I am aware various things are being looked at and changes made, but I wanted to throw in my two cents on the dungeons I have played thus far.
AC – It was a while ago I played this now and, in retrospect, it works out OK. The things that bother me are issues with all of the dungeons – long and boring bosses and poor returns, which I’ll round off at the end.
CM – after AC, which took a couple of hours to do first time, I was surprised to get through CM in around thirty minutes and be awarded 20k exp for it. The bosses, though, are forgettable – the fight I remember best was with the snipers.
TA – No specific comments, the 2nd champion gave us some trouble at first and it was annoying not being able to rally off of the spiders he summoned, but it all turned out OK. Actually, it was not very clear what benefit, if any, there was to rescuing the sylvari prisoners.
SE – Lava lags my poor laptop all to hell (at least, I assume it’s the lava/fire effects). Putting that aside, it was unclear as to how we were supposed to go through the dredge city – we cleared a couple of shelves and jumped down to have the leader proclaim “oh no, we’ve been beaten!” while the army still stood there – and the second golem that shoots all the fire took us about as long as the entire rest of the dungeon as, having chipped some of its health away, it made more sense to us to ‘relay’ from the waypoint rather than let it regenerate. This also made the last boss fight seem like a pleasant stroll in a (lava-filled) park, making it somewhat anti-climactic.
CF – More fire and lava and lag for me, such that my contribution to the last boss fight was negligible. Again, we had significantly more trouble with an earlier boss (the spinning greatswords) – the first boss, in fact – and sauntered through the rest. It’s not that some were too hard or too easy, just that the progression was wrong.
HW – I actually felt really good about the first section; it felt challenging but not frustrating. And then we hit the boss with the AoE KD ice shard dropping thing, that if caught in the overlap would insta-kill anyone who missed their roll without a chance of rallying. The Corrupted Voice dropped ridiculously easily, and then we toiled at the last boss, again ‘relaying’ for fear of having to start over. The most annoying thing was that bird-summon DoT attack that lasted longer than a dodge roll and, as far as we figured at least, meant a guaranteed down with a little time to run and stand at an ally’s feet for revival. Someone in the party declared it “the worst boss fight ever”.
Overall – The issues with the bosses are progression and balance. Progression, simply: the most difficult bosses are not necessarily nearest the end of the dungeon. On balance, I think the trouble is that the bosses are very much one-trick ponies with far too much HP. So the acolyte-effigy fight in CF, or the AoE KD ice shard guy in HW – we figured out to roll away quickly or stand outside its range… and then the challenge was gone and we just had a chore to finish up. Alternatively, we don’t figure out how to beat the trick, such as the SE fire golem, and end up frustratingly grinding it out. It’s a lose-lose. the armoury boss in CF was actually interesting as he cycled through weapons – it was just silly that he started with his most powerful weapon and then decided to put it away at 80% health. Bosses that summon mobs tend to be more interesting too as you have to make the decision what to focus on at any given moment. I’m obviously not saying that all bosses should summon mobs, but just for an example.
On loot, briefly, I read that things were being worked on, but also that the loot for story mode was already higher than it had been planned to be? Currently I’m playing for the story itself but I have resolutely refused to run any twice because it just isn’t worth the time (also, the hats are a massive cop-out, and it’s stupid to give a reward that cannot be used until 5 levels above the dungeon entry requirement).
Anything else? On SE as a norn character, I completed it at lvl70 but got a letter from Eir lvl72 that she was going their to help Zojja, which was silly. Also, the Ice Elementals’ cone attack in HW looks like two line attacks – there’s nothing to indicate you will take damage standing between them – so the animation either needs to fill in the space and/or it could do with a red AoE outline. Also in HW I had audio for cutscenes but a lot of the subtitles did not show.
I guess that will do. I know there are other priorities for fixes (the trading post, I assume, for one), but I hope you find the time to read, and my experiences useful in some way. Mostly I’m thoroughly enjoying the game and this area stands out as a weak point when so much else is so solid. Also, now that I am nearing the end-game, I am not particularly inspired to try explorable modes given the issues I have encountered in story.