Guild Wars 2

Not meant to stir hate, more a genuine curiosity.

I have done a few dungeons (not many I admit) and to be frank, I don’t see a compelling reason to keep doing them. My reasons:

1. They take an incredibly long time to do
2. If you can manage to find people to do them with you, they are usually addicted to the dungeon and have zero tolerance for people that are new to the dungeon, so often don’t help and leave you dead.
3. The rewards at the end don’t appear to be any better than the drops from the PvE system.
4. I haven’t done fractals at all because everyone advertises for “fractals lvl XX”. Trying to get into fractals at level 1 is impossible. People seem to be drawn to fractals, saying they are fun, but as it is now it is very much higher levels only.

This then brings me back to the original question. What reason is there to do dungeons? As it is it seems to be very long, noob unfriendly with poor, or at least nothing above the norm, drop rates. What am I missing?

The reason for this post – I can no longer complete monthly achievements due to being blocked from fractals, so I thought I would try it out, but was unable to get a group because of being level 1.

They’re good sources for money.

And they give tokens for exotic equipment.

My reasons.

“Trying to get into fractals at level 1 is impossible.”

Not even close to true.

1. Only long one I’ve done is Arah
2. Only sometimes.
3.Dungeon runs produce at least a gold per PATH.
4. As Awesome said.

Awesome.6120:

“Trying to get into fractals at level 1 is impossible.”

Not even close to true.

Perhaps not for you but for me it is. I have tried 4 times to get in and not once was I able to due to having never done it. By try I don’t mean a quick “hey I need to go in”, I mean waiting for an hour each time.

Odin of Ark.4860:

1. Only long one I’ve done is Arah
2. Only sometimes.
3.Dungeon runs produce at least a gold per PATH.
4. As Awesome said.

I’ve done 3 dungeons and each one took well over 90 minutes to do. Clearly I am taking the long scenic route. One gold per dungeon? As I said, the rewards don’t appear to be any better than PvE. You can make a gold easily just killing random animals and collecting their fur or whatever they drop

Use gw2lfg.com if you are having trouble with shouting in LA. I assure it’s much more difficult to find a random high level (40+) group than a lvl 1 group.

Use www.gw2lfg.com for fractals. Alot of the time people have trouble finding a group is because they are one of the millions who say LFG. Seriously just say LFM and its night and day. All those millions LFG ppl don’t bother messaging each other, but LFM and they all whisper you.

As far as dungeons go, tokens and money is what people currently are running for. If people are just there for dungeon tokens they usually want a fast run but are alot more flexible/understanding and patient with new folks. Its the money farmers/speed clearers you want to be watchful for when running a dungeon for the first time or just inexperienced in general.

Here’s what I have learned. If you are new to a dungeon and very likely find yourself with speed clearers. Just keep your mouth shut, equip all survivable utils you can, stability, stealth, teleports etc. and never if possible be the last person in the party train. Be ready to move run through mobs and use all those utils I just spoke of in order to survive the run through. There is alot of skipping. Do not attack anything unless it is abundantly clear that the party is going to destroy said mobs. Otherwise you might see your party members run towards a group of mobs, you are like ok and start dpsing, only to see your party just run past em all and leave you with some PO’d mobs.

So in general, eyes open, stay alert, watch your party members like a hawk, follow orders explicitly if any are given, if not, use your judgement and the tips I mentioned to stay alive and if in any scenario that nobody says anything about a boss but it obviously has mechanics that need to be you can mention that you can’t quite recall the strat for this or some other nonsense. Most times anything requiring co-ordination however is talked about in chat.

Hope this helps, it is very unfortunate that this is how things must be done at this point, but after a few times through, you will be just another one of the people that the quietly inexperienced will stick to.

Thanks for the info. I wasn’t aware there was speed clearing. Makes sense.

Question though – why do I have to use a 3rd party web site to find a group? Why doesn’t that happen in game? I run the game in full screen, having to go back and forth between the game and a web site is not fun.

Ema.4953:

Thanks for the info. I wasn’t aware there was speed clearing. Makes sense.

Question though – why do I have to use a 3rd party web site to find a group? Why doesn’t that happen in game? I run the game in full screen, having to go back and forth between the game and a web site is not fun.

Because they haven’t designed a lfg tool in game yet. I remember them saying it was something they purposely did not want in game. But that was long ago. There are tons of threads requesting just such a feature, so I don’t think they can hold out forever on this issue.

As to the other problem, yea it is annoying alt tabbing, but one thing you can do is just copy/paste names from the site directly to chat, for quick easy /join namehere. Otherwise you can use a smartphone if you have one, you can view the regular site with it, but I also think they have a smartphone version of the page to use. I generally just alt tab myself because copy/pasting is just quicker with some people’s names.

All in all, it’s a work-around, but it’s a very useful one.

Ema.4953:

…My reasons:

1. They take an incredibly long time to do
2. If you can manage to find people to do them with you, they are usually addicted to the dungeon and have zero tolerance for people that are new to the dungeon, so often don’t help and leave you dead.
3. The rewards at the end don’t appear to be any better than the drops from the PvE system.
4. I haven’t done fractals at all because everyone advertises for “fractals lvl XX”. Trying to get into fractals at level 1 is impossible. People seem to be drawn to fractals, saying they are fun, but as it is now it is very much higher levels only.

1. Dungeons generally take 25-45 minutes (although a few can go longer like in Arah)
2. Well cant argue that. Newcomers usually get treated poorly. The learning curves aren’t too steep though. In 2 or 3 runs you’ll have basics down if you pay attention OR watch video’s. And yes, watch out for the speed runners until your more advanced.
3. Most things I get out of dungeons either get vendored or salvaged. People run dungeons for tokens, gold or lodestones.
4. Try gw2lfg.com and before you say “well I shouldn’t have to the game should have that already” you can give it a try and make an informed opinion. I use it all the time for finding groups and it works great. Hopefully the game will eventually have something like it but for now use the tools at our disposal.

Ema.4953:

I have done a few dungeons (not many I admit) and to be frank, I don’t see a compelling reason to keep doing them.

Why do people play a game?

For every kind of game other than MMOs (and MMO-like single player games), the answer is “to have fun”. Now, MMOs catter to grinders, who are not interested in having fun, but rather on how rewarded they will be for playing the game. GW2 is trying to be different, though, so the answer here is the same as in any good game:

Why would someone play through a dungeon? Because it’s fun. And if it’s not fun, people should not play there, so ArenaNet would realize there is something wrong and rework it.

Wanted to pop in a little bit more on top of DeTechTive’s excellent post. I tend to hang out in LA crafting while I’m looking for a dungeon. When learning a new path, frequently I’ll respond to a LF#M post and ask if they’re willing to take a rookie. Often, I find a group that is looking for more is willing to take someone on and show them the ropes, just speak up and if they blow you off, you’re probably better off not running with them.

When I run dungeons that I know well, I tend to assume people know what they’re doing unless they tell me otherwise. That’s probably a flawed approach, and I can think of one or two really ugly runs where half of the team had fundamentally different other assumptions than the other half…. but even on those runs, once it became obvious that we had a disconnect, the party started chatting more and things smothed out quickly.

As to time and payout… once you get good at dungeons, they tend to go fast, some paths in as little as 15 minutes (CoF p1) and yielding 1g+. When I first did dungeons with my guild, it took a long time, and first time in a new dungeon is usually long without a few vets to show you the ropes, but once you learn it, it speeds up.

Cheers and GL!

A gold in 15 minutes? Really? Okay that makes things more interesting. I guess it’s time to hit youtube and see how to do them properly.

Thanks for the replies, genuinely appreciated

SKINS!! cosmetics only

and if you get a good group it can be really fun and challenging, sadly all the exploiters take any archievement out of it though :/

A gold in 15 minutes? Really? Okay that makes things more interesting. I guess it’s time to hit youtube and see how to do them properly.

Thanks for the replies, genuinely appreciated

exploiting, cheating. is the only way… sadly…

Erebus.7568:

exploiting, cheating. is the only way… sadly…

No exploiting or cheating required. CoF p1 can be very straight forward, and the only section you would skip on a 15 minute run is the boss on the bridge and the group of mobs past him. Seriously, it’s a fast path that can be done very quickly by an experienced team w/o standing on walls, hiding on stairs or other bizzare tactics. If you choose not to skip the boss on the bridge, it adds maybe 5 minutes in a high DPS group.

The straight answer: because people enjoy them.

The answer that the current state of dungeons seems to indicate: for stuff.

Ema.4953:

Odin of Ark.4860:

1. Only long one I’ve done is Arah
2. Only sometimes.
3.Dungeon runs produce at least a gold per PATH.
4. As Awesome said.

I’ve done 3 dungeons and each one took well over 90 minutes to do. Clearly I am taking the long scenic route. One gold per dungeon? As I said, the rewards don’t appear to be any better than PvE. You can make a gold easily just killing random animals and collecting their fur or whatever they drop

hmm, Cof P1 10 min =70sx 9 times for your 90 min =6.3 gold.
you will not make 6.3 gold in 90 selling any amount of fur you find.
+you can find fur in CoF.

On a daily basis my group does 3 TA paths, 45 minutes. 1 hotw, 2 CoF, 45 minutes. SE1, about 12 or 15. Sometimes arah 2 or 3 which is usually a half hour to 50 minutes depending on how it goes and what classes we bring.

We don’t skip anything or exploit, if we’re lvling alts we’ll sometimes do 3 AC paths as well.

Alll in all its very lucrative and there’s not much else to do in this game tbh.

Good gold rewards. Unique weapon and armor skins with exotic stats.

“4. I haven’t done fractals at all because everyone advertises for “fractals lvl XX”. Trying to get into fractals at level 1 is impossible. People seem to be drawn to fractals, saying they are fun, but as it is now it is very much higher levels only.”

Hahahahahahaha, that’s a good one.

Finding a group for level 1 is easy, I could have one right now within 15 minutes.

Do you really think it’s harder to find a low level group than it is for someone like me to get a group at any odd numbered level? I could find a group for level 1 and then finish it before I could get a group for level 31.

Ema.4953:

Not meant to stir hate, more a genuine curiosity.

I have done a few dungeons (not many I admit) and to be frank, I don’t see a compelling reason to keep doing them. My reasons:

1. They take an incredibly long time to do

most of them are fast

2. If you can manage to find people to do them with you, they are usually addicted to the dungeon and have zero tolerance for people that are new to the dungeon, so often don’t help and leave you dead.

a) disrespect goes to players that ignores chat…..if someone write a tactic you either follow it or disagree, but don t ignore it.
b) there are basic strategies for ressing, most of them teach you to not ress downed if you risk dying OR you need to dps fast……also its common to try to help people autoressing with “rally”
If you die completely….use WP <=== its free and faster don t expect people to lose 30 secs in the middle of a fight nor after because then you should repair armor at WP.
c) 1st rule in most dungeons is “try to not die” only then if u can do dmg….

3. The rewards at the end don’t appear to be any better than the drops from the PvE system.

not even comparable…..more than 5X if not 10X

4. I haven’t done fractals at all because everyone advertises for “fractals lvl XX”. Trying to get into fractals at level 1 is impossible. People seem to be drawn to fractals, saying they are fun, but as it is now it is very much higher levels only.

patch will solve this

This then brings me back to the original question. What reason is there to do dungeons? As it is it seems to be very long, noob unfriendly with poor, or at least nothing above the norm, drop rates. What am I missing?

they teach you how to play better and they teach you team play…..

The reason for this post – I can no longer complete monthly achievements due to being blocked from fractals, so I thought I would try it out, but was unable to get a group because of being level 1.

I just started a new character and could lvl it from 1 to 12 fotm in few days ._. using gw2lfg.com or just asking in map.
Never waited for more than 10 min, usually 3 mins.

P.S: AC and COF may be done in about 20 mins without skipping and cheating <.<
Skipping few trash mobs are legit btw….
Doing that results in losing WP so if you do its because you would kill them without an effort but they are boring….
Ppl plays dungeon for the bosses mostly or for interesting fights, not to kill random gravelings ._.