Guild Wars 2

Hi,

Not sure if it’s just me but I am finding that dungeons don’t feel right. There is something about them that feels off for me. I cannot place my finger on it. My main concern is that I don’t feel that the trinity system arena-net has adopted fits in with their dungeons. It just feels like dungeons are missing something.
Just wondering other people’s opinions on this.

Thank you.

They are crap, and so are the rewards.

Simple as that really.

Which is REALLY annoying after a 5 year wait, the dungeon devs have tarnished the rest of the team imo

Yes, I feel it too.
Could it be lack of good tools?
i.e: Every party member is supposed to be a Jack of all Trades (yet master of none).

GW2 made great strifes in the outside world, when 20 players just happen to be in the same spot. That is the strength of the game, each player is working independently, nobody else to blame and the game can support almost any amount of players in one spot without breaking down int fierce competition for mobs, loot and drops the way older MMOs did in the past. This is what I would call “uncoordinated PvE”.

In the same way ArenaNet defined coordinated and uncoordinated PvP in the past, there is also coordinated and uncoordinated PvE.

Coordinated PvE of past MMOs had this necessity of all players interlocking before the group as a whole was capable of interacting with the opposing monster horde. In GW2 dungeons, each player is still pretty much on his own when facing down a monster. There are only two modes. Either you have aggro, in which case you enter defense mode until another player gets aggro. Or you do not have aggro in which case you dump damage. You do not have to learn your part, there is only one part and at best it differs from boss mechanic to boss mechanic (of which there are too few). For example, take Lieutenant Kholer, this is a ranged encounter. You have to pick your ranged weapon, learn how to dodge him if he attacks you, learn how to dodge his AoE pull (group encompassing attack) and that is it. Spam damage, dodge until he looses interest, watch out for his animation. IF your cooldowns were instantaneously, you could play the encouter on your own, but they are now, this is why you need other players. So you can pass aggro and trigger your defensive skills in a giant merry-go.round. Next enemy, same thing, new pattern, if there is a new pattern.

Technically, that is not a multiplayer game. GW2 dungeons are a single player game in which you are required to have other players present for the sake of achieving enough damage output and allowing defensive skills to cooldown. The difference between a story mission and a dungeon is enemies having ten times the health. This is the price ArenaNet paid for removing trinity. Each player has to do the same thing and the group is glued together by damage output requirements, not by providing different functions. Defensively speaking, we do not have specialists anymore, but each player needs to take care of himself.

As a result, a single player mission is therefore no longer any different than a dungeon. In the olden days, you would have hit a wall of your ability to provide a function (Tank, Heal, DPS) in an encounter and therefore recruit a team member to provide that function. In the past, you would have recruited a team member and you would have instantly seen how he complements your abilities (Tank, Heal, DPS) and adds value to the group by providing another piece of the puzzle. Now you have GW2, a single player game with monsters so big, they require five players to to an aggro relay of sorts. This is what gets called dungeon, this is not the type of coordinated PvE players are used to.

FourthVariety.5463:

Defensively speaking, we do not have specialists anymore, but each player needs to take care of himself.

This to me is one of the most interesting things about it. It is unlike any other fantasy themepark RPG out there. Lets be honest – EQ/Rift/WoW: A healer is a healer, A tank is a tank, A DPS is a DPS. Sure you might get a different flavor, but just just because you paint something a different color doesn’t change what it fundamentally is. ANet said it would be different – It is. It relies on player skills – your skill – not someone elses to bring you through it. I like that. If you get hit to where your almost downed nobody is going to insta you to full HP and your woopsie is gone. It is there and you better have saved your heal, your shield block, your parry (all of which are important to “tanking” melee’s) I don’t want to have my tank who I played VERY well be brought down by a healer that just isn’t as good anymore. If I wanted to play those games there are a billion of them out there to choose from. A majority free to play at that.

This is different – and it is good.

Dead.7385:

FourthVariety.5463:

Defensively speaking, we do not have specialists anymore, but each player needs to take care of himself.

This to me is one of the most interesting things about it. It is unlike any other fantasy themepark RPG out there. Lets be honest – EQ/Rift/WoW: A healer is a healer, A tank is a tank, A DPS is a DPS. Sure you might get a different flavor, but just just because you paint something a different color doesn’t change what it fundamentally is. ANet said it would be different – It is. It relies on player skills – your skill – not someone elses to bring you through it. I like that. If you get hit to where your almost downed nobody is going to insta you to full HP and your woopsie is gone. It is there and you better have saved your heal, your shield block, your parry (all of which are important to “tanking” melee’s) I don’t want to have my tank who I played VERY well be brought down by a healer that just isn’t as good anymore. If I wanted to play those games there are a billion of them out there to choose from. A majority free to play at that.

This is different – and it is good.

This is where gw2 has issues. It does rely alot on other players helping you out and not really based on your skill alot of the time you go down. There is really too much unavoidable damage in some of these dungeons and it’s not “oh no I used my heal too early” on most of them because they kill you before you even go low enough to even consider healing.
So in Dungeons most of the time you rely on the team members to help you up when you go down and it’s the ones that don’t help that are truely the worst players not the player that goes down.

I hate it when people say “if you go down you are doing something wrong. You are noob” or anything of the sort because quite simply the only reason the downed state was introduced to the game was because going down in dungeons was going to be extremely frequent and they wanted to promote some form of teamwork in dungeons considering they scrapped every single ounce of it when they decided to not go by the traditional trinity system.

I hope you understand.

With the trinity system there were clear expectations
of what contribution each member would bring and a
reliance on them doing it.

At first glance in GW2 you might think that you are
now more in control of your own success, but no…

In the end if the others in your group don’t contribute
something well enough then you will still die.

If the prior was a crutch then this is just a crutch of
another color. Personally I never view the reliance on
team members as a crutch – it is what makes grouping fun.

FourthVariety.5463:

GW2 made great strifes in the outside world, when 20 players just happen to be in the same spot. That is the strength of the game, each player is working independently, nobody else to blame and the game can support almost any amount of players in one spot without breaking down int fierce competition for mobs, loot and drops the way older MMOs did in the past. This is what I would call “uncoordinated PvE”.

In the same way ArenaNet defined coordinated and uncoordinated PvP in the past, there is also coordinated and uncoordinated PvE.

Coordinated PvE of past MMOs had this necessity of all players interlocking before the group as a whole was capable of interacting with the opposing monster horde. In GW2 dungeons, each player is still pretty much on his own when facing down a monster. There are only two modes. Either you have aggro, in which case you enter defense mode until another player gets aggro. Or you do not have aggro in which case you dump damage. You do not have to learn your part, there is only one part and at best it differs from boss mechanic to boss mechanic (of which there are too few). For example, take Lieutenant Kholer, this is a ranged encounter. You have to pick your ranged weapon, learn how to dodge him if he attacks you, learn how to dodge his AoE pull (group encompassing attack) and that is it. Spam damage, dodge until he looses interest, watch out for his animation. IF your cooldowns were instantaneously, you could play the encouter on your own, but they are now, this is why you need other players. So you can pass aggro and trigger your defensive skills in a giant merry-go.round. Next enemy, same thing, new pattern, if there is a new pattern.

Technically, that is not a multiplayer game. GW2 dungeons are a single player game in which you are required to have other players present for the sake of achieving enough damage output and allowing defensive skills to cooldown. The difference between a story mission and a dungeon is enemies having ten times the health. This is the price ArenaNet paid for removing trinity. Each player has to do the same thing and the group is glued together by damage output requirements, not by providing different functions. Defensively speaking, we do not have specialists anymore, but each player needs to take care of himself.

As a result, a single player mission is therefore no longer any different than a dungeon. In the olden days, you would have hit a wall of your ability to provide a function (Tank, Heal, DPS) in an encounter and therefore recruit a team member to provide that function. In the past, you would have recruited a team member and you would have instantly seen how he complements your abilities (Tank, Heal, DPS) and adds value to the group by providing another piece of the puzzle. Now you have GW2, a single player game with monsters so big, they require five players to to an aggro relay of sorts. This is what gets called dungeon, this is not the type of coordinated PvE players are used to.

I think this has slightly ruined the game. The new single player aspect has made the game alot less competitive PvE wise and without PvE competition between guilds I must say PvE seems very bland and boring. Most people would disagree but this is just my opinion on the matter.
The reason I play MMORPG games is for the mutliplayer experience and the teamwork aspects which is why I am addicted to WvW however I really wanted PvE to work for me but it turned out that I much prefer the healer/tank/dps simply because it is more teamwork mulitplayer based and people may say “it’s slackers club” but quite frankly it’s no different from guild wars 2 except you avoid the kiting of the boss. Everyone still has to time the enemies attacks to move together to a zone to minimise damage and avoid stuff. The only thing the tradition trinity does differently is that it is alot more organised and in my opinion is more skill based. I love guild wars 2 and will always play it for it’s pvp aspects but untill PvE is more attractive to me I will never think that it’s superior to the holy trinity because quite frankly it does nothing different except removes teamwork roles and adds random aggro. yippie!

For the most part I am enjoying dungeons a lot. The more I try them (and adjust to the kinds of builds I want in them and build up my gear) the more enjoyable they become. There is definitely a warm up period though. I’ve found running a dungeon the second time is much easier and running them on a class you play in dungeons is also good.

You will have to adjust your play style for the dungeon. Crowd control becomes invaluable, fear, stun, cripple, chill etc will all become much more valuable and you will notice using these skills is a lot more rewarding. I brought the ranger trait which causes stealth when stunned and all of a sudden I found many trash mob encounters much easier. It really opened my eyes to how seemingly weak or useless abilities in normal PvE become priceless in dungeons. Even something like 5 seconds of regen every 20 seconds when inflicted with a condition makes a difference for fights like Vevina in TA.

I still think dungeons need a lot of work in different areas (some more than others and I believe the devs have said as much) but I can already see something in dungeons that’s a really rewarding experience with a lot more potential. I’m really looking forward to how dungeons evolve in the future. It’s also possible we could see additional paths added to already existing dungeons in addition to balances and tweaks so really, I think the dungeon system in this game has a lot of potential and is already a fun and rewarding experience most of the time.

The dungeon system has a lot of potential due to the combat system. The dungeons do not really capitalize on the amazing combat system to provide a unique Guild Wars 2 dungeon experience.

Here, you have a great combat system, and you are pit against groups of monsters and bosses that have abilities and simply spam them over and over. It lacks structure, and I don’t mean 100% scripted encounters. A little structure is nice and makes encounters feel unique. Too much structure makes fights boring and repetitive after running the dungeon multiple times.

Well I’m off to play MoP and go on gw2 1 hour a day just to do jumping puzzles in WvW. I hope something changes.

When you have 5 level 80s each down leveled but still traited, wipe over and over and over you realize something is wrong.

Is it the missing trinity? No Tank Healer DPS specialized?

Or is it the huge health pools of everything?
The terrible PBAoE and AoE skills that one shot if you don’t evade and are coming at you faster than your energy can fill.

What it feels like finding a dungeon in WoW/Rift “Need a healer or Tank, have DPS off tank and off healer” Bummer I’m not either of those, I’m just more DPS.

What it feels like finding a dungeon group in GW2 after half an hour or longer “LF1M for CM EXP Butler”
Hey I’m one more! Awesome!

See the concept is awesome, the dungeons themselves, suck.

I said this in another thread that got buried, but I want to like these dungeons. I really do, especially since I love the rest of the game. In fact, I think the move away from the holy trinity is a really interesting concept, and it works pretty well overall, I feel.

Unfortunately, these dungeons just ramp up the difficulty in a completely artificial way. They aren’t genuinely challenging, they are only hard because the monsters have unbelievable health pools coupled with abilities that can wipe you out in a couple of seconds. On top of that, the mechanics for the bosses are completely out of left field as the game makes no real attempts to teach you the mechanics otherwise.

For my money, I think the easiest solution would be to slash the health and damage of trash mobs. Then have the packs reflect the mechanics the bosses will use. Scaling up the models will also help see the animation tells that you’re supposed to be looking for. Some of the boss models are just small player models, and it makes catching the tells behind melee characters, player effects, monster effects, and particle effects incredibly tough.

Dungeons are god awful horrible both the story and explore.

With a good group (the type of group dungeons are targeted at) they feel great, very fun. With a bad group they feel bad.

These dungeons are trash and everyone knows it.

Even with a good group, I do often feel like most mobs have too much health. I understand there is a need to put pressure on groups and crowd control cooldowns, healing cooldowns and dodge regeneration, but some fights are downright tedious and boring. Some fights are long and difficult but just increasing the mob’s health pool isn’t a very rewarding or engaging way to play the game. If I was making changes to dungeons I’d work on that, I’m not sure if it’s because I’m in PuGs but I do frequently think mobs have too much health.

ELTopo.1506:

These dungeons are trash and everyone knows it.

It’s a bit disingenuous to substitute your shallow, pathetic, opinion for those of people, as or more qualified than you on the matter.

Dungeons in this game are garbage. Bunch of leash pulling, exploiting, hold left, and push buttons 1-5 trash nonsense.

The ENTIRE kittenING GAME is push buttons 1-5, sometimes you might have to even push buttons 6-0! In fact every PC game ever made is pushing some combination of buttons and mouse movements.

Dungeons, at least the way my guild runs them, are strategic encounters where preparation and communication determines who wins. If we find ourselves resorting to WP zerging we stop the fight and let the boss reset and analyze our plan. Christ so many people have lost the art of learning something and then mastering it. If your opinion is so jaded that dungeons are nothing but exploitation playgrounds then you need to play better and play with better people.

Explorable modes aren’t as big/grand/epic as I’d hoped. Seems like all the budget was put in story mode. I would gladly take less dungeons if they were bigger, had more enemies, and felt more rewarding — more like a classic dungeon crawling experience. One way they could make things more rewarding is guaranteeing a rare quality item at the end of a run or having a very low chance for a cool exotic/skin.

Mobs have a lot of HP for the common group. If it’s a full melee group of heavies things just fall over and die but put some casters in the mix and kill times become so drawn out. This also kind of hurts the usefulness of CC to some extent since the durations are so low and the health pools so high. I’d love it if certain enemies in trash packs were much more dangerous than they are now and required more coordination than just everybody hitting it and dodging around.

Bosses are incredibly boring. Massive health pools and patterns of 2-3 abilities. They’re just awful. I think there are more mechanics involved with the bosses in story mode in many cases.

I could try to think of more things but instead I’ll say, if anybody has played DA2 on nightmare, to me the combat felt pretty right. Like GW2 it’s party based and less focused on healing and tanking. The balance between what enemies could do and what players could do with coordination is pretty good.

So, take DA2 combat and put it in a big dungeon like BRD and to me that would feel so right.

When I spend more time dying and running from a way point back to my party than I do killing anything, something is wrong. When I spend more time trying to kill an enemy than I do progressing, something is wrong. When I spend more time…..oh forget it. Did anyone at ANet test these dungeons or did they just throw them together and hoped for the best.

Phaze Delta One.2834:

something is wrong

The way you and your party are playing is wrong.

ELTopo.1506:

Blah Blah Blah. Try staying on topic. These dungeons are bad and that’s that.

I don’t care about you, your guild, or your self absorbed nonsensical rant. Go look in the mirror and tell someone who cares.

“You don’t agree with me – you are a moron.”

On topic – I think dungeons are really good, maybe lack polishing, but they are what they were supposed to be – places for organised groups (pug is not organised group) that require coordination and cooperation from every member of group.

Hell, I’d even say they are too easy, as most “hardcore” players are clearing them with closed eyes, but then I’d be spit to death by gw2 community…

About non-trinity system:
You still should have heavy armored guy who body-blocks mobs.
A healer – that can be split to 2-3 members of group (ele/necro with wells + warrior with shouts).
CCer – blinds/weakness/what-not
Support – offensive and defensive

What AN did – it was not so much as getting rid of trinity, rather splitting the roles to more players + making light-CC more important than “trinity MMOs”. Well, of course you can try to run a dungeon with 5 ppl specced/geared purely for dps, but that will only take you to the forums so you can start crying.

Please you guys keep posting the same condescending crap. Many of the exploratory paths are considerably easier than the story mode with better rewards hence no one runs story mode. Plus you got junk like HotW path 2. So no everything is not fine.

The dungeons are horribly boring and lack any depth or complexity. Don’t mix my comment up with any sort of complaints regarding the difficulty. If anything, I think they’re too short and easy.

The thing I complain about is that they SUCK. Plus – where are the chance-to drop loot rewards? The current system just complements the boring trend even further.

Devs said they desigend to be completed in 45min. Try that with arah. Avarage pug does it in 4h-6h. Too much hp on bosses and trash mobs seriously.

Arintal.8792:

Devs said they desigend to be completed in 45min. Try that with arah. Avarage pug does it in 4h-6h. Too much hp on bosses and trash mobs seriously.

average pug isn’t the intended demographic or the metric that 45 minute mark is designed for. Organized groups can do pretty much any of them well within that 45 minute mark, if not under.

Phaze Delta One.2834:

When I spend more time dying and running from a way point back to my party than I do killing anything, something is wrong. When I spend more time trying to kill an enemy than I do progressing, something is wrong. When I spend more time…..oh forget it. Did anyone at ANet test these dungeons or did they just throw them together and hoped for the best.

The dungeons are designed so that they can be done without running from the nearest way point over and over.

If you are dying that much, you are doing it wrong.

Learn your combo fields, learn your groups builds, and learn your enemies and then you won’t die.

Arintal.8792:

Devs said they desigend to be completed in 45min. Try that with arah. Avarage pug does it in 4h-6h. Too much hp on bosses and trash mobs seriously.

No, the devs said they will continually tweak the dungeons so that the fastest possible time to clear them (with a good group) is 45min, and anything under would be due to exploits. Pugs will always take longer.

“No, the devs said they will continually tweak the dungeons so that the fastest possible time to clear them (with a good group) is 45min, and anything under would be due to exploits. Pugs will always take longer.”

The only way I see for them to make the fastest POSSIBLE time be 45 minutes is to add more unskippable trash and give them tons of health. Did 2 back to back runs of AC with the same group and the 3rd with 3 people from the first group and 2 pickup. Tsark and Hodgins were the first 2 and both were easily cleared in under 30 minutes due to the fact that everyone knew the encounters, knew their class and we had 0 wipes or resets. Kohler was cleared in every path in around 3-4 minutes, we pulled the graveling trash on top of the spider queen just to finish it faster, skipped the troll because he’s useless, burned down the burrows with ease and murdered every breeder on the way to the bosses in around 10-15 seconds a piece.

Didn’t really require planning, we just knew the encounters and vent was suddenly a place for trash talking and cracking jokes instead of planning out the game. It was fun and lighthearted but I don’t think its indicative of anything needing to be artificially lengthened.

Ender.3508:

“No, the devs said they will continually tweak the dungeons so that the fastest possible time to clear them (with a good group) is 45min, and anything under would be due to exploits. Pugs will always take longer.”

The only way I see for them to make the fastest POSSIBLE time be 45 minutes is to add more unskippable trash and give them tons of health. Did 2 back to back runs of AC with the same group and the 3rd with 3 people from the first group and 2 pickup. Tsark and Hodgins were the first 2 and both were easily cleared in under 30 minutes due to the fact that everyone knew the encounters, knew their class and we had 0 wipes or resets. Kohler was cleared in every path in around 3-4 minutes, we pulled the graveling trash on top of the spider queen just to finish it faster, skipped the troll because he’s useless, burned down the burrows with ease and murdered every breeder on the way to the bosses in around 10-15 seconds a piece.

Didn’t really require planning, we just knew the encounters and vent was suddenly a place for trash talking and cracking jokes instead of planning out the game. It was fun and lighthearted but I don’t think its indicative of anything needing to be artificially lengthened.

Well that’s because it’s too easy. I’m sure they can find ways of making it harder/longer without increasing HP.

I wouldn’t be so sure. It’s an entry dungeon, one that many people have a lot of trouble with. (Even heard people claim that Tsark and Hodgins were “impossibru”). Sure its easy if your group has done it 20 times, you spend a lot less time being downed and waypointing, you know where the scepter pieces are, you know where the burrows will spawn etc.

I think the difficulty is fine right now. Its a great dungeon for people to cut their teeth on, and the Kohler fight is a good intro for people to learn that in dungeons they NEED to work together and pay attention. The burrow events emphasize teamwork and coordination, and the various gravelings force a group to figure out which effects are the most deadly and focus fire certain enemies first.

You do not have to learn your part, there is only one part and at best it differs from boss mechanic to boss mechanic (of which there are too few). For example, take Lieutenant Kholer, this is a ranged encounter. You have to pick your ranged weapon, learn how to dodge him if he attacks you, learn how to dodge his AoE pull (group encompassing attack) and that is it. Spam damage, dodge until he looses interest, watch out for his animation. IF your cooldowns were instantaneously, you could play the encouter on your own, but they are now, this is why you need other players. So you can pass aggro and trigger your defensive skills in a giant merry-go.round. Next enemy, same thing, new pattern, if there is a new pattern.

A properly traited guardian can deny 4/5 of Kholer’s pulls using group-wide Aegis and Stability.

This is just one example. There are many specific class effects which are OP in the right fight and can essentially deny 50-75% of the boss mechanics. Not everywhere, I’ll give you that.

It’s ironic in the extreme that the power of the individual to do multiple tasks is being espoused now by the same conservatives who are supposedly proponents of Adam Smith who introduced us to the modern production line via “the division of labour” (i.e. roles).

It seems obvious that as more and more demands are placed on the worker, his ability to juggle multi-tasking and “fit a single role” is diminished.

I believe we need the developers to decide which of these they want us to be able to do and give us the full tools to be able to do that thing. In GW2, I feel we have been given tools that do not allow us to do what they want us to do. As I mentioned elsewhere, we should not have to deal with bosses who have immunity, mitigation or resistance to control in a game where healing & tanking is replaced with control.

MagnusLL.8473:

You do not have to learn your part, there is only one part and at best it differs from boss mechanic to boss mechanic (of which there are too few). For example, take Lieutenant Kholer, this is a ranged encounter. You have to pick your ranged weapon, learn how to dodge him if he attacks you, learn how to dodge his AoE pull (group encompassing attack) and that is it. Spam damage, dodge until he looses interest, watch out for his animation. IF your cooldowns were instantaneously, you could play the encouter on your own, but they are now, this is why you need other players. So you can pass aggro and trigger your defensive skills in a giant merry-go.round. Next enemy, same thing, new pattern, if there is a new pattern.

A properly traited guardian can deny 4/5 of Kholer’s pulls using group-wide Aegis and Stability.

This is just one example. There are many specific class effects which are OP in the right fight and can essentially deny 50-75% of the boss mechanics. Not everywhere, I’ll give you that.

Yup, a properly traited ele or mesmer can do the same with feedback. Ele’s are basically easy mode on burrows because of the Conjure Frost Bow ability, but new players dont really know any of that.

FourthVariety.5463:

GW2 made great strifes in the outside world, when 20 players just happen to be in the same spot. That is the strength of the game, each player is working independently, nobody else to blame and the game can ~~~~~~~value to the group by providing another piece of the puzzle. Now you have GW2, a single player game with monsters so big, they require five players to to an aggro relay of sorts. This is what gets called dungeon, this is not the type of coordinated PvE players are used to.

Kholer can be done with melee easily. Once people figure out how to do such things, then they can comment on the difficulty.

I have only done AC so far but I think its great. It was very hard the first time through cause of all the unknown challenges, but after completing it my 3rd time its actually quite easy. I think that makes for a fun game, one that is challenging at first, but has a solution that makes it much easier. It gives me the feel of improving.

There is nothing wrong with trinity games, its a different style and might even fit someone elses preference more than this game and vice-versa. You either like the challenge in this game or you don’t and if you are a reward player, well I hope they can find a solution that makes you happy. I myself don’t need a good reward to enjoy a challenging dungeon. The reward of completion is quite satisfying.

I don’t think the game feels wrong, it doesn’t work like a lot of previously created mmo’s, so possibly opening your mind to how this one is different will help you figure out what needs to be done, and will give you a better feel in the dungeons. Also make sure you have a team that communicates well and try to work out solutions even if it means you need to use a different weapon, or utility etc..

afflaq.3947:

average pug isn’t the intended demographic or the metric that 45 minute mark is designed for. Organized groups can do pretty much any of them well within that 45 minute mark, if not under.

Hate to break it to you, but the “average” player doesn’t want to spend four hours in a dungeon. And locking a huge majority of players out of content is something that just about every other MMO has figured out is a Bad Thing as it ultimately drives a huge portion of the playerbase out of the game.

Roctod.7290:

afflaq.3947:

average pug isn’t the intended demographic or the metric that 45 minute mark is designed for. Organized groups can do pretty much any of them well within that 45 minute mark, if not under.

Hate to break it to you, but the “average” player doesn’t want to spend four hours in a dungeon. And locking a huge majority of players out of content is something that just about every other MMO has figured out is a Bad Thing as it ultimately drives a huge portion of the playerbase out of the game.

No one is locked out of anything. Either you have a group who can run it or you find some balls, get a group and learn the stuff. Furthermore, I have NEVER once spent 4 hours on a dungeon, even CoE explorable with no prior knowledge going into it. I consider 2 hours the epitome of inefficiency and if I hit that mark its not because the dungeons are bad, its that myself and my team dont have enough experience to successfully run the well, YET.

Don’t take the term “locked out” literally. He means that
it takes a lot longer than 45 minutes for an average group.
Long enough that many may pass on it.

Could it be that the average player has not found as
many balls as you think you have? :-)

gwzog.6418:

Don’t take the term “locked out” literally. He means that
it takes a lot longer than 45 minutes for an average group.
Long enough that many may pass on it.

Could it be that the average player has not found as
many balls as you think you have? :-)

I understood perfectly what he meant. Still no one is locked out, his entire argument is based on the fallacy that dungeons take people 4 hours to do. Bullrabbit. It’s one thing to not do dungeons because you, yourself, are incompetent, and are unwilling to find a group and learn the encounters, its another to make up blatant rabbiting lies about the average run times of the average person. No one is locked out because everyone is capable of learning how to play, those who are unwilling deserve no pandering to by the devs.

Ender.3508:

I understood perfectly what he meant. Still no one is locked out, his entire argument is based on the fallacy that dungeons take people 4 hours to do. Bullrabbit. It’s one thing to not do dungeons because you, yourself, are incompetent, and are unwilling to find a group and learn the encounters, its another to make up blatant rabbiting lies about the average run times of the average person. No one is locked out because everyone is capable of learning how to play, those who are unwilling deserve no pandering to by the devs.

Nobody is asking for pandering. You guys flipping out over how dungeons are totally ok are too busy being smug and condescending to realize that the average player is not enjoying these dungeons. You won’t stop to acknowledge the valid criticisms these players have, and you jolt immediately to insults. You call people incompetent, tell them they just need to learn to play, and make the implications they should just return to WoW or something.

I don’t want the dungeons to just turn into cakewalks. I want them to be honestly challenging. They are not honestly challenging in their current incarnation. The difficulty is hidden behind obtuse mechanics the player has never seen before, and coupled with the more robust aggro system, it leads to chaos. The dungeons are slogs, gauntlets of trash monsters that have too much health doing too much damage. It leads to pretty much either forming a permanent dungeon team that never does groups outside their group, or never doing dungeons at all because pugs will never survive. I won’t deny the dungeons, on a whole, become much simpler once you manage to get through them and figure out the tricks, but the stark reality is the huge brick wall players are hitting in these dungeons does not encourage repetition to learn from mistakes. It breeds frustration and discouragement, the opposite of what creates a fun atmosphere for the game.

This, in turn, leads to the game having an insular clique of The Goods who have the time to spend 3-4 hours learning a new dungeons (or less because apparently you’re all super geniuses who can deduce mechanics intuitively) lording their achievements over people they deem The Bads. The latter group stops enjoying the game, and let me assure you: this is the group that is paying lion’s share of the bills. When these players stop playing, and they will if they are not enjoying the game, the devs will have a lot less funding coming in.

These dungeons are not fun for a very apparent portion of the player base, and it is not a small portion. They did not buy this game to get stonewalled by abrupt jumps in difficulty. They did not buy this game so a group of people on the forums who mine Wikipedia entries and Youtube videos can claim supremacy over them. They bought it to play through and enjoy all aspects of the game. So before you decide to climb on your high horse about how easy the game is for you, remember that you alone were not the only person this game was sold to.

Roctod.7290:

Ender.3508:

I understood perfectly what he meant. Still no one is locked out, his entire argument is based on the fallacy that dungeons take people 4 hours to do. Bullrabbit. It’s one thing to not do dungeons because you, yourself, are incompetent, and are unwilling to find a group and learn the encounters, its another to make up blatant rabbiting lies about the average run times of the average person. No one is locked out because everyone is capable of learning how to play, those who are unwilling deserve no pandering to by the devs.

Nobody is asking for pandering. You guys flipping out over how dungeons are totally ok are too busy being smug and condescending to realize that the average player is not enjoying these dungeons. You won’t stop to acknowledge the valid criticisms these players have, and you jolt immediately to insults. You call people incompetent, tell them they just need to learn to play, and make the implications they should just return to WoW or something.

I don’t want the dungeons to just turn into cakewalks. I want them to be honestly challenging. They are not honestly challenging in their current incarnation. The difficulty is hidden behind obtuse mechanics the player has never seen before, and coupled with the more robust aggro system, it leads to chaos. The dungeons are slogs, gauntlets of trash monsters that have too much health doing too much damage. It leads to pretty much either forming a permanent dungeon team that never does groups outside their group, or never doing dungeons at all because pugs will never survive. I won’t deny the dungeons, on a whole, become much simpler once you manage to get through them and figure out the tricks, but the stark reality is the huge brick wall players are hitting in these dungeons does not encourage repetition to learn from mistakes. It breeds frustration and discouragement, the opposite of what creates a fun atmosphere for the game.

This, in turn, leads to the game having an insular clique of The Goods who have the time to spend 3-4 hours learning a new dungeons (or less because apparently you’re all super geniuses who can deduce mechanics intuitively) lording their achievements over people they deem The Bads. The latter group stops enjoying the game, and let me assure you: this is the group that is paying lion’s share of the bills. When these players stop playing, and they will if they are not enjoying the game, the devs will have a lot less funding coming in.

These dungeons are not fun for a very apparent portion of the player base, and it is not a small portion. They did not buy this game to get stonewalled by abrupt jumps in difficulty. They did not buy this game so a group of people on the forums who mine Wikipedia entries and Youtube videos can claim supremacy over them. They bought it to play through and enjoy all aspects of the game. So before you decide to climb on your high horse about how easy the game is for you, remember that you alone were not the only person this game was sold to.

Well said, these dungeons are no fun and the loot is even worse.

I just hope they introduce more skins because right now i wouldn’t do a dungeon because the skins are so bad, in gw1 at least had ecto/shard chance uw/fow respectivley but the loot is so bad in gw2 its pointless for me to put any effort in knowing ive 0 use for tokens and there aint any drops to look forward to

To many coats! and the worse part is they all look alike and are fugly as hell, I sound like a broken record but it’s getting on my nerves

Okay I have heard many complaints, many negative words and its not good. Why are the forums here so we can vent our frustrations? No. If you don’t like something about the game, describe why, in detail and even better yet make suggestions on how to fix it. Thats what forums are about for a.net to read, examine and learn what their players want. Remember everything anyone here says is an opinion, and no opinion is better than others, whether majority or minority.

Kiyoki Yamata.7986:

Remember everything anyone here says is an opinion, and no opinion is better than others, whether majority or minority.

I’ve posted my suggestion, perhaps in negative wording. Here it is in more positive words:

Bosses should have no immunities and no mitigations. That is all.

Then we need at least 5 bosses in same room.
Bosses need to have something to prevent cc-locks. However, I admit Defiant-stacks don’t feel quite right (no reliable way to make boss suspectible on uncoordinated team).

I’ve seen a lot of posts, Dungeons are bad. That’s all I get, I don’t get, “why”, most of the time. Mainly the, “why”, is I failed and all I can blame is the game and the design, not me, definitely never me.

Some people have good arguments. Bugs, bugs will be fixed in time. Large hp pools, have to agree on some mobs just seem to be there to lengthen the run (2 champs infront of the destroyer of worlds SE path 3 as example). This problem has already been stated by anet and they are looking to shorten/lengthen, add mechanics to stale fights. Rewards are the same as everything else? that is their design so a player can do any part of their game and ignore the stuff they dislike and still get best in slot gear. This is because gear is only 50% of the game, the rest is skill. They don’t care that everybody can get the same gear because that’s only half of it. As you already see “my group is in full exotics and we can’ t beat this particular boss, impossible!” threads. No trinity in this game, yes, it’s going to stay fortunately/unfortunately. There are plenty of games that use the other system that are still out there and popular.

Lots of the points above can be fixed, and fixed in time once data is gathered. Lets stick to constructive posts.

There are people here saying there is no group teamwork like trinity which is false, I play with tons of co-ordination, step back to re-evaluate our strategies, make on the fly changes/decisions, to make sure we all stay alive. It’s why my group can complete these encounters and lots can not.

- Xhaine

Xhaine.4120:

This is because gear is only 50% of the game, the rest is skill.

As for clearing dungeons – gear is not even 10% of the game compared to skill – my friends with me run some testing in dungeons with green quality gear (with stats we wanted, not random ofc) – clearing most of the dungeons is still easy, thou it takes bit more time than running full exotic set (15-20 mins to about 35-40 mins).

I agree with rest of your post.

Cisza.9540:

Xhaine.4120:

This is because gear is only 50% of the game, the rest is skill.

As for clearing dungeons – gear is not even 10% of the game compared to skill – my friends with me run some testing in dungeons with green quality gear (with stats we wanted, not random ofc) – clearing most of the dungeons is still easy, thou it takes bit more time than running full exotic set (15-20 mins to about 35-40 mins).

I agree with rest of your post.

I agree with you more on 10%, but I just picked a number out of my kitten to be honest. 50% seemed like a number to not scare people I guess. Whatever the arbitrary percentile is, gear is not the majority

- Xhaine