

Honestly, the most annoying fight in the whole dungeon is when you get translucent slimes at the end of the tunnel.

Right Wbborox, I also see myself as “casual” but I play often and do lots of content. It seems that because the no trinity system, many casual players see dungeons as a crazy fight, and die a lot. Result: they stop doing dungeons all together.

Dungeons are casual friendly, very few take longer then 45 minutes.
Dungeons are not bad friendly, play better and you won’t have issues.

I suppose the fight isn’t hard if you know the strategy. I only done the dungeon once. Killed the flying boss easily, and the second boss I was dead half of the fight. But my guildmate finish it easily. Something about stacking under the boss and autoattack.

Meh. I did it once. Didn’t have much trouble, but didn’t have much fun either. Seemed more tedious than anything.

I think the problem with GW2 dungeons is that there is no defined role for people to play, and many casual players need that. Dungeons are not too hard for “skilled” players, but true casual players,( they don’t read forums or patch notes, they just log in and play), simply find them not fun, even though these very same players did dungeon/raid content before GW2.

I suspect those who quit doing dungeons fall into one of two catergories.

1: Those that find them too hard. I was sort of in this catergory myself the first few times I tried them. Most of these players are probably trying to do them in gear not suitable such as Magic find or full glass cannon. Sure DPS is great but you have to have some survivability as well. If no one does who will be left alive to res everyone?. So if you find it too tough try mixing your build/gear up a bit.

2: People who just find them plain boring after the first time through and who ususually don’t like grinding. I myself will probably stop after I have got the achievements for them all. I see no point in doing them. I don’t find the armours that appealing except maybe one set. Sure some people might say it’s good cash, well I play for fun and tbh I don’t find “rushing” the same content over and over and over just for some shinies fun at all. Especially when most just want to exploit, skip content or the other negative things I’ve seen when doing them on ocassion.

Well that’s my opinion, in my tired state of mind so I hope that perhaps sort of gives you some reasons why some people don’t like doing them lol.

Players looking for a laid-back run through a dungeon in GW2, expecting it to be the same as a dungeon in other MMO’s, are going to find the GW2 dungeons hard. Other games’ dungeons and even raids do not prepare players to be successful in GW2 dungeons, and neither does GW2 open world content.

Partly it is the culture shock of not being shoehorned into the “grab aggro,” “nurture health bars,” and “kill mobs” roles. That’s not all, though. Movement and positioning are very important. It’s necessary to watch what’s going on and act to avoid nasty looking stuff. Also, timing is important. Mitigation skills (dodge, block, reflect, invulnerability) are short-term and some have longish cooldowns, so knowing what to use them on and when is critical. I can’t even count the times I’ve seen players dodge out of red circles 2 or 3 seconds after the circle appeared, or dodge a nasty attack too soon, meaning the dodge was over before the attack hit them (Kohler comes to mind here).

It helps to run dungeons with people who are patient, have done it before and know what they’re doing. It makes dungeons a lot more fun. I’ve often run people through dungeons they hated, only to change their entire view of the dungeon. Because I go slow, I explain things, I’m patient, and I endeavor to make dungeon runs fun. Those who are “all business” including most pugs are the ones that make dungeon runs unfun.

“Casual” has no strict definition, but I play every day for several hours. I consider myself above average in that I am a PLANNER. I spend a good deal of time out-of-game questing for answers to my GW2 questions, and more time tweaking my characters before I set foot out of town. My main(s) are fully exotic-equipped level 80s who can handle their own easily enough in most PvE situations, and I have proven victorious better than half the time in the several instances where I ran up against a WvW Invader 1 vs 1. But I have yet to begin enjoying Dungeon content because it seems too hard.

I would dearly LOVE to be able to do Dungeons. Mainly because I’m a mix ‘n’ match Armor-holic and that is the only way to get certain pieces. But also because everything in GW2 ends in a Dungeon. EVERYTHING. Halloween ended in a Dungeon. The Karka content ended in a Dungeon. Wintersday ended in a Dungeon. The Super Adventure Box was a Dungeon. Flame and Frost ended in a Dungeon. Even my PERSONAL STORY ends in a Dungeon. So if I can’t do Dungeons, I’m pretty much outta luck. I see the buildup of a story, and never get to experience the end.

So why can’t I do Dungeons? It seems to me that Dungeons are designed to be something that kills you again and again until you “learn the ropes”. I understand that, and am willing to take my lumps while I learn. School of Hard Knocks, and all that. (Some people just may not want to pay the price, Diva… perhaps that is why your friends didn’t want to do the Molten Weapon Facility. It can be frustrating dying all the time for little reward in sight.) Then (I assume) after I get to know the ins-and-outs of a Dungeon, I will be able to buckle down and enjoy it.

My problem is that I can’t get that much-needed initial experience. First and foremost, I am part of a tiny Guild of real-life friends, and it is hard to get all of us online at the same time to scrape up a party of 5. And playing with strangers is usually a drag. They are usually experienced, and want to run, run, run! I try to be “cool”; I skip cut scenes (but I WOULD like to see them at least once, to have some idea what the goal is), and I participate as best I can. But if I run, run, run it is hard to learn the tricks of a Dungeon because I’m so busy trying to keep up. And if I don’t, then I am afraid the more experienced folks will either kick me or leave themselves.

What we need (in my humble opinion) is DUNGEON SCALING to the number of party members. That way when just a couple of my Guildies are online, we could get experience, learn the Dungeon, and not be a hindrance when we DO join up with a full-sized party of more experienced players.

In the meantime, it would be nice to see people who are getting bored with the game step up and help out like Vayne. People in front of Dungeons offering their tutelage as party leaders to go slow, explain things, and be patient. (“Dungeon Master looking for students!”)

I feel I am a little more than “casual”, though by no means one of the “OMG this is soooo easy!” elite fanboy types. To me, the question of Dungeons being too hard comes down to my inability to get the needed experience to understand how each particular one should be tackled. I have the ambition (armor-holic / want to see how the stories end). I WANT to be able to do Dungeons, and understand there will be a learning curve for each one. I just don’t have a good avenue towards getting that education. And I can understand how the more causal amongst us just might not enjoy all the dying that an education usually entails. That’s possibly how your friends see it, Diva. If you have the manpower and patience to teach them, they might eventually learn to like it. As Vayne said, it’s hard until you know how to do it. But some folks will never like putting up with the “learning curve” part. You yourself admit you had fun until the part where you were dead 80% of the time.

And here I thought that being a “casual” player means you have little time to play and/or do not make a living out of the game…

@OP:

Evaluate why you die so much. Is it the dungeon’s fault? I don’t think so – as many others are finishing it. Is it your gear? Your team mate’s skills? Your own skills?

I don’t know if I could call myself casual – I only have 850hrs since release, 600ish of those is on one toon. I only have 2 level 80s, 3 others are below level 20s.

Like Vayne said, It’s hard until you know how to do it.

I died ****tons to AC before, now I lead pugs on it. I died ****tons to CoF before, now I join those “zerker” farmers.

As arrogant as it sounds, and it is not my intent – I will tell this to you in a positive way – learn to play. Practice. Learn from mistakes. Remember that skill that killed you because you didn’t dodge? Remember the time you tried to save your heal to a near 0 hp and you got killed in the process? Remember the time where you charged alone and got mobbed?

Hamfast.8719: Every thing he said – sorry could not quote the lot and add everything I said.

This is pretty much a huge reason I think a lot of people don’t do dungeons as well, myself included (for putting them off more than not doing them). I think the real problem is that in order to get the armours you have to run the dungeons so many times thus creating the “rush, rush, rush” attitude that we do see with the bulk of the community. Which of course puts some others off.

Ideally you would think well story mode would be good for learning the very basics since everyone doing story should be doing so only for that, the story since you can’t get dungeon tokens. Yet that is even hard to get into because obviosuly most people don’t want to do them because of the no token thing.

Perhaps the solution is to add a new mode, have it called “experiance”. Basically just have the dungeons exactly the same as explore but cutscenes are taken out. This mode would ideally be for the “farmers” and those experianced in the dungeon. It would speed up their runs and leave “explore” mode open for those who like to learn and go slow to totally enjoy the mechanics and story.

Also personally I liked dungeons more in GW1 and another game I used to play. Mainly because they were of the type where you walk in and clear room by room or area of monsters to reach the end boss to beat it. It gives you a sense of progression doing these types and not just running through mobs/avoiding this or that because it will kill you or slow you down.

Here we have respawning mobs, sometimes instantly and right on top of you and such other bad mechanics it can get just plain annoying and seem stupid and emersion breaking. Perhaps in future or a possibility of changing current dungeons for a new possible mode would be to have dungeons like that – clear out the enemies to proceed/succeed?

Diva.4706:

So I already did Molten Weapon Facility with my guild, and to be honest it was fun till the end fight, where I was dead for about 80% of the time.

But I digress. Tonight I asked a few friends, who have not finished it, if they wanted to go run it and the response was unanimous : no its too hard, and not fun. This got me thinking, because these same people would run dungeons in our previous MMO all the time, and sometimes even raid. That was an MMO with trinity.

So my question is, are dungeons not for casual “fun” play in Guild Wars 2, and is it because of the no trinity system.

I think that’s definitely a part of it, but it’s also the mechanics of the game.

See the healing in this game is nowhere near where it should be. We have AOE heals that don’t take away the AOE’s of bosses in the same area when they are placed so we have bosses throwing AOE’s that do tons of damage and the tiny regens of the AOE heals don’t compensate or prevent conditions. (like the flying boss in the living story dungeon). Which causes players to dodge out of our healing zones.Then the rest of the abilities only heal hundreds at a time instead of thousands. And when I say hundreds I mean hundreds. The highest heal from a bomb explosions on engineers I’ve seen was about 300 per tick. That’s tiny. serisously and this was in all exotic gear with all healing bonuses. There’s something seriously wrong with this.

So the chance for misses on essential heals is way too high, the chance for heals to be nowhere near what the bosses do is way to high and the desire of the hard core gamers who run dungeons constantly to want nothing but zerker builds in their party is high, which makes for a very poor dungeon experience.

I also noticed that maneuvers that bosses would do in this dungeon kept you stuck in place as well as unable to dodge.

It amazes me that more people aren’t outraged by that. They give us a utility to reduce damage tell us it’s absolutely essential and then keep us from using it.

Neverwinter is a great example of how this is done properly. we can dodge boss attacks, we can CC bosses, we can DoT bosses to death without wasting DoTs exactly opposite of what GW2 does in their dungeons. And it’s not using a trinity it’s trinity lite which means you don’t have to have a trinity to run dungeons, but it helps slightly.

There needs to be some content in any game that requires actual skill of learning.

Right now that is about 3/4ths of the dungeons (the paths the zerker speed farmers avoid), and molten furnace (which has ended up farming by ‘force of will’ only because its going away today and had a few unique farm items).

I see no problem with this.

In fact without it the game would die as people, once they learn everything, would get bored if it was too repeatable. This is why 90% of the “burned out on this game” threads are by farmer types. They stick to the farmable content, then complain about ArenaNet instead of their own stupidity when that burns them out.

I would say, the other 1/4ths of the dungeons need to be patched to be more like this.

Dungeons were designed for organised groups, at least that’s what they were advertised as even before game launch. Turned out they’re easy to do in any random group with somewhat decent players. If that’s still too difficult for you, there’s a huge overworld for you to play in.

The Molten Alliance Facility requires more than pressing Hundred Blades, yes.

It’s very easy, it’s just requires some dodging, and jumping.

Just remember that the Berserker’s shock waves are not only on the ground, it’s in the air too, and you shouldn’t jump then.

Oh and dungeons are -NOT- designed to kill you over and over again until you learn the ropes, for the most part.

People who think the lack of a trinity is why it is hard clearly did not play MMOs before 2008 or so. Back in 2007 – WoW was not yet in EZ-Mode. It was still like the other ‘trinity games’ and the non-trinity MMOs.

Actually, the only ‘EZ Mode’ MMO back then had no trinity: City of Heroes.

The Trinity is a crutch of the modern MMO player, but its the wrong target.

Back in and before 2007, the way you did any MMO dungeon (other than City of Heroes), including in WoW – WAS to wipe over and over again, sometimes for weeks per boss, until you learned it.

That was under a trinity system.

You people simply lack any sense of history.

GW2 dungeons harken back to 2007 and before ‘in part’. But only in that they cannot be AFK facerolled or coached through with an in-play-paint-by-numbers-guide (Deadly Boss Mods).

You don’t need to wipe over and over in them, if you bring good play.

Good play is a balanced build across the whole team, all the players pulling their weight, being mobile, dodging, kiting, using boons and conditions, adding and removing, team healing, and sharing aggro.

- It is not all that hard to come upon an encounter you have never seen before and beat it. You just need active engaged good play.

Not zerker builds and glitching guides – these work where they work because they have been prepped per encounter in advance, and one misstep fouls them up for a whole group. They also only work in limited places: where people boringly farm for gold to prepare for that raid that doesn’t exist…

Balance is key, balance in your playskill to learn how to adapt on the fly, and balance in your build to be able to withstand changing situations in mid-pull.

That’s how MMO gaming was before WoW became the Walmart of the video game world with 10+ million players and had to prep everything for the coupon folks in aisle 5…
- Most games never copied the WoW EZ-mode format, and I don’t see why GW2 should either.

It has nothing to do with trinitys…

I don’t do much dungeons cause only in a tiny guild but from what Ive seen pugging they are just about learning the tricks, just like every other MMO dungeon. Honestly knowing where to stand and what to bring IMO is not what I think of as engaging content. What it means is experienced players skip a lot of the content and treat it like an annoyance and go straight for what offers the rewards a the fastest pace. Its not Anets fault as this has become an MMO tradition among experienced multi game guilds but if Anet caters to it, then they get to wear the stigma too.

I also have a problem with MMO devs that make the basic functions of classes impossible to use in dungeons just because.

Want to dodge a boss’s attack? Forget it it holds you in place. Want to DoT a boss because you like to play a condition damage type DPS? Forget it they put a cap on that so most of your DoTs are not on the boss. Want to CC the boss in place? Forget it, the hold lasts 2 seconds. Want to heal? Forget it the AOE heal zone you just put down is covered completely by the bosses AOE attack and no one can stand in it.

Why give players abilities if you’re going to make them completely useless in dungeons.

This is part of the reason why we see only zerker build dungeon groups.

People come onto these forums and blame the players by telling anyone who complains that it’s their choice, but it’s not, it’s not the player’s choice to not be able to use the basic functions of their class, it’s not the player’s choice to be pigeonholed into a single build to run dungeons because of poor design choices by the devs themselves.

tigirius.9014:

I also have a problem with MMO devs that make the basic functions of classes impossible to use in dungeons just because.

Want to dodge a boss’s attack? Forget it it holds you in place. Want to DoT a boss because you like to play a condition damage type DPS? Forget it they put a cap on that so most of your DoTs are not on the boss. Want to CC the boss in place? Forget it, the hold lasts 2 seconds. Want to heal? Forget it the AOE heal zone you just put down is covered completely by the bosses AOE attack and no one can stand in it.

Why give players abilities if you’re going to make them completely useless in dungeons.

This is part of the reason why we see only zerker build dungeon groups.

People come onto these forums and blame the players by telling anyone who complains that it’s their choice, but it’s not, it’s not the player’s choice to not be able to use the basic functions of their class, it’s not the player’s choice to be pigeonholed into a single build to run dungeons because of poor design choices by the devs themselves.

Bosses are supposed to be powerful. wth is a boss where he can’t aoe much? where you can immobilize him like other normal critters? where you can affect him with conditions like normal critters?

Oh right, with your logic, let’s just make bosses normal critters. Game would be tons of fun spamming that number 1 skill forever, right?

It is not a poor design. Bosses should be above normal critters. Not just in terms of HP and Defense – but also on mechanics.

Without the reward, it’s hard to convince players to risk dying a bunch to learn a fight. Why even bother with dungeons except for fun? Actually the whole game is like that but you die in dungeons more frequently than anything else so I can see why people wouldn’t want to bother.

They don’t exactly encourage new players to get into the game and are probably a barrier to increasing player numbers.

More accessibility in dungeons for new players would contribute to a more sustained world population, I’d assume.

Getting booted out of AC as a random for not being 80 is pretty confronting and alienating.

If you want more players, make them, and the culture surrounding them, more accessible and inclusive for new players.

If not, don’t.

Diva.4706:

Tonight I asked a few friends, who have not finished it, if they wanted to go run it and the response was unanimous : no its too hard, and not fun. This got me thinking, because these same people would run dungeons in our previous MMO all the time, and sometimes even raid. That was an MMO with trinity.

It’s important to understand that raiding is not challenging at all unless you are one of the maybe three people in your raid group that have to do something special. The fast majority of your raid only has one task, and that is to simply not suck at playing their class.
GW2 is different in that regard since it has no holy trinity, you can’t count on the main tank and its healer to carry your lazy kitten through the dungeon, you have to do it yourself, this makes the content a little harder for.

Dungeons in GW2 are not too hard at all, they work like in most other MMOs too, once you understand the mechanics of a fight you can easily do it. If you can’t do a dungeon it’s not because you are a casual, it’s because you are not as good at this games as you think you are or as you should be to do that dungeon. It’s important to understand that being a casual player doesn’t mean being unskilled, it’s just about the amount of time you can spend playing a game.

I thought the dungeon was too hard for non-grinders. Went in with 4 guildy’s and 1 random all guildy’s lvl 80 with Exotic armor and Weapons and we got hosed even knowing how to do it from guides. Tried many diff times and couldn’t beat it. I finally went alone with a random group and people and beat it. But if this content is supposed to be for everyone (noobs that are not lvl 80) then yes it was a little on the hard side for temporary content.

Ran it in a random pug as full on lolzerker (never the best idea) and aside from one or two wipes at the end it went pretty smoothly.

As someone who has traditionally been “about teh pvp” I would consider myself a pretty poor dungeon runner and it seemed fairly easy if I am being honest.

Dungeons are all about learning the mechanics. Once you do them enough, they become pretty easy. The more people that you have that know what they’re doing, the easier the run as well.

I also want to add that glitches/exploits do not count as mechanics. A lot of people used an exploit to avoid damage from the berserker’s stomps. Yes, stacking under him so you take no damage is an exploit. It’s not like it was that difficult to do it the legit way.

Ayrilana.1396:

I also want to add that glitches/exploits do not count as mechanics. A lot of people used an exploit to avoid damage from the berserker’s stomps. Yes, stacking under him so you take no damage is an exploit. It’s not like it was that difficult to do it the legit way.

Avoiding the rings using a stack was pretty obviously an unintended mechanic, but calling it an exploit is going a bit far. Anet considers exploits bannable offenses, would you really be ok with banning people who used it? Also, how are players to know that one method for avoiding a boss’s mechanic is allowed and one is not? For example, I doubt you’d say using ranged attacks on the destroyer boss in CoE path 3 is an exploit, but it’s a safe and easy (though tedious and long) way to kill the boss, thereby bypassing the entire dragon’s tooth/fire shield mechanic. How are players supposed to know the difference? Is going into TA Up and killing Fyonna in the hallway so you don’t have to deal with the eggs hatching an exploit? Why not?

I actually had no idea it was an unintended mechanic. I went through the whole dungeon the first time without figuring that JUMPING rings was a mechanic because it did not work all the times I tried it so I thought the POINT was to get directly under him to that one safe spot and melee.

The destroyer boss can still attack you. It’s been stated several times that doing something that negates damage while you can still attack is an exploit. Stacking on the berserker negating all damage from his stomps. It is an exploit. It’s no different than standing on the stairs in AC or some of the other exploits in Arah.

Ayrilana.1396:

The destroyer boss can still attack you. It’s been stated several times that doing something that negates damage while you can still attack is an exploit. Stacking on the berserker negating all damage from his stomps. It is an exploit. It’s no different than standing on the stairs in AC or some of the other exploits in Arah.

But you were only avoiding the stomps, couldn’t the berserker still attack you with regular attacks? And what of the rest of the questions in my previous post, such as pulling Fyonna?

That’s a steaming pile of kitties. Where exactly is this stated and by what means was the notice served to the player base at large who, by the way, mostly don’t hang around forums except in futile searches for instructions on how to defeat bosses “properly”. By your logic, stacking on p1 Alpha is an exploit and stacking on Lupicus and meleeing him down too fast for the AoE to turn out is an exploit. You may as well say full zerk warrior DPS is an exploit.

Moreover, it’s not the player base’s fault that exploits exist. Players collectively can only respond humanly to what the devs put in. In fact, the existence of exploits ruins the atmosphere of the community and damages the circulation of mechanics information online which is the only way mechanics information transmits for most dungeons because there’s nothing in there to actually teach anybody anything except dying or failing repeatedly. The moment exploits crop up, guides and pugs gravitate towards it whether individual players want to use them or not.

If they don’t want us exploiting then patch carefully.

I’m not so sure about stacking being unintended.
The boss still hits at melee. If this tactic were unintended, then the AoE would be much harder to avoid while fighting in a place were you are already taking extra damage. Add shadowstep and some nasty fire circles to the fight, and you get a really melee unfriendly boss.

About dungeons not being casual friendly, I think most dungeons are easy enough for anyone that understand the game basics and is properly geared to succeed.
People that is having issues with dungeons (not on the first try, that issues are expected for a large amount of players) should probably try a more defensive gear/trait setup until they feel confortable enough to give up some survivality and start increasing their damage output.

Vargamonth.2047:

People that is having issues with dungeons (not on the first try, that issues are expected for a large amount of players) should probably try a more defensive gear/trait setup until they feel confortable enough to give up some survivality and start increasing their damage output.

Here’s another problem. Conflicting information. The first suggestion someone sees when trying to find information about dungeon gear online is to go full zerker. We have a situation in GW2 where taking advice from hardcores – the main transmitters of knowledge – actually hurts your chances of success.

You stack on Alpha since it’s easier to rev players and break the crystal prison. It also stops him from casting dragon tooth which he casts on ranged players. You don’t negate the damage because he doesn’t cast it. The rock attack does more damage the further out you are. Another reason logically melee him.

You’re complete missing what I stated in my previous posts. It’s an exploit if the attack does zero damage when it should be. I don’t see how anyone would think that standing on the location of the stomp and receive no damage as being legit.

Ruruuiye.8912:

Vargamonth.2047:

People that is having issues with dungeons (not on the first try, that issues are expected for a large amount of players) should probably try a more defensive gear/trait setup until they feel confortable enough to give up some survivality and start increasing their damage output.

Here’s another problem. Conflicting information. The first suggestion someone sees when trying to find information about dungeon gear online is to go full zerker. We have a situation in GW2 where taking advice from hardcores – the main transmitters of knowledge – actually hurts your chances of success.

Full zerkers is probably the best choice when you are good/experienced enough to survive with it. It can also be better, survivality wise, than a more defensive approach on many encounters if all your party happens to be damage focused.
From my point of view however, a casual player is not usually going to have a regular dungeon group. He is going mainly to PUG, adn if he is the only one on full damage gear, the killing speed boost is not going to cover by itself the survivality he leaves behind.

Ayrilana.1396:

You stack on Alpha since it’s easier to rev players and break the crystal prison. It also stops him from casting dragon tooth which he casts on ranged players. You don’t negate the damage because he doesn’t cast it. The rock attack does more damage the further out you are. Another reason logically melee him.

You’re complete missing what I stated in my previous posts. It’s an exploit if the attack does zero damage when it should be. I don’t see how anyone would think that standing on the location of the stomp and receive no damage as being legit.

I don’t understand what your definition of “should” is besides your own arbitrary opinion. Standing in the middle of a circular boss attack is one of the most time honoured video game mechanics since at least the shooters and platformers of the late 80’s. You don’t take damage from the stomp’s shockwave because the center is not part of the attack’s hitbox.

Vargamonth.2047:

Full zerkers is probably the best choice when you are good/experienced enough to survive with it. It can also be better, survivality wise, than a more defensive approach on many encounters if all your party happens to be damage focused.
From my point of view however, a casual player is not usually going to have a regular dungeon group. He is going mainly to PUG, adn if he is the only one on full damage gear, the killing speed boost is not going to cover by itself the survivality he leaves behind.

Exactly but since there’s nothing in the dungeons to teach anything, people look online and guess who writes the guides. That’s the problem, people who are experienced follow a diametrically opposed gearing strategy than what would be adviseable for someone trying to learn. This is not a problem I’ve encountered in any other MMO. It’s the result of mechanics that are usually incredibly shallow once you know what they are.

You should take damage because you’re at the impact point. The fact that you don’t, and continue to stand there, is an exploit.

#17
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/guild-wars-2-rules-of-conduct/

Ruruuiye.8912:

Vargamonth.2047:

People that is having issues with dungeons (not on the first try, that issues are expected for a large amount of players) should probably try a more defensive gear/trait setup until they feel confortable enough to give up some survivality and start increasing their damage output.

Here’s another problem. Conflicting information. The first suggestion someone sees when trying to find information about dungeon gear online is to go full zerker. We have a situation in GW2 where taking advice from hardcores – the main transmitters of knowledge – actually hurts your chances of success.

That advice is essentially correct, though it should be tempered with “as much defensive gear (Knight’s IMO) as you need to survive, the rest berserker. As you improve in skill and learn the proper dodging mechanics, you can slowly drop defensive gear for offensive.” If the general playerbase would take that info to heart, PUG dungeon runs would improve dramatically.

Ayrilana.1396:

You should take damage because you’re at the impact point. The fact that you don’t, and continue to stand there, is an exploit.

#17
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/guild-wars-2-rules-of-conduct/

And if the devs had programmed the fight correctly, you would take damage. But they didn’t, so we didn’t. Hardly our fault.

Most dungeons definitely aren’t casual. Why? Because you need to schedule a large chunk of time for them. They’re appointments you make with people, and even the lower-level ones can take a while (3 hour AC Story run for a lowbie friend a few months ago is my record, but I know someone who was stuck in TA for 4 hours >.< ). I frequently can’t play them because I usually don’t have that kind of uninterrupted time.

Exploits are often unintentional by the devs. You chose to take advantage of it. Just think back to the snowflake exploit last Christmas. You act like any mistake in programming that the devs make is acceptable to take advantage of. It’s not. Sometime in the future, with that mindset, you will eventually be banned. I caution others to not follow his mistake.

Dungeon stories should not take more than an hour and a half. If they do then you’re running with a group set up that is well below the norm (i.e. random levels players where the group is just rangers and necros). Explorable a usually take about an hour with the exception of Arah path 4. These are just averages. They are often completed quicker than what I stated.

The purpose of the thermal core section (where you are being used as a test subject) was to teach you the mechanics of the dungeon .. and in particular the mechanics of the final boss(es). I thought that was a really good feature of the dungeon since a lot of people just expect to faceroll their way through everything.

Maybe that tutorial wasn’t challenging enough so the mechanics weren’t learned?

Lord Kuru.3685:

The purpose of the thermal core section (where you are being used as a test subject) was to teach you the mechanics of the dungeon .. and in particular the mechanics of the final boss(es). I thought that was a really good feature of the dungeon since a lot of people just expect to faceroll their way through everything.

Maybe that tutorial wasn’t challenging enough so the mechanics weren’t learned?

They hid in the corner to avoid damage so they technically never did the tutorial.

Ayrilana.1396:

Exploits are often unintentional by the devs. You chose to take advantage of it. Just think back to the snowflake exploit last Christmas. You act like any mistake in programming that the devs make is acceptable to take advantage of. It’s not. Sometime in the future, with that mindset, you will eventually be banned. I caution others to not follow his mistake.

I pretty much agree with all that, except that you’re misrepresenting my argument, which is that it’s difficult for the players to be able to tell the difference between a programming error and an intended way to bypass some other mechanic. You still haven’t answered how players are supposed to know what’s acceptable and what’s not. Here are some more examples I can think of where I see simple use of an available mechanic to do something easier, whereas your logic would call these exploits. Can you weigh in on them, and how players should be able to tell the difference between viable strategy and exploit?

-AC, any path: skirting around the outside of Kohler’s platform to avoid the boss fight.
-SE path 1: pulling the 3 golems individually into the large tunnel to avoid fighting them together. Later on, pulling Tezza into the main room so you can fight her without fighting the Champion beside her.
-SE path 3: walking up the pipe after the first barricade, bypassing the group of bombers (so totally unnecessary but a lot of PUGs do it).
-TA F/U path: using invuln skills to walk into the bubbles where the Archers are, so you don’t have to deal with the glitchy teleporter
-TA Up: utilizing the poison damage multiplier to kill Malrona in seconds. Later, pulling Fyonna into the hallway so you don’t hatch any of the eggs.
-CoF Path 1: utilizing the safe spots in the Acolyte room to drop aggro from the enemies.

I could go on but you get the idea.

as my point of view. dungeon its fun but not casual, tell you the true is. Molten Weapon Facility its not a hard dungeon. you feel hard may because:
1. the first time of running this dungeon or any dungeon.
2. don’t have enough level. running dungeon most recommend. level 80. at lease “yellow” armor and weapon to start with. (better to be extic)
3. most important well communication with team member.

try to learn the way from your guild mate or friends. let them teach you how to run..

recommend you. run cof part 1 to be starting dungeon.

good luck!

Broadicea.8294:

I pretty much agree with all that, except that you’re misrepresenting my argument, which is that it’s difficult for the players to be able to tell the difference between a programming error and an intended way to bypass some other mechanic. You still haven’t answered how players are supposed to know what’s acceptable and what’s not. Here are some more examples I can think of where I see simple use of an available mechanic to do something easier, whereas your logic would call these exploits. Can you weigh in on them, and how players should be able to tell the difference between viable strategy and exploit?

Actually no. I would not call those exploits. You’ve completely missed what I was stating was an exploit and I even used the Ac Path 1 boss as an example since it had a similarity to what people used for Berserker. It’s not the exact method but what they were accomplishing was the same.

An exploit is easy to tell. If you can stand in a certain position negating damage from an attack then it’s an exploit. Using a certain two utility skills from a certain class before a certain boss in CoE to trivialize the fight is an exploit. If you can attack from somewhere and can’t be attacked back, it’s an exploit. If you can go outside the map then it’s an exploit.

You seriously can’t tell me that the devs meant for people to stack on berserker and auto/afk attack him?

Anyways, this thread is going in circles and has deviated from it’s original topic. We are likely not going to agree. I dislike exploits, you don’t. It’s the devs fault for poor programming and you have every right to take advantage of it. That’s just the impression that I got. If I’m wrong then I’m sorry. In any case, let’s just let the thread go back to the main topic.

Ayrilana.1396:

You seriously can’t tell me that the devs meant for people to stack on berserker and auto/afk attack him?

I seriously can. Some WoW bosses had the same mechanic – run out ond you die, you have to get in close to avoid the fatal damage.

Anyways, this thread is going in circles and has deviated from it’s original topic. We are likely not going to agree. I dislike exploits, you don’t.

And now you’re throwing a tantrum. You know very well s/he isn’t endorsing exploits, s/he is saying that we are questioning that it is an exploit as you claim.

Aer.3970:

Ayrilana.1396:

You seriously can’t tell me that the devs meant for people to stack on berserker and auto/afk attack him?

I seriously can. Some WoW bosses had the same mechanic – run out ond you die, you have to get in close to avoid the fatal damage.

Anyways, this thread is going in circles and has deviated from it’s original topic. We are likely not going to agree. I dislike exploits, you don’t.

And now you’re throwing a tantrum. You know very well s/he isn’t endorsing exploits, s/he is saying that we are questioning that it is an exploit as you claim.

No. I just don’t see a point since I’m constantly repeating the same argument over and over. You cut out the part of my quote where they mentioned that its the debs fault for the programming mistake and it’s not wrong to take advantage of it. Kind of sounds like they’re endorsing it.

This isn’t WoW. If a boss jumps up into the air and does a body slam at the spot your standing then you should expect to take damage. You can justify it all you want but sooner or later you will get banned for doing something you convinced yourself was legit.