Guild Wars 2

I am long-time MMO player that have more than a decade of gaming, both PvP and PvE. I have played WoW/TOR and did dungeons and raiding in both. I have a group of people I regularly play with.

• WE ALL AGREE THAT DUNGEONS ARE HUGE MESS *

Here are some reasons:

1. Buggy – so many things are broken. Broken events, broken spawns, bugged mobs. Ugh…
2. It is next to impossible to avoid grave-yard zerging content. It is so poorly designed that there is no concept of holding agro, as such tanking is very haphazard and rarely successful. Plus A WHOLE BUNCH of mobs are capable to 1-2 shots on pure vitality + toughness guardian tank. The only result – you die and run and die and run and die and run… this is ZERO FUN.
3. Environmental traps and jumping puzzles – please let your console designer go back to designing console games. Jumping puzzles do not belong in MMOs, and making them un-skippable makes people rage. AGAIN. PAY ATTENTION. ALL JUMPING PUZZLES _M U S T_ B E ____ O P T I O N A L _!!!!
4. Trash mobs are unreasonably tough and harder than all but few (broken IMO) bosses. Why does trash has so much a) CC b) hit points ? It is a chore, especially since there is no orderly pulling or CC chains in this game.
5. With 1-4 in mind, rewards are very meager. I really don’t understand why do only get a bunch of tonics (goes to trash), lion chests (goes to trash) and blue/greens per chest? Why bother with chests if they don’t have anything VALUABLE in them?

In closing – Anet, clean up your dungeon act.

Dude I agree wholeheartedly. The one shotting or near one shotting has to go. A trash mob hits me for more than I can heal with my heal skill on a long cool down timer. I am tired of kiting overpowered trash mobs…so sick of it. You cant CC them I mean you get a CC for one second on a 45 second timer or something, cant tank them, cant heal other people….all people do is run around and kite and try and “dodge” the one shotting if they can even see the animation for it.

People running around kiting and getting downed over and over….people trying to kite to ninja rez the downed…..bloody havoc and chaos. Its a real mess atm.

Someone summed it up perfectly, dungeons in GW 2 are like what happens in WoW when the tank dies….only its PERMANENT!

Funny, I don’t agree with any of it except number 1. And even then, I’ve rarely run into a bug in the dungeons I frequent.

Regrets of Sini.6083:

1. Buggy – so many things are broken. Broken events, broken spawns, bugged mobs. Ugh…

I will give you this one. It is rather annoying to find broken things in dungeons.

Regrets of Sini.6083:

2. It is next to impossible to avoid grave-yard zerging content. It is so poorly designed that there is no concept of holding agro, as such tanking is very haphazard and rarely successful. Plus A WHOLE BUNCH of mobs are capable to 1-2 shots on pure vitality + toughness guardian tank. The only result – you die and run and die and run and die and run… this is ZERO FUN.

I apart from one bit in CoF path 2, only time I had to ever do graveyard zerg is during AC and that was only when I and others were new to it. If you have to graveyard zerg past AC, something is wrong with you.

Regrets of Sini.6083:

3. Environmental traps and jumping puzzles – please let your console designer go back to designing console games. Jumping puzzles do not belong in MMOs, and making them un-skippable makes people rage. AGAIN. PAY ATTENTION. ALL JUMPING PUZZLES _M U S T_ B E ____ O P T I O N A L _!!!!

I suck at jumping as much as the next person. Probably more but surely it is good design to use the Z axis if you are going to include it. I mean, GW one had no jumping and no jumping content. GW 2 has jumping and thus content that require it. I see no problem with this. Jumping is the same as any other skill in the game. It can be mastered through practice. Saying jumping doesn’t belong in MMOs is stupid. There is no such rule.

Regrets of Sini.6083:

4. Trash mobs are unreasonably tough and harder than all but few (broken IMO) bosses. Why does trash has so much a) CC b) hit points ? It is a chore, especially since there is no orderly pulling or CC chains in this game.

That’s rubbish. You can pull and do crowd control but you have to have party members or you yourself must be capable of doing so. Not Anets fault you are running with nubs who can’t pull or crowd control. Generally though, most groups don’t have to do either because they aren’t made with glass canons who can’t take a hit and can’t dodge to compensate for being glass canons who can’t take a hit. Only thing needed to make most dungeon runs go smoothly is target calling. Like seriously.

Regrets of Sini.6083:

5. With 1-4 in mind, rewards are very meager. I really don’t understand why do only get a bunch of tonics (goes to trash), lion chests (goes to trash) and blue/greens per chest? Why bother with chests if they don’t have anything VALUABLE in them?

I have gotten rare items from chests and you shouldn’t bash blues and greens. Even vendoring they add-up. But really, you don’t do GW dungeons for the loots. You do the story mode because you want to know the story and you do the explorable because you want the tokens for specific gear and/or want to do it at least once for the experience. But you will generally make a tidy sum from completion reward and vendoring blues and greens and if you lucky with a rare drop, that’s great! But drop loots should not be your motivation. If it is, you will be disappointed.

I really haven’t encountered too many bugs in Dungeons, except for a few *but those were major). I also don’t share the OPs sentiments, although he does bring up some fair points.

1. Both bosses and trash mobs seemed to be designed for double the current DPS. Their HP….not always, but often, seems way excessive. This is especially noticeable if the mobs don’t have any special mechanics because it means you’re auto-shotting most of the time. Oozes are notorious offenders in this regard. Nothing but tedious damage sponges that split after you kill them to mock you further and waste more of your time.

2. Personally I really love the mini-games and events you have in the Dungeons. They emphasize the group vs. the dungeons experience rather than making it a loot pinata.

3. Rewards are quite poor, I agree. I believe that finishing an Instance should reward at least one yellow drop at the end. You could counter this inflation by removing rare drops from regular (non veteran/elite) mobs.

4. One shot mechanics are far too common. I don’t mind dying but I like to know how and why I died and what I’m supposed to do to avoid it. Simply dropping dead the moment you enter melee range without any form of visual or game-play feedback is very frustrating.

However overall I’m quite content with Dungeons, even if many of the mechanics are dodgy, buggy or lackluster. I’m finding that dungeons success is directly related to the skill of the players.

Don’t agree except 1 which happens sometimes.

Adapt to dodge, staying out of red circles and watching where the axe/sword/bolt is swinging/flying to, this will result in increased surviability.

I played a mace/shield / Greatsword guardian and i don’t find dungeons much of a prob except there are some paths that are more challenging then others.

I dont really have any issues with the dungeons per say except the boss battles, which none of em seem to be that melee “friendly”.

More often with the groups im running with everyone seem to just enter range mode and simple kite and evade the boss lesser and weak range fire. You attempt to melee you get destroyed alot faster. That kinda annoys me abit.

Dont know if its because of the defiant or simple fact that boss skills recharge so insanely fast that no melee is able to stay that close long enough. So its easier to just range attack em.

I agree with 1 and kind of agree with 4, but I don’t think it’s fair to say that ALL trash mobs are ridiculous. Certainly I feel like Nightmare Knights in TA, for example, or the Gravellings that basically kill you when you get knocked down (Scavenger?) are a little overkill, but generally they’re not too bad.

As for points 2 and 3, these are really common grievances for when you’re new to the dungeon path you’re running. ‘Graveyard zerging’ tends to happen with an inexperienced or disorganised group, and occasionally I’ve had to ‘graveyard zerg’ a few times because there’s only 2 level 80s in the group and the other party members are in blues and greens and we get overwhelmed. But once you know what to expect in a path, you shouldn’t have to ‘graveyard zerg’. Jumping puzzles also become easier once you’ve run a path a few times and know where to jump,

As for #5, while I don’t think anyone would complain if better rewards are given out for doing dungeons, I think the loot you get in dungeons is more to cover armour repair costs than actually make you money. The 26s you get upon completion is the money you earn – anything extra from chests that don’t go towards repair costs is a bonus.

All I do is dungeons in this game, but I don’t know if I actually find them fun. Think it just keeps me entertained as I don’t enjoy leveling.

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

All I do is dungeons in this game, but I don’t know if I actually find them fun. Think it just keeps me entertained as I don’t enjoy leveling.

I have a friend like that. I give him so much crap for it cuz he does nothing but log on and do the same 2 or 3 dungeons cuz he says he doesnt like to level or do WvW.

Good thing this game has no sub fee i guess cuz (subjectively speaking) youre def not trying to get your money’s worth.

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

All I do is dungeons in this game, but I don’t know if I actually find them fun. Think it just keeps me entertained as I don’t enjoy leveling.

… you can’t be doing things right. What do you mean you don’t like leveling? What do you do mean by it? I mean, I leveled by completing maps. How is that not fun? You go to a map and it’s at 0% and you are all like “I am lost and confused and there are wolves after me!” but then explore a bit, do some heart, tags WPs, get points of interests and then when you are 100% you are all like “Oh I see! It all makes sense now!” and I don’t just mean the map but you get to learn a bit about the lore and what’s happening too! But of course, you do actually have to pay attention, follow the events, talk to the NPCs etc, etc. If all you are doing is mindlessly killing like a bot, well yes, leveling is not a lot of fun. But if you enter a map zone wanting to learn about the zone – you get more out of the experience IMO. I mean, the lore in this game is really rich. So might as well dive into it! Not to mention that 100%ing a map zone get’s you money and lootz!

Tinni.4351:

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

All I do is dungeons in this game, but I don’t know if I actually find them fun. Think it just keeps me entertained as I don’t enjoy leveling.

… you can’t be doing things right. What do you mean you don’t like leveling? What do you do mean by it? I mean, I leveled by completing maps. How is that not fun? You go to a map and it’s at 0% and you are all like “I am lost and confused and there are wolves after me!” but then explore a bit, do some heart, tags WPs, get points of interests and then when you are 100% you are all like “Oh I see! It all makes sense now!” and I don’t just mean the map but you get to learn a bit about the lore and what’s happening too! But of course, you do actually have to pay attention, follow the events, talk to the NPCs etc, etc. If all you are doing is mindlessly killing like a bot, well yes, leveling is not a lot of fun. But if you enter a map zone wanting to learn about the zone – you get more out of the experience IMO. I mean, the lore in this game is really rich. So might as well dive into it! Not to mention that 100%ing a map zone get’s you money and lootz!

I don’t find it enjoyable, cool for people who do, but I don’t. I play games for enjoyable repeatable content, which GW1 provided and this game kind of provides. Completing maps is not for me.

Whether or not you’re able to understand that, idk. But I’m not alone with this mentality. I don’t judge people who enjoy leveling and not dungeons, I’d like to receive the same mutual acceptance.

I find it really interesting that longtime MMO players pretty much universally refer to all non-boss enemies in an instance/dungeon as “trash”. That really seems to sort of imply an expectation that everything in the dungeon except for the bosses is intended to simply waste your time while you roll all over them, rather than actually being a llegitimate part of the challenge or the content. I don’t think that was ever the intention in this game. I suppose one could argue that it’s “just” part of the MMO vernacular, but I find it difficult to believe that such a strong association wouldn’t colour your attitude toward it.

This is only tangentially related to the OP, but I don’t really know how many ways I can keep saying A) No, respawn rushing doesn’t happen in any experienced/coordinated dungeon group, B) Encounters with non-boss Elite/Silver enemies take about 20 seconds per enemy, on average, in what I would call an ‘average’ PUG, which hardly seems an unreasonable amount of HP, and C) You make a pretty reasonable amount of money doing dungeons once you get good at them, even if it’s not competitive with endless, soulless Orr farming or whatever.

Actually tanking in this game is very doable. And by tanking I dont mean standing still while being hit by a hoard of mobs. I have a guardian with pure Power+Precision+Toughness with Protection skills and the “take no damage elite” (forgot the name) I rush in with my greatsword, pile up the mobs, pop my protection skill, my elite, heal, dodge, kite. Be sure to also use your F1/2/3 skills before you use your elite to refresh them. Also make sure you have a decent ele in your group that is decent enough to set aside dps for 3 sec and throw a support skill at you.

Tanking in this game is fun.

i completely agree with you on how lame the dungeons are. for those of u that do not agree , i would say two things are happening. 1. you are with a group that is completely geared correctly or over geared. 2. you dont mind dying 50 times in a dungeon. these two things are not realistic for most of us. we do not all have steady groups to run with all the time, so being able to join random people (pug) should be possible for success. the dungeons are not the only thing wrong with this game, for some reason arenanet got in their mind they wanted to make this MMO like old ones, where we had to work hard to earn our rewards. this is fine. but they need to find a decent balance. 90 % of my guild doesny play anymore. lions arch is emprty. and face it..people just are not playing anymore. they are discouraged with how difficuly everything is. getting badges for wvw is next to impossible. there are people who do get 40- 50 a night. but the majority are 80;s,(if u disagree, u are the exception for i have talked to people.) i myself have noticed that with my higher level toons., i do much better than a lower level toon. we are all bumped to 80. but the fighting is not balanced at all. i know it sound like those of us like myself that are complaining about this game are wining. well yah. we are complaining. this was suppose to be a great game. some claim it still is. if it really is. than y are so many people not playing anymore. arenanet, i really looked forward to this game. i have been playing almost everyday since launch. i hope u can make this game more enjoyable for all of us. also , one serious thing to consider. ex. my guardian is 63. in order to get karma to buy items at this level takes a serious amount of karma. which was fine when the game launched, and there were lower level players readily available. but now. everyone is either 80 or not playing, and those that are leveling up another toon, are scarce and do not do events. my point, getting karma and finding groups to do events for karma is very difficult. just like everything else in the game. seriously , y is everything so frustrating, difficult, and just a buzz killer. maybe u want people to buy gems from u, trying to make up for the revenue u are not bringing in because there is no subscription. honestly a subscription would be better than dealing with some angle you are trying to work in order to get us to buy gems, boosters, and more. a group of my friends have been doing TA, for the past month, and still have not completed the armor set. we can all argue on and on. but the numbers say it all. and people just are not playing this game like they did when it launched..

1) Yep.
2) That’s funny, because I believe not dying in the first place would allow you to avoid this. But then again you seem to believe that vitality and toughness is cruise control for surviving >.<.
3) You can’t be very happy about WoW either then. I remember several bosses very vividly where you had to run / jump around to avoid dying.
4) You seem to be lacking DPS.
5) Yep, but not for the reasons you mentioned.

Yes because you suck at it and don’t like it jumping puzzles don’t belong in here right?…
And you get 1shotted as a guardian in full toughness/vitallity build? then I say you should learn to dodge cuz I still haven’t played any dungeons where we get one shotted unless it’s possible to dodge, and I’ve played them all quite a lot.

How fun is it if you just run trough the whole dungeon without any challenges?

But yes I agree about the bugs and rewards… After you got the full armor set from the dungeons it kinda sucks cuz there is no point in doint it really.

I’m honestly trying to like dungeons but one thing really irks me and ultimately leaves me extremely bored to death… MOSTER’S HP it makes everything so tedious! I don’t mind monsters doing lots of damage i think that adds a certain bit of thrill and challenge dodging a powerful blow and responding in kind what bothers me most about monsters in dungeons is their insanely high HP. You sit there wacking a monster for what feels like an eternity. Its so mind numbing drags a fight you’re obviously going to win longer than it has to. You just go through the motions over and over and over sloooowly draining its health to zero.

if you dont like it then just go and play a game you like! easy as that

its incredibile how many people have the mentality that they kinda are the most important person in the world so everything that exists has to be like they want it to be…

wake up and take a look around, in real life there is next to NOTHING like you want it to be

gaming should be fun and a place where you can escape from the bullkitten that surrounds you so if you dont feel comfortable with it, then do something different or play an other game

and the most important thing you should think about is that no one gives a kitten about how many games youve played and how experienced you are…
with statements like this you only make yourself look like a spoiled brat

There are some valid points with OP.

tbh, GW2 is stellar for exploring, pvp, and non broken events. As for dungeons, they missed the mark and the people that enjoy vs not like will continue.

To people that are tired of these threads, don’t worry, as more people quit you’ll get less of these threads. Same thing happened on diablo 3 forums. Complaints don’t just stop, people just stop playing the game.

I can agree on just 1 thing:
There are NO dungeon fun for real low lvls (not overgeared alts)….

Being overgeared is a must for any dungeon….so people playing dungeons to get their elites find them too difficult, while geared players find them easy :| no wonder….

Also having some tanks expecially guardians makes the diffeernce too much :|

On the other hand really rewards are HUGE….compared to any other activity….you exit a dungeon with:
-tokens for 1/5 exotic thing
-25 silvers reward
-HUGE amount of drops…..

That makes a run worth of 1-2 G that is not even comparable to any other in game activity…….with the exception of farming orr like a bot .-. that is sooo boring and should be nerfed.

How are you supposed to complete some of these dungeons without dying? There are so many obstacles in the dungeons right now that require trial and error, instead of strategy. Even with a max gear and max level group that’s highly organized, you are still going to die multiple times attempting a dungeon. Is that bad? Yes and no.

I don’t mind dying a few times, if an obstacle requires a legitimate strategy. Something that makes you go “Oh, I should have seen that right from the start! That makes perfect sense!” But not the kind of strategy that makes you grind your teeth in annoyance, because it feels gimmicky and tacked on.

There is a golden rule to level design: Making things hard is easy. Making things fun is hard!

And that is my main problem with the current dungeons in GW2, yes they are hard, but not in a fair way OR a fun way. Trial and error does not equal a fair challenge! A fair challenge is like showing the players all the cards, and then asking them to solve it. Preferably with multiple ways to tackle the challenge. A lot of challenges in GW2’s dungeons demand that the players do it one way, and no other way.

Let me provide some examples, and explain why players get frustrated. In Caudecus Manor there’s a path where the players must use airblast guns to reflect rockets back to invulnerable rocket turrets. Now if your timing with these things isn’t so great, you are going to die a lot here, and there is no other way to do it. I managed to do it just fine, but I could see the frustration of my fellow party members as they struggled to get the timing right. They were mostly just annoyed that there was no other fair way to tackle this particular obstacle.

Another example was the swarms of angry bees in one of TA’s paths. Players must render themselves invisible with nectar, and dodge a row of water fountains which will remove the invisibility instantly. The first couple of deaths were due to people not understanding that something as harmless as water, was now an instant death sentence (Not sure if this has been changed recently, but all of the times I’ve done this challenge, the bees instantly kill you). The next deaths were all due to people understanding the idea, but failing at the timing and precise movement. If timing is not your thing, a challenge that cannot be passed any other way is a terrible roadblock. At some point some of my party members simply refused to do it any more. It wasn’t fun, and required zero strategy. Even knowing the solution, it felt terribly unfair and unfun.

It didn’t help that we later discovered that if one person makes it across, and ventures down the path far enough, the fountains and bees disappear for no explained reason. It would have helped if we knew in advance that only one person needed to get across. Maybe just a blatant switch on the other side? And not an invisible trigger halfway down the next path?

A good challenge in my opinion, encourages players to try again, and makes them feel good when they overcome it. But a bad one constantly punishes them for trying, and makes everyone look it up on the wiki to avoid the tedious process of trial and error.

How many of you have looked the dungeons up on the wiki?

I’ve played MMO’s for 10+ years, I haven’t been this relaxed or satisfied with a game in a very long time.

The various type of core/lodestones that drop in specific dungeons tend to go for high. In particularly, charged core/lodestones that show up in CoE, a good 1g per core and 2.5g per lodestone. added along with the fact that you get other potent drops from trash mobs and 26s from the dungeon reward itself + karma. In the case of AC, the final boss would always drop 15~16s on TOP of the dungeon reward, so no, the rewards are absolutely fine.

Feels like people cry too much for dungeons as they wanted them to be as previous games that have played but they have already abandoned playing!If u don’t like kitting in dungeon or having them a lot of HP or jumping around go back to WoW and tank and spank.Each game has its mechanics and not everything can be changed completely.

PS:some of us like the dungeons the way it is!Stop crying for nerfs all the time!We may want some more “hardcore” dungeons even.

I think I need to clarify couple points.

I run dungeons in two ways:

a) with my guild on my geared level 80 when someone wants some tokens. We don’t wipe, because we are over-geared level 80s doing sub-level 80 content. Why over-geared? Because it is not possible (not until Nth run anyways) to get such gear from these dungeons.

b) with my regular group that have sub-level 80s, our weekend dungeons are part of playing together. We do story mode dungeons AT LEVEL and even attempted couple exploration mode dungeons.

With this in mind. For scenario a) dungeons ARE NOT REWARDING and for scenario b) dungeons are often over-tuned.

I find it extremely strange that AC exploration mode is available at level 35, but not doable by any level 35 group. Also story modes ARE NOT designed for level it becomes available, I can honestly tell you that the only reason MY group can complete these is because we are very seasoned players using voice chat.

So question I have, why are dungeons are not aimed appropriate-level groups? For example when we finished Manor story mode, we all got hats that we couldn’t equip for 5 levels.

I honestly can say I miss WoW dungeon loot, going in you KNEW that you had a chance to get something useful, max level or not, in GW2 you KNOW you won’t get anything good.

What? In the GW2 you KNOW you get something good, because those tokens is your rare drop, or your exotic drop, however you want to use it.

GW2 removes the RNG on the rare/exotic drops with the token system.

(this obviously doesn’t work in story mode, something that will change in some way in the future)

Tokens are grind part. Most games have them. Most games actually evolved past dungeon-specific tokens and let you run any dungeon for tokens.

What I am talking about is LOOT DROPs. You know, these useless chests that you see now and then after big fights? Looking at what is in them, you’d think they are dumpsters and not a reward chests they are suppose to be.

Plus, what use is max-level PvE gear in a PvP game? Some classes/specs can use PvE gear to PvP, but for some, like me, these tokens are only good for re-skinning my PvP gear to look differently.

Face it, GW2 has no raiding, so PvE and dungeons are dead-end as far as end-game content. As such, you’d think Anet would make them better leveling content?

Current approach of tuned-for-max-level is very strange, to put it politely.

TL;DR part of this thread

If dungeon says “must be level 35 to enter” expectation is that a random group of level 35s have a reasonable chance to succeed and a member of such group would get a level-appropriate upgrade at the end of it.

Regrets of Sini.6083:

TL;DR part of this thread

If dungeon says “must be level 35 to enter” expectation is that a random group of level 35s have a reasonable chance to succeed and a member of such group would get a level-appropriate upgrade at the end of it.

TLDR of your own double posting? /facepalm.

I did every dungeon at their respective level while leveling up with my guild, and sure I had some problems, but I attribute that to the fact that it was my first time doing them. I never failed to complete these dungeons within an appropriate time (even pre-nerf TA story) except for the first time I did Simin.

Yep, loot sucks, but then again this entire game sucks when it comes to rewarding any type of skill. Legendary weapons would be the prime example of this, where you have no realistic chance of obtaining them unless you either a) play the auction house very well, b) get extremely lucky or c) do brainless farming all day every day.

Lust.6452:

Feels like people cry too much for dungeons as they wanted them to be as previous games that have played but they have already abandoned playing!If u don’t like kitting in dungeon or having them a lot of HP or jumping around go back to WoW and tank and spank.Each game has its mechanics and not everything can be changed completely.

PS:some of us like the dungeons the way it is!Stop crying for nerfs all the time!We may want some more “hardcore” dungeons even.

I have never played WoW. I played Guild Wars 1 before this, and I found the dungeons in that game a lot more fun (even if they were also badly designed, but for other reasons. The infamous “don’t talk to ghost!”-problem.) But at least I could take a group of guild members into Fissure of Woe, and everyone would have fun. The loot would be better than any of the regular explorables, the environments would look great, and there would be a lot to explore.

What is Ascalon Catacombs but a short linear corridor with not many interesting visuals to boot?

Probably the top 30% or so of randomly-assembled level 35 players do have a reasonable chance to succeed – they’re going to have to learn the dungeon just like everybody else, though, and that’s going to mean a handful of wipes. And the tokens they receive are enough to buy 1.5~2 pieces of level-appropriate Rare gear, which is almost definitely an upgrade over the Fine or Masterwork pieces they’re likely to be using.

For players below the top 30%, they’re going to need to A) Come back later on when they’re better equipped to make up for their shortcomings, B) Find an experienced, patient, articulate guide to help them over the rough spots, or C) Bang their heads against the wall and respawn-rush their way to victory through sheer obstinacy. The latter option isn’t particularly fun or rewarding, but it is a way to win, eventually. Only a vanishingly small minority of players are incapable of making it through a smooth (no wipes) run of the sub-80 dungeons when a competent guide is involved.

I find the main flaw with dungeons, aside from bugs, are the encounters within them. Most of the dungeon encounters are just summing up the collective damage. This is fine for trash and some boss fights, but not the majority of boss fights.

Things like the barrels in the Seraph run of CM or the chains section in AC are examples of good encounters in the sense that folks really need to go in with a strategy of cooperating together and executing it…. there’s more to it than just adding damage and staying alive. About the only boss fight that’s on a similar level is the Arah story mode when some folks are on the cannons shooting the dragons while others are keeping the cannoneers alive by getting rid of mobs and such. Phase 3 Giganticus is a good example where if you have aggro, you kite, while the team does what it can to keep the boss slowed and such.

Chests could use a little work, but they’re working on that? So… we’ll see how it hashes out.

I agree with the OP.

the dungeons are mess.

1) no real threat mechanic exist, there is a statement that it exists, but actually it is very very random.
even the rule that player who revive downed player jump to the top of the list is not true, you hit a huge crit on a mob, and it suddenly runs away and hits some guy in the corner.

sometimes you ‘range pull’ a mob, and it shows alone, the next time you ‘range pull’ the same mob and all the room jumps on you.

2) the trash mobs are too fast and the camera is bad even with the latest patch to the client
you enter an empty room ,and suddenly you are overwhelmed with Flash-Gordon mobs running with the speed of sound from corner to corner insta-gibbing everyone.
sometimes it is hard to escape crippled mob… they run so fast.

3) player character CC is inadequate.
poison sharing thief with basilisk venom, is useless, bosses are immune, he get stoned for one second, the trash mobs are so many, you stone one, the rest bury you with masses, and it is 45 seconds CD!
smoke screens (pistol 5/signet/ etc) are not good enough, they negate only one attack, its good for bosses, but useless on trash.

elementalist chill effect or slow effects is also 3 second chill max on half minute CD.

the stuns we have? 0.25 sec stun. is it a joke? it is not a stun it is interrupt, why call it a stun?

moa bird on three minute CC…

these are just examples how bad is the CC.

I understand that you cant remove cooldowns from players due to PVP, but seriously…
the player CC should affect longer on mobs, like ten times longer.

They’ve already said they will update the dungeon chests soon.

Strucker.8274:

I’ve played MMO’s for 10+ years, I haven’t been this relaxed or satisfied with a game in a very long time.

+1

I have enjoyed all of the dungeons. They are difficult until you learn the encounters. All of my runs have been with PUG groups. What I have noticed that makes the dungeons difficult or easy are a players skill level and knowledge of the instance. People need to get in the habit of speaking up when they run a dungeon they are unfamiliar with so that someone can explain encounters.

The only problem I see with dungeons are the chest rewards filled with vendor trash. Anet has already stated they are aware of the problem with dungeon loot and are working on a fix.

I wonder if the GW2 community is possibly the most whiny mmorpg community to date.

Krosan.2890:

I wonder if the GW2 community is possibly the most whiny mmorpg community to date.

Nah it is mostly these forums.

But to be fair, there’s also a lot of valid complaints being posted on the forums.
To call them all whiny, means ignoring the tons of long well-written posts with solid arguments that some players bring forward.

I didnt read all the posts along this topic, but I have 3 points of advice for ya
1. Learn to dodge
I was right there with you at the beginning and coming form a background in WOW actually makes it more difficult to grasp the concept of a dynamic fight with no tanks and no healers. Practice on the bosses in the mist and put some real work into your technique. I find that as long as you are not running arah only 2 people need to be good to make a group functional. Be a part of that 2.
2. Interrupt
Every class has a skill that can interrupt. find the weapon set that has it and keep it on you for the tougher pulls. You would be surprised how much easier this scavengers in AC are if you simply cycle interrupts with your companions. (hint: you can interrupt them at any part of their attack not just when they appear to be charging)
3. Use the dungeon forum as a resource
You made a post here so you are off to a great start, now find members of your server or others who are willing to take some of their time to show you the more difficult paths.

I hope your experience gets better, but I can promise you that posts like these don’t help you at all.

CC really isn’t a problem. My pistol/theif bomber-engineer only has a limited amount of CC but somehow it’s still effective enough in punishing mobs. Shield 4 is a great knockback, shield 5 is an interrupt in itself (and can be mass interrupt if placed well. hint: it interrupts all mobs it passes through). and ofc, I have my big-ol-bomb which is a great knockback. with relatively short CD, I time my CC in such that I can use bomb’s knockback the best. I also have glue bomb and blind bomb which are great CC-ers. Also, pistol 3 is blind on demand. I’m kinda envious with thieves as their reputation says they can get blind up almost indefinitely, critically important in clearing trash mobs.

btw, blind is useless on bosses, don’t bother. They have this thing where blind is only 10% effective =/

I’m sorry, you say you played WoW and yet have a problem with jumping puzzles, getting one shot, getting wiped on trash, and dying 50 times on the same boss? You’ve never, ever done WoW endgame content then. Try again.
I mean kitten, I only played BC and Wrath and I know I had to deal with Patchwork’s frogger (Trap/jumping puzzle) Freya’s room. (Trash easily tougher then some bosses) Every boss mechanic in the game that didn’t hit the tank was a one shot or kitten near close to it, and the reason why beating Arthas was IMPRESSIVE is because it was almost guaranteed to take a guild weeks to do. And this was /Wrath/ most of my friends who’ve played since vanilla say kitten was loads harder than that before then. Please, if you’re going to compare to other games, at least do it in a factual manner.

Krosan.2890:

I wonder if the GW2 community is possibly the most whiny mmorpg community to date.

Nope, that was Rift.

And Learn to Dodge, watch what the mob/boss is doing. People complain about getting downed, but every player can in-combat-rez…an infinite amount of times…some from range or with pets. Other games have huge CD’s on skills like this, this is not WoW, finally :P

Also, wtf does ‘overgeared’ mean? Do people wear two suits of armour? Pretty kitten term tbqh. Is there a negative reaction when your gear gets too good? Many facepalms for this thread. Many.

Meh Jumping puzzles is one thing. I like them, however that has nothing to do specifically with how bad the dungeons are.

They are bad. Really really bad.

The dungeons are all setup to zerg them, simply because there are many instances where you simply cannot avoid the all too common, every single boss pretty well and half the normal mob red circles that plague this game.

Again the red circles are there for a reason – there is for the most part no other way to tell what the mob is doing without them. The combat is a mess and a mess to look at. Give the players an option to turn off other’s particle effects so they can actually learn a fight instead of learn how to respawn and run back over and over again.

It is TOO easy to just zerg each and every fight over learning an encounter that is the same as every other…….. stay out of the circles and if you don’t just run back.

kite, kite, kite, kite……….. sadly the lack of PVE content that actual PVE players need foremost will hurt this game significantly in the long run.

Rewards are useless in dungeons. There literally is no reason to do them after you get your set of exotics that you want to look like. None.

This entire motto of playing this game to look pretty just won’t work in the end.

What ever happened to the days of upgrading your gear in dungeons / raids etc? Everything is going to this awful token based nonsense. They did one thing right giving everyone their own chest…… the problem is nothing comes out of it worth more than 69 copper

To all those who—for whatever reason—like the dungeons, and to those who don’t, I ask you one question;

Can you go into the dungeons excited, play them, and then come out thinking, feeling, saying, “That was awesome!!”?

And that’s all there really is to it. ANet has some work to do.

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

Tinni.4351:

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

All I do is dungeons in this game, but I don’t know if I actually find them fun. Think it just keeps me entertained as I don’t enjoy leveling.

… you can’t be doing things right. What do you mean you don’t like leveling? What do you do mean by it? I mean, I leveled by completing maps. How is that not fun? You go to a map and it’s at 0% and you are all like “I am lost and confused and there are wolves after me!” but then explore a bit, do some heart, tags WPs, get points of interests and then when you are 100% you are all like “Oh I see! It all makes sense now!” and I don’t just mean the map but you get to learn a bit about the lore and what’s happening too! But of course, you do actually have to pay attention, follow the events, talk to the NPCs etc, etc. If all you are doing is mindlessly killing like a bot, well yes, leveling is not a lot of fun. But if you enter a map zone wanting to learn about the zone – you get more out of the experience IMO. I mean, the lore in this game is really rich. So might as well dive into it! Not to mention that 100%ing a map zone get’s you money and lootz!

I don’t find it enjoyable, cool for people who do, but I don’t. I play games for enjoyable repeatable content, which GW1 provided and this game kind of provides. Completing maps is not for me.

Whether or not you’re able to understand that, idk. But I’m not alone with this mentality. I don’t judge people who enjoy leveling and not dungeons, I’d like to receive the same mutual acceptance.

Eh i was about to jump at the other poster. You are perfectly fine with how you play as that is the point of the game and why its viable to get to 80 with about anything you do. Those saying players are wrong for not enjoying something need to keep there mouths shut. The Mexican Cookie is doing things exactly how ANet intended. He doesent enjoy a part of the content so he doesent do it. This game is designed to provide content in a form that if you dont enjoy it you move on to other content not sit and complain about it. In general there is content out there for most everyone.

That said. I hope you can come to enjoy the dungeons as that is the type of content you seem to be looking for. Also might i ask why you are not sure if you enjoy it or not?

Tinni.4351

I have gotten rare items from chests and you shouldn’t bash blues and greens. Even vendoring they add-up. But really, you don’t do GW dungeons for the loots. You do the story mode because you want to know the story and you do the explorable because you want the tokens for specific gear and/or want to do it at least once for the experience. But you will generally make a tidy sum from completion reward and vendoring blues and greens and if you lucky with a rare drop, that’s great! But drop loots should not be your motivation. If it is, you will be disappointed.

I do dungeons for the loots….especially things like lodestones and cores, which are needed to make any unique weapon skins. They don’t drop often enough imo.

I fully agree.

Instead of giving us uninteresting events like halloween fix the game

If someone likes dungeons it’s only the matter of that person preferences. Some ppl love them, some hate them.

I’d like to point something for the ppl claiming that grinding dungeons is required.
I have spent some time in Aion. After looking at 3.0 I gave up completely. From my point of view and experience: instances in Aion after first run are boring like hell. As far as I recall I almost fallen asleep in Besh. I did about 200 runs there and never got full armor set. I also thanks to the help of my friends was able to buy weapon cause it never dropped.
This is also connected to the holy trinity. In Aion my friend playing tank was falling asleep at some of the bosses (seriously, we had to shout at TS to wake him up).

Ok let’s say I could give up this set and get Abyss one – requiring millions of AP and hundreds of medals (what means farming AP instance twice a day). The third option is arena set – the easiest way of getting eq but also requiring time especially when you start with no decent gear at all.
Comparing to the ‘grindy’ style MMOs GW2 has very low grind level required for getting eq with max stats.
It has higher grind level required comparing to the GW1 but this was a bit obvious concerning the higher max level and higher difference in equipment statistics.

The thing I’d like to see improved is chest loot cause now it’s disappointing but first and foremost I’d like the bugs to be fixed I won’t even have a problem waiting for new content to see those fixed.

Strucker.8274:

I’ve played MMO’s for 10+ years, I haven’t been this relaxed or satisfied with a game in a very long time.

Same here

Some ppl are so brainwashed they’ve lost the ability to comprehend methinks. Throw the tradition of i am the tank everyone needs me i am the healer everyone needs me give me the loot and the gear give me the epics let me roll around being leet and better than everone else let me one shot stuff and let me skip stuff and do dungeons for epic rewards in 10 mins… i’ve earned it and make this game just like …… Get rid of all that and the game becomes fun and if it’s not fun why the heck would you play it.

Ravina Gray.4719:

Strucker.8274:

I’ve played MMO’s for 10+ years, I haven’t been this relaxed or satisfied with a game in a very long time.

Same here

Some ppl are so brainwashed they’ve lost the ability to comprehend methinks. Throw the tradition of i am the tank everyone needs me i am the healer everyone needs me give me the loot and the gear give me the epics let me roll around being leet and better than everone else let me one shot stuff and let me skip stuff and do dungeons for epic rewards in 10 mins… i’ve earned it and make this game just like …… Get rid of all that and the game becomes fun and if it’s not fun why the heck would you play it.

I could probably agree with that too, it has some things that are in need of attention, and some things that just plain piss me off, considering it’s a few months since release, I think the game is looking pretty good.

I’m not even talking about the fact there’s no fee. Some of the best ideas i’ve seen and often well implemented. Th irony of everyone crying every mmo is wow clone and then when a non wow clone comes along the same people cry its not like wow, lol.

I will say whoever designed the human 45-55 zone needs to be locked in a dark cupboard for a week though, the Charr 40-50 is so much better it’s actually not funny.