Guild Wars 2

Hi All,

I was an avid GW1 player (~8 yrs) and found end game to me meant dungeons (DoA SC, UW SC, FoW SC, Slavers, deep, Urgoz etc etc) with a few record runs tied in.

GW2 is slightly different where end game here seems to be how do I look for many players. I beg to differ with this opinion.

A full character 100% mapping and new trait system is about 120hrs (used to be about 50-80hrs).
Dungeons have offered me hours of content (3 hrs+ a day – lots of different paths in different places for months on end) > living story (8 hrs/toon) which can only be repeated once for the rewards on that toon. FOTM is a bit messed up – takes too long for little reward compared to dungeons.

It seems a little messed up that the most repeatable type of content is not having any development focused on it. I would love to see more dungeons introduced especially if we go to the other worlds we experienced in. Yes – I know the GW2 dungeon team is demolished.

Elona had many good dungeons – all of which would be nice to see in GW2 with minor changes to fit the skills we can use to make them possible.

I’m actually against trying to ram more content into fractals with a 4 tier progression (takes too long) and actually prefer shorter more rewarding content like dungeons where all paths should be completable by average co-ordinated teams in <30 mins. (Note the word average – yes I know good teams <10 mins and pro are even quicker with good RNG).

It would be interesting to see the stats what the completed players do after they have:
1) map completed several toons
2) living story on multiple toons
3) done map and temple events for the Nth time.

The only thing remaining is:
1) world boss trains – easy mode grinding of many players
2) dungeons – medium loots, reasonably forgiving and short time required. Allows for people with small playtime availability to do something productive. Gives tokens and allows me to try for that elusive pre-cursor via the mystic forge using weapons.
3) FoTM – very poor loot, long time required (avg runs 1hr at any given level:50,40,30,20,10 – due to random pug quality) and can be very unforgiving. I already have multiple FoTM skins and it’s really bad RNG.
4) WvW – more a number of players and requires decent peeps which is difficult to get in massive events. Gets too big to ensure everyone is working as a great team – tends to become a swearing fest in TS or map if things go badly for far too long and is difficult to stay positive and focused for many people.
5) PvP – poor loot, long que times – focuses onto good teams competing for competitions as end-game for real life $$$ (not something I am personally interested in). It does provide some interesting random experiences and learning how to counter other players.

Out of the above – I would vote every time to increase dungeons for the reasons stated above.

The dungoens are something I keep coming back to every time trying different strategies and builds/classes for improving team runs.

What do you have as your end game content and why?

If I need money: full dungeon tour+some chest farming in SW if I’m bored
But normally I do daily fractal 50/40/30, Arah and whatever other Dungeon I feel like doing.

Nothing in this game comes close to good old DoA/UW/FoW/Urgoz/Deep though :/

I honestly don’t think they understand this. They believe FotM shards are superior to dungeons — period, and no matter how many times we try to explain to them our experiences, they don’t listen or tell us “Aren’t fractals awesome, though?!?” And they don’t really pay fractals any more attention than dungeons or have regular updates/additions.

Worst of it, they won’t even give us some idea of how often they plan to update them so that we can feel confident that someday, maybe someday, they’ll actually give the dungeon/FotM players something to look forward to. But the days and patches keep passing. The HoT hype train arrives with all “major features” exposed, and not a word about instanced content.

At least the expansion hype is bringing some people back. It’s getting easier to find a good group to rerun these same dungeons for the millionth time. Maybe some will stick around for more than three tours before remembering why they left.

I think if they would have any plans to add any instances, they would have pointed that out. I’m still hoping they will come up with two dungeons for HoT, wouldn’t hold my breath though.

THing is, I’d be all for fractals being “the thing” if they would get rid of the stupid RNG factor. TBH, I think the whole system it’s built on could use reworking. Dungeons I do the ones I enjoy doing, get my rewards for it, then move on to something else I enjoy. Fractals, I’m rolling the dice, sometimes I do a fractal run and afterwards I’m frustrated and kittened off because I got all the maps I dislike. I’m not a fan of Snowblind (though getting much better at it), Thaumanova I just suck at, and well, I’d just love to be able to do a run of the ones I like and work on the ones I am bad at when I choose, not when the RNG does.

Not sure how many saw the points of interest video last week..
There was a dragon fight on a platform, which the presenters said was designed for 5 people to kill.

So.. we’re possibly getting single legendary bosses to kill?

Personally I find fractals are a quite frustrating at times, and really not all that worth running. Time gates like running the crystals at old tom just don’t constitute fun for me.

Finally getting around to learning arah properly, and it is far more entertaining than fractals. WTB more level 80 dungeons.

dlonie.6547:

I honestly don’t think they understand this. They believe FotM shards are superior to dungeons — period, and no matter how many times we try to explain to them our experiences, they don’t listen or tell us “Aren’t fractals awesome, though?!?” And they don’t really pay fractals any more attention than dungeons or have regular updates/additions.

Fractals are superior at a few things from their perspective. It’s easier to add new content to and easier to create progression for players. These are definitely important things to consider from a developer standpoint and with a long term view of the game.

If they do go the way of “raids” in the long term with 10-15 players in instanced content it makes sense to have those replace dungeons per se and have fractals be the 5 man instanced content.

The only issue with fractals is the terrible rewards and the RNG map selection. If they add more fractals then the RNG is going to make it even worse. Im sure anet are aware of this. So i can only hope they will address it somehow. There was a lot of discussion and suggestions for this on the fractal CDI. Unfortunately a lot of people advocated keeping RNG no matter what just to prevent people farming the same easy instances.

To be honest an interesting compromise would be to add the PvP map vote system to fractals.

What if fractals were to work a little more like DoA?

You can complete the fractals in a given order ( giving progressively higher rewards the more you complete in a row. Be it increased silver/gold or extra fractal relics or some other token that inevitably won’t get put in the wallet).
You can start at any fractal and the repetition is circular.
Once you’ve completed X fractals you can take on a boss fractal.

I want to suggest adding pristine fractal relic(s) to the end of each fractal, then the boss fractal costs 5 to enter, but yields more on completion ( depending upon which boss fractal you choose).

It would also allow anet to balance rewards around the length and difficulty of each fractal a little more easily.

spoj.9672:

The only issue with fractals is the terrible rewards and the RNG map selection. If they add more fractals then the RNG is going to make it even worse. Im sure anet are aware of this. So i can only hope they will address it somehow. There was a lot of discussion and suggestions for this on the fractal CDI. Unfortunately a lot of people advocated keeping RNG no matter what just to prevent people farming the same easy instances.

To be honest an interesting compromise would be to add the PvP map vote system to fractals.

^^ Funny I was actually thinking the whole PVP reward setup would be cool for fractals too. Removing the RNG but rewarding you based on completion of maps, more points for less run maps, or maybe daily points /shrug either way reward paths could be a pretty cool way of doing things.

Fractals are the best content there is in this game. Unfortunately it’s not really rewarding enough to warrant being run over something else when you want/need to farm gold. You want an expensive skin? Hell, you want ascended grind to run high lvl frac on an alt? Then doing fractals is the worst way to get the gear to do fractals. Just farm gold everyday in the boring easy going dungeons. And then you can do fractals again. Or maybe not. Because you might want another skin along the way. Might as well put off running them indefinitely because it’s just not worth.

GW2: the end game that keeps on giving.

Fractals are more fun in my opinion, the bosses generally are more challenging which teaches players skills such as max meleeing and dodging more than in dungeons. It is also fairly rewarding through rares/exotics/materials and the occasional raiders chest. Dungeons are certainly more profitable but a good fractal group takes about 20-30 minutes to complete a full 50.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Not sure how many saw the points of interest video last week..
There was a dragon fight on a platform, which the presenters said was designed for 5 people to kill.

So.. we’re possibly getting single legendary bosses to kill?

Personally I find fractals are a quite frustrating at times, and really not all that worth running. Time gates like running the crystals at old tom just don’t constitute fun for me.

Finally getting around to learning arah properly, and it is far more entertaining than fractals. WTB more level 80 dungeons.

Arah is a blast

Only commented to point out that they said the dragon was not intended to be fought by less than 5 people — nothing about instancing that I saw. It’s very possible that it was an open-world zerg boss.

I hope I’m wrong.

“Hard” PvE content = Arah, HotW, CoE (arguable), TA Aether path and Fractal 40/50

It seems the “endgame” in the new expansion will only contain more map zerging so I wouldn’t get my hopes up for any changes to instances.

I only run fracs these days. I don’t need any gold so no dungeons are rewarding anymore for me. At least fracs requires me to stay awake.

Do you want fractal skins? If not, skip fractals. They’re still the most “challenging” content. As far as GW2 challenge goes compared to other MMO’s serious PvE content.

Some bugs from the very time they were introduced still exist, to give you an indication.

Painbow.6059:

Fractals are more fun in my opinion, the bosses generally are more challenging which teaches players skills such as max meleeing and dodging more than in dungeons. It is also fairly rewarding through rares/exotics/materials and the occasional raiders chest. Dungeons are certainly more profitable but a good fractal group takes about 20-30 minutes to complete a full 50.

I’m currently at around 420-450 pristine relics in my bank right now and I have literally never gotten a raiders ascended chest before in any aspect of the game, ever.

Dozens of useless healers/defenders/malicious ascended chests though!

I got the power/toughness/ferocity chest. Once. I also have most fractal weapons except mainhand sword and staff.

The drop rate is marginal and to be honest rings should be removed after fractal 30 from the loot table.

Purple Miku.7032:

I’m currently at around 420-450 pristine relics in my bank right now and I have literally never gotten a raiders ascended chest before in any aspect of the game, ever.

Dozens of useless healers/defenders/malicious ascended chests though!

At least you can get celestial gear, the most prestige of all.

rotten.9753:

Purple Miku.7032:

I’m currently at around 420-450 pristine relics in my bank right now and I have literally never gotten a raiders ascended chest before in any aspect of the game, ever.

Dozens of useless healers/defenders/malicious ascended chests though!

At least you can get celestial gear, the most prestige of all.

Or Literally nothing which is what I get most of the time

Purple Miku.7032:

Painbow.6059:

Fractals are more fun in my opinion, the bosses generally are more challenging which teaches players skills such as max meleeing and dodging more than in dungeons. It is also fairly rewarding through rares/exotics/materials and the occasional raiders chest. Dungeons are certainly more profitable but a good fractal group takes about 20-30 minutes to complete a full 50.

I’m currently at around 420-450 pristine relics in my bank right now and I have literally never gotten a raiders ascended chest before in any aspect of the game, ever.

Dozens of useless healers/defenders/malicious ascended chests though!

Close to 1k pristine and about 20 raiders chests and 20 defenders/healers chests each. Would gladly take a few malicious chests tho for my WvW characters.

Lytalm.5673:

“Hard” PvE content = Arah, HotW, CoE (arguable), TA Aether path and Fractal 40/50

umm.. I’m wanting to disagree with hotw being labeled “hard content” but then I remember pugs are still dying while ranging the troll in p1

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Lytalm.5673:

“Hard” PvE content = Arah, HotW, CoE (arguable), TA Aether path and Fractal 40/50

umm.. I’m wanting to disagree with hotw being labeled “hard content” but then I remember pugs are still dying while ranging the troll in p1

I have to agree here, there is nothing hard about honor of the waves.

Agreed that regular, more difficult instanced content needs to be added to the game, so much so that I wrote…way too many words about ways to improve dungeons and Fractals (especially Fractals):

Fixing Fractals: A Comprehensive Look at Content, Expansion, and Rewards
A Data Driven Approach to Dungeon Rewards

TaCktiX.6729:

Agreed that regular, more difficult instanced content needs to be added to the game, so much so that I wrote…way too many words about ways to improve dungeons and Fractals (especially Fractals):

Fixing Fractals: A Comprehensive Look at Content, Expansion, and Rewards
A Data Driven Approach to Dungeon Rewards

Yeah but you’re the guy who says control isn’t used in PvE and elementalists have the worst control skills of all the classes.

edit: and when people point out how wrong that is you delete their comment.

phys.7689:

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Lytalm.5673:

“Hard” PvE content = Arah, HotW, CoE (arguable), TA Aether path and Fractal 40/50

umm.. I’m wanting to disagree with hotw being labeled “hard content” but then I remember pugs are still dying while ranging the troll in p1

I have to agree here, there is nothing hard about honor of the waves.

Well of course, it’s not hard for us old players that have made it more time then we can’t count. But generally, HotW is hard for pugs and they doesn’t have an easy life in that dungeon.

Lytalm.5673:

phys.7689:

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Lytalm.5673:

“Hard” PvE content = Arah, HotW, CoE (arguable), TA Aether path and Fractal 40/50

umm.. I’m wanting to disagree with hotw being labeled “hard content” but then I remember pugs are still dying while ranging the troll in p1

I have to agree here, there is nothing hard about honor of the waves.

Well of course, it’s not hard for us old players that have made it more time then we can’t count. But generally, HotW is hard for pugs and they doesn’t have an easy life in that dungeon.

most of my memories of HOTW are from when the game was new, and i ran it tons of times for a friend who wanted the token armor. We werent pros and there was no meta, and my feeling on it was it was a really straight forward, fairly boring dungeon, that we virtually never wiped or had difficulties with. people might get downed, but it was rare to wipe.

I think its possible its slightly harder to zerk speed run than others, but its really easy to play it normally, with non specialized builds.

hybrid.5027:

Yeah but you’re the guy who says control isn’t used in PvE and elementalists have the worst control skills of all the classes.

edit: and when people point out how wrong that is you delete their comment.

I updated that post to better reflect the meta specifically in relation to people’s feedback, and at no point did I say elementalists have the worst control skills, even in the original post.

As for your edit, I have never, and will never, delete any comment on my blog. I do have moderation on, and sometimes I’m asleep when comments get posted.

I don’t appreciate you misconstruing what I have said (or outright lying about what I’ve done) to fit your impression of me. It’s insulting and only weakens your own opinion.

TaCktiX.6729:

I don’t appreciate you misconstruing what I have said (or outright lying about what I’ve done) to fit your impression of me. It’s insulting and only weakens your own opinion.

Welcome to official game forums or any anonymous forum for that matter.

True, true, but I will call people on it rather than just shrug and say “that’s the internet.” People are practically trained to read one-sentence “sound bites” these days, so a blatantly wrong one like that is very damaging if not addressed.

Back to topic please ! Many Thanks all
Still very much interested in what you have as your end game and why.

Me, I’ve shifted among dungeons, Fractals, and presently Silverwastes. I’m weird in that I don’t do Silverwastes for the farming, though. I like the event flow.

TPMN.1483:

What do you have as your end game content

GW2

TPMN.1483:

and why?

Because there’s always nice people around to play with

To be honest, I’ve tried to think about what my “end game” is in this game, and there’s really no activity I can single out as being the go-to content for me. Some days I go on dungeon tours with friends. Other days, I enjoy a good fractal or two. Again at other times you’ll find me in WvW for whole evenings at a time, or playing around in pvp (although I have to admit that I’m a lousy pvp-er ). I love leveling characters (13 at 80 at the last count), and exploring the world (6 to 100% so far). I like to jump into Dry Top or Silverwastes occasionally (just one more achievement missing for the luminescent collection), and even do a world boss or two most weeks (although that’s probably my least favourite content in game).

I guess I’m probably not the right person to ask this in the first place. I love a good dungeon run as well as a high-level fractal, as long as I’m with the right people that play together. I don’t enjoy either dungeon or fractal with people that get upset by little hick-ups or just try to force their strategy on content and party, regardless of whether the strategy fits the current party or not.

I enjoy learning about and getting better at all the dungeons and fractals, and the people that help me with tips or back-up for when I mess up. I don’t enjoy it when I bring my mesmer to a dungeon because I feel it’s the best contribution I can bring to the group, and get told in the face “ele or gtfo”.

I guess I’m more of a puzzle than a reward person here … I enjoy making dungeon (or fractal) runs work (and work good), even (and sometimes especially) if the party isn’t the cookie cutter perfect set-up where each player can be replaced by another, identical-acting one. I enjoy beating the encounters with the resources (aka players and classes) at hand. I don’t enjoy rushing through a dungeon with a set of pre-defined classes that behave in a predictable way and get nasty as soon as one little cog in the machine doesn’t quite work as it’s “supposed to”.

Looking ahead, I’ll be thrilled if HoT does indeed come up with new fractals and dungeons for me to play and enjoy the company of whatever party I’m with, because that’s a kind of content I enjoy much more than world bosses and zerg events. The more (variety), the better. But I’ll certainly spend a good part of my time exploring the maps and the possibilities of specializations and masteries even if they don’t place any of the new story in 5-man instances of any kind.

Femme à tout faire now. If a friend wants to do dungeon tour and need one, I would come to their help. We mostly do CM, TA, SE, HotW, AC now. Besides, I occasionally do fractals at daily reset. If I don’t do PvP nightly then I may do Arah instead. Sometimes I take random mentees to dungeons during off time. Then map completion when I’m tired. I find myself spending more time between practicing rotations, duel and team Q more than doing dungeons. If none of those, probably just doze off while watching some handsome, hot and funny esportz men streaming :p

Zenith.7301:

TaCktiX.6729:

I don’t appreciate you misconstruing what I have said (or outright lying about what I’ve done) to fit your impression of me. It’s insulting and only weakens your own opinion.

Welcome to official game forums or any anonymous forum for that matter.

I’m hardly anonymous. I make myself very available.

hybrid.5027:

Zenith.7301:

TaCktiX.6729:

I don’t appreciate you misconstruing what I have said (or outright lying about what I’ve done) to fit your impression of me. It’s insulting and only weakens your own opinion.

Welcome to official game forums or any anonymous forum for that matter.

I’m hardly anonymous. I make myself very available.

Who said I was referring to you specifically? I’m just telling him to not get upset when people in a game forum take his statements in a way he did not intend.