Guild Wars 2

As a veteran mmo player that has thoroughly enjoyed hard mode group and raid instances that other games have offered, I was thoroughly dissapointed in GW2 offerings. Despite their implied promise that GW2 would actually be a “great mmo” and not just a “great mmo… for a free to play game”, the lackluster dungeon encounters pretty much only amount to a welfare system of impossible to fail encounters that offer no real reward aside from universal and all too easily obtained badges for armor that everyone and their mother has easy access to.

There are two main problems that are universal to GW2 dungeon encounters. First: the mechanic that allows players to run back to the encounter after death. Second: no soft or hard enrage timers allow players to disregard dps maximization and autoattack their way to victory. The combination of these two poorly thought out mechanics is extremely frustrating to players who would actually like to differentiate themselves from the crowd and creates a systemic problem that encourages terrible players to gear power/toughness/vit, do terrible dps, and be rewarded for it with success.

Lets deal with the first problem, which would easily be solved if each boss was gated off and did not allow players reentry to the gated area until after combat was finished. Currently, there are numerous encounters that could be very well tuned and challenging but have simply been reduced to a zerg gimmick due to the fact that players can endlessly respawn and run back to the encounter… virtually ensuring success to the players. An example would be the often farmed CoF path 2 explorable protect Magg encounter, which would be a very interesting “hold out” encounter except for the fact that most people have reduced it to a line up, die, and run back encounter. Likewise, Arah path 3 has an interesting and very survivable giant fight that is trivialized by the fact that bad players can endlessly run back after dying to easily avoidable and obviously telegraphed boss attacks. Forcing groups to survive or restart an event creates challenge and prevents players from cheezing events.

The second issue is that there has to be some dps check inherent in pve encounters beyond “hey if we kill stuff faster we can finish earlier”. Most MMO’s enforce enrage timers into their pve encounters because enrage timers force players to maximize their character’s potential and make full use of their skill sets. The lack of such enrage timers, be it a hard enrage or some soft enrage mechanic on encounters simply allows players to gear heavily into survivability, ignore riskier and more damaging skills at their disposal, and simply autoattack the boss down from range while executing a primitive duke nukem circlestrafe. I’ve seen many pug warriors that go an entire instance autoattacking with a rifle in full power/toughness/vit gear, getting hit with nearly every aoe imaginable and the group still succeeds.

The bottom line is that even accounting for the fact that GW1 attracted the bottom of the barrel in MMO gamers towards the end of its run, GW2 promised to be not just good for a free to play game, but a truly good game in its own right. Players who came to GW2 want challenge. We want that spiffy piece of flaming armor or that super cool weapon to actually mean something other than “hey I logged on and did my compulsory runs with 6 other mentally handicapped people for 4 days in a row”. There is no meaning in success if there is no chance of failure.

Explorable dungeon content should require a higher level of play than story content. Your average pug filled with players who have no synergy with each other where half the players play with half their attention given to the latest episode of survivor can steamroll through story modes, and that’s fine. Casual players have a right to see the full story. Explorable modes are not done for their story, however, they carry unique rewards with them and should require actual coordination, effort, and at least a modicum of skill. It would make the shiny suit of armor we get as a reward that much more rewarding if it were actually some sort of accomplishment to acquire it.

Oh, and while we’re at it… armor is way too cheap. It’s ok to have one or 2 super easy explorable clears, but make it mean something if a group can only manage half the paths. When the difference is getting the new weapon in 2 days or 4 days not many people really care to do the harder 2 or 3 paths to get more badges. When the difference become a 7 day to 14 day gap, I bet you’ll start seeing people running all the Arah paths. Plus, longer acquisition time give you developers more time to actually give us some real content (harder and longer dungeons or raid instances?) before mmo gamers in search of real challenging content move on to a different game out of boredom.

MMO’s require a good balance of pve and pvp content to succeed, and while WvW is very dynamic and well put together, if all we wanted to do is pvp we could be playing an fps or an rts. Give us challenging PvE content. Even if it isn’t raid content, many mmo’s without raids such as Tera or The Secret World still offered challenging and dynamic group content. You can even do what WoW and Rift did and progressively nerf old content as new content becomes available so terrible players who can’t stay out of fire and other telegaphed attacks can experience the game. But give people who want a skill challenge and some sort of skill exclusive reward something to do and some goal to work towards other than the legendary grindfest which really, lets be honest, only requires grinding and is virutally guaranteed as long as the player puts in the requisite time.

Personally, artificial timers are a horrid mechanic to toss wildly on every boss. It shouldn’t matter if you kill a boss in 4 hours or 3 minutes. The point is you killed it.

This is a very good thread.

Given a bit more time people will begin to realize how lack of depth PvE content in this game really is. Enrage timer =/= artificial timers. Enrage timers are properly tuned fight durations that prevents players from completing the encounter in unintended ways:

1. Repeated out of combat regeneration (face it, if you need to do this often you are making too much mistakes)
2. Way point zerging
3. Overcompensation in group survivability to bypass fight mechanics (I messed up and took 3-4 hits from Giganticus? not a problem, let me run out and regenerate to full)
4. Poor trait/utility/gearing setups, at this time you can pretty much randomly check a bunch of traits and still complete every single exploration mode.

This will also eliminate a large amount of forum posts about how bosses have too much health. Simply put, their HP is fine for the most part. Your trait/gearing/group setup isn’t. I honestly hope Anet pay some attention to the longevity into their dungeons/PvE in general. At current time you are directing your current player pool into a cesspool of mediocrity, while also rewarding them in the process.

Just gotta accept that they cater to a casual audience. I mean why wouldn’t they? That’s where all the gem sales are.

I liked your post until;
“The bottom line is that even accounting for the fact that GW1 attracted the bottom of the barrel in MMO gamers towards the end of its run…”

Now I don’t know what to think. You throw a completely unnecessary insult at half the playerbase for no good reason at all. I think you are just angry and want to quit the game while pissing off as many players as you can in the process.

Pce brah

I’m not even sure about the validity of that statement, but you disregarded a well worded and reasonable post because you took offense to 1 line?

Cya dude.

Solution I think would be to add in some high end dungeons where all your points DO matter. People HAVE to be running certain builds and setups, have to think on their toes 24/7 and cannot allow error, dungeons where things change rapidly and there’s no telling what could happen next. Keep the dungeons there are now ( this is a game for the casual player after all) but add in some crazy bat-kitten insane dungeons that require real skill. I am hoping that in the future (expansions), these will be added, possibly as new dungeons or as hardmode versions of current ones.

These people crying “harder, harder! challenge, challenge!” are playing not only the wrong game, they are playing the wrong genre. MMOs are not where you go if you want to be challenged. MMOs are a very poor platform for extra hard, I’m-a-special-snowflake type gameplay. It’s completely counter to what the actual target market of MMOs is, which is casual players.

What people should be crying for is “interesting, interesting! fun, fun!” I’ll give you an example of what I mean with probably my favorite fight in any MMO to date: Alysrazor, both normal and heroic. For those that never did it, that fight was an absolute hallmark for having everyone in the raid have something important to attack/dodge/control for the entire fight. Your tanks were largely in charge of DPSing down the big adds that spawned, and were given the appropriate damage buffs during the fight to do so. Your melee DPS, and sometimes ranged if you were ranged heavy, were in charge of interrupting and killing the small adds that spawned around the edges, to keep the raid damage down and prevent others from having to dodge as many little brushfires. Your ranged had to kill the meteors that fell to give everyone a place to hide behind from the massive AoE damage attack, and at least one ranged was needed to get the flying buff and be putting damage on Alysrazor the whole time. During the cyclone phase, everyone had to avoid the firewalls, but there were multiple ways of avoiding them. And during the burnout phase, tanks had to control the channelers, while everyone else, including the healers, had to put as much damage as possible on Alysrazor, both to regen mana, and to kill her, because that was the only time the raid as a whole got to hit her.

It required you to pay attention the whole time, and would kill you if you were lazy, but at the same time it wasn’t needlessly frustrating or punitive to those that weren’t “MMO superheroes”. The ’don’t get hit by this’ mechanics were easily seen and understood, and not obscured by strobe light explosions and ultra bright pink hemispheres. The DPS requirements weren’t super strict, but you couldn’t be a slacker either. It was an engaging fight that, even on pre-nerf heroic, never wandered into the realm of frustrating.

There were several times, when we had to fill an empty slot for that week’s clear, that the new guy we brought in would remark about how cool the Alysrazor fight was, because it made them feel like they were really doing their part, rather than just being carried by our superior gear and knowledge of the fights.

This is a well-thought out post that took the words right out of my mouth, or more precisely… a post that I couldn’t have said better myself.

Will you please post this in the “Suggestions” panel or (to mod) transfer it over to that panel? I find it more relevant and viable there.

I read as far as: There are no enrage timers so you dont have to maximize dps. Stopped reading right there. You lost me that quick. Enrage timers and FORCED dps focus is stupid. Has always been stupid. Will continue to be stupid.

Kierlak.5209:

These people crying “harder, harder! challenge, challenge!” are playing not only the wrong game, they are playing the wrong genre. MMOs are not where you go if you want to be challenged. MMOs are a very poor platform for extra hard, I’m-a-special-snowflake type gameplay. It’s completely counter to what the actual target market of MMOs is, which is casual players.

What people should be crying for is “interesting, interesting! fun, fun!” I’ll give you an example of what I mean with probably my favorite fight in any MMO to date: Alysrazor, both normal and heroic. For those that never did it, that fight was an absolute hallmark for having everyone in the raid have something important to attack/dodge/control for the entire fight. Your tanks were largely in charge of DPSing down the big adds that spawned, and were given the appropriate damage buffs during the fight to do so. Your melee DPS, and sometimes ranged if you were ranged heavy, were in charge of interrupting and killing the small adds that spawned around the edges, to keep the raid damage down and prevent others from having to dodge as many little brushfires. Your ranged had to kill the meteors that fell to give everyone a place to hide behind from the massive AoE damage attack, and at least one ranged was needed to get the flying buff and be putting damage on Alysrazor the whole time. During the cyclone phase, everyone had to avoid the firewalls, but there were multiple ways of avoiding them. And during the burnout phase, tanks had to control the channelers, while everyone else, including the healers, had to put as much damage as possible on Alysrazor, both to regen mana, and to kill her, because that was the only time the raid as a whole got to hit her.

It required you to pay attention the whole time, and would kill you if you were lazy, but at the same time it wasn’t needlessly frustrating or punitive to those that weren’t “MMO superheroes”. The ’don’t get hit by this’ mechanics were easily seen and understood, and not obscured by strobe light explosions and ultra bright pink hemispheres. The DPS requirements weren’t super strict, but you couldn’t be a slacker either. It was an engaging fight that, even on pre-nerf heroic, never wandered into the realm of frustrating.

There were several times, when we had to fill an empty slot for that week’s clear, that the new guy we brought in would remark about how cool the Alysrazor fight was, because it made them feel like they were really doing their part, rather than just being carried by our superior gear and knowledge of the fights.

This guy knows what he’s talking about. Coin that phrase on snowflakes btw lol. That describes it perfectly.

swiftpaw.6397:

Solution I think would be to add in some high end dungeons where all your points DO matter. People HAVE to be running certain builds and setups, have to think on their toes 24/7 and cannot allow error, dungeons where things change rapidly and there’s no telling what could happen next. Keep the dungeons there are now ( this is a game for the casual player after all) but add in some crazy bat-kitten insane dungeons that require real skill. I am hoping that in the future (expansions), these will be added, possibly as new dungeons or as hardmode versions of current ones.

I think THIS would be the worst opinion. Why the HELL would you FORCE people to play a certain way? The entire point of BUILDS is to do it the way you WANT and try to get the most you can out of an idea.

Kierlak.5209:

These people crying “harder, harder! challenge, challenge!” are playing not only the wrong game, they are playing the wrong genre. MMOs are not where you go if you want to be challenged. MMOs are a very poor platform for extra hard, I’m-a-special-snowflake type gameplay. It’s completely counter to what the actual target market of MMOs is, which is casual players.

What people should be crying for is “interesting, interesting! fun, fun!” I’ll give you an example of what I mean with probably my favorite fight in any MMO to date: Alysrazor, both normal and heroic. For those that never did it, that fight was an absolute hallmark for having everyone in the raid have something important to attack/dodge/control for the entire fight. Your tanks were largely in charge of DPSing down the big adds that spawned, and were given the appropriate damage buffs during the fight to do so. Your melee DPS, and sometimes ranged if you were ranged heavy, were in charge of interrupting and killing the small adds that spawned around the edges, to keep the raid damage down and prevent others from having to dodge as many little brushfires. Your ranged had to kill the meteors that fell to give everyone a place to hide behind from the massive AoE damage attack, and at least one ranged was needed to get the flying buff and be putting damage on Alysrazor the whole time. During the cyclone phase, everyone had to avoid the firewalls, but there were multiple ways of avoiding them. And during the burnout phase, tanks had to control the channelers, while everyone else, including the healers, had to put as much damage as possible on Alysrazor, both to regen mana, and to kill her, because that was the only time the raid as a whole got to hit her.

It required you to pay attention the whole time, and would kill you if you were lazy, but at the same time it wasn’t needlessly frustrating or punitive to those that weren’t “MMO superheroes”. The ’don’t get hit by this’ mechanics were easily seen and understood, and not obscured by strobe light explosions and ultra bright pink hemispheres. The DPS requirements weren’t super strict, but you couldn’t be a slacker either. It was an engaging fight that, even on pre-nerf heroic, never wandered into the realm of frustrating.

There were several times, when we had to fill an empty slot for that week’s clear, that the new guy we brought in would remark about how cool the Alysrazor fight was, because it made them feel like they were really doing their part, rather than just being carried by our superior gear and knowledge of the fights.

I agree that MMO for the most part are tailored towards a more lax crowd, however it does not mean it won’t have a place for those who seek something a little higher difficulty.

Using that game you mentioned as the perfect example, there were plethora of encounters (Yogg-0 prenerf, LK 5-10%) that redefined the meaning of “difficult” for the MMO genre. Many of those difficult encounters took 500+ attempts for 1st kills, with groups consisted of some of the best people the raiding community had to offer. While at the same time, there were plenty of content for the more casual player base. This balance is what keeps MMOs healthy and alive for years to come, and sadly GW2 is lacking on both ends.

I got as far as where you said you were disappointed that the game didn’t employ enrage timers.

Why can’t you just go back to WoW if what you’re looking for is WoW-style raiding?

Jaydee.8143:

swiftpaw.6397:

Solution I think would be to add in some high end dungeons where all your points DO matter. People HAVE to be running certain builds and setups, have to think on their toes 24/7 and cannot allow error, dungeons where things change rapidly and there’s no telling what could happen next. Keep the dungeons there are now ( this is a game for the casual player after all) but add in some crazy bat-kitten insane dungeons that require real skill. I am hoping that in the future (expansions), these will be added, possibly as new dungeons or as hardmode versions of current ones.

I think THIS would be the worst opinion. Why the HELL would you FORCE people to play a certain way? The entire point of BUILDS is to do it the way you WANT and try to get the most you can out of an idea.

The same reason I was told by a group of four needing one more for an explorable that my Engineer couldn’t go because “we need a tank.” People set in the outdated ways of the trinity, forced specs and class roles.

Ansultares.1567:

I got as far as where you said you were disappointed that the game didn’t employ enrage timers.

Why can’t you just go back to WoW if what you’re looking for is WoW-style raiding?

Enrage timers appeared when Blizzard realized that the only way their bosses could actually wipe a raid was if it suddenly killed everyone instantly for no logical reason. People who want examples of so called “artificial difficulty” need to remember enrage timers.

I agree that MMO for the most part are tailored towards a more lax crowd, however it does not mean it won’t have a place for those who seek something a little higher difficulty.

Using that game you mentioned as the perfect example, there were plethora of encounters (Yogg-0 prenerf, LK 5-10%) that redefined the meaning of “difficult” for the MMO genre. Many of those difficult encounters took 500+ attempts for 1st kills, with groups consisted of some of the best people the raiding community had to offer. While at the same time, there were plenty of content for the more casual player base. This balance is what keeps MMOs healthy and alive for years to come, and sadly GW2 is lacking on both ends.

I only use Alysrazor as an example because it’s the best fight in any game I have ever played. A huge number of Blizzard’s other fights, however, were appallingly bad, and you named off two of them. Yogg and LK were both fights that were completely in the realm of ‘not fun, oozes frustration’. Yogg especially, the mechanics could have been really fun, but they made them so unbelievably unforgiving that every possible ounce of fun was sucked out into the vacuum of space. Baleroc, heroic anyway, was the same way: There is literally nothing fun about that fight. The list goes on and on, potentially good fights made unbearable by obscenely high DPS requirements, borderline buggy mechanics with literally zero forgiveness, or heavily favoring certain types of classes over others, usually ranged over melee.

On the other end you also have some fights that don’t engage you in any way, and are just boring and tedious. Lord Rhyolith being one that springs to mind. Too much health and a slow, unwieldy mechanic that just grated on your nerves. Lots and lots of fights like that. Nearly all the old fights were like that. Cleanse/dispel all this stuff, attack boss. AoE down these adds, attack boss. With dodge this thing/don’t stand in this thing present in varying levels throughout. A lot of them were "hard’, but that was simply due to massive damage being either thrown at you or required of you, which is the stage GW2’s dungeons is at right now. The massive damage in place of cool mechanics and cool fights stage.

Such a condescending post-I do not have any power/protection/vitality gear, but have no problem with people who choose to play whichever way they want. DPS is not “the way”, but one of the ways. Some people choose healing. Why should it be all about playing the game the way a few elitists, uber competitive snobs do? Let people choose the gear that works best for them, rather than tossing “master” DPS builds for them to use and be “more effective” with.

Having said that, I agree that although some dungeons can be ridiculously difficult, the effect is lessened by constant respawning. That’s probably why some encounters/bosses tend to be so difficult in the first place. I just wish death was more avoidable, as the one/two shots are all too common. For me, it all boils down to armor repairs vs dungeon rewards, avoiding death as much as possible being the most reasonable way to earn any possible rewards at the end of the dungeon (a pity, IMHO). So yes, party wipes are not that common in this game due to respawning, and developers “made up” with that by making some encounters too difficult to avoid dying (the price-your gold). I rather have “easier” encounters with the possibility of party wipes, though by no means am I an elitist, and again, I have no right to tell people the way they must play/choose their builds based on my own preference/they way I play the game/unrelated experience with other games.

People are not “horrible players” when they don’t play the way you do-they are just different than you, not necessarily better or worse. Perhaps they are still learnig to play said dungeon/gw2? That is valid. It’s not necessary to hurl insults at other types of players to feel better about yourself.

Vasham.2408:

Jaydee.8143:

swiftpaw.6397:

Solution I think would be to add in some high end dungeons where all your points DO matter. People HAVE to be running certain builds and setups, have to think on their toes 24/7 and cannot allow error, dungeons where things change rapidly and there’s no telling what could happen next. Keep the dungeons there are now ( this is a game for the casual player after all) but add in some crazy bat-kitten insane dungeons that require real skill. I am hoping that in the future (expansions), these will be added, possibly as new dungeons or as hardmode versions of current ones.

I think THIS would be the worst opinion. Why the HELL would you FORCE people to play a certain way? The entire point of BUILDS is to do it the way you WANT and try to get the most you can out of an idea.

The same reason I was told by a group of four needing one more for an explorable that my Engineer couldn’t go because “we need a tank.” People set in the outdated ways of the trinity, forced specs and class roles.

Ansultares.1567:

I got as far as where you said you were disappointed that the game didn’t employ enrage timers.

Why can’t you just go back to WoW if what you’re looking for is WoW-style raiding?

Enrage timers appeared when Blizzard realized that the only way their bosses could actually wipe a raid was if it suddenly killed everyone instantly for no logical reason. People who want examples of so called “artificial difficulty” need to remember enrage timers.

Well ACTUALLY, if you read what I’m saying here, I am saying KEEP the dungeons we have now. But OFFER something on the next level for people who want it. (Oh the horror!)
No body is forcing anyone to go in hard mode dungeons. I just think it should be on the table for people who want to do it.
Same way as in GW1 where there was Normal Mode DoA and Hard Mode DoA.
Nobody was forced into anything, you simply picked one and everyone was happy.

swiftpaw.6397:

Vasham.2408:

Jaydee.8143:

swiftpaw.6397:

Solution I think would be to add in some high end dungeons where all your points DO matter. People HAVE to be running certain builds and setups, have to think on their toes 24/7 and cannot allow error, dungeons where things change rapidly and there’s no telling what could happen next. Keep the dungeons there are now ( this is a game for the casual player after all) but add in some crazy bat-kitten insane dungeons that require real skill. I am hoping that in the future (expansions), these will be added, possibly as new dungeons or as hardmode versions of current ones.

I think THIS would be the worst opinion. Why the HELL would you FORCE people to play a certain way? The entire point of BUILDS is to do it the way you WANT and try to get the most you can out of an idea.

The same reason I was told by a group of four needing one more for an explorable that my Engineer couldn’t go because “we need a tank.” People set in the outdated ways of the trinity, forced specs and class roles.

Ansultares.1567:

I got as far as where you said you were disappointed that the game didn’t employ enrage timers.

Why can’t you just go back to WoW if what you’re looking for is WoW-style raiding?

Enrage timers appeared when Blizzard realized that the only way their bosses could actually wipe a raid was if it suddenly killed everyone instantly for no logical reason. People who want examples of so called “artificial difficulty” need to remember enrage timers.

Well ACTUALLY, if you read what I’m saying here, I am saying KEEP the dungeons we have now. But OFFER something on the next level for people who want it. (Oh the horror!)
No body is forcing anyone to go in hard mode dungeons. I just think it should be on the table for people who want to do it.
Same way as in GW1 where there was Normal Mode DoA and Hard Mode DoA.
Nobody was forced into anything, you simply picked one and everyone was happy.

That’s actually a good idea and would be something I’d probably enjoy. Of course I also like playing hobo runs of STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl and Dark Souls. However enrage timers would not be the way to go if they did such.

In a game where utility and survival skills can play such a huge role in dungeons (on all participants, not just on 1 tank) creating enrage timers is not a good idea. I hated dps races in WoW too. (go kill Priestess Simin, there you have it) Also don’t forget GW2 is a new game, WoW had what at launch, Molten Core?!

Sina.9208:

WoW had what at launch, Molten Core?!

WoW had no raids at launch. Closest thing it had to raids where level 60 5-mans that they forgot to add a player cap to.

Kierlak.5209:

I only use Alysrazor as an example because it’s the best fight in any game I have ever played. A huge number of Blizzard’s other fights, however, were appallingly bad, and you named off two of them. Yogg and LK were both fights that were completely in the realm of ‘not fun, oozes frustration’. Yogg especially, the mechanics could have been really fun, but they made them so unbelievably unforgiving that every possible ounce of fun was sucked out into the vacuum of space. Baleroc, heroic anyway, was the same way: There is literally nothing fun about that fight. The list goes on and on, potentially good fights made unbearable by obscenely high DPS requirements, borderline buggy mechanics with literally zero forgiveness, or heavily favoring certain types of classes over others, usually ranged over melee.

On the other end you also have some fights that don’t engage you in any way, and are just boring and tedious. Lord Rhyolith being one that springs to mind. Too much health and a slow, unwieldy mechanic that just grated on your nerves. Lots and lots of fights like that. Nearly all the old fights were like that. Cleanse/dispel all this stuff, attack boss. AoE down these adds, attack boss. With dodge this thing/don’t stand in this thing present in varying levels throughout. A lot of them were "hard’, but that was simply due to massive damage being either thrown at you or required of you, which is the stage GW2’s dungeons is at right now. The massive damage in place of cool mechanics and cool fights stage.

“Fun” varies significantly between player to player. The two bosses I mentioned were fun as in they are not a push over, the people I ran these bosses with enjoyed challenge more so than one-time mechanic (mechanic gets old very fast, difficulty in progression pretty much defines fun for most high-end community). Yogg-0 had quite a bit of room for error, aside from some RNG aspect with chain corruptions, it is fairly straight forward execution as long as the proper strategy is known. I would definitely not label the end boss of what many to believed to be the best instance in the history of WoW as bad.

I guess my point is that you need a certain amount of difficulty to promote longevity. Mechanic gets old fairly fast, however difficulty keeps things interesting for more runs to come. Giganticus is a very good example of this, his mechanics can be written in less than 3 lines, however he is still more fun than any other encounter currently, as you can try to perfect your way of avoiding every single auto-attack/drains/charges etc.

“Fun” varies significantly between player to player. The two bosses I mentioned were fun as in they are not a push over, the people I ran these bosses with enjoyed challenge more so than one-time mechanic (mechanic gets old very fast, difficulty in progression pretty much defines fun for most high-end community). Yogg-0 had quite a bit of room for error, aside from some RNG aspect with chain corruptions, it is fairly straight forward execution as long as the proper strategy is known. I would definitely not label the end boss of what many to believed to be the best instance in the history of WoW as bad.

I guess my point is that you need a certain amount of difficulty to promote longevity. Mechanic gets old fairly fast, however difficulty keeps things interesting for more runs to come. Giganticus is a very good example of this, his mechanics can be written in less than 3 lines, however he is still more fun than any other encounter currently, as you can try to perfect your way of avoiding every single auto-attack/drains/charges etc.

The portion of the community that found Yogg-0 actually fun was microscopic in size. A lot of people did the fight, but very very few actually enjoyed the fight itself. What they liked were the items from the fight, or the world/server first, and they put up with the fight to get those things, like putting up with having a tooth pulled to get rid of a cavity.

Yes, you do need a certain amount of difficulty, but far too often that mark is missed in one direction or another, and the first victim in all such cases is fun. Whatever aspect, or aspects, of the fight are out of line, they drain fun from it, whether a little or a lot.

Kierlak.5209:

The portion of the community that found Yogg-0 actually fun was microscopic in size. A lot of people did the fight, but very very few actually enjoyed the fight itself. What they liked were the items from the fight, or the world/server first, and they put up with the fight to get those things, like putting up with having a tooth pulled to get rid of a cavity.

Yes, you do need a certain amount of difficulty, but far too often that mark is missed in one direction or another, and the first victim in all such cases is fun. Whatever aspect, or aspects, of the fight are out of line, they drain fun from it, whether a little or a lot.

I would like some source regarding only small portion of players found that encounter fun. It has been entirely opposite in my anecdote experience, I would like to see some information supporting the opposite view.

I agree that mark is seldom reached correctly, I also don’t believe any gaming company will match that perfect balance. However, it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try striving towards that goal and hopefully get closer with every attempt.

I don’t see why outgearing bosses would be any more challenging, plus MMOs rarely have difficult bosses, just the chance that one tardo in an increased amount of players will always ruin an attempt to a certain extend.

However, dungeons in GW2 are quite bland. Why not make minigames, puzzles, jumping challenged and bosses that require you to adapt to their mechanisms, after all you can change your skills if you die so why not? As is, the dungeons are a flat crawl through pumped trash mobs and bosses that have one or two abilities that you might need to counter by rolling or teleporting or w/e.

In gw1 there was a hard mode and a normal mode. After completing a dungeon, adding a optional hard mode for better rewards would be nice for players looking for a more difficult challenge.

In the future I agree with what Amra said. Adding some challenges to new dungeons that change up the whole kill everything affair would make dungeons more interesting.

if you’re so good, you should already not be dying and if that were the case none of this would matter to you…

You want to punish people for not building a glass cannon and being more tanky? no, i would hate that…

I believe rage timers were originally designed to prevent griefing of world spawn bosses… your claim that most MMOs still use them means that it’s clearly an outdated mechanic that doesn’t really belong in a 5 man “trinity-less” dungeon. It’s hard to maximize DPS when everyone is going to get hit because of a lack of hate control skills. Glass cannon builds usually don’t work in dungeons; utility and CC will win over straight damage any day.

About enrage timers: This could be easily solved with the bosses having self-heal abilities, some interruptable others not or less so.

Also your remark about GW1 players was entirely uncalled for. I don’t see why you felt to include it.

@Kierlak.5209
MMO are the perfect outlet in gaming for a wide variety of challenging content, due to its nature of being open-world, rather than linear like a regular single-player game, and level based (if a particular encounter is too hard for you from a player skill perspective, you can try again later with better stats to alleviate this).

For death zerging: While stuff like Magg’s Path is done by zerging by most player, it is NOT the most efficient way to do it, and honestly, it makes that path not worth it. My groups, even pugs, always do it “legit”, and its much faster/cheaper. Its just a barrier of entry thing: easy to do, hard to master. And in this case, master is “make it worth your time”.

For the enrage timers: no, just no. What i find funny is you start with how you’re a veteran MMO player, then go on to “Most MMOs do…” and talk about a mechanic most MMOs do NOT incorporate. The big name mainstream ones that are clones of each other with different graphics do, and a few on the side, but historically, very few MMOS or MMO-like games had enrage.

Why? Because it doesn’t add challenge, it only streamlines it. An MMO with enrage that isn’t too easy falls down to being a DDR/Rockband clone where if your partner screws up, you screw up. To stay challenging, enrage timer encounters have to be mathematically tuned, and have to be extremely predictable to avoid randomly being “impossible”. So the encounter will do roughly the same thing, with the same pattern, and thus have to be controllable.

Basically, in the end, its a dance: “1…2..3 step right! 4..5..6 step left!”. “Push button 1…now 3…. now 9…now 1 again!”. Its challenging, but only in the “I’m having a hard time doing Panic Attack in Rockband on Expert” can of way, and drastically limit the creativity and party composition players are allowed to use. If the encounter is calculated precisely so 4 perfect damage dealers and 1 support with perfect gear have a 15 second buffer in a 5 minute encounter to succeed without hitting enrage, then that means you HAVE to have that party composition.

Enrage was always a gimmick to balance the demand between healers/support and damage dealers (because in games like Lineage 2, healers would find a group in 0.1 second, and damage dealers were benching all night). In GW2, since no one gets benched for not wanting to heal, you don’t need enrage. It was never about challenge.

since they got rid of the “trinity” they must change the mechanics of fights. you cannot change one and not the other. Amra you nailed it. And i loved the OP’s comment about duke nukem circle straffing lol that’s so spot on sir well done. Dying isn’t a big deal anymore, so far in my experiences in this game that’s not a good thing. These dungeons are just mass chaos and a major turnoff which sucks because i love everything else about this game but to me a great dungeon, nothing can top it.

Kevin.2176:

Kierlak.5209:

The portion of the community that found Yogg-0 actually fun was microscopic in size. A lot of people did the fight, but very very few actually enjoyed the fight itself. What they liked were the items from the fight, or the world/server first, and they put up with the fight to get those things, like putting up with having a tooth pulled to get rid of a cavity.

Yes, you do need a certain amount of difficulty, but far too often that mark is missed in one direction or another, and the first victim in all such cases is fun. Whatever aspect, or aspects, of the fight are out of line, they drain fun from it, whether a little or a lot.

I would like some source regarding only small portion of players found that encounter fun. It has been entirely opposite in my anecdote experience, I would like to see some information supporting the opposite view.

I agree that mark is seldom reached correctly, I also don’t believe any gaming company will match that perfect balance. However, it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try striving towards that goal and hopefully get closer with every attempt.

To find out simply ask people if they removed x loot from x boss if they would still do said boss. 90-95% if not more people would tell you that they would not. In general most people do not enjoy raid content at all. They only do it for the gear. We have seen it time and time again on these forum’s about people complaining because dungeon’s dont drop better gear than what you can get from say crafting or just about anywhere else. In a lot of games i’ve actually made the post that instead of requiring gear for progression make it skill instead and take gear out. Over 95% of the reply’s have always been then raiding is not worth it and no one would do it.

Now i refer to raiding because thats what people think of when they think of hard content.

then maybe have us acquire a skill or trait or sigil or something that can only be unlocked from said dungeon? This is the problem with these changes. change for the sake of change is never good. they changed the trinity system, ok, and? changed it to what? did they change the boss mechanics along with it? take gear stats out and just reward them with skins? yeah i want my toon to look cool yes, but not with the same everything i had before i did said dungeon. i want to come away from it with something i never had. i also definately want the dungeon to be worth it…something i have yet to feel.

Bobathar.7560:

There are two main problems that are universal to GW2 dungeon encounters. First: the mechanic that allows players to run back to the encounter after death. Second: no soft or hard enrage timers allow players to disregard dps maximization and autoattack their way to victory. The combination of these two poorly thought out mechanics is extremely frustrating to players who would actually like to differentiate themselves from the crowd and creates a systemic problem that encourages terrible players to gear power/toughness/vit, do terrible dps, and be rewarded for it with success.

I don’t agree that players being able to run back to the fight after dying is a problem as much as it is just a preference about how the dungeon should work. While I agree with you and think it really diminishes a challenging fight, at the same time I think it would make a drastic change to the way everyone has to play the game. This also goes to your complaint about people who don’t maximize dps, if there were dungeon lockouts for encounters, players would be encouraged NOT to go maximum dps since this leaves little to no room for mistakes and since there are no healers (I mean purely designated 100% healers like in WoW) players would require more self-sustainability through utility and proper spec. This doesn’t mean players couldn’t go full dps, but it would make it much more difficult than it is since if you die, you can’t come back to the fight (or at least not without your party members taking a lot of time to res you) So it follows that I disagree with enrage timers.

5 glass cannon group compositions is not the way to go, in my opinion.

Otter.7639:

then maybe have us acquire a skill or trait or sigil or something that can only be unlocked from said dungeon? This is the problem with these changes. change for the sake of change is never good. they changed the trinity system, ok, and? changed it to what? did they change the boss mechanics along with it? take gear stats out and just reward them with skins? yeah i want my toon to look cool yes, but not with the same everything i had before i did said dungeon. i want to come away from it with something i never had. i also definately want the dungeon to be worth it…something i have yet to feel.

You would be in the group i mentioned. You dont run the content because its fun you run it because you expect something thats going to give you an edge. Content designed around that is just plain silly. Then you complain about GW2 dungeons because you dident get anything to give you the edge and you obviously dont do it to enjoy the content. If you do not enjoy it then you should not run it at all. That is the true reasoning behind the dungeon’s in GW2. They are ment to be ran by people who enjoy it. If you dont enjoy it then why waist your time. There are other things to do. Sure i know some of you will go but i want x skin for x item. Then run it to get it then be done with it. Now im not saying dungeons could not be improved but looking at them in the general raider mentaility is not the proper way to go about it. This game was designed to be playable and enjoyable by the majority of the player base. Guess what pribally 80% or more of all MMO player base is of a casual nature.

Originally posted by Bobathar:
“no soft or hard enrage timers allow players to disregard dps maximization and autoattack their way to victory. "

As a dagger/dagger necro, my auto-attack does more damage than any other skill on my bar but my wells, which have timers on the upper side of 30 seconds. There might well be other classes with the same thing going on.

Enrage timers are a mechanic that is used to encourage the trinity in games where there is a clear delineation between tank, healer and DPS. Guild Wars 2 is not that game.

I think a lot of players misinterperet a freedom to “play the game your way” as a “liscense to be terrible at the game” and the misconception that GW2 breaks away from the traditional trinity reinforces this.

If you take a second to really look at each class’s ablities and mechanics as well as the utility each can bring to the table you’ll realize that the advertised freedom to play your character your own way actually means that each character has the potential to fill mulitple roles of the traditional “trinity”. For instance, I play a warrior. I can spec so that my shouts heal my group or so my banners offer regen to the group. In doing so I would maximize my productivity to my group by gearing and putting in runes with +healing, effectively making myself a support healer. I can also spec deep into defense, wear a mace and shield, and gear/rune full power/toughness/vit. This would effectively make me a tank. Lastly I can (and most often do) spec almost exclusively stength/arms/disc (the glass cannon spec) and gear power/prec/crit. This allows much higher dps output compared with the other two options.

Groups that perform optimally and speed run dungeons (10-15 min runs) generally bring 1 full out tank character (usually a guardian) 1-2 support healers (since guardian tanks often provide quite a bit of group healing too) and 2-3 pure dps. This allows the group to efficiently and effectively kill mobs in dungeons as a traditional trinity setup and generally renders current dungeon content rediculously easy.

Many players, however, who misinterperet the play it your own way slogan, choose to set up their characters as a quasi I-can-kinda-take-a-hit-and-can-almost-do-substandard-dps type setup. I’ve seen 5 signet warriors running power/vit/toughness gear with a sword and shield combo. Really. I literally saw one today in an AC farm I pugged. Players like this are why your average pugger thinks AC path 3 is hard. When you have a group with 5 tanks, you obviously can’t kill each burrow before the next one spawns.

This game, like it or not, is still optimally played with a traditional trinity setup, which I really have no problem with at all. What I do have a problem with is the fact that the vast majority of encounters (read: anything your average pug doesn’t cry about) have been simplified and dumbed down to the point that 5 people of doubious intelligence can enter with terrible builds that offer no synergy to each other and succeed with little to no need for collaboration or communication.

The skill mechanics of this game are extremely well thought out. Together with the oft ignored combo system, it offers great potential for synergy and creative collaboration between a wide variety of classes and specs. Unfortunately, the game shoots itself in the foot by making combat and encounters so easy that players no longer need to balance damage output, survivability, and utility or perfect their play. Accomplishments lose their luster if there is no true challenge, and this game offers no challenge because it fails to punish players for poor play.

Bobathar.7560:

This game, like it or not, is still optimally played with a traditional trinity setup, which I really have no problem with at all. What I do have a problem with is the fact that the vast majority of encounters (read: anything your average pug doesn’t cry about) have been simplified and dumbed down to the point that 5 people of doubious intelligence can enter with terrible builds that offer no synergy to each other and succeed with little to no need for collaboration or communication.

The skill mechanics of this game are extremely well thought out. Together with the oft ignored combo system, it offers great potential for synergy and creative collaboration between a wide variety of classes and specs. Unfortunately, the game shoots itself in the foot by making combat and encounters so easy that players no longer need to balance damage output, survivability, and utility or perfect their play. Accomplishments lose their luster if there is no true challenge, and this game offers no challenge because it fails to punish players for poor play.

Agreed.

I think encounters should be more difficult and varied, but I think the current encounters do serve a purpose. Sure there are “roll your head on the keyboard” easy encounters, but those let your average player do the content. It’s just a good business model and it’s a trend across many (in my opinion far too many) games to dumb down the content and make it easier and more doable by a larger demographic.

I don’t think all of these encounters should be done away with, but I think Anet needs to strike a balance between challenging content and more casual content. I think something like Hard Modes would be a step in the right direction. I’ve seen some talk about the “endless” gauntlet style dungeons where you get better loot the more you progress, I think this is a great idea but I would still like to see some challenging and interesting boss fights too. I would discuss ideas for incentives on doing hard modes but that’s a whole other topic. Of course the problem is, there really isn’t much in the way of challenging content (and even the current “challenging” things are pretty easy once you get a grip on them)

The second major misconception people have is the fallacy of the “casual player”. There’s this idea in the head of many gamers and, unfortunately, developers, that the MMO world is filled with this mythical “casual gamer” that turns his character with his keyboard, clicks all his skills, stands in fire/defile/lava/etc, pays little to no attention to what the stats on his gear actually means, and generally plays, you know, terribly. This mythical causal is juxtaposed with your hardcore gamer, which people somehow think is the vast minority of MMO gamers. Basically, there’s a lot of people out there who think that for every Billy Badazz in the gaming community there has to be thousands of Tommy Terribads out there mewling in the masses.

This is simply not so. If hardcore gaming is defined as a large time investment in and dedication to the game, then causal gaming merely refers to a lesser time investment and dedication level. The casual gamer wants to experience the game but probably is unable or unwilling to spend the endless hours that a hardcore player is or schedule blocks of their life to the game as a hardcore player might. None of that equates to a mentally handicapped idiot who is incapable of playing the game with a modicum of skill or understanding of their class.

So when people say “hey, GW2 was made for a casual crowd… don’t expect there to be real compelling or challenging content that requires strategy, thought, or skill” they fall into the casual player fallacy. Games tailored for a casual crowd are tailored to smaller intervals of time commitment. This is why events generally last 5ish minutes, why dungeons, if run correctly, last approximately 15 mins. Time commitment intervals are slow, so casual players can log on, accomplish something, and log off more conveniently than say… if they were forced to commit 5 hours straight of their life to a raid instance in WoW.

However, to say that casual players do not enjoy challenge or derive a sense of accomplishment from learning and overcoming difficult and deep game mechanics is, frankly, pretty insulting to the casual player base itself. I see no reason casual players are unable to understand that if each player performs a specialized role in the group the run will go smoother or that if they start using that dodge mechanic the game gifted them with they can spec and gear to do vastly improved dps. I see no reason why a casual would be unable to discern that if he specced and geared for +healing then his group heals and regen fields would actually be able to keep party members up through dungeon damage. I see no reason why your average casual would be unable to perform at the level that could suceed if bosses demanded both high dps AND survival.

Too long has the casual gamer fallacy been used by terrible players as an excuse to explain away their unwillingness to pay attention while they play, inability to perform, and refusal to improve. And yes, there are terrible players out there. Tommy Terribad does exist. There just aren’t millions of him everywhere and all around us like some would have us believe. For every Billy Badazz out there there’s probably is a Tommy Terribad… one… not a thousand. And they certainly arent the majority… or representative of the casual gamer in general.

Short & Simple
GW2 has created a lot of new things for MMO’s and I would hope that soon they will make some type of raid. They have a new style! Think vanilla WoW or kitteny starwars, they put out the idea and expanded from it! GW2 is expanding heavily from the sense of content and just the whole idea of MMOs’ so it’ll take time to make tweaks or create a higher difficulty “raid” or dungeon. Give them time! I mean it’s free..

Oh and nobody did Yogg-0 for loot. We did it to be able to say we did Yogg-0. Having a flying robot head or a death’s demise title didn’t help you out in the game. It merely said “hey, I’m part of a crowd that can kill a really difficult and challenging boss… are you?”

Difficult encounters have always been about prestige: getting the encounter done and getting it done first. The accomplishment meant something because it came with some sort of exclusivity… like a membership into some sort of “I don’t suck at this game” club… and exclusivity is something GW2 sorely lacks since everything and anything is readily obtainable by anyone willing to dump in enough mindless grind time.

now what I think is that u’re trying to crack/beat the game too much. Sure there are synergies. Sure u can force roles in the party… but seriously… do most of us want to see advertisements in LA like “looking for 1 tank 1 healer 2 dps” ? Pleeeease… This game is about freedom – if we want to get with 5 em… ‘tanks’ into that dungeon and still manage to complete it – our choice -it’ll get longer to complete but where do u see a poor play in this? I really… REALLY don’t want to be reduced to a single viable build for my class and this is what u’re getting to. I’ll have to respec my trait points at a trainer each and every time I’ll switch from doing WvW to Dungeon runs. Even more – at some point ppl will start asking me to link my gear to them before I get an invite- they’ll require specific builds cuz otherwise “I’m not usefull enough” if I don’t put the points like I’m expected to. What I think u’re too fixated on the “trinity”. You seem to want to force ppl into various roles you deem right for completing that particular dungeon. In worst case scenario we’ll have to respec for dungeon depending on the path we choose – are those your intentions? Cuz this is where this is heading. Most ppl will switch to ranged like they did in the beginning of PvE in here where barelly no1 knew the way to aproach dungeons. Instead of imporivng state of pve we’ll have more ppl switching to farming in the open zones. You want a challenge? Complete CoE without meleeing the boss? U want a challenge? Fight off your way through infinite waves of grenadiers in SE while u fight the boss as well – seriously – there’s lot of challenge in Guild Wars really, just most ppl just find a roundaway solution that helps them complete easier/faster.
Why are so many ppl confusing dungeon difficulty with fun? I don’t want to get through a hectic experience just to complete a path. I don’t want to be forced to use any other tool for comunication than the game itself already. I don’t want to be forced to wear “set A” with “build B” to bring out 120% efficiency out of my character cuz otherwise I’ll be unable to complete a dungeon.
Now… the game mechanics like when fighting that ghost in AC who first pulls you in and then whirls are nice – just… with all the flashines in this game u can sometimes barelly see him – not to mention see when he’s doing that animations just before he pulls you in. The event I enjoy the most for me is always that console room in CoE path 1. Where u are under constant pressure from little bots and have to deal with big ones. Sure it can be easy when done properly – but that’s the point. As long as you “do it properly” u’re supposed to succed.
Lastly… the speed runs u’ve mentioned usually kill as little trash/bosses as possible – they’re more about exploiting the design weaknesses. U can never complete a dungeon under 30 minutes when doing it ‘as intended’ no matter how good a pve player u are and how elitist equpment / build you chose.
For being better than average u’re rewarder with being able to complete any path of any dungeon at a faster rate. Others either have to do it slower or are unable to do it at all (like Arah for example), also so called poor players are already punished by repair bills – there’s no need to widen the gap between ‘pros’ and a ‘nubs’ more than it already is.

I don’t think all of these encounters should be done away with, but I think Anet needs to strike a balance between challenging content and more casual content. I think something like Hard Modes would be a step in the right direction.

That’s pretty much the whole issue right now. Due to the vast amount of ridiculously lengthy and dull “roll your face on keyboard” encounters, not many players take the incentive to try and improve.

What I do feel, is that as it is now, it seems the game punishes those who do try their best. The Tommy Terribads, as Bobathar names them so well… I call them mops. Because they land on the floor all the time. Downed, if not defeated.

It’s these mops that drag teams down. And somehow, I often can’t even blame them.
They were the ones that were given no stimulation whatsoever to try and improve, as many an encounter is lengthy but seldom actually difficult. Many of these “mops” still get everything done, be it by getting carried, by being able to resurrect those who can maintain themselves, or by simply flailing arms and running in circles.

But does the game punish them for being poor players, and not having taken time to try and improve? Slightly: they get armour repairs!
Does the game reward them? Yep, when they are done cleaning a dungeon floor, they get as much loot as the other people in the dungeon.

Result: the rest of the group gets punished more than the actual Tommy Terribad mop player. The game currently does not stimulate people to try and improve, since “what works will keep working anyway”, even if not in the best possible way.

Punishment… there is plenty. Just not in the right place.

I see people getting punished all the time on bosses such as colossus rumblus but most people have no shame and just say thx bai after the dungeon is done. Some people considered weak latch on to the strong to survive, its an ingenious survival tactic. If this really bothers you why not find an elitist guild to do dungeons with?

Annor.3128:

now what I think is that u’re trying to crack/beat the game too much. Sure there are synergies. Sure u can force roles in the party… but seriously… do most of us want to see advertisements in LA like “looking for 1 tank 1 healer 2 dps” ? Pleeeease… This game is about freedom – if we want to get with 5 em… ‘tanks’ into that dungeon and still manage to complete it – our choice -it’ll get longer to complete but where do u see a poor play in this? I really… REALLY don’t want to be reduced to a single viable build for my class and this is what u’re getting to. I’ll have to respec my trait points at a trainer each and every time I’ll switch from doing WvW to Dungeon runs. Even more – at some point ppl will start asking me to link my gear to them before I get an invite- they’ll require specific builds cuz otherwise “I’m not usefull enough” if I don’t put the points like I’m expected to. What I think u’re too fixated on the “trinity”. You seem to want to force ppl into various roles you deem right for completing that particular dungeon.

Even if Anet introduced more challenging and difficult content, there still wouldn’t be only one viable build. Classes are pretty flexible in this game. What it would do is trim many of the particularly awful builds that don’t make any sense. Your fear on that account is unfounded.

Also, your entire basis for complaining is something Bob addressed which is that Anet’s current dungeon design doesn’t entail anyone to strive to become better. Many players become complacent with their “below average” builds. Like I said in an earlier post, I think the current dungeons shouldn’t be done away with, but I think there should be more of the difficult fights like Giganticus. This way people like yourself who want to cling to their build no matter what anyone says about it can do so and still clear content, yet others who want more difficult content can work towards clearing it to gain the prestige and sense of accomplishment for overcoming difficult obstacles.

There’s nothing wrong with raising the bar and giving players something to strive for in terms of skill. At this point in time, that bar really isn’t even there.

Annor.3128:

In worst case scenario we’ll have to respec for dungeon depending on the path we choose – are those your intentions? Cuz this is where this is heading. Most ppl will switch to ranged like they did in the beginning of PvE in here where barelly no1 knew the way to aproach dungeons. Instead of imporivng state of pve we’ll have more ppl switching to farming in the open zones. You want a challenge? Complete CoE without meleeing the boss? U want a challenge? Fight off your way through infinite waves of grenadiers in SE while u fight the boss as well – seriously – there’s lot of challenge in Guild Wars really, just most ppl just find a roundaway solution that helps them complete easier/faster.

People doing things like ranged approaches to new content is part of progression, it’s a learning experience. It’s testing the water and getting a feel for the content and see what does what. I love that kind of experience where you learn about the boss and get better at it through trial and error. It’s gratifying to be able to master difficult content.

Also, saying more people are gonna farm open world zones is hardly any kind of scary, unheard of notion. There’s always big karma farming zergs in Cursed Shore, there used to be tons of people who would sit around farming certain areas for crafting materials before the prices inevitably dropped.

Annor.3128:

Why are so many ppl confusing dungeon difficulty with fun? I don’t want to get through a hectic experience just to complete a path. I don’t want to be forced to use any other tool for comunication than the game itself already. I don’t want to be forced to wear “set A” with “build B” to bring out 120% efficiency out of my character cuz otherwise I’ll be unable to complete a dungeon.

Believe it or not, not everyone holds your opinion that difficulty doesn’t equal fun. Some people enjoy a challenge, and that’s been the basis of this thread, and many other threads on the forums.

Negativity.5801

It’s gratifying to be able to master difficult content.

This pretty much sums up what is currently not entirely right with the dungeon system.
The sheer lack of balance between easy and tough-as-nails bosses, how often they pop up, when, where, at what levels, and so on… is what makes it impossible for many to get the urge of wanting to master the game. Heck, not even the game. People don’t even want to improve their own character.

I’ve a friend – bless him, he’s amazing – who has been by my side in many a dungeon. Engineer. He dropped like a fly! Took me a lot of friendly teasing to convince him to fix at least a tad of defensive traits and to get himself some new armour with vitality in place of a tiny tad of precision. And even then, he just can’t force himself to care past the basics.
I understand him entirely, since… if you play casually, and 3/4 of the bosses are so easy… why would you?

I disagree with what Kierlak said… MMOs can have plenty of challenge in their PvP and/or PvE settings. WoW (at least pre-Wrath o’ LK since that’s as far as I went) had good PvE challenges especially in the raid setting. Gear helps a bunch… but executing the encounter counts for a lot of it as well. You could be in full top-notch gear, do Sunwell (the highest dungeon towards the end of the game) and still get your butt kicked by the first boss if you didn’t do it properly.

Even if i like the game as it is, i think the OP has strong points. BUT, this game is not suited to the “progression” hinted at in the first post.

The important difference from WoW and other clones, is that gear has a fixed upper limit that is insuperable. So, there is no “gear progression” apart from twinking and minmaxing certain stats.

Most hardcore gamers have reached this point at different times in every WoW expansions. The results? The same as now. People ranting that the raids were too difficult, while people were quitting the game because they “finished” it, or started playing alts to have new experiences.

The difference in GW2 is that is NOT difficult to reach this “point”. Having full exotics can be easily done by anyone, even with no skills, only farming. So, Gear cannot be the “status” of the player.

A good advice would be making achievements for doing the dungeon in particular ways, with rewards like skins or titles, something to say “i am a good player”.

For example, doing dungeons without dying, or even without being downed! Doing bosses with unusual tactics (example, doing Kudu Golem without descending from the platform).

That would be good challenges, self-imposed and really difficult so not doable with Pugs, without imposing doubtful solutions as enrage timers or no-waypoint-zerg, that will only encourage elitism and divisions on the playerbase; and situations as “link your exotic armor and weapon, please” would become the norm.