Guild Wars 2

Today I tried to do AC P3 with my lvl 36 thief, there were two toher low lvls one was 48 ele and 38 mesmer, and lvl 80 guardian and necro, however it was extremely difficult to do it. We could not get past the lover’s crypt. I admit we didn’t give it much of a try after failing in 2-3 times, but now try to look from a newbie’s perspecitve. The first dungeon and so difficult, most groups don’t even accept you. CM/TA/SE are not that much difficult, and its not even about CoF, lvl 75 dungeon which is MUCH easier than lvl 35 one. So do you agree with this? Personally I think CoF should be a but more challenging while AC should be more relieved as its the first one, just think how can newbies guess to stack on spider queen, if it unleashes one AoE attack everyone dies, it needs a bit of rework, even if gold reward decreases.

First of all; you don’t need to stack to kill the spider queen. It’s just the go to tactic for most groups because they don’t have to worry about dodging (or moving at all for that matter). It’s just the most brainless and surefire way to succeed in a pug (most of the time… lol).

Secondly, the explorable mode dungeons are more oriented towards the “difficult” end of the spectrum (which, notably, for the longest time was incorrect as the story mode was more difficult than the explorable modes for the longest time… and is still somewhat this way lol).

I believe that the explorable modes should all pose somewhat equally difficult content to run through (although the “difficulty” of some content is somewhat debatable depending on ones relative perspective). In my opinion they fine as they are currently.

One thing I would like them to do though is to ease up on the defiant buff a bit for dungeon enemies. It should not take essentially spamming control just to get one skill to do what it was designed and balanced around.

Another thing that should change is they do need to go through and tweak some enemies a bit; some just spam attacks way too much pretty much rendering any amount of evasion useless, others just don’t have a very fluid and “realistic” attack (ex. the boss that does that stomp thing in CoF creating that shockwave has way, way too much hang time…).

One final thing I would like to note is that some of their patches to dungeon route “shortcuts” were, in my opinion, not necessary. They weren’t really that much of a shortcut (Sorrows Embrace for example) and added some much needed variation to the monotony of mob grinding ( I keep hoping they will add some official optional “jump puzzle” paths/shortcuts/alternatives to break up this monotony).

I would give it another shot. That’s supposed to be one of the easiest ones you can do. I’m not trying to make you feel bad for having trouble with it – but maybe try again before saying it needs to be re-tuned.

AC P3 was my first dungeon, period. My guild will bring anyone who meets the level requirement.

Is your gear up to level ? Are you using stats to help you survive and fit your playstyle ?

If anyone claims the dungeon is too difficult, the reality of it is that that person is just very, very, very, very bad.

I’m not kidding you, or trying to troll you. Learn how to play the game and develop your strategy properly. If you find AC difficult, you do not understand your class.

For the record, this argument about the difficulty was settled long ago when a group of 5 people made level 35 characters and cleared the dungeon with extreme ease.

That’s a bit strong. S/he may not be bad, s/he simply hasn’t learned yet. AC was a wipe fest for me and my friends for a while, back at the start. So was CM, and TA was a nightmare. We learned the fights, we learned better traiting and weapon choice for each one, and now we can banter away on Mumble while we do most any dungeon. We take new folks along, too, or nab PuGs to fill out the group.

You just need a patient guide and the fights will make sense and you’ll get the fun of beating the content.

From my experience from playing with lower lvl toons in dungeons is that with some classes you can’t just make a glass cannon build and bring it to dungeons, i played with engineer ele and thief, they all were getting downed by the auto atacks from the mobs, for these classes you need to stack some vit+tough on the build.

But i didnt have that problem with my guardian, i remember doing lover’s boss fight with my lvl 35 guardian and it really felt very easy.

That lover’s fight can be very difficult sometimes, sometimes they start to spawn hurrycanes and the female starts to make a red circle around her, making it difficult to push her back, and the guy does too many ranged atacks and shatters illusions very fast, but other times it looks like they dont do much during the fight, that guy just keep ranging a player on the other side of the room and dont use any of the shatters or aoe.

I think you need to git gud

I remembef doing a lowbie story run of ac… went fine until troll. Had to bring my 80 in to solo the stupid thing, though that may have been a class issue more than a level issue. (My lowbie was necro and couldn’t dodge enough to stay alive while in attack range. )

Dog.1472:

If anyone claims the dungeon is too difficult, the reality of it is that that person is just very, very, very, very bad.

I’m not kidding you, or trying to troll you. Learn how to play the game and develop your strategy properly. If you find AC difficult, you do not understand your class.

For the record, this argument about the difficulty was settled long ago when a group of 5 people made level 35 characters and cleared the dungeon with extreme ease.

You can be really bad at the game but have the right build, allies and strategies and stomp this dungeon (or most other GW2 dungeons). You can be good at the game but have the wrong build, allies and strategies and have a great deal of difficulty with this dungeon.

Guild Wars 2 dungeons favour learning content over skill, they favour build wars over dynamic combat and they favour exploiting mechanics (stack here to prevent spider AoE AI, stack here to avoid final boss mechanics) over playing as intended.

If you have difficulty in the dungeon, it’s not because you played poorly, it’s because you didn’t exploit enough design flaws or take advantage of the build wars dungeon meta.

September 2012, the first time I reached lvl 80 I tried dungeon Explorable mode. If anything most dungeons are easier now then back then. Just relax and don’t worry much.
You will have to pass that newbie period like everyone else did and once you gain some basic skills it will be easier, I promise

Dungeons are way, way easier than on release. ANet changed the wipe mechanic to a 5-man group reset instead of a neverending WP respawn. Consequently, they reduced the encounters’ hp pools ( i think ).

If i was OP, i would definitely look into my skills, traits, runes, sigils and ‘gear’ and attempt at a build to survive the dungeon while having enough dmg output. This is part of the learning curve of the game.

Oh! And as a general rule, rez downed players and leave the dead…

Guys did you even read it? I am not saying that they are too difficult for people who KNOW it, as for me aswell. I tried with stuff that drops and entered with 36 lvl to see how it was to people who have never done before. For NEW players it is way too difficult if they are doing it with lvl 35s and mostly with DROPPED gear.

Ascalon Catacombs should have an easier difficulty curve. Especially the story version, and the first path. But a difficulty curve is completely missing at the moment. The first time I entered AC it was like running into a brick wall. If dungeons had multiple difficulty levels, like Fractals, that would solve the issue of new players wanting to learn the game, and experienced players wanting a challenge.

I also wish Ascalon Catacombs was more of an open dungeon crawling experience. But I doubt if we’ll ever see such a large change to the dungeons. They would have to completely redo the dungeons for that.

Ninja queen posted before me, but this is for OP:

So what would you prefer? That it is easy when you don’t know it? So it wouldn’t even be worthy of being called trivial once you do know it?

pls.

Content isn’t meant to be cleared without knowledge or experience the first time; your first time should be testing the waters, learning what mobs do, when and how they do it, learning and developing encounter tactics, etc, not just whipping through the whole kitten instance. That comes after completing a few dozen times.

Young Somalia.1706:

Ninja queen posted before me, but this is for OP:

So what would you prefer? That it is easy when you don’t know it? So it wouldn’t even be worthy of being called trivial once you do know it?

pls.

Content isn’t meant to be cleared without knowledge or experience the first time; your first time should be testing the waters, learning what mobs do, when and how they do it, learning and developing encounter tactics, etc, not just whipping through the whole kitten instance. That comes after completing a few dozen times.

Yes but if it makes you to never touch a dungeon again then its not doing well

I’m afraid that is the reaction many new players have. Their first dungeon experience makes them never wanting to touch a dungeon again. And that is partially due to the dungeons being extremely unforgiving, but also because they are very uninspired and not that much fun (opinions may differ, but I have played FAR better dungeons than these linear corridors).

I don’t think a dungeon should be trial and error. It’s okay to have some surprises in there, but players should be able to adapt, without having to wipe time after time. Keep in mind that new players will not have gathered a large amount of wealth at this point, so the constant armor repair mill completely ruins any potential fun. Lets also not forget that almost all enemies in the dungeons are massive damage sponges. There’s not much fun at fighting them, or being defeated by them. They don’t make the players feel like they made a strategic error. Instead, it just felt like the game bullied you, and took your lunch money. That’s how dungeons feel.

Also, let’s not forget that experienced players have no problem having 1-2 newbies in their teams as they will explain what to do. If you find yourself with a different sort of people just leave the party and join another one. Let it not ruin your game experience.

I’d say, enjoy your dungeon experience while it’s still super hard and challenging.
Now you may think that failing isn’t fun but once you learn everything you need to know you’ll be asking for harder content.

g e o.2589:

Guys did you even read it? I am not saying that they are too difficult for people who KNOW it, as for me aswell. I tried with stuff that drops and entered with 36 lvl to see how it was to people who have never done before. For NEW players it is way too difficult if they are doing it with lvl 35s and mostly with DROPPED gear.

That’s no new phenomenon. In fact, this has been complained about for more than a year. The problem, however, is not the dungeons – it’s the open world. Everything outside is so easy that a moderately difficult dungeon seems too hard to new people. Besides, sometimes I’ve got the impression that a lot of people don’t even want to learn and just want to have success served on a golden tray.

I think AC is fine the way it is (difficulty wise). Yes there is a learning curve. Yes you will have more trouble at lv 35 than lv 80. Folks need to learn their classes, learn the gear, and learn the game! Suggesting a difficulty nerf (of an already nerfed dungeon) would be akin to saying university exams should be easier because middle schoolers are having trouble passing them.

As others have said, they were much harder at launch. They are fine now. If you are new, find someone who’s been around the block a bit, isn’t a kittenhead, and is willing to teach you. On the flipside, be willing to learn from them.

Now if there IS something to fix in AC, it’s Hodgins and his refusal to cue his dialogue.

Chris RJ.1843:

Suggesting a difficulty nerf (of an already nerfed dungeon) would be akin to saying university exams should be easier because middle schoolers are having trouble passing them.

Your logic is flawed. AC Explorable is (according to Arena Net) a level 35 dungeon. It should be doable by level 35 players.

So it’s not “middle schoolers doing university exams”, it’s second-graders doing a second grade exam. If they want explorable mode to be a level 80 (or 60, or whatever) dungeon, then label it as such. Currently, it’s a level 35 dungeon, and should be designed to be challenging (but doable, and fun) by a group of players who have reached level 35. And it would be, if the encounters focused on learning actual mechanics and working as a team, and not on pure DPS races, as they do.

The way AC becomes so much easier as you level up (despite the fact that everyone officially gets leveled down to 35 when they enter) suggests the sidekicking system isn’t working properly, either.

Arena Net should change the encounters to make gear / player stats less relevant, and make more complex mechanics that reward players with more skill, better awareness, and better sense of teamwork. Wasn’t that what they promised us before release?

I suspect a major problem is that they test their dungeons with sidekicked level 80 characters (instead of using characters of the actual dungeon level), and so the badly tuned sidekicking system is screwing up the balancing of the dungeons.

If they tested the dungeons with “real” level 35 characters, and / or if they fixed the sidekicking system to level characters down properly (so that a level 80 “feels like” a level 35 inside AC), the flaws in the dungeon design and balance would become a lot more obvious.

But I guess they’re too busy adding another tier of gear that no one wants (making the stat imbalance problem even worse) to actually fix the dungeons.

Factotum.2093:

Chris RJ.1843:

Suggesting a difficulty nerf (of an already nerfed dungeon) would be akin to saying university exams should be easier because middle schoolers are having trouble passing them.

Your logic is flawed. AC Explorable is (according to Arena Net) a level 35 dungeon. It should be doable by level 35 players.

So it’s not “middle schoolers doing university exams”, it’s second-graders doing a second grade exam. If they want explorable mode to be a level 80 (or 60, or whatever) dungeon, then label it as such. Currently, it’s a level 35 dungeon, and should be designed to be challenging (but doable, and fun) by a group of players who have reached level 35. And it would be, if the encounters focused on learning actual mechanics and working as a team, and not on pure DPS races, as they do.

The way AC becomes so much easier as you level up (despite the fact that everyone officially gets leveled down to 35 when they enter) suggests the sidekicking system isn’t working properly, either.

Arena Net should change the encounters to make gear / player stats less relevant, and make more complex mechanics that reward players with more skill, better awareness, and better sense of teamwork. Wasn’t that what they promised us before release?

I suspect a major problem is that they test their dungeons with sidekicked level 80 characters (instead of using characters of the actual dungeon level), and so the badly tuned sidekicking system is screwing up the balancing of the dungeons.

If they tested the dungeons with “real” level 35 characters, and / or if they fixed the sidekicking system to level characters down properly (so that a level 80 “feels like” a level 35 inside AC), the flaws in the dungeon design and balance would become a lot more obvious.

But I guess they’re too busy adding another tier of gear that no one wants (making the stat imbalance problem even worse) to actually fix the dungeons.

ac is perfectly doable with lvl 35 characters. only requirements are ability and willingness to learn + improve instead of just going in, dying and then complaining about the difficulty. if a group has watched guides carefully or invested some time in thinking about strategies and you still can’t do it, then it’s the wrong place for them. and i’m not talking about trying once or twice and then give up.

For some people, being challenged is something fun and those people don’t complain about faceplanting a few times but look at it as a reason to improve.
once you’ve done that you start to realise that dungeons in gw2 are only difficult for a short time, then they are easy and boring but that’s a different story…

Spiky Muffin.9180:

ac is perfectly doable with lvl 35 characters.

Get 5 new players, make them all play mesmer (or any class, really, just make sure they don’t have elementalist conjured weapons). Let them play the game until their characters reach level 35. Put them into AC explorable and tell them to do path 1 or 3, with no exploits.

Then come back here and post the results.

The issue isn’t challenge (Kholer, for example, is a challenging fight). The issue is that several encounters in AC (especially in paths 1 and 3) rely on character stats (specifically, DPS), and not on player skill or teamwork.

If you think doing AC with downleveled 80s is even remotely comparable to doing it on “real” level 35 characters, then I’m guessing you haven’t leveled any character (or haven’t done AC on an all-level-35 group) recently.

I agree they are extremely easy and boring (once you reach level 80), precisely because they need so little skill, awareness or teamwork. Basically, stacking in a corner + relying on your level 80 stats and gear makes most encounters trivial (and it’s only going to get worse as ascended gear pushes the stats even higher).

Factotum.2093:

Spiky Muffin.9180:

ac is perfectly doable with lvl 35 characters.

Basically, stacking in a corner + relying on your level 80 stats and gear makes most encounters trivial (and it’s only going to get worse as ascended gear pushes the stats even higher).

yea cause that’s what you do…
as to the 5 mesmer example.. dungeons are part of the endgame. if you start playing the game you don’t start with some of the most challenging things (dungeons in general, not ac) after 4 or 5 hours of playing.
i have a strong feeling that discussing with you is pointless so i’ll stop here

Spiky Muffin.9180:

dungeons are part of the endgame.

Why label AC explorable as level 35, then? If it’s a level 35 zone, and if all players (supposedly) get leveled down to 35 upon entering, then it should be tuned for level 35 characters.

If it’s tuned for level 80 characters effectively “sidekicked” to L50 or so (in terms of EHP / DPS), then simply label it as level 50 (and downlevel L80 players properly, so it remains challenging). Or just make all explorable dungeons level 80.

As it is, the “level N” dungeons are too hard for players of that level and too easy for max-level players. They need to fix the sidekicking, and then tune the dungeon to be challenging but fun for actual “level N” characters (by increasing the skill / teamwork / awareness requirements and decreasing the reliance on numeric stats). A few encounters are like that, but most are just DPS checks.

Of course, some players might whine because they’re used to letting their stats do all the work for them (probably the same ones who, at level 80, spend all day farming level 15 champions).

Spiky Muffin.9180:

i have a strong feeling that discussing with you is pointless

If your argument boils down to “level 35 dungeons are fine because level 80 players can do them blindfolded”, then yeah, I guess it is pointless.

If you think there’s not a significant difference between a real level 35 character and a level 80 character sidekicked down to 35, then you clearly haven’t leveled any new characters recently. And if you think there is a significant difference between the two, then you’re agreeing with me that the sidekicking coefficients aren’t realistic, and are throwing dungeon balance out of whack (both for players at the dungeons’ level and the ones at max level).

Factotum.2093:

Spiky Muffin.9180:

ac is perfectly doable with lvl 35 characters.

Get 5 new players, make them all play mesmer (or any class, really, just make sure they don’t have elementalist conjured weapons). Let them play the game until their characters reach level 35. Put them into AC explorable and tell them to do path 1 or 3, with no exploits.

Then come back here and post the results.

The issue isn’t challenge (Kholer, for example, is a challenging fight). The issue is that several encounters in AC (especially in paths 1 and 3) rely on character stats (specifically, DPS), and not on player skill or teamwork.

I wonder what people did at launch… Had a guy in CM @ lvl 40 who wanted to stack and have my new guildmate not learn how to dodge. No sir. In the end they stacked because dying = bad not dying = maybe I should change something. I ran around dying and being overall badace dropping bombs and making it look fun whilst having fun.

Heck I learned that the engi had a reflective wall elixer R I think. No one changed anything. Got to the dogs and the guy who did it 4 times in 1 hour didnt have stability.

I waited till the group wiped about 4 times before I said perhaps we should consider using something that has stability? An engi providing stability for 4 people isnt best.

Or when I told the ele to keep changing her weapons depending on the area we were said I should make up my mind.

Whatever happened to making builds ala gw1. LAZY son of a guns. (not lazy the guild they be cool)

or maybe its cuz came from ARMA 2 where failure is the path to success for most missions and everyone else doesnt like anything close to a challenge.

DonQuack.9025:

I wonder what people did at launch…

We dodged, kited, and so on. Early players were playing for fun. These days, they seem to be playing because they need 3 billion of some item to craft some pink junk, so it’s all about repeating the same thing over and over, with minimal effort. Fun is not a goal, let alone a requirement. And if other players’ fun interferes with your grinding, you let them die or kick them.

It’s easy to blame players, but really, if the encounter design and combat system wasn’t so exploitable, the game’s population wouldn’t be shifting so much towards exploiters and grinders (or, at least, it would keep that kind of player out of the dungeons).

Factotum.2093:

DonQuack.9025:

I wonder what people did at launch…

We dodged, kited, and so on. Early players were playing for fun. These days, they seem to be playing because they need 3 billion of some item to craft some pink junk, so it’s all about repeating the same thing over and over, with minimal effort. Fun is not a goal, let alone a requirement. And if other players’ fun interferes with your grinding, you let them die or kick them.

It’s easy to blame players, but really, if the encounter design and combat system wasn’t so exploitable, the game’s population wouldn’t be shifting so much towards exploiters and grinders (or, at least, it would keep that kind of player out of the dungeons).

Fun is subjective. I don’t find “kiting and dodging” ad infinitum fun, I find knowing the encounter and playing it the most efficient way fun.

I honestly fail to see how all the clueless stuff everyone was doing early days of GW2 can be fun for a long time. Dungeons don’t change themself, we have to do the same stuff over and over, it’s only obvious that people want to trivialize and quicken the run.

The novelty feeling fell off and you can’t blame ANet for this. There certainly are questions unsolved about some of their decisions but this point is natural.

Youre imagining a fairy tail mmo, where grinders/exploiters arent in the dungeons.

Thats why when I make a group i put “Story/ac/w.e Not in a rush. sit down and stay a while”

Im in it for fun even though im grinding it. Thats why I pug. I love the group dynamic. Playing with the noobs, playing with experienced, playing with guy who doesnt read chat, the afker. all in one group.

It makes me a better player. I can play with anyone. Heck I played with a guild that (somehow was a guild) but they were 30-40 and never spent any trait points. I bought them 15slotters and showed em the Heroes waypoint.

“And if other players’ fun interferes with your grinding, you let them die or kick them.”
Only if you join a group like that. I play with lots of people who go for fun.

Also Lots of new players I am seeing. *atleast in Blackgate So what you may have been doing for a while they are now enjoying."

The similar content in GW1 largely consisted of pulling the enemy and balling them up so the party could kill entire zones with one skilled spike. Just like using LoS pulls to burst down trash mobs and elite mobs currently. Its not an exploit to use the dungeon’s actual design (corners and obstacles) and enemy AI (they know how it works and how players are likely to abuse AI) to clear it quickly and safely. They know about the trash running, and even have said that not all mobs need to be fought. They even know about the more legitimate non map clipping skips. Just look in CM, they even put the safebox for killing the riflemen in there, the broken railing to break aggro on the trash run to get there, and the random nailed to the floor riflemen. They made it so much of the dungeon can be laughed at by a skilled stealth thief.

IMHO the dungeons are pretty easy for the most part, once you understand the mechanics of them they are meant to be relatively easy. And it is, even on low level alts I’ve leveled up in AC explore. Heck even when I was on my main leveling I did CM and TA explore at the min level requirements without too much fail (I didn’t AC because I didn’t wander to Charr lands till I was 80). Early on there was informational resources from generous people sharing strategies which were very helpful.

Just because you are new to dungeons and on a low level alt doesn’t mean you can’t read strategies, watch youtube guides, and have a good build (as good as lowbies can be at least). There is still people who have to ask where to find out basic information that can be found by a 10 second google search. Anybody who can’t figure out how to learn basic content are lazy and discourteous to their party. I never go into established content without watching a guide and having a properly geared character. Even when leveling I kept my gear current when doing group content, anything else is being lazy and asking to be carried.

I still stand by AC being an easy Dungeon. To the point someone else made on here, I think the lv 35 req refers more to the story (as there is some Destiny’s Edge material). As for the content, I believe Anet have said many times that dungeons are end game content. If you want to do end game content with a lv 35 toon in mastercraft gear, expect more of a challenge.

That said, it IS doable with lv 35s. When it released we DID do it with lv 35s. Since then, it has gotten much easier. It is still an easy dungeon. My problem isn’t so much with the OP but rather all the folks crying about the supposed difficulty of this dungeon who seem to refuse gearing themselves properly for a dungeon run. No! This dungeon does not need un-skippable trash, the removal of LoS or something like that…

If you don’t enjoy those mechanics, don’t do them. The fact of the matter is, even if they remove those aspects, skilled players and speed clearers will be very much ok. The folks asking for difficulty nerfs will be EVEN more upset with this dungeon.

DonQuack.9025:

Youre imagining a fairy tail mmo, where grinders/exploiters arent in the dungeons.

No, I’m imagining an MMO where a lot of players intersecting in a corner and blindly casting random spells isn’t so efficient.

Make the fights actually require teamwork and positional awareness, improve the bosses’ AI (and give them multiple abilities to choose from), and suddenly things become a lot less exploitable and repetitive.

Like I said, I can’t really blame the players for trying to find the easiest way to win fights (that’s what being intelligent means). But I can blame the developers for making such dumb / boring bosses, and for taking so long to fix exploits.

Dungeon gameplay seems to rank somewhere below grass animation in Arena Net’s priority list.

Factotum.2093:

No, I’m imagining an MMO where a lot of players intersecting in a corner and blindly casting random spells isn’t so efficient.

Make the fights actually require teamwork and positional awareness, improve the bosses’ AI (and give them multiple abilities to choose from), and suddenly things become a lot less exploitable and repetitive.

Like I said, I can’t really blame the players for trying to find the easiest way to win fights (that’s what being intelligent means). But I can blame the developers for making such dumb / boring bosses, and for taking so long to fix exploits.

Dungeon gameplay seems to rank somewhere below grass animation in Arena Net’s priority list.

I think everyone uses the Spider Queen as the example of this. You can play her out in the open if you wish but in the spirit of efficiency and a timely clear, she is fastest to stack and kill. If you really think about it, if they did remove that corner, she would still be 100% melee-able but rather would require folks to stay on top of her….like every other boss you encounter in a speed run. Don’t think removing that corner will prevent her from melting.

Sadly yes, I think they don’t really do much with the dungeons. It would be cool to get new paths here and there (that DON’T override existing ones and deal with living story). Why can there not be new paths that just tell more of the dungeon’s story? Also the bugs that were in dungeons a few months back…well…they’re still here.

Chris RJ.1843:

if they did remove that corner, she would still be 100% melee-able but rather would require folks to stay on top of her….like every other boss you encounter in a speed run. Don’t think removing that corner will prevent her from melting.

The issue isn’t the room geometry (except in rooms where you can get through walls, etc.). The issue is the boss AI (and abilities) are so badly implemented. If a great big spider got 5 tiny players trapped between her mandibles and a wall, the players should be in trouble. Instead, the opposite happens.

It’s just dumb.

By all means leave the corners there, but change the AI and boss abilities to make things behave in a logical fashion (i.e., players should try to avoid being trapped in corners, not do it deliberately due to it being so beneficial).

Perhaps you are not understanding the mechanics. She has ranged abilities and melee abilities. Kept at melee range, she will only use her melee ones (her spider mandibles). If you want to make it realistic, we can go ahead and say she can only eat foes that have been paralyzed and wrapped up or something like that….

Point is, your problem IS with the room geometry. Cornering her like that ensures she will at NO point drop a ranged attack. If you fight her outside the corner, she will move and attempt ranged attacks. The group is then responsible for closing the gap quickly enough to maintain 100% melee or to dodge the attacks accordingly. It doesn’t make the fight hard…the corner is just good for efficiency.

If they remove it, the show will go on. Yes it’s a bit silly but many bosses have ranged and melee abilities that they use accordingly.

The ooze boss in Arah is easier to handle at range for example. His melee is devastating to deal with.

It is just a terribly designed dungeon in every way imaginable. Frankly I would be embarrassed if I had been responsible for it.

• There is no difficulty curve for starters, just a difficulty wall.
• There are many encounters that are trial and error. Such as Kholer and the Spider Queen. These are not bosses that are challenging, they are bosses that are almost a guaranteed wipe, unless you’ve fought them before. Terrible, I would never design bosses in a first time dungeon that way.
• The burrows in path 3 are a DPS check that no random party will be able to just pass, unless they are already packing conjured weapons. DPS checks are bad. They have zero strategy about them, and mostly just annoy the heck out of players trying to play their class and have fun.
• It’s linear from beginning to end. No alternative roads, just a long corridor. The dungeons splits up at Kholer’s room, but that’s about it. A corridor with one crossroad.
• The troll spams insta kills. Terrible.
• Again Kholer. This Dolyakhumpin’ devil, he annoys me so much. He is everything unfair and unfun about GW2’s dungeons in a nutshell. And you know, his harpoon attack + whirlwind is pretty cool. But did they have to make this another insta-kill encounter? And there’s nothing that tells the players they can, or are expected to skip him. Most players expect a fair fight. Heck no. He’s harder than any of the end bosses in the dungeon.
• No variety in dungeon lay out. It’s just tunnels and more tunnels. Why no vertical sections? Why no underwater bits, or platforming bits? So boring and uninspired.
• Inconsistent traps. Some traps hurt you, some instantly kill you (like the spike traps before Kholer). There is nothing fun about guaranteed armor repairs. It doesn’t feel fair or fun.
• HP sponges. No one likes fighting enemies that take very long to kill, when nothing really exciting happens.
• And last but not least… is this the best they could come up with the Ascalon Catacombs? The Catacombs in GW1’s presearing were a better dungeon than this. I remember being really excited to see GW2’s Ascalon Catacombs. Boy did that excitement wash away quickly.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

• And last but not least… is this the best they could come up with the Ascalon Catacombs? The Catacombs in GW1’s presearing were a better dungeon than this. I remember being really excited to see GW2’s Ascalon Catacombs. Boy did that excitement wash away quickly.

When I first started playing, I thought AC would be that place. You can get to the catacombs/abbey ruins. Sadly, a cave-in blocks the entrance to the depths. Maybe path 4 can take us back.

I would rather have a skill barrier at the beginning than at then end that can’t be passed.

First time through I fought spider “legit” and at range. Also known as hard mode. Doable, and we got it on the first try with a pug group, couple of downs but no deads.

The burrows in P3 are easy, no dps check that is real. Random scrubs with power stats handle them perfectly. People packing Precision or healing sets are the only ones that have trouble with that part. 10 Seconds on the wiki could tell you that.

The different paths are when you choose at the begining. Non linear design is fine and all, but you can’t even keep a pug pointed in a single direction in single path, multipaths would be a train-wreck.

Troll even says bonus event, you can skip. You can also get good and learn to dodge.

Kholer is a cool boss, but 10 seconds looking at the map, or the wiki can tell you you can skip him. He is somewhat hard but doable with pugs. First time I ran we killed it with only 3 downs and no deads.

You want variety? Run other dungeons, you have lava, magitech, snow/water, corrupted gardens, bandit hideouts ect.

You are complaining about armor repair in december of 2013. Good god can you get any more poor? 1 gold + normal rewards for completion, break everything and its not even close to that level of reward… Also the traps are easily avoidable and its not like you can’t revive, I’ve done it before.

HP sponges? Nah, nothing in AC is that bad. As long as you aren’t building for bad stuff that doesn’t contribute to damage nothing is a HP sponge. Most mobs go down quick enough even with low levels.

Catacombs in GW1 weren’t that exciting, nostalgia goggles much? Nothing even remotely challenging in there, and not even a real dungeon at that. Solo leveling content, and that is being charitable.

I’ve fought the Queen both using the stack method and the “legit” way. Honestly, once you’ve cleared out the Spiderlings (and maybe destroyed the Gargoyle heads if they’re giving you trouble), she’s really not that hard the “legit” way. The stacking method is undeniably quicker if your party is heavily geared for DPS, but if your party is wiping using the stack method due to squishiness or what-not, give the “legit” way a try. It’s not too hard to dodge her poison spit if people split up, and just kite her.

Kholer is also very doable if people clear out the adds and res people if/when they get downed. Use block/dodge when you see him perform his pull animation; failing that, unless you’re a glass cannon build, you should be able to survive his whirl if you dodge back at the first opportunity and heal up.

IMO the hardest fight in the whole dungeon is the Troll.

All that said, I do agree that AC Exp is a ROUGH introduction to Exp dungeons for newbies though.

notabot.3497:

The burrows in P3 are easy, no dps check that is real. Random scrubs with power stats handle them perfectly. People packing Precision or healing sets are the only ones that have trouble with that part. 10 Seconds on the wiki could tell you that.

This is completely untrue. I have brought lots of teams in there. Even experienced teams that specifically brought power builds, and STILL had trouble getting past the Burrows event, because we couldn’t clear them fast enough. It IS a DPS check, and everyone knows it.

notabot.3497:

The different paths are when you choose at the begining. Non linear design is fine and all, but you can’t even keep a pug pointed in a single direction in single path, multipaths would be a train-wreck.

Multipaths would be a lot of fun! Have you ever played Sorrow’s Furnace? That place was amazing! Or the Underworld, or Fissure of Woe! Dungeons do not have to be this linear. They are a ton more fun if there are more ways to go than just forward.

notabot.3497:

Troll even says bonus event, you can skip. You can also get good and learn to dodge.

How is that in any way fair to new players? How can new players expect a bonus event to spam insta-kills?

notabot.3497:

Kholer is a cool boss, but 10 seconds looking at the map, or the wiki can tell you you can skip him. He is somewhat hard but doable with pugs. First time I ran we killed it with only 3 downs and no deads.

New players will expect to stand a fair chance against Kholer. His difficulty is indefensible.

notabot.3497:

You want variety? Run other dungeons, you have lava, magitech, snow/water, corrupted gardens, bandit hideouts ect.

Those are just different themes. I want variety in the dungeon itself. Make passages go up and down every now and then. Make us jump across gaps, or swim through tunnels. Make us pull switches and open doors, or search for keys. Anything that doesn’t only involve a long corridor filled with enemies.

notabot.3497:

You are complaining about armor repair in december of 2013. Good god can you get any more poor? 1 gold + normal rewards for completion, break everything and its not even close to that level of reward… Also the traps are easily avoidable and its not like you can’t revive, I’ve done it before.

Armor repairs are awful if the players feel that the reason they died was beyond their control. That is why insta-kills are so terrible.

notabot.3497:

HP sponges? Nah, nothing in AC is that bad. As long as you aren’t building for bad stuff that doesn’t contribute to damage nothing is a HP sponge. Most mobs go down quick enough even with low levels.

Yes, if everyone is wearing zerker gear then the game doesn’t contain HP sponges at all. Enemies simply should not take that long to kill with normal or even subpar gear, if they don’t bring anything interesting to the combat at any point. There is no reason to draw out the fights for so long.

notabot.3497:

Catacombs in GW1 weren’t that exciting, nostalgia goggles much? Nothing even remotely challenging in there, and not even a real dungeon at that. Solo leveling content, and that is being charitable.

It was a starter area, of course there wasn’t anything challenging in there. But it felt exciting and mysterious. It was a vast underground maze you could explore, and which had multiple exits to other parts of the over world. It was perfect in its simplicity, just by not being linear, and having an interesting environment.

I mean, just look at this place! Just the lay out is already more interesting.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/images/2/2d/The_Catacombs_map.jpg

Trouble with the P3 Burrows event..? Why not learn the correct order:
http://bit.ly/AC-burrows

Its only half a DPS check, other half its like a test question on which your expected to answer with something you memorized. for me its been a few months before I had a PuG group that wiped on this part. As long as I remember to give partywide swiftness, run a solid power build and lead my groups in the correct order, I rarely report any problems. This is probably the easiest part of P3 imo I dunno how people encounter any trouble with this.

Suggestion of ‘multi-paths’..lol. Just seems another way of wasting time. Most pugs die and die horribly on the famed trash run of TA forward path (well.. rarely does everyone in the group make it without any deaths). Like those pugs that waste my time by actually clearing those dogs at the start of the dung (yes, I insta-leave those). Multi-paths would be..a disaster I feel. introduce more ways to fail = expect more tears shed/tantrums thrown

Also if you want a jumping puzzle design for dungeons..u shuld try fractals. just saying..though I would also like to see some sort of crossover to dungeon content if possible. It would make them more fun and yes..more diverse. I think the new TA Aether path if anything is something along the veins of what you mean. though the only downside to this I can see is that speed run groups would kick anyone that fails jumps etc. Also you could expect alot more mes portals going up :\

People still complaining about armor repairs..? Lol. I had a noob in a pug for CoF p1 ask our group for some coin cauise he couldnt spare enough to repair his gear (said he was broke). I told him that if he could wait like 5min he could get the silver he needed to repair from completion reward, but he wouldnt have none of it. Anyway..I feel the repair cost/mechanics is fine as it is.. but may be biased as I can afford most anything. Teaches u not to fail so much imo. I still fail tons, especially when trying to run around open-world PvE myself..but u dont see me complaining.

nagr.1593:

Suggestion of ‘multi-paths’..lol. Just seems another way of wasting time.

Are you serious? Have you never played a real dungeon outside of GW2? There is a vast wealth of games out there with elaborate dungeons that have tons of branching paths, and they are a ton of fun. Demons Souls, Zelda, Skyrim, Fall Out, DnD Online, GW1.

nagr.1593:

Also if you want a jumping puzzle design for dungeons..u shuld try fractals. just saying..though I would also like to see some sort of crossover to dungeon content if possible.

I was thinking more along the lines of simple sections that require some jumping. They don’t have to be jumping puzzles. Just something that requires one or two jumps every now and then. Something to add variety. Variety is what is missing.

If you’ve got a boring corridor, add some stairs. Are the stairs boring, make them broken stairs, and let the players jump their way to the top. Or add an elevator, or a vertical shaft they have to climb. Anything that breaks away from just straight corridors.

nagr.1593:

People still complaining about armor repairs..? Lol. I had a noob in a pug for CoF p1 ask our group for some coin cauise he couldnt spare enough to repair his gear (said he was broke). I told him that if he could wait like 5min he could get the silver he needed to repair from completion reward, but he wouldnt have none of it. Anyway..I feel the repair cost/mechanics is fine as it is.. but may be biased as I can afford most anything. Teaches u not to fail so much imo. I still fail tons, especially when trying to run around open-world PvE myself..but u dont see me complaining.

Completely missing the point. This isn’t about the cost of the armor repairs. It’s about the game punishing new players harshly, and then taking their lunch money too. It sucks the fun right out of the experience. The developers learned their lesson when they designed Fractals, by not making everything an insta-kill. That was a good design change.

Where to begin?

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

• There is no difficulty curve for starters, just a difficulty wall.

It’s the first dungeon. What curve would you want? The story mode is very forgiving and by the time you are doing explorable, you will be 80. The idea is that maybe you learned a thing or two…judging by a lot of PuGs, maybe it’s not the case. Before everyone jumps down my throat, yes, you can do it with lv35. That’s how me and my friends did it back when it was released…and it has since become easier.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

• There are many encounters that are trial and error. Such as Kholer and the Spider Queen. These are not bosses that are challenging, they are bosses that are almost a guaranteed wipe, unless you’ve fought them before. Terrible, I would never design bosses in a first time dungeon that way.

If you are new, everything is trial and error. This is a silly thing to complain about. Either someone will teach you, or you will look it up and learn prior, or you will fail and learn that way. Just like life…either do the prep work, or be ready to fail and learn the hard way.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

• The burrows in path 3 are a DPS check that no random party will be able to just pass, unless they are already packing conjured weapons. DPS checks are bad. They have zero strategy about them, and mostly just annoy the heck out of players trying to play their class and have fun.

They have a pattern. Learn the pattern through fails or learn the pattern through research. It is doable without an ele. Easily, I may add. Of course the ele weapons are much appreciated. Bringing a DPS party not “random” like 3 bearbows and 2 healers makes all the difference in the world. It is fine as it is…by all means though, let the burrows be easier to melt and remove the gated aspect of that event. Then speed clear groups will finish EVEN faster and other can QQ about how unfair it is that doing more damage does more damage.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

• It’s linear from beginning to end. No alternative roads, just a long corridor. The dungeons splits up at Kholer’s room, but that’s about it. A corridor with one crossroad.

Yeah you’re right. It’s linear and pretty drab. It had some mystique the first time around though. Or the first few times. That’s the way of content you know? It is not visually poor, just a ruined catacomb. There are enough paths and tunnels though although granted you cannot do them all in one run.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

• The troll spams insta kills. Terrible.
• Again Kholer. This Dolyakhumpin’ devil, he annoys me so much. He is everything unfair and unfun about GW2’s dungeons in a nutshell. And you know, his harpoon attack + whirlwind is pretty cool. But did they have to make this another insta-kill encounter? And there’s nothing that tells the players they can, or are expected to skip him. Most players expect a fair fight. Heck no. He’s harder than any of the end bosses in the dungeon.

None of my teams have yet to be instakilled by the troll. Mind you, a random roflpug may all run separately with all their speed signets on and such…Put a solid team together, run together, benefit from aegis, benefit from speed boosts, and make it without any problems.

Kohler is very skippable though. He’s there for anyone who enjoys the challenge or doesn’t worry about the time it will take. That said, you can stack him on the stairs opposite of the entry.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

• No variety in dungeon lay out. It’s just tunnels and more tunnels. Why no vertical sections? Why no underwater bits, or platforming bits? So boring and uninspired.
• Inconsistent traps. Some traps hurt you, some instantly kill you (like the spike traps before Kholer). There is nothing fun about guaranteed armor repairs. It doesn’t feel fair or fun.

Again, yes…it’s kind of boring looking but it’s a ruined catacomb. I am of the opinion that dungeons don’t need jumping puzzle areas. I hate nothing more than annoying puzzles and JPs in dungeon and fractal content. Others disagree. Just different preferences. The less water and the less jumping, the better imo…

The traps are INSANELY easy to avoid. If someone goes down from traps in an experienced group, it is usually lag or lack of attention. There is nothing unpredictable about them. They are signaled by AoE circles. The fire is timed. This is your “platforming” bit. The spike traps let you step between them. My guess is that you’re roflsprinting yolostyle right to the end instead of taking care to avoid the traps.

They don’t instakill either It’s a down. If you are with a group of bad pugs, they probably don’t know about the chain and will let you die. But, it is very avoidable and even a down does not mean your doom.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

• HP sponges. No one likes fighting enemies that take very long to kill, when nothing really exciting happens.
• And last but not least… is this the best they could come up with the Ascalon Catacombs? The Catacombs in GW1’s presearing were a better dungeon than this. I remember being really excited to see GW2’s Ascalon Catacombs. Boy did that excitement wash away quickly.

Taking too long = not enough DPS in the party. There is no reason to roll into this with 5 clerics spamming staff. The bosses in AC especially melt very nicely.

And the Cata in GW1 were full of a few low lv trash mobs to level from and do early monk, necro, and ranger quests. If anything there were some mysteries down there and the section with the gargoyles was cool.

I sort of agree with you on that though. I wish they would open up new paths and leave old ones untouched. Like in a few months they could release AC P4: set X amt of time after event Y, and it explores new areas or something like that…idk it’s a cool idea.

Factotum.2093:

Make the fights actually require teamwork and positional awareness, improve the bosses’ AI (and give them multiple abilities to choose from), and suddenly things become a lot less exploitable and repetitive.

Can you imagine the level of failure and whinning there would be if dungeons were “even harder”?
Good players would still figure it out and do it with ease, same thing happens with high level fractals, soloing lupi and so on.
Some would care about learning and getting better. And all the rest, specially those here complaining about how hard AC is, would either quit or die from frustration.

Chris RJ.1843:

It’s the first dungeon. What curve would you want? The story mode is very forgiving and by the time you are doing explorable, you will be 80. The idea is that maybe you learned a thing or two…judging by a lot of PuGs, maybe it’s not the case.

No, I think the problem here is that neither story mode nor PVE prepare you for the jump in difficulty that is AC explorable. They could have made path 1 more casual, and then gradually ramp up the difficulty. Or gradually make each consecutive dungeon harder. But they didn’t do that. They start with a hard dungeon, then there’s CM which is moderate difficulty, TA which is again high difficulty, and then the difficulty drops again to almost boring levels. Fractals are a better first dungeon difficulty wise, than AC is. That is the problem.

Chris RJ.1843:

If you are new, everything is trial and error. This is a silly thing to complain about. Either someone will teach you, or you will look it up and learn prior, or you will fail and learn that way. Just like life…either do the prep work, or be ready to fail and learn the hard way.

How about the fourth option: You learn it while you are playing? This seems to be a design philosophy that Anet overlooked. It’s either you look it up on dulfy, or you wipe and have to repair your armor multiple times. There doesn’t seem to be any in between, where as many other RPG’s do offer that middle ground.

Chris RJ.1843:

They have a pattern. Learn the pattern through fails or learn the pattern through research. It is doable without an ele. Easily, I may add.

If you claim that it is doable easily, then you are speaking from an experienced point of view, and not from the point of view of someone doing that dungeon for the first time. Realistically, even with some measure of preparation you can still fail easily at the burrows. The DPS requirement is rather harsh, and unless you are prepared for it, you will not make it past this part. That is a design flaw. Players should be able to adapt to the challenge, and not run into a wall.

Chris RJ.1843:

None of my teams have yet to be instakilled by the troll. Mind you, a random roflpug may all run separately with all their speed signets on and such…Put a solid team together, run together, benefit from aegis, benefit from speed boosts, and make it without any problems.

If everyone is prepared like a professional team, then they can crush anything. But that’s not what this topic is about. This sort of ‘challenge’ is really unfriendly towards new players. They instantly run into this unfair gimmick in their very first dungeon, and it can completely ruin their first experience at dungeons.

Chris RJ.1843:

Kohler is very skippable though. He’s there for anyone who enjoys the challenge or doesn’t worry about the time it will take. That said, you can stack him on the stairs opposite of the entry.

That is not what new players will be doing. They see a boss, they assume they can kill him, and they all die. That is terrible design for a first dungeon.

Chris RJ.1843:

Again, yes…it’s kind of boring looking but it’s a ruined catacomb. I am of the opinion that dungeons don’t need jumping puzzle areas. I hate nothing more than annoying puzzles and JPs in dungeon and fractal content. Others disagree. Just different preferences. The less water and the less jumping, the better imo…

For the record, I’m not talking about jumping puzzles or underwater combat here. I’m talking about room features that require a jump or two, that is all. I think just walking through straight tunnels is very boring and unimaginative. Same with the water, have one tunnel be partially submerged, and make us swim part of it. There’s just so much potential wasted in this dungeon. I could make this dungeon a hundred times more fun to play.

Chris RJ.1843:

The traps are INSANELY easy to avoid. If someone goes down from traps in an experienced group, it is usually lag or lack of attention. There is nothing unpredictable about them.

They are insanely unpredictable. Those spike traps get pugs constantly. Even players that take their time to study the pattern will still get hit by them, and the fact that this instantly downs them is indefensible. There’s just no fun factor here, and that is probably the worst design crime of all.

Chris RJ.1843:

My guess is that you’re roflsprinting yolostyle right to the end instead of taking care to avoid the traps.

I’m not talking about myself, I’m talking about new players. As in, what the topic is about. My personal strategy is to wait, and let other players get themselves killed. Inevitably one person makes it to the chains, and switches the thing off. Then I res whoever got killed.

Chris RJ.1843:

They don’t instakill either It’s a down. If you are with a group of bad pugs, they probably don’t know about the chain and will let you die. But, it is very avoidable and even a down does not mean your doom.

If you’re downed by those spikes, no one can come to res you until the darn things are turned off. Which means, you will die, and anyone coming for you will also die.

Chris RJ.1843:

Taking too long = not enough DPS in the party. There is no reason to roll into this with 5 clerics spamming staff. The bosses in AC especially melt very nicely.

I disagree, there’s no reason why the game would need to focus so much on DPS, rather than tactics. 50% of the dungeon content would be a ton more enjoyable, if they replaced hitpoints with interesting combat mechanics. There are so many enemies in dungeons that just take so long to die.

Lets take a recent example, some of the elites in the Tower of Nightmares. How long does it take to kill those things, and after how many seconds do you just want to move on? That is bad. Enemies that are not bosses, should not take that long to kill.

Chris RJ.1843:

I sort of agree with you on that though. I wish they would open up new paths and leave old ones untouched. Like in a few months they could release AC P4: set X amt of time after event Y, and it explores new areas or something like that…idk it’s a cool idea.

No, not new paths. That would just add even more linear tunnels. What they need to do is add more corridors to the existing paths that are already there. Like instead of there being one door out of the Spider Queen’s room, why not have two doors that lead to different tunnels, and eventually lead to Kholer’s room?

Dungeons should not be: corridor->room->corridor->corridor

Instead they should be: intersection->multiple tunnels->room->crossroads->puzzle

Creating interesting dungeons is not rocketscience. The moment you add a room that has two exits instead of just one, you’ve already improved your dungeon a thousand fold.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

The moment you add a room that has two exits instead of just one, you’ve already improved your dungeon a thousand fold.

Your opinion.

TKiller.6829:

Your opinion.

Well it is kind of my job. :/

Look Queen, I’m not gonna trade quotes and take up the whole thread haha. Basically, I’m not gonna argue it. I don’t think we are going to see eye to eye on this.

I’ll say this; AC would have been better to be the 2nd or 3rd dungeon. Difficulty wise, assuming you are totally new, it makes more sense.

The only points I’ll really make are that you can learn the dungeon as you play. That is what the trial and error option is. If you are new, you may expect it to take some time. Slow down, take your time, observe the traps, observer the mob patterns. It is not that hard even for a new player.

And regarding the traps tearing up PuGs, what doesn’t tear up PuGs? Generally PuGs are very bad baddies. Of course they would yolo through the traps and go, “Omg y i die so fAsT!?” If you are new, take your time and learn the encounter.

If they add more to it, I would rather it be in the form of new paths (and not taking out old ones). I like the dungeon paths are they are now. I assume you are a very casual player (in that you don’t really emphasize skill balance and efficiency). Please understand that adding random jumping and pointless encounters would be an affront to the speed clear community. Believe it or not, we actually have fun doing the dungeons and we don’t want to fight every mob. I think the enemies are just the right difficulty but again…if they were easier, it would make it even easier to do what we do.

I’m not sure the ‘casuals’, if I can call them that, would be ok with it. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the attitude I tend to get from these folks is one of : I am mad because I am not doing this as efficiently therefore you should be slowed down to my pace. Any nerf Anet brings to the dungeon to try to level the field will not succeed in creating one uniform clear time. Clearers are generally much more skilled players and will of course do better in the content. They are generally the players that know their class, their skills, and how to use them. PuGs will QQ about hard enemies that take too much damage while staff camping in full PVT or Cleric (based on the people I’ve met).