Guild Wars 2

Hey guys, I’ve been wondering what your opinions of living story season 2’s instances are. These challenges are the most recently added examples of instanced combat. I know they were not exactly traditional dungeons. But maybe these types of things are representative of where anet is planning to take instanced combat? If so maybe we could create some feedback that could help make such instances more appealing to the dungeon community.

I thought the challenges were fun. Some of them were definitely a nice change of pace from just pure combat. I think that if anet had worked a little bit harder on it, they could have made some of them into more repeatable content.

I also noticed they basically added a challenge mode to a lot of the instances. I know I have seen that idea tossed around on these forums in regards to dungeons.

What do you guys think? What needed to be added to those instances to make them into next generation dungeons? Of course a dungeon currency is missing. But I doubt anet wants to devote so much time to designing new dungeon skins. If some sort of alternative repeatable daily reward had been added to those instances they would have gotten a lot more replay I think.

• Way too easy, but that’s expected as they’re meant to be accessible to everyone.
• Way too gimmicky: particularly the Caithe episodes and Glint’s lair. This is an RPG, I want to create/play my build and use it to defeat foes. I don’t want premade builds forced on me (Caithe) or puzzles where I just use environmental weapons/effects to win (Glint’s lair)
• Challenge mode: pray you do them in few tries because having to go through the same unskippable multiple times cutscenes is torture.
• I don’t think I’d willingly replay any of those instances: once I got my free Ascended Sinister trinkets, I left those forever.

My thoughts.

They’re like solo versions of GW1 missions. A hard mode would be nice down the line, but they were more enjoyable than most GW2 PvE. If not hard mode, then some other incentive could be added to make repeating them more appealing.

Lord Kuru.3685:

• Way too easy, but that’s expected as they’re meant to be accessible to everyone.
• Way too gimmicky: particularly the Caithe episodes and Glint’s lair. This is an RPG, I want to create/play my build and use it to defeat foes. I don’t want premade builds forced on me (Caithe) or puzzles where I just use environmental weapons/effects to win (Glint’s lair)
• Challenge mode: pray you do them in few tries because having to go through the same unskippable multiple times cutscenes is torture.
• I don’t think I’d willingly replay any of those instances: once I got my free Ascended Sinister trinkets, I left those forever.

1.) I agree. With a couple exceptions if I remember. I thought some of the achievements in seeds of truth were challenging. In particular I am thinking of the battle with Togonn Windmane who summons those walls of sand and such. Of course, the first time you do a piece of content your figuring out the right strategies. Once I started bringing more blocks/evades (at the cost of a little dps) it wasn’t tough.

2.) Well, I kinda disagree. I mean usually we do fight as our normal characters. I think the occasional bundle fight can be fun. In fact I am still waiting for a dungeon fight where we do the whole fight in power suits. Still make it challenging, but a uniquely different experience.

3.) Yeah unskippable cutscenes are complete crap design. I liked how some of the challenge motes were at the exact spot, so you could retry challenges without redoing the cutscenes. But the one where you stealth through the asura lab was frustrating if you needed to go in a few times to figure out the mechanics.