Guild Wars 2

I think if they removed the chain knockdowns people would do the content more. Yes, it’s avoidable when you are dealing with a target or two. Not so much when you need to dodge 3-4 gravelings or deal with that annoying p3 boss chain knocking your kitten back with autoattacks.

IamDuddits.1692:

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).

I agree that Kholer is fine in an intro dungeon. His Scorpion Wire is not that hard to dodge if you’re paying attention and know when to dodge. However, Xavori was using tank as a noun, meaning someone specced for T/V, not tank the verb. It is quite possible for a high health/defense character to survive being pulled in if they’re quick getting back out and can dump the conditions.

The adds do complicate the fight a little. Those not used to the fight can and do take their attention off Kholer to deal with the adds. That can be a fatal mistake.

IndigoSundown.5419:

IamDuddits.1692:

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).

I agree that Kholer is fine in an intro dungeon. His Scorpion Wire is not that hard to dodge if you’re paying attention and know when to dodge. However, Xavori was using tank as a noun, meaning someone specced for T/V, not tank the verb. It is quite possible for a high health/defense character to survive being pulled in if they’re quick getting back out and can dump the conditions.

The adds do complicate the fight a little. Those not used to the fight can and do take their attention off Kholer to deal with the adds. That can be a fatal mistake.

Thank you for the clarification.

The adds are meant to complicate the fight and I think the patch changes make it apparent that that is how the fight was originally intended.

I’m not sure what you mean by take their attention off Kholer. My understanding is that you definitely want to focus the adds down when they spawn, as they will quickly overwhelm the party with CC. However, I’m gathering you mean that people tend to get tunnel vision once the adds spawn and forget to dodge Kholer. I agree it makes the fight more complicated but complexity isn’t always a bad thing.

Overall I think Kholer, Ghost Busters, and Howling King are all really good fights. Troll and Queen Spider have good mechanics but I think could use some fine tuning in some areas. Colossus I feel isn’t an awful fight, but I think that they could do a little more with it.

And as mentioned, I agree that the knockdowns need to be reworked off the mobs, it’s just way too common and makes the adds just frustrating overall.

AC is not dying. It has lower number of people looking for groups just as every other dungeon except for CoF Path 1. One main reason for the decline was to farm chest events and now most recently it’s SAB.

Remember how when FotM came out that Orr seemed to die? It’s still dead even after they nerfed all of the mobs and made it “infantile mode”. The changes to AC just made it on par with a lot of the other dungeons.

I think AC is dying cause now its harder to find a pug group or a guild group especially at low levels. There has been a ton of ragequiting in AC since the revamping in the update. Most pug teams that I do AC dungeon with are filled with ragequiters so you have to find new players in order to finish the dungeon even if your at the very end of the dungeon against the final boss. Sometimes the whole team leaves the AC dungeon cause of the death count and repair bill which makes me have to find people to join before the dungeon resets. If this was a solo dungeon I would easily finish it myself but it involves teamates which you have to depend on other people in order to finish it. Doing the AC dungeon at lower levels is ragequiter heaven. I think they need to lower the difficulty or find a way to make people not ragequit so much in this dungeon.

IamDuddits,

Kholer is not a good intro fight for new players. It’s a do or die fight. And dying repeatedly is not encouraging.

Kholer is pretty simple to dodge…for you and I. But a new player…not so much. One, you have to pay really close attention to his hand, all the while fighting and dealing with adds and whatnot. It’s also not as simple as seen glowy hand-dodge. You have to time it. Again, experienced players do that without thinking…new players…notsomuch.

Kholer’s mechanics would make sense in any of the dungeons after Sorrow’s. Most players by that point are really familiar with how the game works, dodging etc. But try to imagine this being the second boss that you ever faced? Or heck, just try to remember how many times you used to die when fighting him? And then add in all the frustration of the new spider queen right before this. How many players exactly do you think just give up after that?

Ayrilana,

It’s not lower. It’s freakin’ dead. There are more people looking for every other dungeon except CM. It’s also not about people doing other stuff. That just lowers the total number of groups. We’re looking at the groups running dungeons, and they’re just not running AC anymore.

Games are about fun. Most players have decided AC is not fun. It’s really that simple and really that obvious.

Xavori.3768:

Kholer is pretty simple to dodge…for you and I. But a new player…not so much. One, you have to pay really close attention to his hand, all the while fighting and dealing with adds and whatnot. It’s also not as simple as seen glowy hand-dodge. You have to time it. Again, experienced players do that without thinking…new players…notsomuch.

This is called a learning curve. This is how I learned to dodge it and I’m going to guess it’s how you learned to dodge it. I died several times before I got the dodge down, and I still admittedly miss it when I’m not paying attention, but at least I know enough to realize that it’s my own fault for failing it and not the fault of the mechanic. Is it really that much to ask someone to pay attention to the screen? Are the devs really expected to cater dungeon design to people that consider “paying really close attention” to be too difficult?

Xavori.3768:

Kholer’s mechanics would make sense in any of the dungeons after Sorrow’s. Most players by that point are really familiar with how the game works, dodging etc. But try to imagine this being the second boss that you ever faced? Or heck, just try to remember how many times you used to die when fighting him? And then add in all the frustration of the new spider queen right before this. How many players exactly do you think just give up after that?

Am I really expected to believe that people got to level 35 and beat story mode AC without learning to dodge? Actually more importantly, am I really expected to feel that a dungeon should cater to such people? I’m sorry you feel the way you do, but people need to learn to play the game, play their class, and understand the mechanics of the game at some point and the earlier the better. When dodging becomes an advanced mechanic saved for being learned at level 60 then we have a bit of a problem with the mentality of the player base. Also the glowing hands = “you should dodge this” is a mechanic that is introduced in early level zones: Drakes, Ettins, etc. all use this mechanic.

Dungeons don’t have to be for everyone. Just like sPvP and WvWvW aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. Just because the dungeon offers rewards doesn’t mean that it should be at a difficulty level accessible to all. Dungeons should challenge the player to improve, but it’s the players decision if they want to improve and overcome or just give up and run World Bosses instead.

mesmer days.3289:

I think AC is dying cause now its harder to find a pug group or a guild group especially at low levels. There has been a ton of ragequiting in AC since the revamping in the update. Most pug teams that I do AC dungeon with are filled with ragequiters so you have to find new players in order to finish the dungeon even if your at the very end of the dungeon against the final boss. Sometimes the whole team leaves the AC dungeon cause of the death count and repair bill which makes me have to find people to join before the dungeon resets. If this was a solo dungeon I would easily finish it myself but it involves teamates which you have to depend on other people in order to finish it. Doing the AC dungeon at lower levels is ragequiter heaven. I think they need to lower the difficulty or find a way to make people not ragequit so much in this dungeon.

I think you must be having tough luck. I realize I encompass a small sample size, but I rarely have teams split in the middle of a dungeon. If they are quitting then they at least hide it well and wait until the path is finished. Most of the groups I pug in have at least 2 sub-60s and I’ve run it with people that just finished story. Some people just don’t have the patience or will to improve and there is unfortunately little you can do before hand to prevent. My best advice would be don’t assume that all sub-40s will RQ at the first wipe, there are people out there that are really willing to learn, improve and just enjoy the content.

It’s not dead. Every time I look there’s almost a couple dozen people looking except for the end of the night. You can’t say it’s worse than the other dungeons considering those hardly have anyone except right after reset. It usually has the 2nd most listing behind CoF.

Also gw2lfg doesn’t account for everyone. All dungeons are expecting lack of players, not just AC. CoF is the only exception and that’s just path 1. While the “difficulty” may play a role, it is not the only reason.

IamDudditts,

Kholer isn’t a learning curve. He’s a learning brick wall. “Hey, newbie, that Spider Queen is what’s called a boss. It wiped the party because most of you kept trying to dodge out of circles to big to dodge out of that last too long anyway which is why I kept telling you to quit dodging. Now, this guy Kholer, he’s also a boss. If you don’t dodge, you’ll be dead in a couple seconds…”

Again, not a problem for me. (side note, I didn’t learn to dodge by dying. I learned to dodge by practicing in open world until I could make ‘EVADE’ show up almost every time without having to consciously time it anymore. Then again, I’m wierd in that I’m a KESA player type where the E is explorer and that doesn’t mean just going to every nook and cranny of the game world (which I do) but also exploring how all the game mechanics work and AI ‘thinks’ etc). But it’s a huge problem for PUG groups I run with. I’m pretty sure if I built a game for players like me, there’d be maybe a hundred players total as I’m fairly evil (you never want me for a DM in a pen and paper RPG. You don’t want me on your Minecraft server. Not a griefer. Just really creative in getting people to kill themselves)

Kholer got skipped pre ‘interesting’ because frankly, the risk-reward ratio was out of whack. If players are skipping your content, you know something is wrong. You should fix it. You don’t fix risk-reward skewed too much to heavily towards risk by increasing the risk. Yet that’s exactly what ANet did.

Ayrilana,

When exactly do you look? Cuz I looked before I started typing my reply to IAm and there was 1 group and 1 player for AC. There were more people for every other dungeons with lots for fractals and CoF 1. I just looked again a second before typing this very sentence and while a bunch of new listings are up for things like Sorrow’s Embrace (seriously???), there is only 1 new one for AC.

You’re right gw2lfg isn’t everyone, but it’s a really good representation of people that actually want to run dungeons.

Oh, and this is a good place to make it clear I’m not complaining about difficulty. I’m usually pretty good at using ‘risk-reward’. Difficult content with good rewards would be a welcome addition to GW2. I enjoyed the clock tower at Halloween. It was difficult, but if you finished, you got an exotic. I ran the winter jump puzzle as a daily. I’m working towards trying to solo all of Arah using not-warriors. I’m all for difficult.

But I’m pretty opposed to Requires Nearly Perfect Gameplay Out of Low Level Players as that’s counter-intuitive. And I’m even more opposed to Requires NPC’s and Luck Rather Than Player Skill because that’s not difficult…that’s luck.

p.s. IAm, if you ever ran AC story with me, I promise you you won’t need to dodge. Not even once. It’s all about the rocks

There are over 20 people who have have done the dungeon in the past 30 minutes and that’s not counting those that deleted their entry. You cannot say a dungeon is dying just because it doesn’t have a constant inflow of whatever you consider new listings. The ONLY dungeon that has that is CoF for Path 1. All of the other dungeons have considerable less people attempting them on gw2lfg.

Xavori.3768:

IamDudditts,

Kholer isn’t a learning curve. He’s a learning brick wall. “Hey, newbie, that Spider Queen is what’s called a boss. It wiped the party because most of you kept trying to dodge out of circles to big to dodge out of that last too long anyway which is why I kept telling you to quit dodging. Now, this guy Kholer, he’s also a boss. If you don’t dodge, you’ll be dead in a couple seconds…”

Again, not a problem for me. (side note, I didn’t learn to dodge by dying. I learned to dodge by practicing in open world until I could make ‘EVADE’ show up almost every time without having to consciously time it anymore.

-snip-

But I’m pretty opposed to Requires Nearly Perfect Gameplay Out of Low Level Players as that’s counter-intuitive. And I’m even more opposed to Requires NPC’s and Luck Rather Than Player Skill because that’s not difficult…that’s luck.

I’m guessing that your method of learning to dodge is the exception rather than the rule. The open world does not punish early dodges very often; even if an early dodge means you still get hit, that hit is seldom going to down you. Most times, dodging early just means you’re out of range and didn’t get hit. In these cases the open world is teaching people that the timing of dodge is not that critical. Kholer is a lesson that, in dungeons at least, timing is important.

The Kholer fight is more of an easy dodge than many heavy hits both in dungeons and the open world. While a group of inexperienced dungeoneers can and will wipe on Kholer, they also can and will wipe in AC story, the “real” intro dungeon, in the Balthazar event, on Melandru, on Dwayna… My take is that AC Exp is not too early to learn to dodge and to watch the screen. We might have to agree to disagree on that.

And yeah, making a boss fight mechanic dependent on AI was not a smooth move. A better mechanic would have been to have Grast give out an item at the start that needs to be activated by a party member, has an appropriate CD, and can be put down and picked up between uses. This puts the onus on the players, not whether the NPC works as intended or has leroyed.

AlietteFaye.7316:

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

If 3 of you know what you are doing + high enough dps / bring an ele. That was the same as old “effortless” AC.

Ayrilana.1396:

There are over 20 people who have have done the dungeon in the past 30 minutes and that’s not counting those that deleted their entry. You cannot say a dungeon is dying just because it doesn’t have a constant inflow of whatever you consider new listings. The ONLY dungeon that has that is CoF for Path 1. All of the other dungeons have considerable less people attempting them on gw2lfg.

Only Anet will have the stats on AC. If you compare the number of entries pre and post nerf, it is very obvious.

The other dungeons were never popular to begin with, except probably for CM until a few months after launch and about the same level for TA.

I didnt declare AC to be completely dead, I asked a question that would reveal people’s inclinations and a bit of “We told you so”.

Khal Drogo.9631:

AlietteFaye.7316:

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

If 3 of you know what you are doing + high enough dps / bring an ele. That was the same as old “effortless” AC.

AC took long because the mobs and bosses had tons of HP and took forever to kill, but the dungeon was effortless because there were very few instances where you ran the risk of wiping.

Xavori.3768:

IamDudditts,

Kholer isn’t a learning curve. He’s a learning brick wall. “Hey, newbie, that Spider Queen is what’s called a boss. It wiped the party because most of you kept trying to dodge out of circles to big to dodge out of that last too long anyway which is why I kept telling you to quit dodging. Now, this guy Kholer, he’s also a boss. If you don’t dodge, you’ll be dead in a couple seconds…”

I think most would agree here that Queen Spider needs some tweaking. In my experience I expect to wipe on her more often than Kholer or any of the other bosses just because of the duration and damage output of her AoEs combined with the number of adds. A wipe is almost guaranteed if it’s a groups first time and they don’t spec properly (and aren’t that experience).

That aside, I would be disappointed if back to back bosses had the exact same mechanics.

Xavori.3768:

Again, not a problem for me. (side note, I didn’t learn to dodge by dying. I learned to dodge by practicing in open world until I could make ‘EVADE’ show up almost every time without having to consciously time it anymore. Then again, I’m wierd in that I’m a KESA player type…

If more people learned the game like that then I’d be willing to bet there would be fewer complaints on the forums about it. People are more likely to say something is broken, overpowered or poorly designed than to admit that they aren’t as good as they think they are. It’s not that they are necessarily bad, but rather that they are too rigid in their play style to adjust and adapt. It’s simply easier to complain that something isn’t balanced than it is to give up your Full Zerker Glass Cannon build.

What does KESA mean? Also, DnD ftw.

Xavori.3768:

Kholer got skipped pre ‘interesting’ because frankly, the risk-reward ratio was out of whack. If players are skipping your content, you know something is wrong. You should fix it. You don’t fix risk-reward skewed too much to heavily towards risk by increasing the risk. Yet that’s exactly what ANet did.

I think his risk-reward was fine. The reason he got skipped is because people ran AC for tokens and the dungeons end-load the token reward. Some tokens, karma and 15 silver plus vendor trash for a fight that can take a few minute is not that bad. However, if you are speed running, that 5 mins becomes a significant fraction of time on the overall run and people would rather get the ~160k exp, ~2k Karma, ~25 silver and 60 tokens that much faster.

Xavori.3768:

Oh, and this is a good place to make it clear I’m not complaining about difficulty. I’m usually pretty good at using ‘risk-reward’. Difficult content with good rewards would be a welcome addition to GW2. I enjoyed the clock tower at Halloween. It was difficult, but if you finished, you got an exotic. I ran the winter jump puzzle as a daily. I’m working towards trying to solo all of Arah using not-warriors. I’m all for difficult.

What you are saying here is a contradiction. Based on what you are saying about soloing Arah, you are admitting that “reward” goes beyond the rewards dropped in game. You find it rewarding to solo the dungeon, not for the drops, but just because you can say that you’ve solo’d the dungeon. This can translate to the Kholer changes. His drops didn’t change, but his mechanics are more satisfying to overcome because it simply has more depth (I use this term loosely) compared to pre-patch.

Xavori.3768:

But I’m pretty opposed to Requires Nearly Perfect Gameplay Out of Low Level Players as that’s counter-intuitive. And I’m even more opposed to Requires NPC’s and Luck Rather Than Player Skill because that’s not difficult…that’s luck.

Won’t argue about luck, it’s always a bad design choice unless you are designing a casino. NPCs isn’t bad because it adds a random element that you have to react to. This is more along the lines of Hodgin’s AoE choice rather than with Grast randomly not doing his job. Grast needs to be fixed and the fight in general could have more to it, I won’t argue that. Near perfect play I think is a bit of an exaggeration.

They should revert changes…. no doubt nobody wants to play AC now.

It was great, even too difficult to introduce new players to dungeons (who say it was too easy are the same that asked for the buff and mostly people that don t care for new players but only for themselves).

Taught explo to two PUG noobs last night. The run took 4 hours (which is fine, I guess). Here’s the thing: I doubt they are going to go back.

1. By all means make it challenging. However if you can’t guarantee that 90% of playthroughs aren’t going to experience a bug you are going to have to tone it down until you can make that guarantee.
2. Knockdowns are fine as a mechanic. However, more than 2 enemies with knockdown is cheap and shallow game design: the endurance mechanic guarantees that eventually an extremely competent player will get caught.
3. One-shot-kills are also cheap and shallow (scavengers come to mind), yes, you can dodge them but if there are enough of them around eventually you simply don’t have enough endurance/abilities to survive.
4. Fear is pretty useless. It doesn’t add challenge (nor does it get you killed). It’s just frustrating. Especially with the troll, he is dirt easy to kill – but the constant fearing just artificially increases the length of the fight without actually making it more challenging.
5. While I am a massive fan of the random nature of bosses (which punishes players who are used to brainlessly repeating rotations a. la. WoW), they need to have certain restrictions. For example, the spider queen should not be allowed to use the AOE DOT for a few seconds after using the immobilize. Maybe scale the event a little more dynamically (e.g. if everyone is over level 50 in AC the restriction does not apply).

I appreciate that the dungeon should be challenging. At the moment it just hopelessly frustrating, especially for someone like me who really doesn’t mind teaching noobs. No matter how good you are having to continually res will get you killed as well – and those downed players aren’t necessarily bad, they are just getting killed by dirty tricks/mechanics.

Evidence of this is that I am seeing more and more “LF*M AC Level 80”, where previously players were generally a lot more helpful. You are destroying the community you worked so hard to foster by using these cheap mechanics that punish not only students, but teachers as well.

It got so ridiculous that I had to eventually send the poor players silver just so that they could WP and repair.

Just take a look at http://gw2lfg.com/

What A-Net did is totally kitten up the dungeon system.
AC was a dungeon that was done by ppl who are new to dungeons. I mean come on the recommended lvl for it is 40. Yes ok there were ppl trying to farm it but what is the point of making the first dungeon anyone playing GW2 will most likely try.
On the other hand COF which is dungeon with lvl 75 recommendation, farmable.
To top it all off the made the tougher paths of a few dungeons which have a lvl 80 recommendation easier, making the dungeon master title almost pointless in having.

LOL what a failure by Anet

AlietteFaye.7316:

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.

Thanks – will give it a shot. I’m 50 badges short of the WvW Gift and am getting about 30-40 a night so am on schedule to start running it next week.

Better spend the weekend reading the new guides, I guess.

Midnightjade.3520:

Thanks – will give it a shot. I’m 50 badges short of the WvW Gift and am getting about 30-40 a night so am on schedule to start running it next week.

Better spend the weekend reading the new guides, I guess.

Yes, do read the guides and prepare yourself to re-learn some of the encounters you thought you knew. Spider Queen is now a real boss and its adds do real damage. Kohler needs to be fought with his adds which nearly nobody did (and skipping him has become difficult). Focus your reading on the last bosses, they have received the major changes.

Regarding the whole “this should be an introductory dungeon” discussion, I think you all tend to forget why Anet has hands tied on that one. This dungeon grants token that allow you to buy Exotic lvl 80 gear. Without making any change to this fact, they can’t make it simple enough for levels 35 to do it, or level 80 to farm it. And for those of you who will tell me Citadel of Flames gives tokens as well, you are absolutely right. Expect the nerf bat to hit it very soon.

@sacrai
Hotw1 gives badge. Twilight arbor Up/Up gives badges, cof2 gives badge

Why on earth should ac be more difficult?

LordByron.8369:

@sacrai
Hotw1 gives badge. Twilight arbor Up/Up gives badges, cof2 gives badge

Why on earth should ac be more difficult?

Don’t get me wrong, my point is that it is not possible to have a dungeon that would be balanced and easy enough for low levels to run in their current system. Having introductory instances would indeed be nice so that you can learn how to play in dungeons. But the reward granted makes it impossible as it would be far too easy for higher levels. Granting special tokens that give access only to the rare stuff before 80 would be a possibility, but it restricts players a bit too much.

That being said, once you have done the work to learn AC again, I still find it requires nothing more than TA up/up or HotW p1 (for levels 80 that is).

once ac didn t have lvl 80 exotics…..well revert the change..
Also economy was not impacted so hard by AC.

P.S: no way ac is on the same level than TA up up or hotw 1.
You can finish those with newplayers with just basic skills on their characters.
AC on the other side requires you to know perfeclty HOW the dungeon works.

Or i should say “how to trick AI and exploit professions skills?”
The same LAME excuse of games like Demon’s soul

No difficult or challenge, just a stupid AI that needs to be exploited……that is the same AI of super adventure box….

In fact was shocked when someone dared to say SAB had better mechanic that GW2 dungeon….i hope devs were shocked too*

*not that i say SAB is a bad thing…its awesome….is a long minigame with new skin and stuff (i don t like it but i am thankful for it).

LordByron.8369:

@sacrai
Hotw1 gives badge. Twilight arbor Up/Up gives badges, cof2 gives badge

Why on earth should ac be more difficult?

Do you really believe that they are going to revamp the difficulty/mechanics of AC and leave all the other dungeons as is? Is it really that difficult to extrapolate that other dungeons will get similar revamps? Believe it or not this stuff takes time and man power.

zamalek.2154:

Taught explo to two PUG noobs last night. The run took 4 hours (which is fine, I guess). Here’s the thing: I doubt they are going to go back.

1. By all means make it challenging. However if you can’t guarantee that 90% of playthroughs aren’t going to experience a bug you are going to have to tone it down until you can make that guarantee.
2. Knockdowns are fine as a mechanic. However, more than 2 enemies with knockdown is cheap and shallow game design: the endurance mechanic guarantees that eventually an extremely competent player will get caught.
3. One-shot-kills are also cheap and shallow (scavengers come to mind), yes, you can dodge them but if there are enough of them around eventually you simply don’t have enough endurance/abilities to survive.
4. Fear is pretty useless. It doesn’t add challenge (nor does it get you killed). It’s just frustrating. Especially with the troll, he is dirt easy to kill – but the constant fearing just artificially increases the length of the fight without actually making it more challenging.
5. While I am a massive fan of the random nature of bosses (which punishes players who are used to brainlessly repeating rotations a. la. WoW), they need to have certain restrictions. For example, the spider queen should not be allowed to use the AOE DOT for a few seconds after using the immobilize. Maybe scale the event a little more dynamically (e.g. if everyone is over level 50 in AC the restriction does not apply).

I appreciate that the dungeon should be challenging. At the moment it just hopelessly frustrating, especially for someone like me who really doesn’t mind teaching noobs. No matter how good you are having to continually res will get you killed as well – and those downed players aren’t necessarily bad, they are just getting killed by dirty tricks/mechanics.

Evidence of this is that I am seeing more and more “LF*M AC Level 80”, where previously players were generally a lot more helpful. You are destroying the community you worked so hard to foster by using these cheap mechanics that punish not only students, but teachers as well.

It got so ridiculous that I had to eventually send the poor players silver just so that they could WP and repair.

1. Games have bugs. I’m guessing the bugs weren’t discovered until after the patch went out and it would seem like a silly option to revert back to the old AC seeing as they likely want valuable metrics on what people like/dislike about the patch changes.

2. Everyone agrees this is poor design

3. One or two one-shot kills isn’t bad, but with as many knockdowns as there are in the dungeon it becomes difficult to come back once the chain stuns start.

4. Agree and disagree. It’s a fine mechanic when it has consequence. On troll it’s currently artificial fight length.

5. The immobilize into the AoE is fine. It’s what makes here dangerous. What needs to be tweaked is the duration of the AoEs. Having someone get immobilized and then downed from a poison AoE is ok. However, getting downed in those AoEs is almost guaranteed to kill you and anyone brave enough to try and rez you in it. I do feel like this fight goes from being difficult to straight forward simply by switching from ranged to melee. One or two melees can pretty much face tank her because she never AoEs at PB.

i think AC was the dungeon for most newbies and was good the way it were

IamDuddits.1692:

Games have bugs. I’m guessing the bugs weren’t discovered until after the patch went out and it would seem like a silly option to revert back to the old AC seeing as they likely want valuable metrics on what people like/dislike about the patch changes.

I’m not arguing that bugs exist and are a reality in games, but AC is quite notorious for bugs (really, it’s strange, CoF and so forth fare a lot better – I basically never see bugs in them). My argument is that they should have done a little stabilization on it before making it more challenging by ways of more elaborate mechanics.

Khal Drogo.9631:

Ayrilana.1396:

There are over 20 people who have have done the dungeon in the past 30 minutes and that’s not counting those that deleted their entry. You cannot say a dungeon is dying just because it doesn’t have a constant inflow of whatever you consider new listings. The ONLY dungeon that has that is CoF for Path 1. All of the other dungeons have considerable less people attempting them on gw2lfg.

Only Anet will have the stats on AC. If you compare the number of entries pre and post nerf, it is very obvious.

The other dungeons were never popular to begin with, except probably for CM until a few months after launch and about the same level for TA.

I didnt declare AC to be completely dead, I asked a question that would reveal people’s inclinations and a bit of “We told you so”.

Dead implies nobody does it. I can still get a group in under 10 min. AC is still the 2nd most active dungeon. My argument has been that it is not dying specifically be aide of the “difficulty” but because of other factors such as event chest farming and now SAB. I made a comparison of Orr when FotM came out.

What I see from people that don’t like the new AC is that it’s too difficult for them. They want the dungeon to be so that they can zerg through it without any effort. They want to be able to facetank everything. They hate any form of challenge that has you work out a strategy even if it’s a very simple one. They are unwilling to learn the mechanics to determine proper strategies to defeat obstacles nor are they willing look online. They may or may not be using the proper build (glass cannon doesn’t always work unless you’re experienced).

Ayrilana.1396:

Khal Drogo.9631:

Ayrilana.1396:

There are over 20 people who have have done the dungeon in the past 30 minutes and that’s not counting those that deleted their entry. You cannot say a dungeon is dying just because it doesn’t have a constant inflow of whatever you consider new listings. The ONLY dungeon that has that is CoF for Path 1. All of the other dungeons have considerable less people attempting them on gw2lfg.

Only Anet will have the stats on AC. If you compare the number of entries pre and post nerf, it is very obvious.

The other dungeons were never popular to begin with, except probably for CM until a few months after launch and about the same level for TA.

I didnt declare AC to be completely dead, I asked a question that would reveal people’s inclinations and a bit of “We told you so”.

Dead implies nobody does it. I can still get a group in under 10 min. AC is still the 2nd most active dungeon. My argument has been that it is not dying specifically be aide of the “difficulty” but because of other factors such as event chest farming and now SAB. I made a comparison of Orr when FotM came out.

What I see from people that don’t like the new AC is that it’s too difficult for them. They want the dungeon to be so that they can zerg through it without any effort. They want to be able to facetank everything. They hate any form of challenge that has you work out a strategy even if it’s a very simple one. They are unwilling to learn the mechanics to determine proper strategies to defeat obstacles nor are they willing look online. They may or may not be using the proper build (glass cannon doesn’t always work unless you’re experienced).

Exactly. If people find these mechanics and strategies too complicated or inconvenient then the devs are going to struggle to find mechanics people can handle.

Imagine if they released a boss fight that can only be damaged using Combos or relied on Combos to defeat. Half the population would ask what a combo is. This would actually be a good use of Combos that the Devs couldn’t incorporate because people would whine too much.

Zenith.7301:

I think if they removed the chain knockdowns people would do the content more. Yes, it’s avoidable when you are dealing with a target or two. Not so much when you need to dodge 3-4 gravelings or deal with that annoying p3 boss chain knocking your kitten back with autoattacks.

I’d rather have a one shot kill than a chain knockdown that eventually kills me without being able to do anything about it.

The only thing they did wrong was giving the baby gravelings knockdown. That was over the top imo. The new boss mechanics are fun.

Sacrai.6280:

Yes, do read the guides and prepare yourself to re-learn some of the encounters you thought you knew. Spider Queen is now a real boss and its adds do real damage. Kohler needs to be fought with his adds which nearly nobody did (and skipping him has become difficult). Focus your reading on the last bosses, they have received the major changes.

Regarding the whole “this should be an introductory dungeon” discussion, I think you all tend to forget why Anet has hands tied on that one. This dungeon grants token that allow you to buy Exotic lvl 80 gear. Without making any change to this fact, they can’t make it simple enough for levels 35 to do it, or level 80 to farm it. And for those of you who will tell me Citadel of Flames gives tokens as well, you are absolutely right. Expect the nerf bat to hit it very soon.

Anet has just made vendored exo weapons unsalvageable, so its not a matter of hands being tied. If all they wanted was to stop people from farming, they could have made AC much more difficult.

I would have been fine if they had just changed the spider queen and nothing else.

Wow People run dungeons for rewards. What a revolutionary idea. Even though FOTM is nowhere as efficient as COF P1 and takes on average an hour plus on lvl 10 tier and 1 1/2 to 2 on the higher tiers and most people already gotten the majority of the rings/backs/bags they wanted.

A dozen posts = half the player base and being called elitist is an insult as compared to “whining”.

Mods can we get an ignore option as we do in other forums? Otherwise flame thread in the making here. Then again its in some people’s best interest to get this topic shut down and deleted.

Khal Drogo.9631:

No you are wrong. Fractals is the 2nd most active dungeon and it is NOT a facetank everything dungeon.

Please don’t splice together various parts of my argument to make something up that I did not say. I did not say you could facetank FotM. I war referring to AC and I wasn’t counting FotM as a dungeon which I probably should have specified. I only mentioned FotM in my comparison of why chest farming and SAB are reducing those doing dungeons. Feel free to re-read my post without distorting it with personal bias.

Khal Drogo.9631:

Honestly you are just flaming everyone as being noob and lazy players when they say they don’t like the new AC, when many people have given various reasons why they don’t like the new AC, some of which has NOTHING to do with difficulty (annoyance with cheesy mob mechanics doesn’t count) and some concerns about difficulty for inexperienced players. And the best thing: Fractals isnt really a speedrun farm dungeon.

My tone probably wasn’t the greatest but I was not calling people noobs. I was just giving a generalization of what I was seeing on the forums.

About mechanics:

So far spider queen, you can no longer facetank her. You must avoid the poison aoe circles which is not difficult. It means paying attention. She tends to follow a similar pattern where she does the poison aoe circles, then the immobilize conic web, and then starts over with poison aoe circles.

The fire gargoyles turrets should be destroyed before the spider queen is spawned. This normally fails because someone run to the upper section to spawn her and/or kills the spiders on the upper section.

Howling King is a much quicker fight and with enough dps, you shouldn’t have to worry about the adds for too longer. If you have low dps then you’ll have to lead them into the fire rings more often.

Ghost Eater just requires very basic coordination so you all target 1-2 of the ghost slimes and don’t all spam the same skill on them. Dessa bugging out occurred before the revamp so that can’t be used as an argument.

For Colossus all you have to do is stick with the npc and it will use the shield to protect you from the falling rocks. You DON’T dodge these which I see a lot of people trying to do and then complain the boss is impossible. Sometimes the npc gets stuck in an attack animation and doesn’t cast it in time. Maybe you should suggest that he doesn’t attack at all so that this doesn’t happen. He does tend to spam his knock back attack a lot of if you stack against a column or wall, this is minimized.

As far as gravelings go, they are less of an annoyance than the scavengers (I believe it was those) which knocked you down and then proceed to attack you to death. Just use your dodges, stability, etc to deal with these. If you have enough dps then you shouldn’t encounter them in large numbers except for gathering the scepter pieces and running to the final boss.

Khal Drogo.9631:

But feel free to keep arguing why AC is the 3rd most popular dungeon, given it is the introductory explorer dungeon at lvl 35 and it beats out the other dungeons by just a few entries in GW2LFG.com and there was an undeniable massive drop in AC participation due to the “changes”. And don’t stop there please, feel free to slam the other really popular elements in the game and advocate changes to suit your tastes.

You assume the only reason that people don’t do the dungeon is because it supposedly too difficult due to the changes. You then have a harsh tone if anyone suggests that there could be other factors to it.

Did you realize that the same update that revamped the AC also made event chests give at least one rare? A large percentage of players were farming this. The latest update then added SAB which bought on another distraction for players.

I also want to point out that just because it’s the first dungeon, does not mean it has to be incredibly easy. It still is the easiest of all of them. It is a good introductory dungeon since it introduces you to all of the necessary mechanics (dodging, signs to predict certain attacks, coordination, etc) that ALL of the other dungeons require.

Khal Drogo.9631:

Some people dont have a clue as to what dying as opposed to dead means.

You obviously are one of them that doesn’t. Dead means nobody does it. Dying means that a lot of people still do it but the numbers are gradually decreasing. You can’t say that the “difficulty” of the dungeon is the sole cause for this.

Khal Drogo.9631:

Just more elitist crud. Henceforth totally ignoring some real kittenholes who can only come up with personal attacks as their only arguments.

So you make a personal attack to that user for making personal attacks by making a personal attack yourself?

Good job!

Khal Drogo.9631:

A dozen posts = half the player base and being called elitist is an insult as compared to “whining”.

Since when does a dozen posts means that’s half the player base. Where are the facts to back this up? Are you monitoring every single server’s map chats? Are you accounting for the time of day as well?

Khal Drogo.9631:

Mods can we get an ignore option as we do in other forums? Otherwise flame thread in the making here. Then again its in some people’s best interest to get this topic shut down and deleted.

Which you’re one of the primary offenders.

Prettier, but definitely worse. I don’t see how it is an improvement when people aren’t running it as frequently as before. Anyone can argue in favor of the new design/mechanics as far as challenge or whatever goes, but it doesn’t change the fact that it was a better dungeon pre-patch. If less people are playing the content it simply isn’t as good.

Ayrilana.1396:

Khal Drogo.9631:

A dozen posts = half the player base and being called elitist is an insult as compared to “whining”.

Since when does a dozen posts means that’s half the player base. Where are the facts to back this up? Are you monitoring every single server’s map chats? Are you accounting for the time of day as well?

Khal Drogo.9631:

Mods can we get an ignore option as we do in other forums? Otherwise flame thread in the making here. Then again its in some people’s best interest to get this topic shut down and deleted.

Which you’re one of the primary offenders.

I still fail to see at what point I’ve made a personal attack but I think Khal has at least removed all doubt that he is just a troll. There have been a few constructive posts that bring up some problems with AC that most people would agree need fixes/improvements, and none of them have been from him.

IamDuddits.1692:

Ayrilana.1396:

Khal Drogo.9631:

A dozen posts = half the player base and being called elitist is an insult as compared to “whining”.

Since when does a dozen posts means that’s half the player base. Where are the facts to back this up? Are you monitoring every single server’s map chats? Are you accounting for the time of day as well?

Khal Drogo.9631:

Mods can we get an ignore option as we do in other forums? Otherwise flame thread in the making here. Then again its in some people’s best interest to get this topic shut down and deleted.

Which you’re one of the primary offenders.

I still fail to see at what point I’ve made a personal attack but I think Khal has at least removed all doubt that he is just a troll. There have been a few constructive posts that bring up some problems with AC that most people would agree need fixes/improvements, and none of them have been from him.

I never said you did. I just used his argument against him which he happened to refer to you.

Let’s face it, Anet has a particular way they want you to do everything. We weren’t doing AC the way they wanted us to, so they changed it. Now less people are doing it. And this is a dungeon improvement? Don’t think so…

Ayrilana.1396:

IamDuddits.1692:

Ayrilana.1396:

Khal Drogo.9631:

A dozen posts = half the player base and being called elitist is an insult as compared to “whining”.

Since when does a dozen posts means that’s half the player base. Where are the facts to back this up? Are you monitoring every single server’s map chats? Are you accounting for the time of day as well?

Khal Drogo.9631:

Mods can we get an ignore option as we do in other forums? Otherwise flame thread in the making here. Then again its in some people’s best interest to get this topic shut down and deleted.

Which you’re one of the primary offenders.

I still fail to see at what point I’ve made a personal attack but I think Khal has at least removed all doubt that he is just a troll. There have been a few constructive posts that bring up some problems with AC that most people would agree need fixes/improvements, and none of them have been from him.

I never said you did. I just used his argument against him which he happened to refer to you.

Yea it was more directed at him than you. Poor wording on my part.

If there’s been any sort of decline in AC’s popularity, it’s been for one or more of these three reasons:

Reason #1: AC tokens cannot be converted into rares that salvage for ectoplasms. This makes them inherently less valuable than, say CoF or HotW, which provide tokens that can.

Reason #2: AC does not have a unique crafting material associated with it. TA’s tokens cannot buy rares that salvage into ectos, but TA remains popular because of onyx cores and lodestones – something AC has no real answer to. Garlic bread doesn’t count.

Reason #3: AC’s recent changes may have made the content more interesting to established groups, but in the process have made the dungeon extremely unfriendly to lower level characters. Low level characters running AC to level up while still getting some dungeon tokens for gear – once a common practice – are now practically nonexistent.

So why run AC? Because of the low-level tokens and item drops, it’s less profitable than any other dungeon run. Because of the lack of a unique crafting material, it’s unattractive to anyone looking to test their luck. Because of the rebalance, it’s a terrible place to try to level up. Really, the only reason left to run it at all is for the unique skins or the Gift of Ascalon.

—

Now some people (myself included) enjoy doing it just for fun and for the mechanics, but if I have a monetary goal to reach for or a character to level up, AC doesn’t provide the kind of rewards that I can get in the same amount of time elsewhere. Not even close.

The developers need to make up their minds on what they want AC to be – if it’s meant to be level 80 endgame content, the rewards need to match up with that. If it’s meant to be an instance for lower level characters to learn, level, and practice, it needs to be doable by characters without exotic gear and full skill/trait loadouts in a reasonable time frame. Right now, it’s trying to be both and succeeding at neither – which is a shame, because brain-dead Warmaster Grast aside, it really is a fun encounter.

Nar.8327:

If there’s been any sort of decline in AC’s popularity, it’s been for one or more of these three reasons:

Reason #1: AC tokens cannot be converted into rares that salvage for ectoplasms. This makes them inherently less valuable than, say CoF or HotW tokens, which provide tokens that can.

Reason #2: AC does not have a unique crafting material associated with it. TA’s tokens cannot buy rares that salvage into ectos, but TA remains popular because of onyx cores and lodestones – something AC has no real answer to. Garlic bread doesn’t count.

Reason #3: AC’s recent changes may have made the content more interesting to established groups, but in the process have made the dungeon extremely unfriendly to lower level characters. Low level characters running AC to level up while still getting some dungeon tokens for gear – once a common practice – are now practically nonexistent.

So why run AC? Because of the low-level tokens and item drops, it’s less profitable than any other dungeon run. Because of the lack of a unique crafting material, it’s unattractive to anyone looking to test their luck. Because of the rebalance, it’s a terrible place to try to level up. Really, the only reason left to run it at all is for the unique skins or the Gift of Ascalon.

—

Now some people (myself included) enjoy doing it just for fun and for the mechanics, but if I have a monetary goal to reach for or a character to level up, AC doesn’t provide the kind of rewards that I can get in the same amount of time elsewhere. Not even close.

The developers need to make up their minds on what they want AC to be – if it’s meant to be level 80 endgame content, the rewards need to match up with that. If it’s meant to be an instance for lower level characters to learn, level, and practice, it needs to be doable by characters without exotic gear and full skill/trait loadouts in a reasonable time frame. Right now, it’s trying to be both and succeeding at neither – which is a shame, because brain-dead Warmaster Grast aside, it really is a fun encounter.

I agree with all your reasons as to why it’s not run. The thing is that if you design a dungeon around it being profitable to run for cores/lodestones then eventually people stop running it because: 1) they don’t need those materials anymore or 2) the market changes and the items are no longer need. Sure, the market is favorable now for Onyx, Destroyer, and Charged Lodestones/Core, but Crystal Lodestones are pretty much worthless on the TP. Effectively the dungeon becomes no different than a zone in open world where those materials drop often and the player base that farms tends to be very volatile.

I think making the tokens buy things that would be useful to people that don’t want the skins wouldn’t be an awful idea though. I enjoy running the dungeon, but I’ve got the armor, gift, the weapons I want and 500+ tokens with really nothing to spend it on. It’d be nice if they could be unique crafting materials or for unique recipes for gear. I actually really liked the unique jewelry recipes that the bosses drop now. Having exotic recipes that drop off of mobs (not just bosses) would be a nice improvement to the replayability of a dungeon.

Also, I’m probably alone on this one, but I find that if people are running a dungeon just to use the tokens to by easy level 80 rares to salvage for Ecto then you may have a problem with your design. I view dungeons as being something that should be separate from open world. When people are farming a dungeon then it ceases to be any different from a zone.

Having just finished path 2 post update, I can say that the boss fight isn’t fun if the PUG is uncoordinated. That being said, how well do you think the typical pug can coordinate themselves to quickly and semi-efficiently take down the ghost eater?

Path 1, other the other hand, is just annoying because every pug I’ve been a part of (6 total) seems to fail at least 4-6 times at the graveling burrows section. If anything, I think the graveling hatchlings need to be toned down for this specific part.

DanteZero.9736:

Having just finished path 2 post update, I can say that the boss fight isn’t fun if the PUG is uncoordinated. That being said, how well do you think the typical pug can coordinate themselves to quickly and semi-efficiently take down the ghost eater?

The first few times it will go slowly, but the whole point of the fight is to teach coordination and teamwork to people that normally lack it the most (PUGs). The fight itself is rather laid back compared to the other two, and even compared to Queen Spider and Kholer. The only real threat of death is standing in the AoEs and after the bosses armor goes back up he practically sits there while you charge up the other trap. Not sure if this is a bug or working as intended, but I’d say this boss gives the players ample time to coordinate and charge the traps. I agree pugs will do it slower than any coordinated group, but that should be expected with any dungeon mechanic.

DanteZero.9736:

Path 1, other the other hand, is just annoying because every pug I’ve been a part of (6 total) seems to fail at least 4-6 times at the graveling burrows section. If anything, I think the graveling hatchlings need to be toned down for this specific part.

This and Path 3 Lovers got a bit worse with the knockdowns on the hatchlings. I think if it were less of a DPS race it wouldn’t be as bad. Level 80s already chew through these with ease, so making lowering the HP of the mounds or something along that line for lower level players wouldn’t really make a noticeable difference for the 80s while giving the lower levels a little more leeway on the gear they have when entering these two events.

Knockdowns are definitely something that needs to get toned down.

Part of it is the duration of the knockdown. Not only have you been interrupted, but you’re laying helpless on the floor in excess of 5 seconds if your stunbreaker is still recharging. It’s disproportionately long coming from a typical / silver mob.

Edit: Regarding the Ghost Eater, most of the coordination is managing his oozes and location. Once his shield goes down, he’s pretty helpless, and it’s pretty easy for everyone to see the “Now we hit as hard as we can” signal, what with the colour change, buff icon removed, and giant flash filling the screen.

As mentioned, he’s not particularly dangerous if you just make sure to keep out of his AoE pools, but I agree that it’s a long fight if you can’t fill & trigger traps quickly, or if you have to trigger too many. (imo, a group should be able to do it in 4 traps, 3 if they’re good at it, but if it takes 5 or 6 traps, the fight really drags on.)

Softspoken.2410:

Part of it is the duration of the knockdown. Not only have you been interrupted, but you’re laying helpless on the floor in excess of 5 seconds if your stunbreaker is still recharging. It’s disproportionately long coming from a typical / silver mob.

Edit: Regarding the Ghost Eater, most of the coordination is managing his oozes and location. Once his shield goes down, he’s pretty helpless, and it’s pretty easy for everyone to see the “Now we hit as hard as we can” signal, what with the colour change, buff icon removed, and giant flash filling the screen.

As mentioned, he’s not particularly dangerous if you just make sure to keep out of his AoE pools, but I agree that it’s a long fight if you can’t fill & trigger traps quickly, or if you have to trigger too many. (imo, a group should be able to do it in 4 traps, 3 if they’re good at it, but if it takes 5 or 6 traps, the fight really drags on.)

That’s actual another problem with the new ‘interesting’.

It was pretty cool figuring out how this fight worked the first time. And it’s kinda fun to show people…for 2, maybe 3 traps. After that, the cool wears off and it’s just a long, tedious fight. I mean, still more interesting than Ghost Eater ver 1.0 which you could just facetank, even in full zerker gear, but this Ghost Eater ver 2.0 should have half the hitpoints it currently does.

Extra hitpoints don’t make fights ‘interesting’. They make them long and boring. Ghost Eater isn’t the only fight that suffers this problem. Heck, AC isn’t the only dungeon that suffers this problem.

So a lot of discussion on this one… will add my .02 cents… I never viewed AC as real easy. Sure it was if you wanted to skip, but for those people who like to actually kill bosses instead of run by them, they buffed all the wrong area’s. Khoeler? Really? Let’s take the number one boss in the instance that no one wanted to do aaaaand… make it harder!! That’ll get people playing AC again. For people’s first dungeon experience in the game, this was not a smart move. It skews a lot of first timers opinion of the game and ultimately hurts everything all around, economy, group finding, game morale etc. I don’t like easy, that’s why I don’t like skipping, but I don’t want to bang my head against a boss whose mechanics lends to missing one move that one shots you. The guild on vent can call the rolls, but try pugging it with the added adds he now summons and incoming rage quits. Or the thing that really burns me… “let’s just skip guys…”

ANET, you need to evaluate your “buff” spots are not the spots that everyone already skips in the first place because it’s no longer fun.

Current Ghost Eater will be even harder if he stops going afk randomly.
Melee? Here’s some spammable random 3 rolling water ring that will one shot you close range.
Ranged? Here’s some white-spit AoE field.. thingie.. while the adds block your projectiles.

I did P1 with my War and noticed how ridiculous it was at last boss fight. Chain knockdowns/backs everywhere and I don’t have enough Endurance. It was easy when I was a Guardian with perma Vigor, staying in melee range with 4-5 Gravelings waiting to chomp on my dead body while holding the Boss’s aggro altogether.
And those gravelings hatchings.. GOD. Whoever thought it would be a good idea to buff their HP and give them ridiculous Bleed deserves to get prohibited from popping anymore bubble wraps.

IMO Current AC is still quite enjoyable to some extent right now only because mobs are still randomly going AFK now and then. It would be HELL if they don’t do that anymore.

Xavori.3768:

That’s actual another problem with the new ‘interesting’.

It was pretty cool figuring out how this fight worked the first time. And it’s kinda fun to show people…for 2, maybe 3 traps. After that, the cool wears off and it’s just a long, tedious fight. I mean, still more interesting than Ghost Eater ver 1.0 which you could just facetank, even in full zerker gear, but this Ghost Eater ver 2.0 should have half the hitpoints it currently does.

Extra hitpoints don’t make fights ‘interesting’. They make them long and boring. Ghost Eater isn’t the only fight that suffers this problem. Heck, AC isn’t the only dungeon that suffers this problem.

I agree with you and Softspoken on this. The mechanic is fantastic, but you’ve got the idea of what you need to do by the 3rd or 4th trap. Anything beyond that is just tedious. If they decrease the hitpoints or make the traps do percentage based damage when they pop that would help. The damage on the traps would at the very least guarantee that the boss would be down by the Xth trap regardless of the DPS the group is capable and remove some of the gear requirement from the fight.

Ravad.9761:

So a lot of discussion on this one… will add my .02 cents… I never viewed AC as real easy. Sure it was if you wanted to skip, but for those people who like to actually kill bosses instead of run by them, they buffed all the wrong area’s. Khoeler? Really? Let’s take the number one boss in the instance that no one wanted to do aaaaand… make it harder!! That’ll get people playing AC again. For people’s first dungeon experience in the game, this was not a smart move. It skews a lot of first timers opinion of the game and ultimately hurts everything all around, economy, group finding, game morale etc. I don’t like easy, that’s why I don’t like skipping, but I don’t want to bang my head against a boss whose mechanics lends to missing one move that one shots you. The guild on vent can call the rolls, but try pugging it with the added adds he now summons and incoming rage quits. Or the thing that really burns me… “let’s just skip guys…”

ANET, you need to evaluate your “buff” spots are not the spots that everyone already skips in the first place because it’s no longer fun.

When you say that he was mad harder you mean the fact that they removed the means of pulling him without his adds. This wasn’t a buff to the boss, it was fixing an exploit. The changes make it apparent that the bosses mechanics were to involve dealing with the adds. Making the adds weaker and spawn at predictable intervals was an improvement because it reinforces the idea of dealing with the adds over the boss.

When I run with pugs I try to encourage them to do this boss because skipping him only deprives them of learning a very basic, but crucial, mechanic.

PCanineBrigade.4916:

Current Ghost Eater will be even harder if he stops going afk randomly.
Melee? Here’s some spammable random 3 rolling water ring that will one shot you close range.
Ranged? Here’s some white-spit AoE field.. thingie.. while the adds block your projectiles.

I did P1 with my War and noticed how ridiculous it was at last boss fight. Chain knockdowns/backs everywhere and I don’t have enough Endurance. It was easy when I was a Guardian with perma Vigor, staying in melee range with 4-5 Gravelings waiting to chomp on my dead body while holding the Boss’s aggro altogether.
And those gravelings hatchings.. GOD. Whoever thought it would be a good idea to buff their HP and give them ridiculous Bleed deserves to get prohibited from popping anymore bubble wraps.

IMO Current AC is still quite enjoyable to some extent right now only because mobs are still randomly going AFK now and then. It would be HELL if they don’t do that anymore.

The boss AFKing gives groups an opportunity to charge up the traps and revive downed players, but I’m gathering if this gets fixed it’d just mean that someone would have to kite him around while the others charged the traps.

The thing is though that I don’t believe you can draw away the AoEs. Even when he’s aggro’d to me he will always turn around and drop his AoEs on the group.

I used to enjoy it because it was easily puggable. It was the dungeon that you could bring your beginner friends on. If i had a friend who just started playing, I would say hey let’s do AC. It’s not hard for an experienced group, but nothing really is. All they did was remove one of the only two dungeons that you could bring new players/non level 80’s into. It just pushed even more people to do CoF since it’s the only one left that can be done with a team that isn’t experienced playing together.

I miss the easy AC dungeon.

It’s not that it’s way hard now but I liked being able to just jump in on one of the many groups running it for something to do occasionally.