Guild Wars 2

The problem is that there will always be an easier dungeon. Like it should.

At the moment, we suggest to do Ascalonian Catacombs at level 80 with Exotic gear and 2 guardians.
“- but the AC gear is so rare at level 80
- its a level 35 dungeon…
- so what? If you have gear from there, you’re a kittening genius.”

Robert, I respect your job. I also respect the Anet team, and its really fun to be drunk in this game.

I don’t like Physical Currency in games. It just takes up valuable bank/bag space.
It would be better to have an extra tab on the Hero sheet listed as Currency, and you can just list the tokens for all dungeons, and badges for all PvP.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

One token to rule them all.
Any character to find them.
One vendor to bring them all,
And in the forge bind them.

The main problem we see with a universal token system, is that players will find the easiest dungeons they can do within the DR system’s influence range, and just do them over and over.
It would be like if people could use all their CoF tokens from the speed/exploit clears, and buy up Arah Dragon armor. Were that the case, the armor itself would have no real value behind it. When you look at a player and you see a full suit of dragon armor, you know that they did a certain thing to get that armor. With a universal token system, you lose that sense of knowledge of what another player has gone through to get what they have.

I’m looking at the dungeon vendors right now. An exotic Corrupted Orrian Masque cost 180 Shards of Zhaitan, and comes with 45 power, 32 precision, and 2% crit damage. An exotic Ascalonian Clergy Cowl costs 180 Ascalonian Tears, and comes with 45 power, 32 toughness, and 32 vitality. The same level of reward is offered for both dungeons. Difficulty currently has no impact on the quality of your reward.

He’s my personal experience. My engineer build uses condition damage and healing power. The only gear I’ve found with both those stats is purchased with Seals of Beetletun. This means two things. First, to acquire desirable exotic gear, I need to farm CM dozens of times. Second, all the other dungeons have no desirable gear for me. I can run them, but I have no hope for useful loot from them. These facts leave me with days of running the same dungeon over and over. This gets old very fast, as you can imagine.

If you’re really worried about people farming AC to buy Arah gear, you could scale the rewards for dungeon difficulty. Or scale them against how many times the player has run that dungeon recently. Or scale against how my times the whole server has run that dungeon recently.

I would love to experience all the dungeons in the game. But you don’t leave the arcade with a pile of tickets as your souvenir. You trade them for a mug or stuffed animal, which you can cherish as a physical sign of your ski-ball prowess.

AngryToaster.5190:

Robert Hrouda.1327:

One token to rule them all.
Any character to find them.
One vendor to bring them all,
And in the forge bind them.

The main problem we see with a universal token system, is that players will find the easiest dungeons they can do within the DR system’s influence range, and just do them over and over.
It would be like if people could use all their CoF tokens from the speed/exploit clears, and buy up Arah Dragon armor. Were that the case, the armor itself would have no real value behind it. When you look at a player and you see a full suit of dragon armor, you know that they did a certain thing to get that armor. With a universal token system, you lose that sense of knowledge of what another player has gone through to get what they have.

I’m looking at the dungeon vendors right now. An exotic Corrupted Orrian Masque cost 180 Shards of Zhaitan, and comes with 45 power, 32 precision, and 2% crit damage. An exotic Ascalonian Clergy Cowl costs 180 Ascalonian Tears, and comes with 45 power, 32 toughness, and 32 vitality. The same level of reward is offered for both dungeons. Difficulty currently has no impact on the quality of your reward.

He’s my personal experience. My engineer build uses condition damage and healing power. The only gear I’ve found with both those stats is purchased with Seals of Beetletun. This means two things. First, to acquire desirable exotic gear, I need to farm CM dozens of times. Second, all the other dungeons have no desirable gear for me. I can run them, but I have no hope for useful loot from them. These facts leave me with days of running the same dungeon over and over. This gets old very fast, as you can imagine.

If you’re really worried about people farming AC to buy Arah gear, you could scale the rewards for dungeon difficulty. Or scale them against how many times the player has run that dungeon recently. Or scale against how my times the whole server has run that dungeon recently.

I would love to experience all the dungeons in the game. But you don’t leave the arcade with a pile of tickets as your souvenir. You trade them for a mug or stuffed animal, which you can cherish as a physical sign of your ski-ball prowess.

I would like to just make note about the comment of running a dungeon over and over and over and thus becoming boring. While I agree that it would certainly get boring, their system is designed so that you are enticed to run a dungeons once per day and move on to something else. That is the way to maximize your rewards versus a grind to get something as quickly as possible.

How does gathering tokens for vendors that sell things I don’t need maximize my rewards? The only vendor offering the gear I want (healing power and condition damage) only accepts CM tokens. The fact that I can’t run other dungeons and earn this gear is itself the problem.

Idk guys. People talk about getting bored with dungeons, but that hasn’t happened to me and I’ve prolly run AC over 50 times. Im contantly impressed with every fast clear or boss kill, every run with no wipes, and eventually a run with no downs.

Done CoE 4 times, all paths except front door, and I think it only gets more fun as we learn how to more efficiently murder that rat b*stard subject alpha.

AngryToaster.5190:

How does gathering tokens for vendors that sell things I don’t need maximize my rewards? The only vendor offering the gear I want (healing power and condition damage) only accepts CM tokens. The fact that I can’t run other dungeons and earn this gear is itself the problem.

The argument that all armors should be standardized for all dungeons is a valid point (Note in GW1 things started this way as well before giving way to insignias).

use the tokens from other dungeons and trade them for rares.the cheapest rares are 30 tokens each.you can get 2 rares to salvage each run

urtv.8791:

use the tokens from other dungeons and trade them for rares.the cheapest rares are 30 tokens each.you can get 2 rares to salvage each run

Salvaging low level rares isn’t going to help anyone earn lvl80 exotics.

thats how you compromise.your guild members help you run your useless dungeon and they get tokens to trade for rares/runes,then you run their useless dungeon and get rares/runes

if the rares are too low then save them up and get the exotics to salvage

Robert Hrouda.1327:

One token to rule them all.
Any character to find them.
One vendor to bring them all,
And in the forge bind them.

The main problem we see with a universal token system, is that players will find the easiest dungeons they can do within the DR system’s influence range, and just do them over and over.
It would be like if people could use all their CoF tokens from the speed/exploit clears, and buy up Arah Dragon armor. Were that the case, the armor itself would have no real value behind it. When you look at a player and you see a full suit of dragon armor, you know that they did a certain thing to get that armor. With a universal token system, you lose that sense of knowledge of what another player has gone through to get what they have.

However Mr. Hrouda a very similar thing is happening now without the universal token. Players run the more doable explorable runs. They do not run arah for instance or any harder modes unless they have a committed player group. And those very groups are difficult to form unless you either have friends or a guild dedicated to running them. But your friends and guild can’t do every single run for you or whenever you want so you have to use pugs now and again to get things done. Unfortunately the exp mode dungeons are unfriendly to pugs whom either after dying so many times to unfair mechanics or monsters who one shot them give up and group disbands or they run out of time and have to go.

Granted i would like to see a universal token system but it still does not address the main issue of exp dungeons of being unpuggable.

Ops I lost that darn quote button again.

@Robert Hrouda,

I totally get it, yes players will just run the easiest dungeon to get them. However you can fix that by making incentives for running all the dungeons.

You could make it so each dungeon has a very low chance to drop a piece of the item set from a boss or chest. This would make running any dungeon much more exciting. As is dungeons are lacking in excitement after a few runs due to running the same dungeon dozens of times to “just” get tokens. Your dungeons are missing the awe or omg factor involved with some epic loot drops.

Also you could just balance the dungeons to be about equal in difficulty.

Bad idea because then people would just exploit one dungeon by doing it over and over to get gear for each set.

All the qq’ing about the dungeons needs to stop because the devs have designed a brilliant game and should be shown a little respect IMO.

@Drew

How would that be a bigger problem than what we have now? We already get the same quality of gear for each dungeon. Whether or not you gain useful rewards for a dungeon is my issue. If gear with stats you want can’t be purchased from a particular dungeon vendor, there’s no incentive to run that dungeon.

If you do decide to do go with a pre-made group, all you’re doing is agreeing to share the pain. What about pickup groups? Spend a while in Lion’s Arch reading lfg spam for dungeons other than the one you need. It tends to damage one’s enthusiasm.

As far as being respectful, I think I’ve been quite respectful. I haven’t accused anyone of whining or given in to fanboy-ism.

I have a different suggestion…
While i understand that an universal token is a bad idea, why not make every set be bought with 60% from its main dg and the other 40% distributed among the other dgs?
EX: Now, you need 210 Arah tokens for Arah shoulders.
It could be something like 126 Arah tokens plus 12 tokens from each of the other 7 dgs.

That might make sense if the Arah gear was actually better than Ascalonian Catacombs gear, but it isn’t. All the gear is lvl80 exotic. The only difference between gear from the token vendors is the various stats. The desirability of these stats depends on the player’s choice, but they all add up to the same gear value.

Separate but equal dungeon tokens limits the free use of dungeons, and provides no actual benefit.

AngryToaster.5190:

That might make sense if the Arah gear was actually better than Ascalonian Catacombs gear, but it isn’t. All the gear is lvl80 exotic. The only difference between gear from the token vendors is the various stats. The desirability of these stats depends on the player’s choice, but they all add up to the same gear value.

Separate but equal dungeon tokens limits the free use of dungeons, and provides no actual benefit.

And in GW1 a weapon did the same damage as all other weapons, but the difficulty to acquire them were what drove cost. Assume you make this one dungeon token system, all the players get the gear they like the skin the most of… then what? They have nothing to strive after, and thus no reason to stick around. Providing a one dungeon token system would be akin to making legendaries no more difficult to get than any other exotic.

Some things NEED to be harder to attain.

Parisalchuk.9230:

AngryToaster.5190:

That might make sense if the Arah gear was actually better than Ascalonian Catacombs gear, but it isn’t. All the gear is lvl80 exotic. The only difference between gear from the token vendors is the various stats. The desirability of these stats depends on the player’s choice, but they all add up to the same gear value.

Separate but equal dungeon tokens limits the free use of dungeons, and provides no actual benefit.

And in GW1 a weapon did the same damage as all other weapons, but the difficulty to acquire them were what drove cost. Assume you make this one dungeon token system, all the players get the gear they like the skin the most of… then what? They have nothing to strive after, and thus no reason to stick around. Providing a one dungeon token system would be akin to making legendaries no more difficult to get than any other exotic.

Some things NEED to be harder to attain.

If a person wants a set of gear just for the appearance, they’ll just have to earn that along side the gear they use for effect. I’m also fairly certain no legendary gear is available for purchase from dungeon vendors at this time.

Gear is the main carrot that draws people to content. You’re right in saying there should be a challenge to overcome to acquire it. But the system in place isn’t challenging, it’s tedious. It forces you to run the same dungeon for days on end to earn the gear you want. The dungeon reward system should encourage players to explore content and work together, not farm the same instance.

I totally agree with the observation that if there is a universal token system, armor currently associated with a specific dungeon ceases to represent the particular accomplishment of having cleared that dungeon’s explorable modes several times. On the other hand, for most dungeons this doesn’t mean much. The difficulty of many explorables is somewhat interchangeable. If nothing else, at least one explorable wing in each dungeon tends to be pretty “farmable” (although less so after the DR.) So, with the exception of Arah, wearing gear from a particular dungeon doesn’t exactly come across as an indicator of an impressive accomplishment. And Arah armor does signify a legitimate accomplishment, the way it should be.

I would extend this complaint to the game’s other means of acquiring gear, especially through the mystic forge. In a game without a statistical gear tredmill, a design philosophy I wholeheartedly agree with, I believe players would still be immensely interested in pursuing and showing off their gear if the skins signified a unique special accomplishment. Regardless of stats, gear can still be the status symbol that people crave in MMOs. However, this requires 3 thngs: a) that unique looks can only be obtained through one specific means, b) that the means of obtaining them is extremely difficult and/or time consuming, and c) that other players are aware of where the gear comes from and what it means to own that gear.

I think GW2 does fine with A, at least as far as the dungeon sets. The rest of the unique gear, especially with weapons, pretty much falls into one huge Mystic Forge category, which doesn’t signify anything at all. Anything from the mystic forge is almost worthless as a status symbol. Concerning point B, far too few skins signify skill-based accomplishments in my opinion. Almost everything is just a matter of time, money and persistence, especially everything in the mystic forge, including the legendaries. This makes most of that gear far far less desireable for many players. It doesn’t signify anything except wealth. The mystic forge is also problematic concerning point C because it basically turns out that all the cool items come from the same location. Awareness of where gear comes from ceases to mean anything at all. It all just signifies the same thing: wealth.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

One token to rule them all.
Any character to find them.
One vendor to bring them all,
And in the forge bind them.

The main problem we see with a universal token system, is that players will find the easiest dungeons they can do within the DR system’s influence range, and just do them over and over.
It would be like if people could use all their CoF tokens from the speed/exploit clears, and buy up Arah Dragon armor. Were that the case, the armor itself would have no real value behind it. When you look at a player and you see a full suit of dragon armor, you know that they did a certain thing to get that armor. With a universal token system, you lose that sense of knowledge of what another player has gone through to get what they have.

What if instead of universal tokens, you could trade tokens for tokens on the trading post (similar to trading gems for gold)? That way the market could determine how much the different dungeon tokens are worth relative to each other. Is Arah much harder than CoF? The market will reflect that. Someone just find a new way to beat Arah more easily? Prices will adjust.

Or maybe use the TP to trade dungeon-specific tokens for universal tokens which could then be traded for different dungeon-specific tokens (that way you have fewer exchange rates: 8 increasing linearly with new dungeons instead of 28 increasing exponentially with new dungeons). Of course you’d have to start the market off with a few dungeon-specific tokens for trade from each dungeon (so the first people would have something to buy the general tokens for), and some people would effectively get free dungeon tokens until the exchange rates reach market levels.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

The main problem we see with a universal token system, is that players will find the easiest dungeons they can do within the DR system’s influence range, and just do them over and over.

And why is that a problem for you?

If someone prefers to do (for example) Twilight Arbor, but likes the look of the Ascalon Catacombs armour, why do you want to force that person to do Ascalon Catacombs dozens of times?

How does that improve that player’s experience or the experience of any other players? How does it benefit Arena Net? How does it benefit anyone?

If you think a certain dungeon path is objectively “easier”, simply make that path give less tokens. In fact, doesn’t the current diminishing returns system already do that?

Even if I “find the easiest path” (whatever that means), I would need to do it 4x to get as many tokens as if I did the easiest path followed by a different one. Is any path in GW2 so much easier than all the others that you can do it 4x faster?

I’ve already posted this in a couple of other threads, but I’ll repeat it here in case none of the developers saw it. Most players seem to think this would be a good solution:

• Add an NPC that converts tokens from one dungeon to another as long as that character has managed to complete every path in both of those dungeons at least once. I think this would be the most balanced solution, in terms of ease of use and fitting the lore.

• Add an NPC that converts tokens from one dungeon to another for a karma fee (ex., 50 karma to convert each token).

• Add an NPC that converts tokens from one dungeon to another for a gold fee (ex., 5 silver to convert each token).

• Add an NPC that converts tokens from one dungeon to another for a gem fee (ex., 1 gem to convert each token).

• Add all of the above (and let each player pick the NPC more convenient to them).

• Use a universal token system instead (one token type for all dungeons, possibly with some dungeons paths giving more tokens than others).

In addition to that, I would like to see this:

• Add a small chance (ex., 1-2%) that the last boss will drop one (account-bound) item from that dungeon’s armor or weapon set. This will strengthen the connection between the set and its respective dungeon, and as long as players also get the fixed reward of the tokens they won’t feel that they’re just gambling, as in other games where the random drops are the only way of getting gear.

The current system forces players to grind a single dungeon over and over again to get the set they want. It goes completely against the DR system, which aims to encourage players to do as many different dungeons as possible.

Adding a way to convert tokens (or switching to a universal token system) will allow players to experience the dungeons they enjoy (and join their friends when they ask for help) instead of feeling that they’re wasting time doing any dungeon other than the one they “need” for their gear set.

The whole point of having the dungeon sets being sold by NPCs outside of the dungeons is to avoid that mandatory grind (ex., like in WoW where you have to repeat that specific dungeon because it’s the only place where you can get a certain item – but not even WoW does that for token gear). By having dungeon-specific tokens (and no way to convert them), you are “unsolving” that problem and making the game grindy again.

I guess part of the problem is that the developers can give themselves any item they want, so they don’t seem to understand how annoying it is for players to be forced to play the same content over and over again when we could be doing multiple (different) dungeons instead, in the limited time we have to play.

That’s great to know (although at least some developers must have the ability to get any item they want, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to test the game properly). But assuming that you are not one of those, and that you cannot simply give yourself a full dungeon set (even temporarily), I have to ask:

Do you enjoy having to play a single dungeon over and over again to get the set that you want, instead of being able to go play other dungeons with your friends, while still earning tokens that are of some use to you?

When my friends ask “can you come help us in AC?”, the current token system is pushing me to reply “no, I can’t; my play time is limited, I want the TA set for my necromancer, so I have to go play through TA for the 30th time with some strangers instead of playing AC with you”.

In fact, I generally don’t tell them that, because I like my friends. Instead, I have over 700 tokens from AC taking up space in my bank and absolutely nothing to spend them on. And my Necro still doesn’t have her TA gear, and I still have to do TA in PUGs to get the look I want, because most of my friends hate that place (and so do I, by now).

Instead, I could be doing dungeons I enjoy more with people that matter more to me, wearing the armour that makes my character look the way I want it to look.

You know, having more fun.

How this system benefits anyone is beyond me.

It’s good to know developers are taking steps to experience the same gameplay as customers. It’s disheartening to think what faux pas would result from such a disconnect.

I’d love to hear about your experiences speccing and gearing a lvl80 character, Robert.

Account.9832:

How this system benefits anyone is beyond me.

This has already been explained, but I will repeat it.

A system that allows people to use tokens for all dungeons is incredibly bad. It would hurt players who want to play the game more than players who want to grind the game, as most players would just keep doing the easiest dungeon over and over. Asking ArenaNet to make all dungeons perfectly balanced so they are all either at the same difficulty or have a perfect equivalence between reward tokens is delusional, especially considering how creative players are regarding ways to find dungeon exploits.

If people were just speed clearing the easiest dungeons, we would have people playing only a couple dungeons at any given time. Someone trying to find a group for other dungeons would be left spamming “LFG” at walls.

Meanwhile, people would speed clear more than one dungeon multiple times per day, and thus would get their dungeons tokens even faster than they already do today, basically removing the time sink aspect from those tokens. This would make the current system basically pointless.

In other words, universal tokens are, as already explained in this topic, a terrible idea.

Here, if you like bolding things so much, I’ll bold this for you: it’s your choice if you have chosen to grind the game instead of helping your friends or trying to have fun with them. Don’t blame ArenaNet or ask for a system that is detrimental to the game just because you would rather help yourself than play other dungeons with people. The system is fine as it currently is.

That’s great to know (although at least some developers must have the ability to get any item they want, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to test the game properly).

Being able to summon an item just to test out a specific bug or whatever is a completely different thing then being able to summon items for your own characters personal use. The former is WORK, the developers probably don’t have any fun with that and there’s no reason whatsoever to insinuate that they don’t feel the same feelings as any normal player when it comes to what they do for FUN.

I’m not sure I understand the difference between players and grinders. When I play Killing Floor, I don’t limit myself to one match a day. When one match is over, a new map loads, and a new match starts.

If you’re afraid of people being unable to get groups, that’s happening right now. The lfg spam in Lion’s Arch always has a specific dungeon attached to it. Instead of grabbing four people and heading off to do any dungeon, people are forced to sit around waiting for the group they need.

I like dungeons. I like learning about bosses and improving my skills. Ultimately, this will result in dungeons becoming trivial to complete. In time, I want to pass this knowledge on to new players. You might call this grinding or farming, but I call it playing the game.

AngryToaster.5190:

If you’re afraid of people being unable to get groups, that’s happening right now.

Do you really want to make it even worse than it already is?

Erasculio.2914:

AngryToaster.5190:

If you’re afraid of people being unable to get groups, that’s happening right now.

Do you really want to make it even worse than it already is?

Of course not. That’s why I want fungible dungeon tokens. That way, pugs can work together toward a common goal, rather than having to depend on the kindness of total strangers.

Erasculio.2914:

most players would just keep doing the easiest dungeon over and over.

Would you?

No, you would do the ones you found fun, because you play the game to have fun, you’re not afraid of a challenge, etc., right?

It’s always some abstract “other people”, “most players”, etc.. And punishing them (or forcing them to do content that they wouldn’t naturally want to do) is somehow a noble and important goal.

“People don’t really enjoy this part of the game? Well, let’s find some way to force them to play through it 50 times, then. That will surely make them enjoy it more.”

Well, I know that I certainly wouldn’t keep repeating the same dungeon over and over (regardless of how “easy” it is). And neither would most people I play with.

But in fact, that is precisely what the current token system forces me to do if I want to get one of the armour sets: play a single dungeon (which might even be my least favourite of all dungeons in the game) over and over.

So how exactly is the current token system helping me? I want variety, but I’m forced into repetition. I want to play with my friends, but they’re also being forced into repetition (of different dungeons – because they want different sets).

Are we supposed to feel better knowing that some abstract “other players” we’ve never met are being prevented from playing the “easy path” and thus taking longer to get the look they want for their characters, that we will never see, and which wouldn’t affect us anyway?

Game enjoyment through schadenfreude?

Besides, there is already a diminishing returns system in place, to discourage people from running the same dungeon path over and over again. Allowing people to exchange dungeon tokens would only encourage them to try out even more dungeons.

I agree, some form of unified token currency is needed.

If they still want to require you to run the given dungeon at least once first, they could make it so the first successful run of a dungeon unlocks the armors from that dungeon for purchase via a universal token.

They could also award a single Dungeon Specific token for a successful run, along with the current number of tokens in the form of UniversalDungeonTokens. Have the armors each cost 1XSpecificDungeonToken and a number of universal tokens. That way, you have to run a dungeon at least once to get a piece of armor for that dungeon, but the rest of the token cost could be earned in any dungeon.

Of course, I would really prefer the original concept they floated last fall, which was that each dungeon would have more than one armor design for each weight class, you would earn one token per run and each token could buy you one one piece of armor. I’d even be fine with a hybrid system, where each dungeon had two sets per armor class, one that could be purchased at one piece per run, and another that would take multiple runs for each piece.

I’ve avoided dungeons completely, even though I had been really looking forward to them, because I really am not happy about the reversal of course from “Dungeons will not be a grind, we want you to have fun and get a reward for each run” to “Oh, yeah, we decided to make it a grind after all and it’s one heck of a grind, so we hope you’ll forget what we said last year and embrace grind, grind, grind”.

That’s what it feels like to me anyway.

BTW, I’m approaching 470 hours played. I’ve only done a little WvW and almost no sPvP. No Dungeons. I’m still having a blast and expect to get well over 1,000 hours from the current non-Dungeon PvE content. The game could have worked this way for everyone, if they had stuck to their guns that “the entire game is end game and there is no gear grind in GW2”. By adding a mega-gear-grind at launch, they just prevented most people from making the jump to the new paradigm and just stuck most of the prolific players back on a treadmill that many are getting bored of already.

The game didn’t need a gear grind. It probably would have been ok with a very minor gear grind for players who like those sorts of carrots, but going full tilt, carrot on the stick treadmill grind, they may have done serious harm to the game’s longevity. I understand that would be ironic, because the treadmill development trap always stems from a fear that with out the treadmill people will get bored and leave. However, Arenanet had spent a fair amount of time in recent years correctly explaining why there shouldn’t be a grindy treadmill, so I’m really scratching my head over what happened…

I understand Robert’s point about the armors and what they represent but that just doesn’t compare in anyway with not being able to play with your friends. One of GW2’s central design principles was to create a game that facilated social gaming rather than created problems for it. The reward system as it stands undermines the social gameplay. The whole idea of skins standing for difficult achievements is undermined by the players ability to run the easiest wing of the dungeon in any case. My solution is to link the ability to buy skins to the achievement of completing the entire dungeon (all wings). But you buy the skins with a universal token. That way the skin really does measure an achievement – all wings versus several runs of easiest wing, but it was bought with tokens accrued over any number of dungeons. Think about it. I can do all of Arah, then save up my tokens doing whatever. Skins should be about difficulty not farming and nothing is difficult when it’s on farm anyway.

Just want to add to my above post: if you could only buy armor once you had the achievement for the whole dungeon, but these cost a universal token earned from any dungeon, but defeating a wing the very first time gave double or triple to usual reward, then what you will have is a system where people will be have a varied experience while at the same time being free to play with their friends. Simply by getting Dungeon Master you might be able to buy a whole set of your choice with weapons. Wouldn’t that be more epic than farming the same easiest wing over and over?

*Robert, please consider this:*

As far as heavy armor goes, being recognized for beating Arah several times, to me, means wearing a makeshift halloween costume. Seriously, aesthetics are not measurable and shouldn’t be linked to a single dungeon. That’s also a bad argument for keeping multiple currencies. Just give us a badge or title we can wear next to our names if we want. Like the star people get for world completion.

As for people flocking to easiest runs, it will be a good indicative they need a difficult boost/ balance while the deserted ones need a nerf/rebalance/fun mechanics. Sure it means more balancing work for ANet, but it also means better dungeons overall.

You also seem to assume people are only attracted to easy runs, but you seem to disregard that there are people going for FUN mechanics or harder runs as well. Let the stupid farmers bore themselves to death over faster *cosmetic* returns! And let us choose the dungeon we like best, even because it’s more challenging or more fun! What if i like Arah bc its fun/challenging but I think its set is hideous, while I love how AC set looks but hate the dungeon?

The way it is currently you just can’t play dungeons the way you want with who you want, because different friends have different gear goals. All of that so people can show off they finished a dungeon several times, even if they think the armors or weapons are ugly, and to artificially spread the dungeon-running population across all dungeons (which i’m not even sure is happening atm).

If you cant go with what I’m saying, you can certainly listen to Grumwulf, he has great ideas and logic arguments:

Grumwulf.9602:

Just want to add to my above post: if you could only buy armor once you had the achievement for the whole dungeon, but these cost a universal token earned from any dungeon, but defeating a wing the very first time gave double or triple to usual reward, then what you will have is a system where people will be have a varied experience while at the same time being free to play with their friends. Simply by getting Dungeon Master you might be able to buy a whole set of your choice with weapons. Wouldn’t that be more epic than farming the same easiest wing over and over?

Grumwulf hits the nail on the head here.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

One token to rule them all.
Any character to find them.
One vendor to bring them all,
And in the forge bind them.

The main problem we see with a universal token system, is that players will find the easiest dungeons they can do within the DR system’s influence range, and just do them over and over.
It would be like if people could use all their CoF tokens from the speed/exploit clears, and buy up Arah Dragon armor. Were that the case, the armor itself would have no real value behind it. When you look at a player and you see a full suit of dragon armor, you know that they did a certain thing to get that armor. With a universal token system, you lose that sense of knowledge of what another player has gone through to get what they have.

If this is the problem then why not simply put a restriction on what gear you can acquire based on the dungeon you have completed. For example you cannot buy a piece of armor from a particular dungeon set unless you have fully completed all paths on explorable mode. Once you have done that you are free to complete whatever dungeons you like to earn tokens to get the gear you want. Some dungeons are just a lot more enjoyable than others so why not just let us run whatever dungeon we want to earn the tokens once we’ve fully completed the dungeon we want gear from?

@Greekman

Sounds like a fine compromise to me. You could further sweeten things by adding a vendor who required you to unlock every dungeon.

Greekman.7215:

If this is the problem then why not simply put a restriction on what gear you can acquire based on the dungeon you have completed.

No. I think Arenanet needs to tell people to sod off and not kowtow to this vocal minority. The original system makes sense, but some dungeons are horribly difficult – THIS should be their priority.

Svarty.8019:

Greekman.7215:

If this is the problem then why not simply put a restriction on what gear you can acquire based on the dungeon you have completed.

No. I think Arenanet needs to tell people to sod off and not kowtow to this vocal minority. The original system makes sense, but some dungeons are horribly difficult – THIS should be their priority.

You seem partial to the existing dungeon reward system. Would mind telling us about your experience with it? Maybe tell us about how it’s effected your dungeons runs.

It is currently possible to get most armor types from multiple dungeons (I hope they expand this, actually). I personally took some time figuring out how to get a full set of armor with the stats I want, while also spreading out the time between several dungeons.

Now if someone wants a particular appearance, they ought to spend the time in the appropriate dungeon.

Greekman.7215:

Grumwulf hits the nail on the head here.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

One token to rule them all.
Any character to find them.
One vendor to bring them all,
And in the forge bind them.

The main problem we see with a universal token system, is that players will find the easiest dungeons they can do within the DR system’s influence range, and just do them over and over.
It would be like if people could use all their CoF tokens from the speed/exploit clears, and buy up Arah Dragon armor. Were that the case, the armor itself would have no real value behind it. When you look at a player and you see a full suit of dragon armor, you know that they did a certain thing to get that armor. With a universal token system, you lose that sense of knowledge of what another player has gone through to get what they have.

If this is the problem then why not simply put a restriction on what gear you can acquire based on the dungeon you have completed. For example you cannot buy a piece of armor from a particular dungeon set unless you have fully completed all paths on explorable mode. Once you have done that you are free to complete whatever dungeons you like to earn tokens to get the gear you want. Some dungeons are just a lot more enjoyable than others so why not just let us run whatever dungeon we want to earn the tokens once we’ve fully completed the dungeon we want gear from?

I like that idea. I admit that I haven’t played any dungeons so far, but I have read quite a bit about what other people say about them, and so far this seems to be the best idea to me.

You still have to prove that you can clear that dungeon, which is what the armor should express IMHO (apart from their aethetics), while you can earn the tokens partially elsewhere with your friends or in the dungeon that you like the most. Latter means that you invest time in dungeons, and that is also something that the armor shows. This way, even if those obscure “some people” run through the easiest dungeons a hundred times, they would still have to prove that they can deal with the dungeon that holds the armor of their dreams and through that prove their dungeon crawling abilites.

In my opinion, the current sytem works fine. I’ve been running my butt off to get enough tokens for full AC armor and several weapons. I put the work in, learning the paths and eventually leading guildies and PUGs through them. I’ve earned the armor and the weapons. Anything worth having is worth working for. If Anet changed the system, making universal tokens, that would cheapen the work I and other people who’ve earned the tokens have done. Anyone remember Galaxies? “Whoo hoo look at me! I just spent a month earning Jedi status!” " Wow! good job! We’re gonna give you this special cloak as a consolation prize!" " What? What do you mean consolation prize?" " Yeah turns out EVERYONE gets to be a Jedi now. But hey! You look FANTASTIC in that cloak! You keep up the good work champ!"

Connor.3916:

In my opinion, the current sytem works fine. I’ve been running my butt off to get enough tokens for full AC armor and several weapons. I put the work in, learning the paths and eventually leading guildies and PUGs through them. I’ve earned the armor and the weapons. Anything worth having is worth working for. If Anet changed the system, making universal tokens, that would cheapen the work I and other people who’ve earned the tokens have done. Anyone remember Galaxies? “Whoo hoo look at me! I just spent a month earning Jedi status!” " Wow! good job! We’re gonna give you this special cloak as a consolation prize!" " What? What do you mean consolation prize?" " Yeah turns out EVERYONE gets to be a Jedi now. But hey! You look FANTASTIC in that cloak! You keep up the good work champ!"

I’m not looking for less work. I’m asking for a less tedious work environment. I’m perfectly happy to do the currently required number of dungeon runs needed to earn gear.

It helps no one to force people to beat the same dead-horse dungeon day after day.

AngryToaster.5190:

You seem partial to the existing dungeon reward system. Would mind telling us about your experience with it? Maybe tell us about how it’s effected your dungeons runs.

Certainly. I realise that to gain specific rewards, I must do specific tasks. I think the item prices for some dungeons seem rather high considering how much more difficult (in terms of time taken to complete) to other dungeons they are.

I feel that the weapons for Asura are too small, and that their tiny size makes me apathetic as to if/when I buy these hard-to-acquire dungeon items, since I can barely see them, let alone anybody else.

And it’s “affected” in this instance.

Svarty.8019:

AngryToaster.5190:

You seem partial to the existing dungeon reward system. Would mind telling us about your experience with it? Maybe tell us about how it’s effected your dungeons runs.

Certainly. I realise that to gain specific rewards, I must do specific tasks. I think the item prices for some dungeons seem rather high considering how much more difficult (in terms of time taken to complete) to other dungeons they are.

I feel that the weapons for Asura are too small, and that their tiny size makes me apathetic as to if/when I buy these hard-to-acquire dungeon items, since I can barely see them, let alone anybody else.

And it’s “affected” in this instance.

Well I don’t think dungeon tokens of any sort are going to make your asura bigger.

My complaint is not that gear is too hard to obtain. People’s specific/separate gear needs force them into specific/separate dungeons. Their specific tasks are separate tasks. People have that much more trouble simply finding a cooperative group. If you can use tokens from more dungeons, you can find more useful groups.

Didnt notice this thread so im just gonna copy my thoughts here:

I understand, the problem is… I am always running Twilight Armor because thats the only set of armor I actually want for me.
I wish I could run the other dungeons as well, but dungeons are really hard and why would I bother? I have no use for those tokens.
I kinda wish there was a good incentive for me to run the other dungeons as well while still working for my twilight arbor set.
I hate to make comparasions, but with WoW, I always enjoyed the LFG tool, you could run all sorts of dungeons and they all helped into getting the gear you wanted.
Devs dont want people running the same dungeons over and over, but thats just whats happening to me with the current system.

If I could spend 2 tokens for 1 token of a different desired dungeon, I’d be far more inclined to NOT run the same dungeons time and time again.

Result of Current Design – You want CoF gear and AC weapons? OK go run those 2 dungeons only, each one 10+ times. Oh btw, there’s 7 other totally different dungeons you may never see or care for. Have fun!

Sure, it’s a grind, and that’s just fine!

Sure, getting all the tokens for a full set is a grind. Now imagine you need another 500 tokens from the same dungeon for a legendary!

And that’s OK.

But they promised us no grind!.
Yes, they did. However, they didn’t promise you anything available in game as easily as you happen to desire. You don’t have to grind dungeons. Craftable exotics are just as good and easier to acquire (unless you exploit).

But the tokens take up bag space.
Sure they do. And guess what? For 600 gems you can buy another 30 bank slots. You can buy those 600 gems with the gold you chose to not spend on crafted armor (see above).

Dungeon armor is prestige armor
You farm it for the looks, not the stats. You know what? Personally, I’d prefer dungeon armor to be stat-less armor skins like the optical sets from the gem store. That way, I could apply the looks to the armor with the stats of my choosing without the need to use a fine transmutation stone.

Just for clarification – WoW didn’t make you grind either. You didn’t have to. Sure, you’d miss on certain features but you definitely didn’t have to grind.

You could settle for rare items from 5-men instances (or even a few epics from those), but you’d miss on best gear from the game. Being that visuals are the ONLY term of progression in GW2, by NOT grinding you again choose to miss on… Well, everything?

@Raging Bull

In WoW, you had to take part in the everlasting gear-treadmill or be unable to do certain things, namely raiding, namely endgame.

In GW2, you can partake in everything the game has to offer by buying a set of rare (not exotic) equipment. Those can be had for less than 3 gold. I bought my “starter” rares for ~23 silver a piece. I was able to afford this even before I hit 80, so I bought the stuff the moment I did so.

Whatever I’ve done to my equipment since has been, in a sense, voluntary. Not needed in order to do anything in the game. But since playing a few hours after coming home from work nets me ~2 to 3 gold a night, I’ve since been able to buy exotics for every slot. (No, I didn’t farm Orr; I usually worked on map-completion or did an explorable or two.)

I have dungeon tokens but I don’t particularily like the look of most sets. Also, the set I have has exactly the stats and runes I want, so why change it?

AngryToaster.5190:

Well I don’t think dungeon tokens of any sort are going to make your asura bigger.

Haha, yep, you’re right!

AngryToaster.5190:

My complaint is not that gear is too hard to obtain. People’s specific/separate gear needs force them into specific/separate dungeons. Their specific tasks are separate tasks. People have that much more trouble simply finding a cooperative group. If you can use tokens from more dungeons, you can find more useful groups.

I understand. The most powerful argument in favour of ONE token is, “I want a full set, but I want the variety of multiple dungeons because I’m bored with doing the same one for a single set” (seven runs for a two-handed sword.. seems excessive on a really tiresome dungeon like HotW).

Unfortunately, the ONE token brings with it the exact opposite: “I want to be able to farm a single easy dungeon to get the best looking set as soon as possible”.

I see both arguments, and I don’t claim to know a solution, but I am perfectly happy with the current system. I think that if you want certain stuff, do certain stuff.