Guild Wars 2

I was going to post this as a reply to sub80 topic but wanted to see how people would feel about this idea and it was slightly off topic.

I put this in the dungeon section because I felt this is an important discussion, rather than arguing back’n’forth on who is right/wrong about gear/level elitism and helping newcomers to instead try to come up with solutions that could get rid of the problem.

I think a way to fix the problem of gear and levels in dungeons is to make it more like sPvP.

Within the dungeon a window pops up allowing you to adjust your stats on each gear piece before you can continue and have access/set up all traits, regardless of level. That way it doesn’t matter which level someone is their gear doesn’t make a difference as you get the same choices no matter what level.

You would also keep the look of your gear as you will only be changing the stats of the gear and not the skins themselves. Any empty slots of gear/trinkets are automatically filled with white rarity place holders so you don’t miss pieces of gear.

Once selected next time you enter the dungeon the same stats are remembered so you can quickly press continue. Once everyone pressed continue you can move along with the dungeon.

During stat/trait selection people can choose to leave the dungeon after a 3 minute timer has gone past and people have not yet pressed continue to prevent people from stalling the dungeon too long or people leaving too quickly not giving people a chance to alter stats.

The only difference would be player skill/experience. Which isn’t necessarily tied to level. I see loads of lvl 80’s who are terrible at dungeons and plenty lvl 35’s who are new to the game or alts that do a much better job.

I would still recommend certain level requirements for dungeons just to ensure the person has played on that character/profession long enough that they aren’t completely clueless.

Then people can stop being antisocial about gear/level and dungeon devs would also be able to balance dungeons easier.

As an added thing you could make it so weapon and utility skills are separated so you can balance them to be more effective within dungeons. Like confusion on mesmers are pretty useless in dungeons and perhaps allow for more condition stacks to be applied etc. Kind of like how they nerfed/buffed certain abilities in sPvP only.

Do you think this would fix the problem and make dungeons a friendlier place? Easier to balance? Can you think of any better/additional ideas to fix the negative community problems in regards to dungeons?

Nobody has any opinion on this idea? Or other suggestions to fix the problems surrounding the chasm between newcomers and speedrunners?

Fay.2735:

Nobody has any opinion on this idea? Or other suggestions to fix the problems surrounding the chasm between newcomers and speedrunners?

I think the biggest solution is for both sides to agree to let the other continue in peace. The speedrunners should not expect all to be 80 and the newcomers should not expect all groups to except them.

That being said, all groups should have their requirements in the clear. If you are only accepting 80s or running a speed run, say so in the LFG.

The idea itself, can’t say I’m for or against it. It’s interesting and steps away from the traditional ‘focused customized spec’ character (that being aiming for builds in and of themselves that fit a character/playstyle that can be flexed to encompass other tasks). This might enforce build Nazis though that will feel, since the convenience of swapping builds is right there for the oppressing.

That is to say, you already have the speed runners that will hold people by the balls, forcing them to be zerker gear/stats or get kicked, this might just give them the leverage to mold everyone into speeders even if that’s not how they want to play.

This also feels like it undermines the ‘gear treadmill’ which may sound like a good thing, but dungeon runs, fractals and lucky drops are sort of why you do any of this in the first place: you want good gear so you do these events so you have better gear than you had when you go again…but if you can just swap to the desired stats at the start, then one incentive to do dungeons kind of burns out. Sure, you want that good gear for open world/W3 too but well…meh.

I’ve been thinking of ways that might give incentive to play with non-80s and just making them equivalent would do that, but I feel it’s just a cop-out…but hey, it’s easy. I’d have preferred more dynamic content, in that if you had non-80s around, short cuts or even bonus rewarding events would ‘spawn’ inside dungeons as a chance per non-80…maybe even making the regular content harder as a chance per lvl80 character. So having an 80 could be seen almost as a liability on a team of players on-the-level, and a full team of 80s will simply have tougher bosses as a whole.

…but of course, that idea is harder to implement and requires adding more content to dungeons.

All in all, I feel AC is probably the better dungeon this game has because it feels somewhat dynamic with things like the Troll popping in randomly. This could be expanded upon and added across all dungeons.

This…

The only difference would be player skill/experience. Which isn’t necessarily tied to level. I see loads of lvl 80’s who are terrible at dungeons and plenty lvl 35’s who are new to the game or alts that do a much better job.

contradicts with this…

I would still recommend certain level requirements for dungeons just to ensure the person has played on that character/profession long enough that they aren’t completely clueless.

Within the dungeon a window pops up allowing you to adjust your stats on each gear piece before you can continue and have access/set up all traits, regardless of level. That way it doesn’t matter which level someone is their gear doesn’t make a difference as you get the same choices no matter what level.

I have two issues with this idea.

This adds an extremely needless layer of complexity to a dungeon run. Before you begin, everybody will be clamouring and spouting numbers as if they didn’t just adjust their stats to maximum Magic Find. Worse still are the new players who are immediately submerged amidst all this.

Secondly, this doesn’t solve the level/gear elitism, just enhances it. First and foremost, you have to understand that this ‘elitism’ is spawned from speedrunners, not ‘regular’ players progressing through content. Speedrunners are free to seek out those of similar mindsets, just as the rest are welcome to do the same. Choice, or the illusion thereof.