Hello everyone, i am Dzoni and i wanted to share my experience with everyone about this new PvE content. I can say that i done a lot of PvE content in multiple MMORPGs from past decade or so. First thing i wanted to say that GW2 had the most unique and amazing PvE experience i had in MMO for a long time. Now lets get more to the point.
I logged in couple of hours ago. I joined the pug after waiting for a couple of minutes (and listening to that annoying Asura guys who kept spamming one sound file for an hours lol) and we entered. There was not much to see around in that observatory thing, so we decided to go inside right away. Right away since loading, 3 of our guys crashed, so we needed to exit the dungeon all together and start from the very beginning. Why? Because there was no way in hell that they could rejoin us in dungeon. So we re-entered, done with one dungeon segment, then again one of our players crashed (again) and other one need to go to hang out with some friend of his, i dont know, so we needed to call it off. Anyway, this was one of those one-time experiences like no other… so here are my general thoughts abou this (I will try to be as short as i can):
Dungeon Mechanics 5/5 – I like new levels, jumping puzzles and things. I also love the fact that you will need to use particular skills against some of the bosses in order to succeed. Plus, randomizing dungeon segments is a nice idea, that ensures great replayability. Kudos on this.
Dungeon Lore 3/5 – I dont like the fact that this dungeon got little to no background story. It is nothing like the “initial release” dungeons. An asuras researching mist fragments and are using adventures to help them, blahblahblah…. Plus some of bosses/mobs have had me thinking if this is not misplaced “April the 1st” content (Golems with “kitty” ears wtflol). And there is also 0 conversation cinematics (yes i know no one watches those and is a waste of resources for nothing, so i can kind of get this).
Reward Mechanics 2/5 – And, i wont start on that “Ascended items” bullcrap, because this have nothing to do with that, so i will put that out of conversation. But generally all this “difficulty level” thing is ALREADY encouraging elitism. The very moment i even went out after this first run, i could see “LFM FotM level 2 only, Exotics only” already. After a couple of days, no one will even do first 20 levels and the one who decided to begin with this dungeon will be left behind… So, voila, you got famous “treadmill” already. No, maybe not gear treadmill, but “diff level” treadmill. Anyway it is bad and it has come to this, unfortunatelly Little by little and elitism will be born (once again). Arenanet can and should fight this if they want to. But will they? Only time will tell, i guess…
Overall, dungeon has been fun experience from what little i played, but need A LOT of improvements, because in this state, it is far from perfect… especially in “technicall” and “cassual-friendly” part of it (yes, i know it is NOT for cassual gameplay, but you need to make cassual want to play it “according to Arenanet’s philosophy”).