Guild Wars 2

Chris Whiteside’s latest post mentioned that one upcoming initiative was “Revamping all of our existing dungeons (Story and Explorable versions) through rebalance and overhauled encounters.”

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/chris-whiteside-on-the-lost-shores-and-beyond/

Personally, I’m happiest when dungeon runs take about 30 minutes or less. 45 minute dungeon runs feel like things are dragged out, and anything above 1 hour is just not fun.

So I was wondering: What do other people think is a good length for a dungeon?

I am fine with anything in the 30-45 minute range, much longer than that makes it hard for a casual player who only gets a couple of hours when they play to complete a dungeon, when you figure in time for LFG etc.

I do not mind it taking up to an hour if the group makes mistakes, I think 30 minutes should be the shortest if ran perfectly.

I for one think the current time is rather good.
Possible a bit longer.

You should be able to begin and finish them whenever you feel like it, i play mmo since 1998 and im’ from the old school. I don’t see why you should put a quantity of time. We used to be able to go into a dungeon, party in our way deep inside and leavev when we feel like it, it was the good time i guess.

The current time is fine, but it’s based on your party’s understanding of the route and general knowledge of the game.
Still, there shouldn’t be ‘one time for all’, as there shouldn’t be the same level of difficulty for all dungeons and routes, not each dungeon should be based on the same mechanics, etc.

Anyway, having done them all and farmed them all at some point:
AC takes about 25~30 minutes per route, which is fine.
CM takes about 30~40 minutes per route (it’s designed to skip some trash), which is fine.
TA is 30~50 minutes per route (depends whether you skip stuff or not).
SE1 used to be 10~15 minutes, except for 18 minutes to wait out the patrols (one person afking). SE2 is about 40~70 minutes, SE3 something about that as well, perhaps a bit shorter.
CoF1 and CoF2 are 20~40 minutes, CoF3 is much longer – about 70~80 minutes? – but it’s the only exception so far.
HotW is longer, but then it’s faceroll easy and usually takes much longer because people are not properly equipped for underwater combat, or just can’t fight underwater properly. With underwater exotics and understanding of mechanics across the party, it’s still ~80 minutes tops.
Two CoE routes are about 25~50 minutes each. Farmed loads of it for cores with guildies. CoE3 takes much longer because of the destroyer fight, but it can be done half-afk if you’re manning a cannon, or it can be done faster if you spike him in all 5 people.
And Arah – Arah takes 2~3h each if you don’t skip anything, probably 1~2h with skipping. I guess it’s fine for the last dungeon in the game, and it certainly is enjoyable, and 3h isn’t something most players can’t pull in one sitting from time to time.

It’s still much better than camping an epic boss for 4h, and then fighting off waves after waves of enemy clans trying to get to it, while it has a random respawn window.

For me a dungeon should take less than 30 minutes, after you know the mechanics of the fights. More than that hurts casual gameplay.

Half of the dungeons take 30~40 minutes once you know how to do them. All open PvE content is shorter than that. Hot joins are shorter than that. Most fights in W3 are shorter than that.
Not everyone is a purely casual player, and even casual players might like some challenging content that takes more time to complete, giving more satisfaction afterwards. It’s not about the length of dungeons that much as it is about the length of particular fights, with too much silver trash on the way (instead of 4 silvers, put 2 silvers and 10 normal or 4 bronzes – might actually make it more challenging in the initial clash) and bosses having too much hp.

I think the goal should be between 30 minutes and 60 minutes.

I do think Dungeons should be some sort of commitment and 15 minute Dungeon sprints reminds me too much of WoW.

I think it’s ok for one or two Dungeons to be more epic and require up to 2 hours per path, but Arah is pushing it a bit far.

I think there should be some variety like there is now. Arah for example takes way longer, but that’s fine because rewards are better. Again length usually depends on how good the team is. For example, some teams will clear CoE in lets say 30 min while others will clear it in an hour or more. It all depends. But I do believe they definitely shouldn’t make any longer than they already are.

A flawless run should take between 45 and 60 minutes.

at least 1h. GW1 dungeons PLEASE come back

nachtnebel.9168:

A flawless run should take between 45 and 60 minutes.

It does, except for Arah if you don’t skip; if you do, it’s about 90 minutes.

Max 30min imo
Dont want to spend 2h on fractals and then get dc 5 min before end
atleast in the max 30 min case i wouldnt be sorry

30 minutes for flawless runs. 1 hour for people trying the dungeon for the first time. Considering they aren’t spam wiping.

lordkrall.7241:

I for one think the current time is rather good.
Possible a bit longer.

True, all dung paths should take as long as arah path 4 for first timers. Basically, that should be a benchmark for other paths. That would make so much things exciting.

Monarch.4026:

Thank God you don’t make corporate decisions.

Why?
Because I think the dungeons actually should take time and not be done in 15 minutes? (And that comes from someone that works most of the day and have quite little time to play)

Thye should be all not less than 1 hour with doors forcing to not skip and pre boss doors closed when dead, making the dungeon not resettable until reset, so the boss is not more reachable, resetting exploiting. Just to get rid of 1st boss+reset token farm, now back.

lordkrall.7241:

Monarch.4026:

Thank God you don’t make corporate decisions.

Why?
Because I think the dungeons actually should take time and not be done in 15 minutes? (And that comes from someone that works most of the day and have quite little time to play)

Those are speed runs if you still haven’t notice. Do any path in 15 minutes without skipping and I’ll applaud you. Or do any path in arah except 3 (speed runs) in 15 minutes (and win against everclosed gates of arah firstly).

haviz.1340:

Those are speed runs if you still haven’t notice. Do any path in 15 minutes without skipping and I’ll applaud you. Or do any path in arah except 3 (speed runs) in 15 minutes (and win against everclosed gates of arah firstly).

So there is ONE Dungeon that does have a decent time.
Most (if not all) others can easily be done within an hour. Several of them within half an hour.

lordkrall.7241:

haviz.1340:

Those are speed runs if you still haven’t notice. Do any path in 15 minutes without skipping and I’ll applaud you. Or do any path in arah except 3 (speed runs) in 15 minutes (and win against everclosed gates of arah firstly).

So there is ONE Dungeon that does have a decent time.
Most (if not all) others can easily be done within an hour. Several of them within half an hour.

Now you’re talking about hour for most (if not all) and before that it was 15 minutes. Do you have troubles with math?

The time doesn’t matter. (30 min per wing is ok for a no wipe run). What matters is how much time is spent clearing boring trash, or on boss fights that are tank and spank with WAY too many HP. The extra HP don’t add to the difficulty. We were killing something the other night and honestly I went AFK and got a drink during a boss fight while spamming auto attack.

That dumb jellyfish in fractals comes to mind. Really boring.

haviz.1340:

Now you’re talking about hour for most (if not all) and before that it was 15 minutes. Do you have troubles with math?

Within. That could mean 5 minutes or 59 minutes. Or anything between those two numbers.

There are some paths that does take close to an hour. While others takes closer to 15 minutes.

lordkrall.7241:

Within. That could mean 5 minutes or 59 minutes. Or anything between those two numbers.
There are some paths that does take close to an hour. While others takes closer to 15 minutes.

Barring skipping, there’s only CoF path 1 that takes about 10 minutes for a decent team. Others take about 30-40 minutes which was confirmed by dev that it’s their objective.

They meant “not less” then 30 40 minutes with a highperf group
10 minutes is just senseless.

I think MOST dungeons should be under 45 minutes for a reasonable group. Anything up to that, I’m okay with.

One or two dungeons taking a lot longer are fine, though: the Underworld (Dhuum included) in GW1 took long over an hour usually (Not talking about speed-clears, which are something I never went in for), and that was great, if you put aside an evening for it.

But under 45 minutes is a good time for most.

2-3 hours. Anything less is silly.
A sub 30 min instance (for people at the suggested level) isnt worth being called a dungeon.

I like the current set up.
I don’t think every dungeon should have a standard time.
I think you should have some easy dungeons what are fast which they do. And some harder dungeons what take longer which they do also.
Maybe every dungeon should have one long path, one in between, and a short one, to please everyone.

Malediktus.9250:

2-3 hours. Anything less is silly.
A sub 30 min instance (for people at the suggested level) isnt worth being called a dungeon.

Make it 4-5 hours, because the name dungeon implies how long it should take right?

2 decent paths:
1 = 25-30 mins – Meant for casual players
2 = 1hr – 1hr 1/2 – Meant for hardcore players

Each path would be drastically different, not the same repeat stuff we get with 1/2/3 sometimes.

30 minutes is just fine, particularly when you consider how hard it is get a party in the first place. I don’t want to spend my entire gaming time just to get one dungeon run per night.

2 – 3 hours?!

Wow. No more than an hour. If you want more you can hop back in and take the other paths.

I think 45 min is the ideal target time once you know what you’re doing and about 1 hour if you don’t. Anything more than that and it grows increasingly hard to keep a party together.

I summed up how long dungeons take now, but seems that everyone skipped the post because of too many letters to read. Oh, well, the usual.

Point is – if you don’t die, don’t screw up and don’t block on dungeon mechanics like puzzles or certain ways to defeat bosses, almost each route is doable in less than an hour. Looks decent, especially when compared with GW1’s elite areas.

I think 30 minutes minimum and 60 minutes maximum. Anything less probably isn’t challenging enough, and anything more is probably just throwing random enemies at you to slow you down for no real reason other than to slow you down.

30-45 minute is fine

15 to 60 min between them all.

30 minuites is absolutely perfect in my opinion :P

I agree with the 30-60m group. 15m is too short to enjoy and feels cheesy, but 30m runs when played properly and 60m runs for those that are a bit trickier or when you have less experienced players.

I think if you could balance them so that an average run with people who know the dungeon but aren’t pros finish in 30-35 minutes, first timers who aren’t terrible are 45-50 minutes, and a very good run is around 25 minutes, then the times would be about right.

Even if I have 3 hours to play after work, I really don’t ever want to commit to an hour + dungeon. If I wanted to do that, I’d be raiding in WoW (or Rift – though I don’t know how long their raids really take). The dungeons in GW2 (especially the ones launched with the game) aren’t really that much fun to me to want to spend that much of my free time running them (and thankfully they’re getting revamped).

Running FotM 10 the past few days (no ring so far), and that one run is enough for me each day. It’s something that people at level 10 already know how to do all the fights in, and depending on the quality of the player, can range from, in my experience, 45 minutes to about 90. Especially if you have deaths in odd places, and how your group chooses to deal with that, or even worse, if you have a DC in fractal 2 or 3. 4 manning the dredge is doable, but way longer with 4 than 5.

Halagaz.6085:

You should be able to begin and finish them whenever you feel like it, i play mmo since 1998 and im’ from the old school. I don’t see why you should put a quantity of time. We used to be able to go into a dungeon, party in our way deep inside and leavev when we feel like it, it was the good time i guess.

I’m no oldschooler to MMOs but I love what you’re saying. There shouldn’t be a set time that determines the success of a dungeon. People make that choice, but whatever people choose, no one should be able to dictate what’s good or bad for someone else.

That’s all dungeons are now – speed clears. Don’t want to skip or take on an exploit? Oh, that’s cool, then get ridiculed, never find a group and good luck completing the run.

So fun.

Assuming the trash can’t be skipped and the dungeon is being done with experienced players, I would say 30~45 minutes for a dungeon of average difficulty; or around an 60~90 minutes for a max-level dungeon.

Of course for those long raid-like dungeons, there should be a way to save your progress. For example, if the dungeon has 8 bosses and you can only kill the first 3 bosses on one night, you should be able to save your progress and try to tackle on the remaining 5 bosses the following night.

For the most part, I really love how these dungeons don’t have a “lock-out timer” on them. That means I can schedule my dungeon nights on my own terms instead of around a “weekly reset.”

Malediktus.9250:

2-3 hours. Anything less is silly.
A sub 30 min instance (for people at the suggested level) isnt worth being called a dungeon.

Did you, by any chance, design the Water Temple in Ocarina of Time?

Would explain a lot.

30-40 mins is fine, if longer, then it better have checkpoints so you can continue some other time.

I think duration should be including in the scaling of the dungeon incentives. Player level, gear, and difficulty should be counted too. I also feel it should scale for occupancy. If I want to go all Indiana Jones and run a tomb solo, there should some capacity to do so.

I would also institute DR and anti farming because it helps balance the game. Also, it introduces more difficulty for the truly gifted gamers who need more to feel satisfied.

To answer the topic question: From twenty minutes to one hour. No more.

KyleQuest.4639:

I think duration should be including in the scaling of the dungeon incentives. Player level, gear, and difficulty should be counted too. I also feel it should scale for occupancy. If I want to go all Indiana Jones and run a tomb solo, there should some capacity to do so.

I would also institute DR and anti farming because it helps balance the game. Also, it introduces more difficulty for the truly gifted gamers who need more to feel satisfied.

And do you believe that those gifted gamers have the right to institute rules for everyone? What about the non gifted gamers?
People already do not have equal opportunities in real life, so even if it’s an illusion, at least let them have them in a virtual world.

I like the fact that currently different dungeons take different times to complete. It offers more flexibility in choosing which dungeons to run. I don’t think they need to be balanced in terms of duration but thats just me.

At Hermes, you might have misunderstood for diminishing returns and anti-farming enhance equal opportunity. Especially when it comes to gold and the market. IDK why people don’t get that in the real life either.

If you want dungeons that last longer than the hour, then GW2 needs to include raids, where you can save progress, so casuals can work through the place one hour at a time, while the rest you blokes can spend your entire nights in there for fun.

Dungeons should be fast and hard no longer than 20mins and no shorter than 10mins, the current dungeons need to be tweaked the bosses need to have alot less hp but actually have some tactics instead of “i sit here press one and 5mins later he is dead yay!”