Guild Wars 2

I know there is a rather huge divergence of opinions on the topic of dungeon difficulty, here on these forums. I can understand the veteran players’ desire for a challenge, I tend to seek the same thing in MMOs, but I have seen some perfectly reasonable concerns brushed away with personal accounts of clearing such and such dungeon in 20 minutes with no death, as if that somehow invalidates the frustration lived by other players.

I do believe that, as time goes by and people get accustomed with their classes’ tools and utilities, better learn group mechanics and get to know every nook and cranny of every dungeon perfectly, places like AC Story will become a lot more manageable.

This is not what it is about. AC Story is not an end-game instance to be done over and over again. It is the first dungeon, an important part of the story, in a game where everything up to that exact point has been either trivial in difficulty, or a mindless zerg-fest when it comes to events. The learning curve is out of whack, and this dungeon expects too much of people. I’m going to point to the Lovers as an encounter that is mechanically overwhelming and too unforgiving for a group of newbies just putting foot in a dungeon with a PUG for the first time. We went through it on my first time in AC using the aggravating method of graveyard zerging. And there’s no fun in that.

We weren’t in it for the loot, or experience, or challenge, we wanted to experience a dungeon and learn another important facet of the story. It should give the players a desire for more such experiences, and push them to attempt the harder difficulty of explorable. At this task, AC story completely fails. Most players come out of their first run, not thinking that they want more, but rather thanking the heavens that this ordeal is over.

Before the ad hominems start flowing, I’ll say in passing that I have raided in other MMOs, and even led my own raid in WoW that went on to kill Arthas (though that is not a huge achievement considering the low difficulty of that given expansion). Others will say I just want AC Story to be made easy. Well, uh… yes. That is exactly what should be done, in my opinion. There is no harm in making Story mode easy. Explorable can remain at its current difficulty. But as it stands, the easiest mode of the first dungeon encountered feels enough like an unfair challenge that it turns people away from dungeons. It causes a lot of undue aggravation, and fails at its basic task of introducing group mechanics and basic dungeoneering strategies in a way that is not completely overwhelming.

Rant over. Thoughts?

corgi.4207:

I know there is a rather huge divergence of opinions on the topic of dungeon difficulty, here on these forums. I can understand the veteran players’ desire for a challenge, I tend to seek the same thing in MMOs, but I have seen some perfectly reasonable concerns brushed away with personal accounts of clearing such and such dungeon in 20 minutes with no death, as if that somehow invalidates the frustration lived by other players.

I do believe that, as time goes by and people get accustomed with their classes’ tools and utilities, better learn group mechanics and get to know every nook and cranny of every dungeon perfectly, places like AC Story will become a lot more manageable.

This is not what it is about. AC Story is not an end-game instance to be done over and over again. It is the first dungeon, an important part of the story, in a game where everything up to that exact point has been either trivial in difficulty, or a mindless zerg-fest when it comes to events. The learning curve is out of whack, and this dungeon expects too much of people. I’m going to point to the Lovers as an encounter that is mechanically overwhelming and too unforgiving for a group of newbies just putting foot in a dungeon with a PUG for the first time. We went through it on my first time in AC using the aggravating method of graveyard zerging. And there’s no fun in that.

We weren’t in it for the loot, or experience, or challenge, we wanted to experience a dungeon and learn another important facet of the story. It should give the players a desire for more such experiences, and push them to attempt the harder difficulty of explorable. At this task, AC story completely fails. Most players come out of their first run, not thinking that they want more, but rather thanking the heavens that this ordeal is over.

Before the ad hominems start flowing, I’ll say in passing that I have raided in other MMOs, and even led my own raid in WoW that went on to kill Arthas (though that is not a huge achievement considering the low difficulty of that given expansion). Others will say I just want AC Story to be made easy. Well, uh… yes. That is exactly what should be done, in my opinion. There is no harm in making Story mode easy. Explorable can remain at its current difficulty. But as it stands, the easiest mode of the first dungeon encountered feels enough like an unfair challenge that it turns people away from dungeons. It causes a lot of undue aggravation, and fails at its basic task of introducing group mechanics and basic dungeoneering strategies in a way that is not completely overwhelming.

Rant over. Thoughts?

I do agree with a portion of your post. Ya I think AC is a bit tough to figure out, but once you do have the story mode figured out, it is actually quite easy.

Now where I think ArenaNet dropped the ball was creating some type of group quests that allowed players to somehow get used to group mechanics. I actually think that the combo system needs a way better description and tutorial, because this is where a lot of players are frustrated (including myself).

I would also say that each style of class should have some sort of tutorial for the different play styles of that class, like maybe showing the support, control and damage.

Its tough because we have a lot of freedom in creating our characters, but at the same time a lot of players have no idea what type of character they have created IE: Support, Control etc…

Thanks for the input. Yes, the is the gist of the problem. Right now, AC story is our first introduction to proper group play, and it fails at teaching players how to behave in dungeons. This could very well be accomplished with tutorials and better group quests but going only from what is currently in-game, retuning AC Story feels like the least time-consuming solution.

I understand your thoughts. However I did notice that the first playthrough is always the toughest one. This is mainly because all the players in the group come from lvl 30-35 or around that level where condition damage is SO good and the mobs you fight are like completely dumb and slow. Then you enter AC with the SAME build that has 0 defense stacked, condition damage, no CC, no condition removals and no support. When all the players are like that then you realize mobs hit hard….way harder than your group can manage. However, no one goes or changes the build. In my case, I realized it was a problem of which stats i was using. I guess my team mates did too because on my second try with a different group, the dungeon became so much easier and we finished it without much problems.
There are some things that I find annoying. For instance the natural idea that boss = tons of hp and crappy mechanics. Almost all the bosses I have fought have tons of hp, mediocre damage and some aoe and that’s it. The best example of this is SE story mode, that place is annoying as hell and the last boss is like a walk in the park. What is an annoying walk in the park is killing all the champions leading up to the last boss which just feels like a chore. I went to SE story because of my eagerness to explore, but after a couple of fights, I stayed and finished only to unlock explorable mode, fun died with the 2nd boss…..
There are some dungeons that need tweaking and ANET knows it, but it will take them some time to come up with good ideas and then implement them.

The problem is this. The sould be a difficulty curve were there is non.

On level 30 you get into your first dungeon, which is AS (story) this one should be a breeze. CM (story) should be the next one. and should introduce more encounter that require more team tactics… Introduce story after story dungeon in ths matter.

Than all explorable dungeons should be introduced, and should rain down the pain upon the player. They had 8 dungeons to learn the tricks of the trade, and here they will use their knowledge and skill that they aquired through their pervious dungeon runs.

The 8 story dungeons to learn what it means to run a dungeon and explorable mode after this to show of your mad team skillz. At leat this is how I would do this.

I’ve heard people say AC Story is the hardest story dungeon. I would like to hear from a dev his reasons for why that makes sense.

yandere.9176:

The problem is this. The sould be a difficulty curve were there is non.

On level 30 you get into your first dungeon, which is AS (story) this one should be a breeze. CM (story) should be the next one. and should introduce more encounter that require more team tactics… Introduce story after story dungeon in ths matter.

Than all explorable dungeons should be introduced, and should rain down the pain upon the player. They had 8 dungeons to learn the tricks of the trade, and here they will use their knowledge and skill that they aquired through their pervious dungeon runs.

The 8 story dungeons to learn what it means to run a dungeon and explorable mode after this to show of your mad team skillz. At leat this is how I would do this.

This is a great idea…Use the 8 Story modes(maybe even 1 of the explorer able paths) to teach the fundamental concepts then unlock all the explorable modes to unleash the pain and put all of what you learned together.

It is a brilliant idea, and also one so obvious we have to wonder why it isn’t already this way.

corgi.4207:

I’ve heard people say AC Story is the hardest story dungeon. I would like to hear from a dev his reasons for why that makes sense.

It’s not. Only relatively, perhaps.

Here’s why, simply: People go in at 30 with minimal skills, gear, and knowledge, making it seem harder than it actually is. Not only that, almost ever single person who is level 30-35 trying it is in a DPS mindset, making it far worse to do. Suggested level, or minimum required level, doesn’t mean good or best level – also means people are most likely set for world PvE content, aka damage and that’s it.

You might as well, also, go to WvW at level 1 and state it was the worst experience you ever had and that you are completely outmatched.

There is no “easing” into dungeons because that’s why story modes are for. That’s why there’s cool looking gear for each dungeon, because each one stays rather difficult. Was SM a pain when I did it at 30? Sure, but I didn’t run to the forums and cry endlessly until they changed it. I sucked it up, leveled, got more skills and game experience, and now do much better.

Wow every time I see myself quoted, I think : “I need a new keyboard the old one doesn’t read half my input.” O_o

I think most people get the impression that AC is so extremly hard because it is the first and CM is so easy in compare. The Inquest one is a pain imo. Does’t change the fact that is should be the easiest dungeon. As a said difficulty curve, etc.

Daboris.6730:

You might as well, also, go to WvW at level 1 and state it was the worst experience you ever had and that you are completely outmatched.

Completely unrelated. Apples to oranges. WvW is not meant for level 1 players. AC Story, on the other hand, is intended for level 30 players. Are you saying people should do it at level 80 instead? Because that’s what explorable would be for.

Daboris.6730:

There is no “easing” into dungeons because that’s why story modes are for. That’s why there’s cool looking gear for each dungeon, because each one stays rather difficult. Was SM a pain when I did it at 30? Sure, but I didn’t run to the forums and cry endlessly until they changed it. I sucked it up, leveled, got more skills and game experience, and now do much better.

I don’t even understand what you are going on about. We are talking about story mode right now. And you’re right, there is no easing into dungeons currently, but it doesn’t mean there should not be. There’s this thing called a learning curve, and Ascalon Catacombs completely skips it. You calling everyone who dislikes this perceived flaw in dungeon design crybabies does nothing to help your argument.

If your concern is that retuning AC story would make the gear too easy to obtain, then perhaps it just goes to show the story mode should not be linked to the dungeon gear system so as to remain a mode geared towards experiencing the story and learning dungeon mechanics.

edit:

Suggested level, or minimum required level, doesn’t mean good or best level.

I just had to go back to quote that because seriously, that is dumb. Ascalon Catacombs Story mode is a story dungeon which you are invited to visit along the personal storyline quests, around level 30. It’s not hard to understand. It is meant to be tackled by people who, in all likelihood, have never done a dungeon in GW2 before.

When I first did AC, my friends and I realized, “o hey. dungeons are hard.” I felt like that was what Arena Net was trying to get at. It was a nice change.

And then we did CM Story. It was a cakewalk. At this point, we were thinking, “Okay. That was weird. Maybe it’s just a fluke.”

And then we did the other dungeons. Some bosses were disgustingly difficult, and, then, the boss after would be a joke. Some pulls were ridiculous, like four hound pulls in Twilight Arbor or pulls with Knights or Wardens, and then the boss right after would be stupid easy.

After completing most of the dungeons on Story and Explorable, the conclusion I’ve come to is that Arena Net can’t balance and does not test their content.

-OR- none of their testers could beat the first or second boss of a dungeon, so they couldn’t balance the rest. Because after that crazy first or second boss, some dungeons were a breeze.

…except Heart of the Waves. The last boss was insane. Birds OP.

Part of the problem is that the game doesn’t do a very good job of helping the player build their character and equip properly for dungeons. AC Story isn’t THAT bad, but it becomes much, much worse when you have that one greatsword guardian who has +0 toughness and +0 vitality who is then surprised that he gets downed first every encounter and the mesmer is out-tanking him (yes, had this happen.) Dungeons are extremely hostile to glass-cannon builds, even though such builds work perfectly fine in other areas of the game.

I feel like I’m playing a different game and really wish I didn’t. I’m not posting this as a flame, but rather as an honest question as to what people see as so difficult about AC story.

I did my first GW2 dungeon today with my 30 Guardian and found to go very well. We had a good mix of classes, myself doing a lot of “tanking” and our ele and eng doing some “healing”, and yes, it was a PUG.

The OP lists the Lovers as the example of a fight that is just way too complicated. I’m not sure why that’s the impression. One of either Eir or Rytlock tells you to keep them apart as the battle begins and it seems like it should be fairly obvious that all those boulders are lying around for a reason. Outside of that it’s a fairly simple focus fire and kill adds combat. I was actually expecting a little more difficulty akin to what you see in various other MMOs when you’re dealing with a pair of boss mobs.

I’ll keep looking around, and I’m positive that I’ll have some of those very negative experiences myself (lets face it, not all people are meant to run dungeons!) but I just wanted to throw this out there to get some more feedback on things that I should be looking out for.

TIA

AC is not the hardest dungeon, even if you’re doing dungeons at the minimum level. However, it is probably your first dungeon, and if you’ve only ever played out in the overworld, there is a huge gulf between that and any dungeon (now that Caudecus’s Manor has had its Story Mode buffed up).

I think AC is actually fairly well-designed in terms of difficulty curve, when you look at it from that angle:
It starts you off, and the first fight is against a single Dungeon-elite enemy. It’s sort of a wake-up call: “Dungeons aren’t messing around”. It starts you off against an easy enemy – the Warrior, who can be crippled and kited around – then has you repeat the process a few times with different enemy classes as you open the coffins. You’re introduced to simple room traps and elite enemies in twos and threes, then when you have that down you deal with fighting a couple of Rangers, etc. The way the enemy classes are introduced to you forces you to deal with different aspects of fighting dungeon elites: For elementalists you need to watch for red circles; for Rangers you need to watch the animation for throwing the trap; Warriors need to be snared and kited, etc.
After that, you move pretty much directly into fighting boss after boss. The guard captain has non-elite minions, en masse. Nente shows you pretty explicitly that some bosses change their tactics into different phases as you take their health bar down, and when he’s up on his pedestal, his ranged attacks are extremely telegraphed, and should teach you to dodge when he’s aiming at you. The Lovers is largely there to teach you to watch the environment for clues (ie: boulders), but also introduces boss-specific gimmicks (the increased power when they’re together), and even spends a little time showing you that you need to turn your attention to minions that spawn in during certain boss fights. Kasha is mostly a freebie, but she does introduce Red Circle Fever with her well-spamming routines.
Finally, Adelbern is a bit of a synthesis of the previous bosses: You need to get away from his AoE Foefire, more than Kasha’s wells, he has a ranged attack with an obvious tell but much tighter timing required to dodge than Nente’s bow, and his AoE pull is sort of a precursor to Lieutenant Kohler’s much more deadly version in the explorable version of the dungeon.

AC Story Mode comes with an inherent ‘rude awakening’ when you first run in and are forcefully introduced to the concept of Dungeon Elite enemies, but the initial slap in the face is about as gentle as it could be, and after that I think it’s actually fairly efficient at teaching you the ropes.

What the game doesn’t do, and probably should, is guide players toward the idea that they should be switching their approach to character building between leveling on the overworld and the more strict, team-based requirements of dungeons.

I think that what would be helpful is if, at level 30, in addition to the Elite Skills opening up, players were presented with a second pop-up tooltip, informing them that they now have a second trait spec. It could be a second loadout that players can swap between at will (or on a ~5 minute cooldown), or even a second loadout that is only active in dungeons.
This would serve at least a couple different purposes in terms of getting players to think about and approach dungeoneering differently from leveling: 1) If a tooltip pops up saying “You now have a second trait spec for dungeons”, the implication is “You should trait differently for dungeons”. For many players who find the dungeons unreasonable, it’s not even a matter of not being skilled enough to play the dungeon – it’s simply that their trait setup is so at odds with the demands of the dungeon that winning would be a challenge even for a seasoned dungeoneer. 2) It would considerably reduce the (perceived) cost that players incur when they decide to run dungeons instead of leveling. Even at level 30, to switch your traits over to a dungeon-suitable build, then back to a leveling-suitable build after the dungeon is over, a player is paying 2 silver for the privilege. It’s not likely to break the bank, per se, but it is just enough of a cost that many players may think “This is not worth it just to do a dungeon for an hour or so” and go right back to leveling and doing events.

There are problems with dungeons, when it comes to teaching and guiding players into them and how to play effectively. I don’t feel that the root of those problems lies with the dungeons themselves, though, but rather the systems that surround them, which (at least in some ways) either fail to signal to the player that solutions to their problems are available, or actually outright discourage the experimentation and committment of resources that is inherent to solving those problems.

If there must be a way of teaching players how to run dungeons, a good starting place would be to have flashing neon style pop-ups for each player stating:

1) Red circles are bad, stay out of them as they cause your character to incur additional repair costs
2) Kiting is great against melee and ranged mobs alike
3) Standing in one spot to dps and expecting results is bad and results in additional repair costs
4) This is not another “insert infamous MMO name” clone
5) Please use the brains nature has provided you to play this game

Would go a long way to explain to players that their tank-and-spank strategy in other MMOs don’t work in here, and they bought this game even though it was a clearly and widely advertised feature.

corgi.4207:

I’ve heard people say AC Story is the hardest story dungeon. I would like to hear from a dev his reasons for why that makes sense.

Yeah. I run AC explorable all the time and AC story is absolutely much much harder than AC explorable. For example, the last part of path #2 involves four to five randomly selected ghosts spawning. Two elementalists or rangers in those groups can and has easily wiped my groups consistently. AC story has an area where THREE rangers are guaranteed to spawn every single time. So yeah. An encounter that wipes level 80 groups in full exotics gets put as a guaranteed spawn in a freaking story mode dungeon where people are underleveled, undergeared, and don’t even have all their skills unlocked. It’s just mind boggling how they could possibly have thought AC story was ok in its current state.

Crater.1625:

I think AC is actually fairly well-designed in terms of difficulty curve, when you look at it from that angle…

You’re vastly underestimating these enemies. Yes, the coffins are fine. However, once you walk into the next room with the traps and elementalists, you get screwed. There’s very little room to dodge, and elementalists AoEs do extremely high amounts of damage. Furthermore, they can kill you in about two or three basic attacks since you’re going to be undergeared going into the dungeon. I presume this is supposed to teach you to avoid AoEs and take dodge/block skills but it never gets to that point because you almost certainly wipe right there. That’s bad design. This is the first dungeon. People will not think “what did I do wrong”? They’ll think “what’s wrong with this dungeon?” Hell, Nente and Kasha are easier than that single pull and they’re BOSSES. Do you not see the complete and utter lack of a difficulty progression? Hell, this dungeon has a freaking 3-ranger pull. I’ve wiped to 3-ranger pulls in AC explorable with a full exotic level 80 party in teamspeak. It’s absolutely moronic to have such a difficult encounter in the first dungeon, and frankly I think you’re totally blind to not see that.

What’s worse is that the difficulty is terribly arbitrary. The three-ranger pull before Nente is probably one of the hardest fights in all of AC, but Nente is completely trivial. Kashsa is also completely trivial, then you get to the Lovers who toss out AoEs that kill you in a little over one second, constantly spawn adds that WILL kill you if not immediately dealt with, AND get more powerful in close range with special effects (AoE knockback) that aren’t at all readily apparent from their visuals. It’s total nonsense. They introduce nothing at all difficult to Kasha and Nente and then give the Lovers four new mechanics at once, all of which must be immediately learned in order to defeat them. That’s terrible in terms of difficulty progression.

AC Story Mode comes with an inherent ‘rude awakening’ when you first run in and are forcefully introduced to the concept of Dungeon Elite enemies, but the initial slap in the face is about as gentle as it could be, and after that I think it’s actually fairly efficient at teaching you the ropes.

“Gentle”? “Efficient”? The thing dumps you into fights that are far more difficult than what you can find in explorable and you call that “Gentle”, and “Efficient”? Are you high?

There are problems with dungeons, when it comes to teaching and guiding players into them and how to play effectively. I don’t feel that the root of those problems lies with the dungeons themselves, though, but rather the systems that surround them, which (at least in some ways) either fail to signal to the player that solutions to their problems are available, or actually outright discourage the experimentation and committment of resources that is inherent to solving those problems.

No, it’s absolutely the dungeons themselves. If they want the dungeons to be easier, they should keep, or even increase the strength of enemy attacks, in order to show that they should not be taken lightly, but instead they should be giving the AoEs higher delays before they land, and giving attacks longer tells with flashier visuals and distinct audio cues. That way people still get the message that have to dodge AoE, but they don’t have a very difficult time avoiding it. As it is they just toss you into a dungeon that’s harder than explorable and tell you to sink or swim.

Well, I don’t really know how to engage with most of that post. I’ve been in some bad groups – groups that either couldn’t complete the dungeon without mass respawn-rushing, or couldn’t complete the dungeon at all - but I don’t recall ever wiping against those Elementalists. And they certainly took more than three standard attacks to down me, even at level 30~32 when I first did the dungeon on my pure-damage Power/Precision Signet Warrior build, using mostly blue equipment as low as level 26-27. Though, granted, maybe it is worse if you’re similarly glass-cannony, using even less up-to-date equipment, only on a Light or Medium class.

Even in that scenario, though, the game is teaching you some other things. Like: Drag them back up into the coffin room instead of going down into that cramped room to fight them where you won’t be able to move out of their AoE. And more importantly: If someone dies to their standard attacks instead of their AoE, revive them immediately. Unless someone dies to the very first pulse of their Ghostly Firestorm, it shouldn’t really be possible for just two Elementalists to wipe a party that is on the ball with their revives. (And while it’s been a while since I’ve run AC Story, I’m pretty sure that it’s actually one Elementalist, and the other one is a Monk, which is far less dangerous.)

As for the three Ranger fight later on: 1) It’s not the first time in the dungeon you’ve seen Rangers, and it’s not even the first time you’ve seen multiple Rangers. There is ample opportunity before that point to see that the most dangerous thing about them is their spike trap, and that the spike traps have a very obvious animation tell as the Ranger throws the trap. All three of them usually throw at about the same time, as well, so one dodge can often avoid the only attack that makes that fight particularly dangerous. The room that the Rangers are in also opens up to both sides at basically the same point that they start attacking you – spread your party out as you come out of that doorway, and in the worst case scenario, they’ll be able to tag and down one person with the spike traps (at which point the rest of the team can come revive them). After that, it’s a pretty easy fight.
The Lovers are almost singlehandedly trivialized by just using the boulders, which are all over the place, and which any class can use.

Lastly, Story Mode is definitely not harder than Explorable mode; that’s just absurd. Not the Rangers, not the Lovers, not anything in it. Graveling Scavengers alone pretty much cinch that contest, but generally speaking, all of the large Graveling types are considerably tougher than any sort of Ascalonian ghost. And nothing is nearly as much of a devastating suckerpunch as Lieutenant Kohler’s Pull+Whirl (which almost definitely will wipe a party that isn’t prepared for it).

I will say that, arguing over minutia aside, there is one point that is true. For whatever reason, many of the trash pulls in AC Story are more difficult than the bosses that follow. Even if you can beat down the trio of rangers, they’re simply much more difficult and the source of more party troubles than Nente is, for example.

There’s a little bit of wonky balancing going on with a couple of the fights like that. I feel that Nente should be a bit more threatening compared to the ranger pulls, for example.

Crater.1625:

Lastly, Story Mode is definitely not harder than Explorable mode; that’s just absurd. Not the Rangers, not the Lovers, not anything in it. Graveling Scavengers alone pretty much cinch that contest, but generally speaking, all of the large Graveling types are considerably tougher than any sort of Ascalonian ghost. And nothing is nearly as much of a devastating suckerpunch as Lieutenant Kohler’s Pull+Whirl (which almost definitely will wipe a party that isn’t prepared for it).

That is total nonsense. I’ve done AC explorable about 16 times so far and gravelings are far, far easier than ghosts. Gravelings are all melee and can be kited. Elementalists, rangers, and to a lesser extent Necromancers are ranged. That alone makes them much, much more powerful than any graveling. I’ve never wiped against any graveling group, but I have wiped almost every time I come up against a ghost group which contains three or four Elementalists/Rangers.

As far as Kohler is concerned, the only problems with him are that his attack can pull you through walls, his attack doesn’t have an audio cue, and that his projectiles are black, and thus very difficult to see. It’s easy to assume that his pull cannot be avoided if you never notice the projectiles. Once you realize he’s using a projectile to pull you, he’s a very easy boss. Much easier than the Lovers who can plant nigh-unavoidable AoEs that take off half your health before you notice they’re even there.

The only thing I don’t understand is the difficulty of Vassar and the Ralena (The Lovers) for this being your first or second dungeon, vs the other rooms / bosses before.

I’ve done the dungeon six times now (story mode), and stillhaven’t completed once bc of these 2 bosses being together; even with people that (said) they knew what they where doing / being in a nice mixed group (all different classes)… and the trick of getting the 2 bosses apart, and then “try” to kill them.

I agree that some parts are hard, but at least you can kill 1 silver boss, and then have an easier fight, even if you all die. With the Lovers it seems it’s all or nothing, if you can’t properly kill 1 of them.

Maybe I’ll think easier about this later on, but so far I skip it for now and do the EXP mode (thankfully you can do that, without finishing Story mode)