Guild Wars 2

I just checked GW2LFG. At time of checking, there were 42 groups looking for players for CoF, and 39 for FotM. There were only 2 for AC, one of which was a ‘speedrunz only zerkwar ping gearz kk!!!!111’ post ie idiots.

I will need to run AC 4 more times for tokens, and am happy to form groups for it, but right now that dungeon is dead. Even Arah has more activity.

As a fairly new player who started the game shortly before the changes to AC, I can definitely say that I’ve seen interest in the dungeon to have dropped massively. Before the changes, there was a constant stream of LFGs for AC. After the changes, there are barely any. There’s still a pretty constant stream of LFGs but it’s all for CoF.

Unfortuntely, I am one of the few who really want to collect tokens from AC but I find myself unable to because no one wants to run it.. and I don’t have enough experience in the dungeon to try forming up a group myself (I’ve only been through P1, and only once).

StriderShinryu.6923:

Unfortuntely, I am one of the few who really want to collect tokens from AC but I find myself unable to because no one wants to run it.. and I don’t have enough experience in the dungeon to try forming up a group myself (I’ve only been through P1, and only once).

I know what you mean; I would like to have some PVT armor to mix with Berzerker so that I can shift from more offensive to more defensive, depending on the content and group I’m with, but don’t have enough experience with it to run it myself, and groups for AC are not very common early morning EST when I’m on, even with the worldwide time zones of lfg. I’ll have to see if I can talk my 2 guildmates willing to run dungeons (the 5 others aren’t, just too hard) into at least forming the nucleus of a group.

Ever wonder that maybe, just maybe, that the drop of activities in AC after the patch is just a coincident? That maybe, just maybe, those who runs AC simply exhausted the content and got the items they want?

Aside from the Greatsword and the Shield, the rest of the skins in AC are meh.

It’s not just ac that’s dead, the only one I see people consistantly doing is CoF I was in LA for over an hour the other night and didn’t see one person post lfg or lfm for anything and while I know many people are using the external lfg website, the fact remains that the majority of players probably don’t know about it and just arn’t doing the dungeons.

I beleive this is for two reasons; one, because the dungeons are just too much work for too little reward. When you can just far mats for a couple hours and have someone craft just as good of gear (or craft it yourself) why waste time doing the dungeons when probably half the pug groups you get will fail and fall appart in the middle. This is also why I almost never see anyone on my server doing the events in orr except in the one farming location, it’s too much of a chore.

And two, they’re just too difficult to be fun for the average player. There are those people that like to sound like hotshots and say the game isn’t difficult enough, but the fact of the matter is, the game needs to be made for the average player, not the few that morbidly enjoy dying over and over to reach their goal.

Another major problem with the dungeon difficulty is inconsistancy. Even bosses in the same dungeon can vary so much in difficulty that it’s like hitting a wall. The main boss in CoE is an example of this. The first time I went there my group got past the first fight with him mainly on luck, then we were going along just fine, killed a couple other bosses just fine, but when we reached the second fight with him we could not win. We tried probably a dozen times before finally giving up.

Bassically if Anet wants to keep a large player base playing the pve portions of the game, then they need to revamp the difficulty levels and make the dungeons doable by the average pug group without much difficulty. This means that the dungeons need to be doable by a group of all glass canon builds, because frankly, I rarely see anyone play as a support or defensive build and I doubt players in a pug group would want to change their build just to run a dungeon. As for the rest of the game, events need to be easy enough that you rarely lose if ever. THAT is the real reason the dragon fights are so popular and the temples in orr rarely even get done; With the dragons, you never lose, but more than half the groups that attempt the temples in orr fail.

While I’m at it, here’s one more thing that’s bothering me. Giving an enemy more health, or making a boss fight go through repeating phases multiple times rarely makes a fight more difficult, what it does do though is make it a long boring grind. Yes grind, you know ANet, that thing you said you were trying to avoid in your manifesto. perhaps you should go back and watch that again because it seems to me that you’ve forgotten what you set out to do and now the game is full of grinding. Some of them (Legendaries), the longest, most time consuming grinds I’ve seen in a game, and this is coming from someone that grinded for 100+ hours doing the same quest over and over to get a specific mount in WoW.

IMO it is dying, but it’s not because it’s too difficult. I found the changes to be refreshing and slightly more challenging then before but not impossible. The only thing that turned me off was the fact that it was buggy as hell and impossible to find a group now. The people who used to farm it didn’t farm it for gear, they farmed it for money. When they changed it, the farmers simply moved on to greener pastures (CoF path 1) because they didn’t want to bother relearning a dungeon that they don’t really need anything out of and is buggy as hell.

Basically fast gold > learning new dungeon with same rewards as old version.

The thing I liked about AC before the patch is that you had three paths which you could earn tokens and money from. The tokens could be turned into exotic gear which could be salvaged for ectos or thrown into the mystic toilet for exos you could sell. The runs were decently fast – with a good team you could do all three in about 45mins. I also didn’t mind when I got lower level and inexperienced party members as it was a lot easier to carry them through the fights. And because there were three different paths, there was a bit of variety.

Now, it’s not nearly as fast as it once was. I liked stopping to kill the Troll, but now, if the troll spawns, I literally always let out an annoyed “UGH!” because it’s such a crap mob. It’s not even difficult, but it can eat 5+ mins of your time just because all it does is cast interrupts every 2 seconds. Troll aside, there are WAY too many glitches now, too. Deltha seems to get stuck more than even, and you can’t count on Grast for anything.

While CoF Path 1 is quicker, it gets really old really fast, and with the wrong team, you can spend just as long on the final boss as you did on the rest of the dungeon. And AC doesn’t lock itself down every few minutes forcing you to do annoying event chains or guesting on servers just to start the stupid thing.

Sir Vincent III.1286:

Ever wonder that maybe, just maybe, that the drop of activities in AC after the patch is just a coincident? That maybe, just maybe, those who runs AC simply exhausted the content and got the items they want?

Aside from the Greatsword and the Shield, the rest of the skins in AC are meh.

Before the changes, people who had no use for tokens ran AC for gold. If that is also dropping off, then the RoI is no longer good enough compared to what else they could be doing.

Aegis.9724:

AC now is just not worth pugging. With guildies or people who know what they’re doing? Sure. But chances are, those groups are already pre-formed, and you will not see them.

One of my friends, who is VERY casual ( bought in november, hit 80 a few weeks ago ) tried AC yesterday as his first dungeon.Was very excited about it. He had to wait for an hour or so to find a group, then he told the group he was a firsttimer and got kicked . Another 30min and he finally got in, wiped at spider, wiped at kholer (no idea why they didnt skip) a couple times and everyone disbanded.
Tried again in the evening and finally made it, after just 4/5 wipes. He then saw the rewards, realized he could probably get more by killing one dragon in 10 mins, and whisped me “NEVER AGAIN”. He now refuses to run any dungeon at all, even when i invited him in a group of 4 guildies.
Asked him why, and then he told my this story, how he play games to have fun, and how wasting 4 hours total for 60 tokens, a few greens and alot of bile, is NOT fun.

Now, i’m not saying GW2 should cater to people like him, that would require making everything cof1 style, but anet should be REALLY careful in how to streamline difficulty.
There should be entry points, somewhere, even with lower rewards (story is no entry point, GL finding a group without gw2lfg, or even with it at off hours), and high-end challenging content with bigger rewards. The current system makes no sense at all, people are invited in ac exp at lv 45 BY THE GAME ITSELF, paths that take 1 hour give the same reward as others that take 7min , and the first dungeon you discover is harder than many other in lv 70-80 areas. It’s just a total mess…

Pretty much what happens in the game with players just playing to have some fun which I fall into that category.

After doing all this campaign stuff with my friends we stumble on to this dungeon, AC. We had a similar experience. No one understood why this things are made and who they are aiming to please. What is the entertaining value? The conclusion was that no reward is worth dying all that time.

Much like your friend and my friends, no one wants to do dungeons anymore. Im reading the forums and looks like nothing has changed since August 2012. No one likes to do dungeons. I feel that the concept of class, [be ranger, tank, healer, etc.] has no impact and you will fall no matter who you play as.

The only players getting the most out of them are the ones exploiting them as fast as they can and a minority are truly enjoying them.

the only thing i hate about the new ac is that people believe it’s so difficult that it’s become impossible for me to level up alts through it now

Milennin.4825:

Some months ago there used to be a ton of people doing runs everyday.
Returned to the game last week, and while it isn’t too hard to form a group for AC, I can’t say there isn’t much choice either. At most there’s two groups looking for more people. But some times there are no people to group with at all. It’s a shame, because AC was one of the few dungeons I used to be able to get a party for consistently within 5 minutes.

That’s what happens when amateurs run games. They see something that people enjoy and decide to change it. IF they wanted to make it harder, they could have without changing the boss fights. All they had to do was redo the damage / hp/tough of bosses

hamsteak.1368:

the only thing i hate about the new ac is that people believe it’s so difficult that it’s become impossible for me to level up alts through it now

It’s not difficult, it’s just not fun.

Agreed, AC is just a chore now.

It is becoming impossible to find groups during off hours now and it’s like pulling teeth to convince guildies to run it now as well. SAB pretty much destroyed what little was left of people that did run it as well.

Now I’m starting to wish that they’ d make it Soloable or add in NPCs to run it with.

Let’s beat this horse to death once more, with feeling.

Old AC was fine. Easy, nice introduction to dungeonning, Kohler was a fun fight for organized group, you could go in and out in less than half an hour for reasonable rewards, and it was altogether rookie and pug friendly.

New AC is a chore. Unorganized pug fail it massively, organized groups struggle with tedious/bugged boss mechanics, and it’s no longer rookie friendly as you need to expertly dodge, purge conditions, keep on your toes not to get repeated knocks backs from trash mobs.

Is it more challenging? Not really for someone who already finished multiple times the other dungeons in the game.

Is it more fun? I, for one, find it spectacularly tedious. Ghostbuster fight was fun for two minutes the first time. I don’t want to go through it ever again. Howling King (and the burrow event) lags horrendously on my system (it used to work as intended), so it’s not fun at all being mauled to death by invisible adds. Never tried Grast, but from what I’ve heard it’s the most bugged of the three flavours, so no thank you.

No wonder then no one want to run it anymore, except experienced players that have no way around farming tokens for legendary weapon crafting. HotW is now a better farm spot for PVT exotic armor.

As a different perspective, I never ran the original version of AC. I’ve since run AC exactly 5 times, once for story and 4 times in explorable mode to get superior runes of the monk. Unless I want runes for another toon, I do not think I will ever run it again.

It’s simply not fun (for me).

I don’t need a dungeon to be easy, but this one is feels cheap. If you know to stand by whathisname when things fall from the sky then it’s easy. If you don’t then you’re kittened.

The player base being what it is, people who know what to do only get angry with people who don’t. That is also not fun.

A-net got trolled by the “elitists”, they wanted a harder dungeon in AC, a-net gave them. The player base got trolled and moved on to cof
The elitists want COF “buff” now. The question is: a-net listens to the few with bad ideas, or to the many ?

DanH.5879:

A-net got trolled by the “elitists”, they wanted a harder dungeon in AC, a-net gave them. The player base got trolled and moved on to cof
The elitists want COF “buff” now. The question is: a-net listens to the few with bad ideas, or to the many ?

The question is, are the “many” as you call them actually interested in the dungeon itself, or just a way to make gold/tokens? ANet should be developing the content to be fun, not simply rewarding from a numerical standpoint. If you really wanted to just gold farm, maybe they should add more open-world methods to do that and leave dungeons for people who really want to actually play the dungeons. I think what really needs to be changed about dungeons is giving players a unique reason to be there. Gold farmers will always just migrate to the quickest method to get gold. That method really shouldn’t be dungeons. Dungeons should be more about challenging content that rewards unique items, like new skins or recipes (besides what you get from tokens).

As far as AC is concerned…honestly…they may as well just say explorable mode is for level 80s. Cause at this point they’re clearly developing the content for higher leveled/better geared players. I think that separation is fine, but what they’d need to then do is make story mode more appealing for people who are leveling. What would be a great feature is for story mode to give some kind of bonus reward for level 80s who are going into it with a bunch of lower levels (a sort of mentoring reward). Maybe scale that reward based on how many low level people are running the dungeon. So, if say…a single level 80 ran story mode with a group of 4 level 30s, they’d (the level 80 guy) get a big gold/token reward. Whereas a group of 4 level 80s and a single level 30 would reward each max level player only a slight bonus. This would encourage guild mates to run the story mode with their alts to level them, and it would help new players find dungeons by giving the “vets” (for lack of a better word) a reason to party with them.

How can something that is dead be dying? AC died after anet decided to change something a lot of players liked (from being amateurs or just having inferior intelligence?).

You can’t say the dungeon is dying based on observations alone and that it’s perceived to be too difficult. You’re forgetting a ton of people are farming chest events.

Just ran AC path 3 for the first time in a long time. Epic fail.

Got to watch new Kholer and new troll duke it out. Was afk eating sandwiches for much of that. The group jumped in when they were both almost dead, and the rest of my group ended up downed. My tank rogue, who knew exactly how tough the new mobs were, was plinking away with shortbow and hence not splattered by troll spam that leaves people vulnerable to Kholer hook and blend. However, we at least killed them.

Off to the collectors. First attempt, epic fail. Decent DPS, but eventually enough knockdown spamming gravelings get out that your DPS goes to hell as you’re on the ground all the time. So I switched to elly because kitten it, we’re gettin’ this done. She has no business being in a dungeon, but she has ice bows. We win. Stick with her through next set of mounds then switch back.

The first attempt at Colossus ended in fail because while I didn’t want to stack, the party did. Colossus knocked them out of their happy little corner and with Grast not being in on the stacking thing, that meant they were roadkill from rocks. Second attempt we tried to play fair. Grast, however, had other plans and kept rushing in front of Colossus’s AoE attacks. Dead Grast. Dead party. Third attempt goes the same way. Grast just doesn’t have a brain in his ghostly head. Fourth attempt we pulled Colossus to the tunnel where his rocks can’t get to. NPC’s pulled him back out. Party (except me) gets killed trying to pull him back. I only survive because as soon as rocks started falling, I made a beeline to the ledge.

Party disbands. Can’t blame them. Can’t count on the NPC’s to do their job, but can count on them to screw up the cheese tactics. Shouldn’t need cheese tactics in the first place, but hey, at least the fight is more “interesting” now.

p.s. I have actually finished all the new AC paths. Path 1 isn’t bad if you skip Kholer and have very high DPS as you can burn down the burrows and Howling King quick. Path 2 is entirely about whether or not Detha bugs. Oh ya, also need high DPS to kill the ghosts. Path 3 is a mess. The burrows spawn big gravelings more often, and they can get a couple out before even ice bows can burn them down. Again, if you don’t have a high DPS party, this is going to be fail. Then, Colossus comes down to having either someone who can interrupt his howl (ie. PUGs need not apply) or dumb luck that Grast isn’t dead sometime between the first and second rock fall.

There is nothing about being reliant on NPC’s that is fun, and all three paths come down to NPC’s, not players, being the key component of the fight. This is horribad design.

Its not “dying” but its now a shadow of its former self in player numbers. I could go to AC and find a whole hoard of people at the WP chatting, having costume brawls, dancing etc all while making groups to run AC.

Now I go there and Im lucky to see 10 people tops.

I only run 1 path once a week, just finding a party with my non-80 toons takes forever.
I have to be lucky to find a group but that means our dps might be low… lol

As a dungeon that i used to enjoy (actually it was the only dungeon in this game that I did actually enjoy, rather than just farming it for gold), it now just feels like a job. I haven’t done much of it, but I’ve joined a few pugs, all of which have failed miserably. It isn’t a very rewarding dungeon seeing as the rares you get with tokens aren’t level 68 plus and you don’t get any lodestones from the chests, so I know longer see any reason to do a non-rewarding dungeon that isn’t even fun at all so I’ve stopped trying altogether. I hope you’re happy Anet, because as usual, we aren’t. Now all I do is cof p1.

You guys wanted people to stop leveling their alts via AC, you got it. Stop complaining. I got my badges I needed and leveled all my alts and now, I’m done with AC.

Xavori.3768:

snip

There are legitimate issues in this dungeon, from a design standpoint. NPCs bugging out are bugs, and should be treated as such and reported. You don’t need to reference a bugged NPC when complaining about the design of a dungeon.

Why do you feel the need to skip Kholer? Hell, why does ANYONE feel the need to skip Kholer? Are you all that kittening bad that you can’t handle the simplest of boss mechanics? He’s not broken, he’s not bugged, he functions perfectly fine and is easily killable for anyone with half a brain (and STOP pulling him out of his arena. It was cheesy to do it before the patch and it’s just stupid and pointless to do it now)

Howling King doesn’t need to be burned down fast, you just need to properly kite gravelings. If your group really has a hard time doing it, designate a person to be solely on kiting and ignore the boss. Every class has stunbreakers, make sure they have some ready. You can kite the gravelings from an extremely long distance once you get their attentions so you can easily lead them without being in range of their leaps.

The burrows in path 3 were made easier with the revamp. We cleared this event with a bunch of level 35-40 pugs and no they weren’t all in some max dps spec. Your group needs to be on the ball and recognize when a new burrow spawns and get on it immediately. Pugs can accomplish this just fine. It also has a fixed pattern for them spawning, so if you memorize it you can help out by calling out where they’ll be. You can very easily clear this event so that little to no gravelings even spawn from the burrows.

Really, almost ALL of the issues revolving around the Howling King and burrow encounters could be solved by removing the knockdown from the gravelings. Having the basic graveling cause knockdown was a poor design decision; they’re so common and in any event that has gravelings constantly spawning, you’ll quickly get overwhelmed by enemies that keep you completely incapacitated. If you want a knockdown, make a new graveling type and make it a less common spawn. On the note of gravelings, the Stalkers need to be fixed. They burrow under the ground, come up, and (I believe it’s when they hit someone with the burrow) then go transparent and invulnerable. Except…they don’t actually DO anything in this state; they’re just wasting time. Any fight with a stalker just gets dragged on forever due to this mechanic that’s not actually adding any sort of challenge to them.

Howling King is frustrating not because of his mechanics, but because when you screw up it’s incredibly difficult/impossible to come back due to all the knockdown. The actual process of kiting the mobs through fire is a perfectly fine mechanic and the NPC functions as needed here. We actually 3-manned the boss by having a friend and I doing the damage while a pug ran around collecting and kiting the gravelings. Worked really well. I know some people don’t like the idea of not actually fighting and just devoting yourself to running around all fight, but it’s a legitimate tactic that’s carried over from raids and dungeons in other games.

Ghost Eater also works perfectly fine from a mechanic standpoint. It requires teamwork and coordination, so maybe it’s not the best choice for a pug group. I don’t see why that’s an issue at all; one path in a dungeon being more focused on structured group play isn’t a bad thing, the pugs have two other paths they can run. In fact, that’s a good standard for other explorable dungeons. Two of the paths can have simpler (but still challenging) mechanics that pugs can pick up on and run, and one path could require more coordination and be more focused on organized groups or guilds.

Colossus, honestly, is a boring mechanic. Even if the NPC functioned perfectly, he’d still be boring (Oh no, time to run for cover in this one bubble. Oh, it’s done back to normal DPS) I’d have rather had the falling rocks function more like the previous version and be constant thing that’s happening, providing an ever-present hazard during the fight. It was clear they wanted to make the NPC feel more useful so they added him as a required component to avoiding the rocks, but it was just a boring idea from a gameplay perspective.

There really are legitimate design concerns with the design of the dungeon, but they keep getting lumped in with “This is too haaaaaard” whining moments from players. Look up guides, ask other players, and practice. This dungeon can still be run and completed with a group of 35s. It can’t, however, be completed with a group of people who don’t understand and are unable to pick up on the mechanics of fights.

Syn Sity.5826:

As a dungeon that i used to enjoy (actually it was the only dungeon in this game that I did actually enjoy, rather than just farming it for gold), it now just feels like a job. I haven’t done much of it, but I’ve joined a few pugs, all of which have failed miserably. It isn’t a very rewarding dungeon seeing as the rares you get with tokens aren’t level 68 plus and you don’t get any lodestones from the chests, so I know longer see any reason to do a non-rewarding dungeon that isn’t even fun at all so I’ve stopped trying altogether. I hope you’re happy Anet, because as usual, we aren’t. Now all I do is cof p1.

The reason for this is because all you want to do is grind the easiest path for the reward. Other people actually want to play the game.

Reading the posts in this and numerous similar threads complaining about the challenge of AC exp leads me to believe that the majority of the player base running it pre-patch were: a) awful at the game or b) looking for easy gold/exotics.

Post-patch, I’ve four manned it multiple times with pugs and I’ve run it with more than half the party being less than level 50 and/or first timers. Yes, we wiped multiple times on Kholer, Queen Spider, Hodg, and Lovers, but the most important part was each attempt we’d improve. This dungeon is challenging, but doable.

Also, I don’t perceive it as a bad thing that people have stopped farming AC (and yes I’m implying most of the people complaining about AC changes were just farming an easy dungeon). If the goal of an introductory dungeon is to teach new players how to handle dungeon content then I fail to see how “No Kholer, AC Exp Speedruns, lvl 80s only” accomplished this. AC is a great learning dungeon if you have enough sense to learn from your mistakes or have one experienced (patient) player that is willing to take the time to explain things.

Also, having run old AC enough times to get the full Armor Set, Gift, and two 2-Handers, I can only describe old AC as tedious and unsatisfying, but quick and easy, kind of like McDonald’s.

IamDuddits.1692:

Reading the posts in this and numerous similar threads complaining about the challenge of AC exp lead me to believe that the majority of the player base running it pre-patch were: A) awful at the game or looking for easy gold/exotics.

I’ve four manned it multiple times with pugs and I’ve run it with more than half the party being less than level 50 and/or first timers. Yes, we wiped multiple times on Kholer, Queen Spider, Hodg, and Lovers, but the most important part was each attempt we’d improve. This dungeon is challenging, but doable.

Also, I don’t perceive it as a bad thing that people have stopped farming AC (and yes I’m implying most of the people complaining about AC changes were just farming an easy dungeon). If the goal of an introductory dungeon is to teach new players how to handle dungeon content then I fail to see how “No Kholer, AC Exp Speedruns, lvl 80s only” accomplished this. AC is a great learning dungeon if you have enough sense to learn from your mistakes or have one experienced (patient) player that is willing to take the time to explain things.

Also, having run old AC enough times to get the full Armor Set, Gift, and two 2-Handers, I can only describe old AC as tedious and unsatisfying, but quick and easy, kind of like McDonald’s.

I also think they’ve improved the dungeon from an actual gameplay perspective (read:CHALLENGE), though I think there are some legitimate concerns. I addressed that in my big wall of text above. Most of these complaints do tend to stem from farmers/speedrunners which should not be the focus of any design. In fact, I would rather they add more methods of blocking player progress in the dungeon in order to cut down on content skipping. This would also mean that some of these “trash” pulls need to be improved to actually offer unique challenges rather than just be tedious time wasters.

VoiceOfUnreason.5976:

IamDuddits.1692:

Reading the posts in this and numerous similar threads complaining about the challenge of AC exp lead me to believe that the majority of the player base running it pre-patch were: A) awful at the game or looking for easy gold/exotics.

I’ve four manned it multiple times with pugs and I’ve run it with more than half the party being less than level 50 and/or first timers. Yes, we wiped multiple times on Kholer, Queen Spider, Hodg, and Lovers, but the most important part was each attempt we’d improve. This dungeon is challenging, but doable.

Also, I don’t perceive it as a bad thing that people have stopped farming AC (and yes I’m implying most of the people complaining about AC changes were just farming an easy dungeon). If the goal of an introductory dungeon is to teach new players how to handle dungeon content then I fail to see how “No Kholer, AC Exp Speedruns, lvl 80s only” accomplished this. AC is a great learning dungeon if you have enough sense to learn from your mistakes or have one experienced (patient) player that is willing to take the time to explain things.

Also, having run old AC enough times to get the full Armor Set, Gift, and two 2-Handers, I can only describe old AC as tedious and unsatisfying, but quick and easy, kind of like McDonald’s.

I also think they’ve improved the dungeon from an actual gameplay perspective (read:CHALLENGE), though I think there are some legitimate concerns. I addressed that in my big wall of text above. Most of these complaints do tend to stem from farmers/speedrunners which should not be the focus of any design. In fact, I would rather they add more methods of blocking player progress in the dungeon in order to cut down on content skipping. This would also mean that some of these “trash” pulls need to be improved to actually offer unique challenges rather than just be tedious time wasters.

I admittedly only skimmed over some of the larger posts in the thread, so I’ll go back and look through your wall. I am by no means saying that the dungeon is perfect as is. After running it several times with friends and pugs of various skill/character level, I agree that there are some areas that could use some tuning. A brief list of things that come to mind:

-CC on troll needs to get tuned down. The daze and the AoE fear combined with his other AoE is a bit much. Doable, but a bit much.

-My experience is that Queen Spider causes more wipes than most of the end bosses. I admittedly can’t put my finger on what exactly it is. I’m skeptical of whether it’s the fight itself or poor group comp with too few condition removers or just poor position/experience, so insight here would be good.

-Kind of a given, but bugging NPCs are a big killer.

-It’d be nice if Hodgins and Lovers felt less like a DPS race. A lot of the AC exp groups I see run P2 only. I generally have to convince them to run P1/P3 and I think it’s because these two parts can sometimes be almost impossible if you don’t have the damage output. Even so, it’d be nice to have an alternative method of doing this without it being a race.

It’s worth noting that Kholer is pretty much perfect at this point. This fight was my favorite pre-patch and it only got better post-patch. This fight is great for new players because it truly fortifies the principles of dealing with adds and reading the boss for which skills to dodge. When you wipe it’s obvious why you wiped.

I agree they need to discourage content skipping more. Reducing the hit point pool was a good start but if they gave some reward or incentive to kill the mobs that would be good. Honestly the mobs go down fairly quickly already. I hadn’t done a full dungeon clear in a long time, but with some friends we did and even with only four of us we had no problem so long as we didn’t aggro the whole room.

AC admittedly has spoiled me. When I go to other dungeons it’s hard to deal with the long, tedious trash/boss fights due to the massive hit point pools. I really hope that they keep up the good work and revamp the other dungeons along the same lines of AC. AC in my opinion is a very satisfying challenge. I still run it even though I really don’t need the tokens.

“My experience is that Queen Spider causes more wipes than most of the end bosses. I admittedly can’t put my finger on what exactly it is.”

One of the problems is the persistent, high damage, extremely wide poison fields that the queen lays down. If player is downed in one of those fields then other players typically cannot go near enough to revive, making the encounter very punishing.

IamDuddits.1692:

…
-My experience is that Queen Spider causes more wipes than most of the end bosses. I admittedly can’t put my finger on what exactly it is. I’m skeptical of whether it’s the fight itself or poor group comp with too few condition removers or just poor position/experience, so insight here would be good.
…

Probably caused by chain reactions when players trying to rez others in a confined area with a lot of AoEs. Lupi & Alpha are another good examples.

Stooperdale.3560:

“My experience is that Queen Spider causes more wipes than most of the end bosses. I admittedly can’t put my finger on what exactly it is.”

One of the problems is the persistent, high damage, extremely wide poison fields that the queen lays down. If player is downed in one of those fields then other players typically cannot go near enough to revive, making the encounter very punishing.

Yeah the biggest issue there is the fact that the wells linger for so long. They could probably reduce the overall duration and increase the damage, that way the player still gets punished (and possibly get downed) for staying in the well too long, but it would be more possible to revive them since they disappear quicker.

for me it is about not being worth the effort anymore. why would i run AC? before i could lvl my alts there, and get enough tokens to gear them in lvl 80 starter rares, but now… i can’t even get the ectos there. this goes for all dungeons <70. dungeons to farm are cof+. rest is just too bad rewards once i had my chars lvl80 and started grinding money.

IamDuddits.1692:

-My experience is that Queen Spider causes more wipes than most of the end bosses. I admittedly can’t put my finger on what exactly it is. I’m skeptical of whether it’s the fight itself or poor group comp with too few condition removers or just poor position/experience, so insight here would be good.

I think it’s a combination of the mechanics taking advantage of player habits. The immobilize is not that easy to pick up until you see it and know what to dodge. The time between tell and attack is also shorter than many of the telegraphed attacks people are used to (e.g., Kholer’s long windup). Second, the area poison seems to be most easily avoided with forward or backwards movement. Like the fire spray in SE Story, dodging sideways just leaves you in the next circle over, whereas forward or back may get you out.

VoiceOfUnreason.5976:

Stooperdale.3560:

“My experience is that Queen Spider causes more wipes than most of the end bosses. I admittedly can’t put my finger on what exactly it is.”

One of the problems is the persistent, high damage, extremely wide poison fields that the queen lays down. If player is downed in one of those fields then other players typically cannot go near enough to revive, making the encounter very punishing.

Yeah the biggest issue there is the fact that the wells linger for so long. They could probably reduce the overall duration and increase the damage, that way the player still gets punished (and possibly get downed) for staying in the well too long, but it would be more possible to revive them since they disappear quicker.

Yea I think that’s pretty much it. It seems like if one or two get immobilized in the poison they are pretty much downed/defeated without a chance for revive (unless they are on the edge. The boss + the adds isn’t horrible but the size and coverage of the AoEs combined with the long duration is unforgiving.

PetricaKerempuh.7958:

for me it is about not being worth the effort anymore. why would i run AC? before i could lvl my alts there, and get enough tokens to gear them in lvl 80 starter rares, but now… i can’t even get the ectos there. this goes for all dungeons <70. dungeons to farm are cof+. rest is just too bad rewards once i had my chars lvl80 and started grinding money.

Dungeons should not be designed for any of the reasons you’ve listed because there are more than enough options for grinding ectos, gold, and starter rares/exotics. Believe it or not, some people run AC because gasp they enjoy running AC/Challenging dungeons and aren’t really that concerned with the end reward.

I did p3 yesterday for the first time since the change and it seemed easier..

Folk.2093:

I did p3 yesterday for the first time since the change and it seemed easier..

The dungeon only got harder for the people that want to face tank bosses, stand in AoEs and that expect the developers to design dungeons that cater to their rigid play style.

Crossplay.2067:

If they guaranteed a rare in every large chest, all dungeons would be run a lot more.

A nice idea, actually. Much like the world bosses change.

A daily account bound bonus chest per dungeon path would stimulate a lot of people to run some long-forgotten dungeons.

Isslair.4908:

Crossplay.2067:

If they guaranteed a rare in every large chest, all dungeons would be run a lot more.

A nice idea, actually. Much like the world bosses change.

A daily account bound bonus chest per dungeon path would stimulate a lot of people to run some long-forgotten dungeons.

All those ideas encourage is speed running, which really isn’t a concept you should be designing dungeons around. Honestly, they should just look into having unique RNG drops in the dungeons. Weapon/Armor skins that you can’t get elsewhere, each boss has a unique loot table, and then the remaining pieces randomly drop from trash pulls. And before you ask, yes, this is in fact how WoW does it. It’s a tried and true method of keeping people replaying dungeons.

What separates GW2 from that is the fact that WoW’s items were required for progression (leading to increasing frustration when items didn’t drop and you couldn’t move on to other things until they did), whereas GW2’s would simply be cosmetic and would be sought after as end game prestige.

VoiceOfUnreason.5976:

unique RNG drops

Please no.
We already have a horrible situation with precursor market. You should get reward for your skill (yes, speedruning takes skill), not for luck and mindles repetition.

Speedruns are better than no runs at all.

VoiceOfUnreason.5976:

Isslair.4908:

Crossplay.2067:

If they guaranteed a rare in every large chest, all dungeons would be run a lot more.

A nice idea, actually. Much like the world bosses change.

A daily account bound bonus chest per dungeon path would stimulate a lot of people to run some long-forgotten dungeons.

All those ideas encourage is speed running, which really isn’t a concept you should be designing dungeons around. Honestly, they should just look into having unique RNG drops in the dungeons. Weapon/Armor skins that you can’t get elsewhere, each boss has a unique loot table, and then the remaining pieces randomly drop from trash pulls. And before you ask, yes, this is in fact how WoW does it. It’s a tried and true method of keeping people replaying dungeons.

What separates GW2 from that is the fact that WoW’s items were required for progression (leading to increasing frustration when items didn’t drop and you couldn’t move on to other things until they did), whereas GW2’s would simply be cosmetic and would be sought after as end game prestige.

I agree. I don’t want people running the dungeon to get to the end ASAP. I want people that run the dungeon to do full clears and, hopefully, enjoy the dungeon. I actually thought that the unique Exotic Jewelry Recipes they added to the AC bosses was a really nice touch.

I read your wall by the way. I agree with pretty much all of it. Some notes:

Graveling Stalker: Bug: Make the evade proc only on PCs. Currently it can proc on pets and NPCs which will make no effort to dodge.
Suggested Mechanics Change: When the evade procs, he does a leap knockdown into a channeled DoT (basically the previous mechanic stalkers had). The evasion drops after the leap. The idea is the leap is uninterruptable, forcing the group to interrupt it after the channel starts. At the very least it’d make him do something rather than just sit there.

Ghost Eater: Bug: He does nothing after his Ghost Armor comes back up (usually for a few minutes, enough time to charge up another trap).

Colossus: Yes, he need something more. The other two paths use what you get to help beat the boss, power of the scepters and the traps. What does being a ghost provide you that help you beat the boss? There has to be something thematic that would work here.

Isslair.4908:

VoiceOfUnreason.5976:

unique RNG drops

Please no.
We already have a horrible situation with precursor market. You should get reward for your skill (yes, speedruning takes skill), not for luck and mindles repetition.

Speedruns are better than no runs at all.

You should be rewarded based on skill, yes. However, speed running does not require skill or at least not as much as you think it does, though you can tell yourself otherwise if you want.

Also I disagree about speedruns better than no runs. Speedrunning is only better if you want the reward at the end. If you are running the dungeon to run the dungeon and see the content, then honestly I’d rather solo it than run it with a speed run.

I did not find the changes fun and with how easy it is for the boss on path 2 to get stuck when it got changed, I haven’t set foot back in there.

VoiceofUnreason,

The reason people skip Kholer is that after you’ve killed him once, maybe twice, you learn the risk/reward is horribly out of balance. He was a high risk low reward fight previously. Now, he’s higher risk with the same low reward. He’s also an absolutely-does-not-belong-in-a-newbie-dungeon kinda fight. If you miss a dodge, you’ll likely die. That’s not what players new to dungeons want to go through. Sure, I have a few toons that can survive being blended, but that’s because as soon as I get yanked, I know I have to throw up my bestest defenses while dodging out. Anything less than that, and even tanks get dead.

And I bring up the bugged/bad NPC’s because it’s common. It’s also to me a cardinal sin of game design. Players should never, ever, be punished for things totally beyond their control, and all three paths can do that. Hodgins really can keep tossing fire rings off where there is no way to lead the mob adds into them, and it doesn’t take long for that many adds to flatten a party. Deltha can either a) completely bug out, or worse b) get killed/respawned which spawns a double wave of ghosts. B is far worse than A because at least with A you don’t end up dead before you realize you can’t complete the dungeon. And Grast…I think I’ve had him not go kamikaze maybe once since the ‘interesting’ fights were added. In an extreme DPS party, you can get away with that since you’re only going to need him to bubble once. In normal parties, hahahaha, he dies then you die. Ya, great fun in any of that.

So what AC has become is a lot of frustration without a lot of reward. Sure, it’s still doable. But I have so many other things I can do in GW2, most of which I succeed or fail at based on my skill not random NPC garbage. And while I’m all for the devs working on improving dungeons, AC isn’t an improvement in any way that is fun. The boss fights are more tedious. They don’t make sense for a true group of players at level 35 (as opposed to the party of vets who built a near perfect group of level 35 alts to run it), and there isn’t any point to running it when you get better rewards from a whole lot of other options.

And, if the devs keep making more ‘interesting’ dungeons like AC, those other options will start to be ‘play something other than GW2’ which would make me a sad panda as I really like GW2.

When I see the revamped version of AC, I’m now expecting the worse for the future revamp of dungeons.
Pre patch, AC was more like a guild activity which reunite lvl 80 and new players at lvl 35 who bought the game recently and joined my guild.
Just don’t expect all these new gamers to play at progamer level when they still have so much to learn and discover about their classes.
Revamped AC is just a fail and no one in my guild propose it anymore.
I even prefer do a run at Arah path 3 with the right difficulty for a real lvl 80 dungeon.

IamDuddits.1692:

Also, having run old AC enough times to get the full Armor Set, Gift, and two 2-Handers, I can only describe old AC as tedious and unsatisfying, but quick and easy, kind of like McDonald’s.

Funny I could say the same thing about new AC as well. It was somewhat challenging for the first run though (* with an experienced party) Fun? Not really. If devs keep catering to the people looking for a challenge (the same “elitists” running dungeons as guardians and not pugging), then it will be a nonstop whinefest of “I need more of a challenge”. And I am sure these guys completed AC P1 in under 10 minutes when they were low level and starting out in the game as well.

As it is, the “elitists” got their way and no amount of insults are going to bring back the playerbase to AC. But go ahead, let these guys dictate game design.

Funnily enough not many asked for a nerf for the end dugeon, Arah P4, because ppl know it was going to be a very hard dungeon and people pick their fights based on their respective skill level. I think they asked for bug fixes instead (which the nerf had appeared to only have partially fixed). And the elitists didnt complain that it was no longer hard, well not as much as campaigning to keep new AC.

Out of interest, how long does the new AC take to run assuming the group is halfway decent and has read the guides/done it before?

I will have to run AC Exp 4 times next week for my Legendary – need another 240 Ascalonian Tears. It’s the final item – guess I should have finished it before the changes.

Thanks!

Khal Drogo.9631:

IamDuddits.1692:

Also, having run old AC enough times to get the full Armor Set, Gift, and two 2-Handers, I can only describe old AC as tedious and unsatisfying, but quick and easy, kind of like McDonald’s.

Funny I could say the same thing about new AC as well. It was somewhat challenging for the first run though (* with an experienced party) Fun? Not really. If devs keep catering to the people looking for a challenge (the same “elitists” running dungeons as guardians and not pugging), then it will be a nonstop whinefest of “I need more of a challenge”. And I am sure these guys completed AC P1 in under 10 minutes when they were low level and starting out in the game as well.

As it is, the “elitists” got their way and no amount of insults are going to bring back the playerbase to AC. But go ahead, let these guys dictate game design.

Funnily enough not many asked for a nerf for the end dugeon, Arah P4, because ppl know it was going to be a very hard dungeon and people pick their fights based on their respective skill level. I think they asked for bug fixes instead (which the nerf had appeared to only have partially fixed). And the elitists didnt complain that it was no longer hard, well not as much as campaigning to keep new AC.

Define what you mean by elitist, I’d like to have a better understanding of the insult that you are flinging in my direction? What level of challenge is acceptable to you, if any, for a dungeon? From the looks of it you want a dungeon that is basically an afk face tank.

I still fail to see how people can argue AC was better before. As I recall, a majority of AC groups were looking to do speed runs, would generally require level 80s only, and would almost always skip Kholer unless Troll spawned. So basically farmers. A good chunk of the bosses in this dungeon could be face tanked and you could usually stand in their AoEs. So sure, old AC was a fine introductory dungeon if introductory equates to effortless.

I’d be interested in discussing what you think pre-patch AC provided as an introductory dungeon that post-patch doesn’t and how you think AC can be improved in a manner that encourages people to run it without it being an area that gets farmed like CoF P1. Please give specific examples.

Xavori.3768:

The reason people skip Kholer is that after you’ve killed him once, maybe twice, you learn the risk/reward is horribly out of balance. He was a high risk low reward fight previously. Now, he’s higher risk with the same low reward. He’s also an absolutely-does-not-belong-in-a-newbie-dungeon kinda fight. If you miss a dodge, you’ll likely die. That’s not what players new to dungeons want to go through. Sure, I have a few toons that can survive being blended, but that’s because as soon as I get yanked, I know I have to throw up my bestest defenses while dodging out. Anything less than that, and even tanks get dead.

It’s a dodge-or-die mechanic, you aren’t suppose to tank it. The point of Kholer is to teach the importance of timing your dodge against powerful, and often highly choreographed abilities. Generally, game designers design later dungeons/levels on the idea that their player has a decent understanding of mechanics from earlier dungeons. If you don’t design an introductory dungeon to hammer in something as basic as dodging (which from my pugging experience is something that people still don’t fully understand) then it makes it difficult to design later dungeons around this concept, as you can’t be sure the player understands dodging yet.

Kholer has quite possibly the most basic boss mechanics in the game, second only to a true tank-n-spank (pre-patch Ghost Eater).

More difficult + same crap loot = dungeon die.

Midnightjade.3520:

Out of interest, how long does the new AC take to run assuming the group is halfway decent and has read the guides/done it before?

I will have to run AC Exp 4 times next week for my Legendary – need another 240 Ascalonian Tears. It’s the final item – guess I should have finished it before the changes.

Thanks!

I would say maybe 20-30 minutes. It’s not bad at all if you know what you’re doing.

AC used to be an incredibly reliable level/skill farm, bar nothing. Sometimes a bug is a feature: http://youtu.be/2LQDLGrmYyQ