Guild Wars 2

I’ve been gaming since the early 90’s, I’ve played over 20 MMOs. The dungeons in GW2 are too hard for such little reward. Everyone I know has basically stopped playing that for that very reason.

Are there any plans to revamp, or take a look at the dungeons?

Admittedly I have only been inside the first two dungeons as my friends are too low for anything else, but from what I have seen I’m inclined to agree with you. Dungeons feel like a chaotic zergfest designed to include running back into battle from a waypoint, and I am very disappointed thus far.

Agree, the risk on most of the explorable dungeons is much higher than the reward. For example, the trash in Arah explorable modes is horrible, and the giganticus lupicus fight is also very difficult.

Citadel of Flame explorable is the only one most people run because its fast & easy.

Navok.4537:

Admittedly I have only been inside the first two dungeons as my friends are too low for anything else, but from what I have seen I’m inclined to agree with you. Dungeons feel like a chaotic zergfest designed to include running back into battle from a waypoint, and I am very disappointed thus far.

Same here, even after seeing a bit more. Without the zergfest running game and a little finetuning it could be a blast, the potential is there, the combat system shines sometimes.

After learning an encounter you can really have fun (and survive), but the ability and sometimes necessity to play the running game ruins most of it.

Dungeons start being ok as soon as guys STOP thinking their 20 year experience does help you at all in GW2.
This system requires a good teamwork, tactics and stuff.
Something that most MMOs are heavily lacking due to heaving one part removed by the tank/heal/dd groups.

Id rather blow the dungeons up with a char-zooka, then actually do them. No one i know willingly wants to do a dungeon. They are hard, annoying and not worth the effort or time doing them ever.

I don’t like wasting time and having to repair my attire cause i got one shot in a dumbed down level 30 instance by a guy who is across the map hitting me for 5k when im 4 k max health. Only to get rewarded by some unusable gear that isn’t class specific or way to low a level to use.

Yeah good times.

Kryil.6045:

Dungeons start being ok as soon as guys STOP thinking their 20 year experience does help you at all in GW2.
This system requires a good teamwork, tactics and stuff.
Something that most MMOs are heavily lacking due to heaving one part removed by the tank/heal/dd groups.

But you have to think, Most people dont like the new setup. Even with communication,teamwork and everything else.. people still hate the dungeons

GW2 dungeons definitely have a different set of skills needed than dungeons in other games. I think it may be compounded because the PVE gameplay outside of dungeons seems pretty familiar to people – hard hitting weapons and quick kills are the way to go in the world.

It’s best to think of the dungeons like you would for a pvp build. Focus on survivability and utility. Work as a team and use your tools to get combos, control and stun your enemies, use environment features to block Line- of- Sight, and don’t assume that anyone can tank it for you. Kiting will almost always work better.

Slows and swiftness are extremely valuable as well… using them, you can control who the boss or trash is chasing or attacking to make sure that no one person is taking all the heat.

It is hard at the beginning… but it’s not a design problem as much as it is just a different game than you were playing before. (assuming you were used to WoW, SWTOR, or any of the other heads to that hydra)

Not the diff. level of dungs are the problem but the healing… the healing is just not sufficient in the dungeons its bit weak in solo play in PvE and so in the dung its really not sufficient ,

Agreed. Getting rid of the holy trinity is perfectly fine, but not if dungeon mobs do the insane damage as they do in older MMOs.

Soo…you play everything for a reward? I like the dungeons because they are challenging. It’s a breath of fresh air. I actually felt accomplished when I finished most of them as opposed to being in and out in 15 minutes. I do agree that the reward for story mode needs to be improved, though. That first run is a make or break for people like yourself, and it’s a shame that being challenged caused your friends to quit a great game like this. Just speaks to culture nowadays—if something is tough, avoid it.

Trimethicon.7405:

I’ve been gaming since the early 90’s, I’ve played over 20 MMOs. The dungeons in GW2 are too hard for such little reward. Everyone I know has basically stopped playing that for that very reason.

Are there any plans to revamp, or take a look at the dungeons?

Over 20 MMO’s? that’s impressive would you mind listing at least 20 of the ones you played?

One thing to say here: LEARN TO PLAY. Seriously, at start i was also thinking this is way to hard. But then after a few times AC Explorer mode i felt like: this is way to easy. And yes i always did the the same quest in AC. You have to work like a team, use skills that affect whole party etc etc.

i actually agree with TS here.
i’ve finished most of dungeons story mode and they are too unrewarding to make me want to do them again
while there are some dungeons like CM and Arah SM which are incredibly easy, AC is ridiculously hard for the first dungeon you go into and AC EM is just absurd.
the blasters in CoE, needs a nerf, 8k tracking missles that hit everything in their path to the target is just wow…
arah’s EM mid boss AoE is almost wipe…

I enjoy the dungeons a lot. AC was very hard until you realize you can pull single mobs by themselves if you have a certain skill slotted. You have to designate someone to pull…like a tank in any mmo. Taking on three or four at a time is ridiculously stupid. However, i will say i have been spoiled from playing with guildies and no pugs. I pugged a few times, and i will hold off on doing so again for a while. People are just getting used to this new form of play style without a specialized healer.

the dungeons will get easier when people adapt to the new play style. give it time.

i want to go into the dungeons for the story, and i also want to unlock explorable mode. New challenges await in explorable mode, and i am a sucker for cool looking armor

I wanted to voice support for the OP here; I agree that the dungeons (explore mode) are extremely difficult for little reward. Perhaps an ANet comment (‘working as intended’?) would help assuage doubts.

My questions are:
1. Is zerg-rushing to kill a boss (or even trash) a normal part of life, or (as I fear) an exploit of sorts? If it’s the former, then that strikes me as quite un-compelling gameplay indeed.
2. Is every boss in an explore-mode run supposed to have a chest appear after they are killed? We found at least one boss in Manor Explore who didn’t. Bug?
3. What is the expected earning of dungeon-currency after a single explore-mode run? Is it the same across dungeons or paths?
4. Are creature health pools and damage done scaled for a ‘typical’ level X, where X is the level of the dungeon (35 for AC Explore)?
5. To what extent are explore-mode dungeons reserved for those who trait for dungeons and/or are higher level?
5a. Further to that, what impact does increasing player level even have, considering that everyone is down-ranked?

Yes AC is very hard for the first dungeon in the game, but once you know how to you can
do any dungeon.

Hahaha. I can see, where the majority of players are comming from.

I hope very much that Anet, is not going to make same mistake as Blizzard. Some of us like a challenge, and completing it, can be an satisfaction itself.

I enjoy them being hard – I hope they do not nerf them to badly
That being said though, it would be cool to get something nice in return for the time spent! (first time is ok for story, but after that we need some more incentive to go back!)

I did AC with a guild team last night, 2 of us eles running stave water and fire attunement throughout. Didn’t seem that hard really for something called a dungeon… lol As to the rewards, they weren’t that bad. The peasant hat was ugly but had nice stats, soon sorted out the ugly by using a heritage masque transmute on it. My guild love dungeons, so by no means is it everybody who doesn’t like them at all….

Fen

I do not feel your 20 years in gaming means that I should have to have sub-difficulty dungeons. Buck up.

I got to admit that I was thinking exactly the same thing as the OP here, but as soon as I found a group willing to try out different abilities etc. and not rely on the same World of borecraft strategy, they are actually not that hard. You need to sort out your skills etc. pending on the boss and the rest of the group. Use your utilities and make kitten happen.

Hard content is a good thing. The reason I left WoW was because of WOTLK that made everything FACEROLL. Why do people cry everytime they meet a challenge? Seriously. L 2 P. Stop complaining about a nonexistant problem.

I don’t mean to sound condescending, but they’re only hard until you and your allies grasp the mechanics and improve you reflexes. Difficulty is a very subjective thing, though I believe the dungeons are working as intended. They’re not something you have to do. If you’re finding them difficult, discuss alternative strategies and consider using different skills/weapons based on the offending fights.

There is a pretty steep learning curve, though if everyone pulls their weight pretty much any challenge can be overcome eventually. It’s perfectly possible that dungeons just aren’t your cup of tea, which is perfectly fine! That doesn’t mean they should be nerfed, though. A lot of people enjoy a good challenge, after all.

I’m not sure why there is so much whining. My guild does several dungeons runs each night. As far as I know that’s mostly what is being done, people leveling are doing story and level 80s are doing explorer. I have done many of them myself and I can’t say they are really all that hard. I have never done a single PUG though. I believe it really requires coordination and in-depth knowledge of your class. You just really need to spec so that you synergize with your party members.

However, what I do find disappointing is the rewards. Spending an hour figuring out how to kill a boss and then actually killing him only to get rewarded with some low level blue or white is sad…

To sum it up: Leave the difficulty as is. Fix the annoying bugs. Please do something better with the rewards, I feel they should be a bit more rewarding.

Sorry but the dungeons look like they were designed in 1-2 days. nothing was tested many bosses have tons more health or do way to much damage then they should.
and the degree of difficulty does not scale at all its very random.

if your succeeding in the dungeons its because your doing the easy mode ones and choosing the easier explorable path, or simply spam ressing your way through, try some of the other paths.

Its not balanced at all, boss mechanics are not clear in some fights either.
It really needs a good overhaul on the system.

Ive done every story mode and about 1/2 the explorable modes.
Gear does help a lot, but still its very buggy and do them at level 80 its much easier.

All I have to say to the people having trouble: learn combo fields, time dodges, learn mechanics, time dodges, condition removal skills, time dodges, and for some fights a stun break or 2.

All the old MMO ‘veterans’ who think they can go into a dungeon, have run into a group of trash and just tank / dps away by mashing skills and go into a boss fight with the same idea + dodging a few special moves are in for a culture shock. Everyone is the tank, and everyone is the dps. A few can be healers, too.

To be honest I don’t find these dungeons to be “difficult”. Being one/two shot by something doesn’t make it difficult, it just makes it frustrating. Like the LT boss in AC EXP. You can dodge his pull, but then his leaping attack still almost 3 shots you.

It’s also bugged because he can pull you through the pillars and even leap through them.

Dungeons are stupidly hard. So hard that we’ve resorted to glitching the AI and cheesing past hordes of silver elite super beasts just to complete the dungeon, and it takes us HOURS to complete it. And seriously, 25/30 tokens for completing a dungeon? Are you ****ing insane, Arenanet? Is your Dungeon team just that dumb?

First of all i want say i enjoy Challange or even hard content.

BUT.

Imagine you are not done any of these instances in beta. You have 2 professions. And your wallet is empty. You are entering dungeon for first time. You dedicate 2 hours for dungeon (Wich is a lot of time kids! Some have to work for living too not just play GW2). You are doing and learning this dungeon by dieing alot wich is understandable. You have now advanced to half of the instance bosses dropped couble of whites and from chest you got 1 green and 1blue. Only the other one was useable and had same skin than your last weapon. Its been 1hour and 30minutes, you are broke cuz your repairs cost a lot of silver.

So how rewarding you feel after this? You have to quit not because you are almost out of time but also broke cuz repairs and can’t afford it. You got one item that sells for 1 silver and one upgrade, whit same old ball mace skin. I didn’t feel like rewarded. This all just happened me today.

Id play Dark souls insted of GW2 for challange and rewards anytime.

I dont like the holy trinity myself thats why i have my hopes up for Anet.
You people here are telling in PvE and PvP we should use this and that skillbuild. Dont you remember what has been stated? Anyone should be able to play the way they like it!

You denying me to use sword instead of hammer because guardians hammer skills are much more protective ? So we alraedy are going to the direction this is PvP Trait tree and this one PvE trait tree. Next we develop Tank traits, heal traits… You see where im going? Anet did not develop it this way, thats what i think. If they so did! It might not be the game for me.

I love freedom to CHOOSE what i want play and be! If it once again goes to this: You can’t complete this dungeon because your traits are wrong and not suitable to do this. Im out. Might aswell just sit in WvW and forget anything else.

Mad Finn has spoken, now let the kittenstorm begin!

P.s Sorry typos and such, grammar nazis leave me alone.

Utena.8052:

Id rather blow the dungeons up with a char-zooka, then actually do them. No one i know willingly wants to do a dungeon. They are hard, annoying and not worth the effort or time doing them ever.

I don’t like wasting time and having to repair my attire cause i got one shot in a dumbed down level 30 instance by a guy who is across the map hitting me for 5k when im 4 k max health. Only to get rewarded by some unusable gear that isn’t class specific or way to low a level to use.

Yeah good times.

If you’re referring to Ascalon Catacombs, then you ignored the bright fancy chargeup animation that that guy does before he uses scorpion wire. You need to dodge or block his attack. It’s not too hard to kite him solo if you’re paying attention. I know I’ve done it myself while helping friends through.

Heya all,

I have done a few dungeons (exp and story) AC like many of you was my first (did explorable at 35)

I personally found i was getting blues / greens off most chests, witch is fine by me, personally i figgured i would try a dungeon, then come back when im 80 and basically get the decent armors from it, and thats what im doing now.. i like many of you also have limited time (11 month old baby)

i think alot of you need to realise that the “reward” comes from firstly compleating the dungeon, and seccondly the armor you get from the tokens, its ment to be somthing you work towards, and a challenge,

I find its much like progression raiding in wow, you smack your head against a brick wall for a while and eventually you get the hang of it, my group (PuG) when we first went in there, none of us knew what to expect (granted i did watch a little bit of beta footage, however that really dident help much as i had watched it a few months before actually doing the dungeon) we really did struggle with the bosses until we started talking to eachother about what we can do to improve our odds without having to cheese the fight, and by the end of it we were really working as a group.

However now that i know my class a little bit better looking back on the first fight in AC exp that gives a chest, i realise i could have gone mace / sheild (as a warrior) and just interupted his instagib attack and blocked his other ones effectivly tanking the boss..

imo, its not as hard as alot of you seem to think it is.. and eventually there will be a tankspot video for you all to watch anyway.

Having done all the story modes and most of the “do able” explorable modes I can only agree with the OP.

While I love the difficulty in some of the dungeons, the mechanics of most of them could do with a few tweaks. Mob burst damage is one major issue, not for special attacks with clear visual cues, but for general damage.

Ranged mobs are also very powerful often doing incredible damage in a very short period of time or doing high aoe damage. Some can be dodged, but as endurance is limited you more often than not get caught out.

Boss fights are either one of two things, far to easy tank and spanks, or mindless teleport zergs. In these cases the bosses that are too easy need improving and the ones which are just zerg fests need fixing.

I also find the aggro of mobs totally random and in some situations can be incredibly frustrating, like when a mob or two just decides to latch onto one person and never let go until your dead and running back from the teleport.

Better or at least some aggro management would be very much welcome. Specially when you’ve been downed, mobs should leave you and go for someone else.

Rewards are lacking though, getting 25-30 tokens for 1 run and 15-20 for each run after when items are 180+ is pretty poor, specially when you consider that getting a set of Exotic level 80 gear is already very easy.

This is a typical post of a player who thinks grinding is more important than skill and brain. You have to realise that GW2 doesnt award you for hard grinding as much as other MMOs, this game is about challenge, not about grinding to lvl 80 and then pwning low level dungs like a baws.

However i do agree that the rewards for dungs should be higher. But what the difficulty concerns they are just fine, dungeons are not to be an easy grind but to be a high end challenge that requires skill.
What anet should rather focus on are the big amount of various bugs (boss doesnt spawn, party cant enter etc.).

MadMossy.8715:

Having done all the story modes and most of the “do able” explorable modes I can only agree with the OP.

While I love the difficulty in some of the dungeons, the mechanics of most of them could do with a few tweaks. Mob burst damage is one major issue, not for special attacks with clear visual cues, but for general damage.

Ranged mobs are also very powerful often doing incredible damage in a very short period of time or doing high aoe damage. Some can be dodged, but as endurance is limited you more often than not get caught out.

Boss fights are either one of two things, far to easy tank and spanks, or mindless teleport zergs. In these cases the bosses that are too easy need improving and the ones which are just zerg fests need fixing.

I also find the aggro of mobs totally random and in some situations can be incredibly frustrating, like when a mob or two just decides to latch onto one person and never let go until your dead and running back from the teleport.

Better or at least some aggro management would be very much welcome. Specially when you’ve been downed, mobs should leave you and go for someone else.

Rewards are lacking though, getting 25-30 tokens for 1 run and 15-20 for each run after when items are 180+ is pretty poor, specially when you consider that getting a set of Exotic level 80 gear is already very easy.

This.

The rewards for dungeons are the tokens. It’s basically just for prestige gear.

Explorable dungeons are actually incredibly easy if you’re willing to learn. The first time I did Kholer in AC explorable, I thought he was impossible. Now I’m farming the dungeon, and I never get hit even once during that fight.

I say they are generally badly designed over being “hard”, for instance, the hardest part of AC story mode is a MINI BOSS. Also, story mode is supposed to made for pick up groups to be able to run through… why do they often require ppl to get a guild and run with guildies? And you do AC for a cap?? That is useless if you’re not lvl 30… what is this i dont even

Also, some of the mobs are just badly designed, for instance, melee mobs’ normal attack hit way too hard and are unavoidable at times, making using melee in dungeons inviable. There are bosses that give no indication of what they are going to do and 1 shot you, etc. etc. Obviously the problem was that no one beta tested the dungeons.

MadMossy.8715:

Having done all the story modes and most of the “do able” explorable modes I can only agree with the OP.

While I love the difficulty in some of the dungeons, the mechanics of most of them could do with a few tweaks. Mob burst damage is one major issue, not for special attacks with clear visual cues, but for general damage.

Ranged mobs are also very powerful often doing incredible damage in a very short period of time or doing high aoe damage. Some can be dodged, but as endurance is limited you more often than not get caught out.

Boss fights are either one of two things, far to easy tank and spanks, or mindless teleport zergs. In these cases the bosses that are too easy need improving and the ones which are just zerg fests need fixing.

I also find the aggro of mobs totally random and in some situations can be incredibly frustrating, like when a mob or two just decides to latch onto one person and never let go until your dead and running back from the teleport.

Better or at least some aggro management would be very much welcome. Specially when you’ve been downed, mobs should leave you and go for someone else.

Rewards are lacking though, getting 25-30 tokens for 1 run and 15-20 for each run after when items are 180+ is pretty poor, specially when you consider that getting a set of Exotic level 80 gear is already very easy.

Yep, this. Well said truly.

Dark Souls:
You put unspent souls at risk because you chose not to spend them. You never put a resource at risk which is part of your character’s strength, such as levels, armor, attribute points. Only very select moments in Dark Souls will negatively affect those. The monsters which can petrify you and permanently take away health can be counted on one hand. As can the enemies which are allowed to break your gear aggressively. In essence, Dark Souls puts your excess wealth at risk and not your bottom line. At worst, you do not move forward. If you die, you are punished once: loss of souls, nothing more.

Guild Wars 2:
This is a game which will happily break your armor and drain your resources, even the ones you did not want to put at risk. By dying, you are punished multiple times. You get death penalty, so next time you die even faster, because every death negatively affects your healthbar. Your armor gets damaged, meaning you lose money. You can lose more than just the money you are earning on the current run (Dark Souls), you can leave a dungeon with less money than you entered.

In comparison, GW2 is far more unrelenting and vengeful about dying than Dark Souls is. For the most parts of the game it does not matter, but dungeons make this trait of the game very visible to the less experienced players.

There is also a night and day difference between doing a dungeon with normal people and doing it with powergamers who are level 80 and have at least partial exotic gear. Gear can make such a difference in this game. To think you are ready just because your level is the right numbers is wrong.

I love the dungeons the way they are. They actually feel like a dangerous, yet adventurous place, and the added on story brings another layer of depth. The difficulty of explorable modes pushes groups to optimize and utilize every tool and trick they have as a team. I am glad it isn’t just assemble your group and everyone go bannanas and claim your prize.

As far as the rewards go, I think they may be a little bit too low. Increasing actual drops (more greens/rares and more silvers from chest) and reducing token cost of armor/weapons by about 20% would be nice. Or perhaps increasing fine material drops and having Ectoplasm available as a random drop.

Trimethicon.7405:

I’ve been gaming since the early 90’s, I’ve played over 20 MMOs. The dungeons in GW2 are too hard for such little reward. Everyone I know has basically stopped playing that for that very reason.

Are there any plans to revamp, or take a look at the dungeons?

You MUST be a troll, they’re not hard at all, they just tend to keep you on your toes. Especially story modes, they’re super easy. Just get used to this fast-paced combat style.

I would personally hate to see them get simplified, I really enjoy them the way they are and I’m pretty sure a lot of other people do too. Just because you couldn’t oneshot everything out right doesn’t mean something’s wrong with the dungeon, put some effort in learning the curve and try and adapt.

I just thought i would chime in here, I have done four dungeons so far on story mode and explore mode. Ac the first time was hard but fun and different, the mannor was fun but hard mostly due to the camera inside the manor and on explore mode it wasnt to hard but we died a hell of a lot and i lost more money than i made in the place and got nothing out of it but a few tokens at the end.

The risk / reward balance is way out of whack. Im basically selling everything to the vendor or salvaging every single thing i get.

And nearly every boss the tactic turns into run around in circles and kite it, from what i seen so far melee have a awfull time in dungeons and in cof explore mode i had no clue what was going on as the pug i was in in rushed of ugh it was very frustrating but it wasnt to hard, just i didnt find of the mechanics that obvious at a glance.

also the whole pitch for the game is you dont need a trinity but your really fecked in these dungeons if people dont use certain builds, i like minion master/ life siphon set up but i cant really use it in a dungeon because the pets are so un reliable and i have basically no control over them, so i have to go for wells etc which is fine but even that is awkward use as people are constantly running around to avoid mobs that they never even get the full benefit from my skills as they run out of range.

The whole thing is feeling like a chaotic zerg fest die and zerg die and zerg then go broke.

but that said i find a good chunk of it good fun. needs a lot of tweaking.

Does the game need to have hard dungeons ?
Of course !

Do the low level dungeons need to be very hard ? Heck no !
Does the first dungeon have to be the hardest of the lot ? On the contrary.
Can you expect players at lvl35 to already know their class inside out ? Don’t think so.
Can you expect players to select their gear and traits to be perfect for the low level dungeon ? I wouldn’t expect it.

Make the Exploration Mode dungeons hard.
Make the level80 dungeons hard.
Make AC (lvl30) very very easy. And then slowly increase the difficulty level for each next dungeon. Give players some time to get adjusted to their class. And adjusted to the game and the game mechanics.

I’ve played zillions of hours in another MMO. I’ve raided the hardest content. I’ve done AC this week. It was a disaster. Give me a few more night like that one, and I’ll delete GW2 from my disk and never play it again.

We went in with 4 players. Because there’s only 4 of us (friends). Big mistake. We were all in level range (35-38), so no benefits of out-leveling (even with downscaling). We had the crappy gear all new players have. We used the specs we used for leveling. All mistakes, it seems.

Somebody compared his experience in AC Story Mode with Progression Raiding. Really ? You need to approach the first dungeon in the game, on “easy mode”, as if you were doing Progression Raiding ?

We had our best player play his Guardian. As a kind of tank. Didn’t help much. My Thief was specced all for dps. In PvE you can get away with this, if you avoid damage. Well, that was my thought. It worked for leveling. Not so much in dungeons. I got 2-shotted all the time. Low health, low toughness, low self-healing. Even when I avoid AoE, only play ranged (pistols), never get close to the mobs, I still die like a toddler. Knockdowns, knocked away into AoE, 2 mobs blasting on me, mobs not letting go even if I stop dps. We had zero control over the mobs. I could hardly heal myself, I could not remove conditions. I felt completely helpless. No fun at all. If there is no holy trinity, at least give every player some functionality of a tank and a healer.

I think the answer is: I need to spec my traits and get gear only for dungeons. Defensive stats. Healing, toughness and vitality. From what I’ve read on forums, I should play with shortbow only (I was using pistols). Ok, that’s the end of “flexible professions, play like you want”.

I don’t mind hard content at level 80. Content that you need to take some time and prepare. Content that can take a night, or a few nights, to learn. But for the first dungeon in a game, in story mode, I thought AC completely failed its goal.

I think they could use some better awards… but please keep them hard. I want a challenge.

Bobbeeoh.2754:

Some of us like a challenge, and completing it, can be an satisfaction itself.

This is my feeling exactly. The reward is completing the run. And the harder the mobs hit, the more sweet that reward becomes.

I’m all for a challenge. In fact the first time I did AC it was great, I had a blast. It is weird that trash is harder than bosses but whatever, anyway it really is clear that some bosses are not balanced. I went to do CoF on my 80 Guardian, I roll with a Greatsword and Staff. I use the GS for damage and bursting down targets and when it gets sticky I roll back and switch to the staff. The number 4 skill is great for support especially since I’m specced to get almost a full health bar everytime I use it.

So we start and this is on Story Mode mind you. All but 2 are 80 in the group and the others are 74+, we were able to get through the trash fairly easy, especially compared to the runs I had in AC. We get to the first boss by heading west. It’s the Greatsword boss that whirlwinds across the room every 3 seconds killing you if you get hit. Anyway as you can tell we couldn’t even knock 10% off his bar before wiping every time.

I switched skills went all range, tried to immobilize and any other cc I could muster, and so did the rest of my group. Still no progress he just spammed the room wide whirlwind and continued to down us all in 1 hit each. I left once I realized I spent over 15 silver in repair costs alone from this 1 boss.

I was only running the dungeon so I could unlock explorable mode. I don’t get anything from this dungeon run really, it’s just a fancier way to throw my money down the toilet. Considering to get my gear I have to do dungeons since Orr gear is crap and doesn’t have the stats I need for my build. I don’t know if this is an oversight but I have nothing to spend my Karma on now besides salvage kits. It’s just a lame situation to be in. Period. Considering I don’t care the slightest bit about dungeons one I’ve done them over 5 times and I absolutely hate the crafting in this game. Yet those are my only 2 options to get the end game gear I need. I could WvW but I won’t get a set until 2 years from now because badges of honor are rare to see.

I feel pigeonholed into doing things I just don’t care that much for and when the dungeons are as clearly unbalanced as that boss in CoF then it’s not fun. I enjoy a challenge but it’s not a challenge when you get 1 shot by everything. Especially when there are no clear tells half the time. It just ends up being aggravating so much that I don’t even want to play the game anymore and would rather just go smoke a bowl or two….

So as I see it ANet should do 1 of these…
1) Make it more rewarding. Why give blues and greens when those drop off trash anywhere? Give rares, I would feel good about that. Make them unsalvagable so people can’t exploit it either.
2) Give all armor sets in all forms of the game. Keep dungeon rewards crap, that’s fine. But let me earn a set of armor with the stats I need in any form of the game.
3) Nerf the difficulty. I don’t want this but they seem clearly unbalanced in a large amount of areas.

True. In response to the topic only I have to agree. The loot dropped for the story mode doesn’t seem that great. The only thing that was really nice was the XP I got from completion.

There likely are quite a bit of bugs and balance issues to work out though. I would expect a balance pass for all classes sooner than later, and also fixes and adjustments to the dungeon encounters. It is very likely some encounters are just very buggy at the moment.

The dungeons are challenging, not impossible. Because of this, successfully completing them is almost reward enough. “Almost”. This is what most people consider the biggest downfall of DG’s in GW2.
Why put chests at all? It’s a great notion if players could actually be excited about opening them. The problem is, every player already knows what he’s going to get: 5 tokens and a few random, impossibly useless blues.
-My suggestion is to put something like a 5% chance of a yellow, ~0.2% for an orange and for kitten sake, more coin.

I have played 2 explorables so far, and I’ll agree that the rewards are pretty bad.
-Token reward is very little. Need to do a lot of runs to get stuff.
-Chests only provide useless blue items – maybe the occassional green rune or rare tonic (lol?)
-The silver reward seems to be pretty well. I don’t know if this is obtained every run, or only goes for your first run on that dungeon… Then again, it generally takes a long time to finish a run, so it isn’t all that efficient anyway.

Unless you’re really in it for the token grind or the challenge to beat it, there doesn’t seem to be much reward to be gained from doing dungeons at all.
It would be nice if there was a chance to at least get greens or rares from the chests.

watter.5170:

All I have to say to the people having trouble: learn combo fields, time dodges, learn mechanics, time dodges, condition removal skills, time dodges, and for some fights a stun break or 2.

All the old MMO ‘veterans’ who think they can go into a dungeon, have run into a group of trash and just tank / dps away by mashing skills and go into a boss fight with the same idea + dodging a few special moves are in for a culture shock. Everyone is the tank, and everyone is the dps. A few can be healers, too.

this about describes the problem. This and another pet hate of mine people not reviving, people are too used to being able to pick dps in an mmo and do nothing in a instance than just stand there and press a rotation ignoring everything else going on around them. If people started to revive not only would it go easier, you spend less on repairs which only accrue on death not downed.

Karck.8725:

First of all i want say i enjoy Challange or even hard content.

BUT.

Imagine you are not done any of these instances in beta. You have 2 professions. And your wallet is empty. You are entering dungeon for first time. You dedicate 2 hours for dungeon (Wich is a lot of time kids! Some have to work for living too not just play GW2). You are doing and learning this dungeon by dieing alot wich is understandable. You have now advanced to half of the instance bosses dropped couble of whites and from chest you got 1 green and 1blue. Only the other one was useable and had same skin than your last weapon. Its been 1hour and 30minutes, you are broke cuz your repairs cost a lot of silver.

So how rewarding you feel after this? You have to quit not because you are almost out of time but also broke cuz repairs and can’t afford it. You got one item that sells for 1 silver and one upgrade, whit same old ball mace skin. I didn’t feel like rewarded. This all just happened me today.

Id play Dark souls insted of GW2 for challange and rewards anytime.

I dont like the holy trinity myself thats why i have my hopes up for Anet.
You people here are telling in PvE and PvP we should use this and that skillbuild. Dont you remember what has been stated? Anyone should be able to play the way they like it!

You denying me to use sword instead of hammer because guardians hammer skills are much more protective ? So we alraedy are going to the direction this is PvP Trait tree and this one PvE trait tree. Next we develop Tank traits, heal traits… You see where im going? Anet did not develop it this way, thats what i think. If they so did! It might not be the game for me.

I love freedom to CHOOSE what i want play and be! If it once again goes to this: You can’t complete this dungeon because your traits are wrong and not suitable to do this. Im out. Might aswell just sit in WvW and forget anything else.

Mad Finn has spoken, now let the kittenstorm begin!

P.s Sorry typos and such, grammar nazis leave me alone.

I’m surprise nobody quoted this guy, I never though about it but what he said is extremely true. GW2 removed the holy trinity so that anyone with any class/build/preference could join a party and be useful. But with the current mechanic, I had to change my build and so did my brothers to be able to beat dungeon easier, and I know many other did, I liked my PVE build, skill we’re funnier and my weapon looked better, now I’m using a Hammer on my guardian, my brother use water with his ele, even though he’s more of a earth liker.

I know we could still beat dungeon before we changed, but it was extremely hard and time consuming.

I wish we could just do it as easily with our weapon/class/build preference.

They got rid of Holy Trinity but people still have to adapt to the dungeon they are fighting and most of time it mean changing weapon/build