Guild Wars 2

I guess this thread will get better feedback in this forum section.

First of all, this is not a suggestion to increase or decrease the difficulty of dungeons. So any elitists or speedrun farmers feel free to leave now.
I’ll start off by saying I love dungeons. They are well created, and offer fun and challenging group content balanced for a 5-man party. There is not much wrong with the actual gameplay. What I have problems with is the process before and after the dungeons. This is finding groups is difficult, and the reward system being unrewarding and giving little incentive to continue to play dungeons (or their different paths).

Group Finder
Current situation: The only way to effectively find a party is by using /map chat. This clutters /map chat with unnecessary LFG messages. The spam filter doesn’t help making life easier for those who have trouble finding people to play with as it starts filtering out entire sentences after a few times.
What we “need”: (I don’t like using the word “need”, “want” might be a better word choice) is a more effective way to find groups.

Solution: The solution is pretty obvious. Have a tool similar to the one that we had in the original Guild Wars. Let us choose what we search a group for, let us write a line for more details for what we are looking for and that’s it. It doesn’t have to be anything mega fancy, just something good enough to find people to play with without constantly having to advertise LFG in /map chat.

Rewards
One of the most hated things in the current dungeon set-up is the way tokens are handled, and there is not one universal solution to this problem. I’ve come up with several different ideas, that might help feel the dungeons more rewarding. As well as giving players more incentives to running more than 1 path for each dungeon.
Before that, let’s first see what’s currently going on…

Current situation: Exotic dungeon rewards cost tons of tokens, that take tens upon tens of runs to obtain. Tokens are soulbound, so it is not possible to run the same dungeon on different classes for a little variety, and there is little incentive to take the other (longer and more difficult) paths.

Now I’ve thought up some different ideas on how to improve the current situation.
Idea 1: The obvious one. Lower token cost of exotic dungeon rewards. Not necessarily the best single solution, but it would be a step into the right direction.
Idea 2: Another obvious one. Make dungeon tokens some sort of account-wide currency (much like how Gems are handled). This way players bored of running the same instance with one and the same class over again have more freedom with profession choice.
Idea 3: Daily dungeon path bounties. Have at each dungeon one path give a bunch of bonus tokens (2x or 3x bonus tokens for finishing the path once per day only). This will give players more incentive to run a different path every day, without penalising those who don’t want to.
Idea 4: Being similar to Idea 3, but have a weekly dungeon achievement. Like select 2 different dungeons every week, and have those give players bonus tokens for completing all 3 paths in both or either selected dungeon. This would players give more incentive to try out dungeons they might otherwise not be tempted to do.
Idea 5: Reward players for doing all 3 paths. Not just once, but every time a player finished all 3 paths in a dungeon, give a bunch of bonus tokens as reward. This will give players more incentive to run all 3 paths in a dungeon instead of farming the same path over again. Of course without penalising those who do only farm the same path over again.
Idea 6: Mentor bonus. When a group brings a player new to that dungeon instance with them, everyone in the party will receive bonus tokens. +20 or +30 bonus tokens for a completed run only (stacks; the more new players in a party, the more bonus tokens are received). The newbie status counts account-wide, so no mentor bonus is given if a player has already done that same dungeon on a different character. This would give players more incentive to bring along new players on their dungeon runs, instead of shunning them because they might slow down your run.
Idea 7: Story-mode bonus. Once a day give players a +20 token bonus for completing the story-mode instance in a dungeon. Maybe even give a normal +5 token reward for every completed story-mode run. This would give players more incentive to go back to story-mode to maybe help out a new player.

(continued in next post)

Then to the final part of suggestion list.
A pretty simple one. Give reward tokens more use. Maybe have crafting recipes that use up dungeon tokens (each type of token used in different recipes). Maybe let players exchange tokens for crafting materials. Or maybe give them a use in the Mystic Forge.

Might add more ideas if I come up with extra things.
Open for opinions, ideas, suggestions, constructive criticism etc.
Not wanting: Flamers, haters, trolls, spammers, fanbois etc.

Too much like wow, no we don’t want that.

Spinex.3695:

Too much like wow, no we don’t want that.

Explain?
Never played that game.

It amazes me GW2 doesn’t come with a universal dungeon finder given you can easily jump from server to server.

worst ting ever DF

You don’t need a Lfp function I’m sorry if actually talking to others is annoying for you since Lfp would port you to the instance which is not what they want. MMoms should be fun and they all don’t need to conform to wow.

What is this “wow” thing people keep talking about?

uller.6528:

You don’t need a Lfp function I’m sorry if actually talking to others is annoying for you since Lfp would port you to the instance which is not what they want. MMoms should be fun and they all don’t need to conform to wow.

Why would LFP port you to the instance? all it needs to be is a group making tool.
The current setup ports you there if you are in the same zone anyway.

Its tiresome and ‘so 1990’ spamming map chat for 30mins to get a 5th player.
I hate WoW and all that it stands for in the MMO community, but a dungeon finder/group helper whatever you want to call it, is an absolute must for any new MMO.

No LFP ever. Verbally seeking members for a party is not that difficult.

It has nothing to do with WoW. Yes, they did implement it the first time because it was an obvious tool for an online game, but I don’t want it here “because WoW has it”. I want it because GW2 is all about fun, no idiotic time sinks, just log in and play. These are the premises upon which the game has been developed. You barely need a ‘matchmaking’ as baring sperg groups that do “LFM experienced explorable speed run”, nobody cares much about class setup, they just want 1-2 more people to start their dungeon. As always, if you don’t want something that automate the LFM process for you, just go ahead and continue to spam general chat if/when they implement such a feature.

e: oh lord, the “no LFG” crowd here too. I’ve seen you guys in every MMO in the past 2-3 years. To bad you can’t complain about “ninjas” in GW2 the only argument left will be that “LFG destroys the community”.

lethlora.1320:

No LFP ever. Verbally seeking members for a party is not that difficult.

Not difficult.
A frustrating time sink.

I personally have limited time to play the game, I don’t want to spend 10% of my game time stood outside an instance spamming “LF1M – xxx” whatever.
The GW1 system was great, you said it once and it was tracked.
We don’t want an all singing all dancing thing like wow has, there’s no need, just something where you can find 4 other players that want to join your group.

The fact that you cant talk outside your zone currently is a major limiting factor for finding a group.
Even an LFG channel would be a major step in the right direct, but it will just be spammed to high heaven.

I like ideas 3-5. For 5, I’d say only allow it once per week though, because then players will just do the ‘easiest’ 3 over and over. Daily dungeon is a good idea, but how it’s presented makes all the difference I’d say. I’d rather it be something like:

If it’s a server-wide daily dungeon: I’d want it to be altered somehow. Or get a letter saying something like “My daughter snuck into CM and got lost. I don’t know how she got there or where she is, but find her and I will reward you greatly!” – not only that, but each time a party enters the dungeons, it’s random for THAT party. That means that each party, as long as they stay together, will definitely find the missing daughter, AND that each party will have a chance to find her in any of three paths, avoiding the idea of knowledge sharing between everyone. And of course, you’ll have to complete the dungeon too. It’s dynamic and allows for people to do many different dungeons, with a reward that they feel they earned. Of course, the reward will have to be worthwhile!

Daboris.6730:

If it’s a server-wide daily dungeon: I’d want it to be altered somehow. Or get a letter saying something like “My daughter snuck into CM and got lost. I don’t know how she got there or where she is, but find her and I will reward you greatly!” – not only that, but each time a party enters the dungeons, it’s random for THAT party. That means that each party, as long as they stay together, will definitely find the missing daughter, AND that each party will have a chance to find her in any of three paths, avoiding the idea of knowledge sharing between everyone. And of course, you’ll have to complete the dungeon too. It’s dynamic and allows for people to do many different dungeons, with a reward that they feel they earned. Of course, the reward will have to be worthwhile!

That might work pretty nicely too.
Thanks for the suggestion.8)