Guild Wars 2

As the title stats, the design of some of the dungeons is just atrocious. Its easy to pick out many offenders here, CoE// CM//Arah are some of the worst offenders here, okay Arah can be seen as one of the few ‘end game’ dungeons here, only in the respect its the current last dungeon however many other dungeons suffer from design flaws in general.

Look at CM path 2 for instance, the many recent nerfs and exploit fixes has created an extremely poor instance, especially when you have events which require the whole party to perform a task simultaneously, for a pug group ~ this doesn’t work well at all. So stop putting mechanics like this in game unless you actually stress test them to perfection, any mechanic that requires a high degree of accuracy/timing whilst underfire is in the realms of hardcore raids, and not dungeons.

Its not just design flaws like that, its the placement of mobs ~ masses and masses of them, its like whoever designed the dungeons got bored and said to him/herself…screw this and randomly placed down hordes of mobs for the players to kill without actually thinking it though carefully. My honest opinion here, GW2 will continue to suffer major declines of players, and among all the other issues the game has – dungeon design and implementation is something that really does need to be looked at for a plethora of reasons.

Here is a serious question I’m putting down here, how many dungeons both story and exp modes which ‘average’ pug group will most likely fail at some part of the instance and then breakup? I’m talking about grabbing a random team here ~ these are the instances Anet need to look at and adjust -

Hmm, I haven’t done CM for months now but I used to farm it regularly for the tokens back in the days, the dungeon itself is not hard, I finish them without exploiting anything easily. CoE is also an easy one once you get the hang of it. Arah is a bit harder but far from poor. The bugs that are breaking the game are the ones which cause the dungeon to completely break mid way (i.e. a boss not triggering, something not doing what it’s suppose to, starting an event etc).

If the dungeons worked without these errors, the difficulty level is acceptable for all dungeons i’ve completed (which is all of them)

If you haven’t done CM for months, you should try it again with a pug group ~ CM exp 2…the barrel part with a pug is painful. The problems many people face is that pugs are the only way for most players to get into these instances, not many are lucky enough to have static or constant guilds running like an army camp.

Dungeon content needs to be challenging sure, but not down right stupid or idiotic. Everyone has different ideas and tastes, in my vast experience from running dungeons/raids at varying different levels, from casually to hardcore to semi-pro levels ~ Honestly, GW2 has some which are the worst in terms of design faults.

TsukasaHiiragi.9730:

If you haven’t done CM for months, you should try it again with a pug group ~ CM exp 2…the barrel part with a pug is painful. The problems many people face is that pugs are the only way for most players to get into these instances, not many are lucky enough to have static or constant guilds running like an army camp.

Dungeon content needs to be challenging sure, but not down right stupid or idiotic. Everyone has different ideas and tastes, in my vast experience from running dungeons/raids at varying different levels, from casually to hardcore to semi-pro levels ~ Honestly, GW2 has some which are the worst in terms of design faults.

Eh, I had a feeling it was the barrels you were talking about. It kinda requires a bit of tactics. It’s similar to the bombs in dredge fotm but they don’t pick up the bombs as fast, if you put down a sanctuary as a guardian it helps a lot. Otherwise, you should be able to outrun them over time, I don’t recall any current mechanics that would make this part game breaking (we never needed to waypoint or anything for that part, besides you’d be in combat anyways). Was there some new introduction there that I missed?

TsukasaHiiragi.9730:

If you haven’t done CM for months, you should try it again with a pug group ~ CM exp 2…the barrel part with a pug is painful.

1-2 players distract mobs, other run with barrels. Can be explained to any PUG in 2 minutes.

Lafiel.9372:

Was there some new introduction there that I missed?

Nothing new. Just another one learn-to-play/learn-to-explain issue.

ya we just tried ta ex path 1 and it was crap the whole way.
got to the last boss and after several wipes 1 person bailed.
most characters where lvl 80 with exotic gear.
if all of the instances are corpse draggs like ta then might as well brick them up and say gg.
i haven’t tried any other runs since the last patch but probably will right off gw2 instances all together.
they where poor before htey nerfed everyones stats now they’re not even worth your time.
way to go anet.

I’m finding it difficult to distinguish between legitimate complaints about bad dungeon design and complaints about certain dungeon mechanics being too difficult and therefore bad design. Your issue falls under the latter. Closing exploits is pretty much to be expected. The overall balance in difficulty could use some work I admit but the barrel part in path 2 is fine even with a pug.

The problem is the reward.

When the reward for dungeon is mostly gold, people is less torelable to failure, because it is inefficnet gold/hour.

And because the reward is gold, players are forced to do the same dungeon over and over again and it became frustrated when their teamates isn’t good.

I failed dungeon way more in other games, never get frustrated. But for this reason dungeon failure is way more frustrating in this game.

Lafiel.9372:

TsukasaHiiragi.9730:

If you haven’t done CM for months, you should try it again with a pug group ~ CM exp 2…the barrel part with a pug is painful. The problems many people face is that pugs are the only way for most players to get into these instances, not many are lucky enough to have static or constant guilds running like an army camp.

Dungeon content needs to be challenging sure, but not down right stupid or idiotic. Everyone has different ideas and tastes, in my vast experience from running dungeons/raids at varying different levels, from casually to hardcore to semi-pro levels ~ Honestly, GW2 has some which are the worst in terms of design faults.

Eh, I had a feeling it was the barrels you were talking about. It kinda requires a bit of tactics. It’s similar to the bombs in dredge fotm but they don’t pick up the bombs as fast, if you put down a sanctuary as a guardian it helps a lot. Otherwise, you should be able to outrun them over time, I don’t recall any current mechanics that would make this part game breaking (we never needed to waypoint or anything for that part, besides you’d be in combat anyways). Was there some new introduction there that I missed?

I was running my guardian and using sanctuary, like you said ~ it helps but for pugs….you really really need a mesmer or thief for group invisibility – anything less and its stressful.

Before, most people would just exploit this part because its a pain in the rear. And there are many areas in dungeons which people will readily exploit to bypass or at least make certain parts easier, anet really could do well and look at these – not to fix them, but to actually make it so players don’t want to exploit or have no reason too.

Another typical dungeon feature is giving bosses such an insanely large HP pool, there isn’t any reason for it. It just makes the fights boring and unnecessarily drawn out – you can thank speed runners for that I guess.

i would suggest anet take 5 lvl 55’s and go do ta ex path 1 then come back and tell us how much fun it was.
most of the instances where pretty bad before.
if ta can be done with lvl 55’s show us the video, you might try all the other ex paths with the ,min level required also.
maybe after that you can tune them right and put some fun in them at least.
repairing armor and wiping over and over is not fun mkay.

The issues with dungeons in my opinion..

Dungeons with level restrictions that obviously should all be done at 80 and be geared, but the gear is only able to be gotten (free) from dungeons…

Trash is incredibly hard for no reason than to be an annoyance and kill people and have zero rewards for killing them drop..

Needing to watch youtube, gaze through multiple sources of crap to be able to complete said dungeon is not a great way to make people want to do them

Adding the way point nerf so you get to watch your dead body for up to an hour as your team slowly gets wiped out, is bad mechanics..

60 tokens and some silver is not enough reward for the hours upon hours some of these supposedly fun dungeons take to do..

Instant kill bosses and mobs should never exist in dungeons all it does is make people not do them and move on from the game, Simin in Arah is kitten CoE Story lightning ball wielders are insane, the list goes on…

Forcing Dungeons to be the only place to get items will be the death of this game.

To the point of the CM, other than sanctuary, you could also try ring of warding from the 5th hammer skill, I find that near the end, if the players run back and forth fast enough, and have a guy concentrated on slowing/knocking back those npcs from taking barrels, it works out eventually. Of course, global invis skills are the most useful but i’m just recommending skills useful for this encounter for each class. HP wise, it’s very party dependent, good teams will chew through the boss hp much faster than an average team.

With a few tweaks to bosses HP and the promised overhaul on boss mechanics in old dungeons, I have hope for GW2 dungeons.

I wish they’d take some inspiration to one of Dragon Nest’s end game dungeons called the Green Dragon Nest. I was watching some friends play through the dungeon and man, was it intense and I felt the adrenaline just watching them run through it. It’s a hardcore mode dungeon so it was definitely not easy. When a player dies, he can’t res the entire dungeon. They failed the first two tries but succeeded in the last. But the thing I would like to emphasize was that the final boss mechanics was cool. It has various phases and was thrilling to watch. Don’t mind all the overkill flashy visual effects of the skills of players though.

I can agree with the amount of mobs and i also find most bosses boring, the reason for that is that they are not difficult they just got a huge amount of hp. AC got some fun bosses i think but all bosses share this thing that they should get more fun skills you should have to dodge and less hp. Also they should get more visible attacks espescially for the small bosses, it’s hard to see what the bosses are doing when there are so much particles. Maybe they could give us emotions so we can see on our character when a boss starts a big attack. I also love having different roles in dungeons, like everyone have to syncronize something to get the job done since it makes you feel more usefull, but most of the fights are mainly just kite around or dps down. I wish for more unique fights and tactics. Some bosses are really fun but some i think is boring. I also would like some dungeon that uses the open world like you get queensdale and the dungeon is in the whole map and contains helping the people and defending towers and so on. They got this beautifull world and they used it in the personal history and i would like to see them use the world in a dungeon too:)

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/robert-hrouda-on-upcoming-changes-to-dungeon-mechanics/

Wait until they’ve actually made the changes before criticizing.

Just saying.

I agree with you OP and moreso with the dungeons you chose, as they were the first to come to mind. I quite like Fractals, Twighlight Arbor and Ascalonian Catacombs… although I feel they still need some work.

So there are how many really bad paths? That’s the question here. There are 24 explorable paths for each dungeon. Are 12 bad? Are 18 bad? Are 6 bad?

I love how people focus on the stuff they can’t do, and ignore the stuff that’s fine. But you know, the stuff you can run through in 20 minutes, is what most people want. They want to do a 20 minute run and get their tokens. That’s it. They don’t care about difficulty as much as speed.

Most dungeons have a faster path and slower paths. Personally I think path rewards should be based on the difficulty of the dungeon, not universal. I think that if you’re in a path of a dungeon that takes twice as long you should get more tokens.

But the idea that dungeon design is bad because there are some bad paths, that’s a bit much. Some of the dungeon design probably does need to be looked at, but it’s not that big a deal.

I need two more runs on CoE for my legendary token requirement, and I’ll likely never go back into that place (except to help guildies) but it’s not as bad as the OP is making out.

And you know, the butler run in Caudecaus is so fast, it’s like not even doing a dungeon. I sorta like having a couple of harder paths to bang my head against.

TsukasaHiiragi.9730:

especially when you have events which require the whole party to perform a task simultaneously, for a pug group ~ this doesn’t work well at all.

Why? Counting down is to complicated for pugs ? I don’t think so.

So stop putting mechanics like this in game unless you actually stress test them to perfection, any mechanic that requires a high degree of accuracy/timing whilst underfire is in the realms of hardcore raids, and not dungeons.

Oh haven’t you noticed it? The game has no “raids” the dungeons are the “hardcore” part of this game. Most of them are sadly enough way too easy.

This is what dungeon run looks like in other mmorpg:
A bunch of noob get together trying to conquer the dungeon by wiping over and over again, and when they finally beat the last boss and get the equipment they want, they never have to do the same dungeon again.

This is what dungeon run looks like in GW2:
A bunch of dungeon vets(mostly elitism who ask for gear check) are forced to do the same dungeon 100+ times for money or token(or simply because there is no other endgame pve because “No Raiding!”) get paired up with noob and rage quit after a single wipe. (not to mention they don’t forget to insult people before they rage quit).

laokoko.7403:

This is what dungeon run looks like in other mmorpg:

A bunch of noob get together trying to conquer the dungeon by wiping over and over again, and when they finally beat the last boss and get the equipment they want, they never have to do the same dungeon again.

Heh. Yeah. Sure thing.

Care to name this MMO?

laokoko.7403:

This is what dungeon run looks like in other mmorpg:
A bunch of noob get together trying to conquer the dungeon by wiping over and over again, and when they finally beat the last boss and get the equipment they want, they never have to do the same dungeon again.

This is what dungeon run looks like in GW2:
A bunch of dungeon vets(mostly elitism who ask for gear check) are forced to do the same dungeon 100+ times for money or token(or simply because there is no other endgame pve because “No Raiding!”) get paired up with noob and rage quit after a single wipe. (not to mention they don’t forget to insult people before they rage quit).

Or a group of friends in the same guild get together to run dungeons, sometimes for themselves or sometimes to help others, and have a lot of fun doing it, even if they sometimes wipe. You forgot option C. lol

1) Don’t use titles that look like fact, but are opinion.
2) Don’t judge dungeons based on your ability in a PuG group.

Oh haven’t you noticed it? The game has no “raids” the dungeons are the “hardcore” part of this game. Most of them are sadly enough way too easy.

That is the problem right? No raids.

Else most people only need to successfully run the same dungeon a few times and move on with their life.(or raid)

Now they have to do the same dungeon over and over again and tolerate those lesser experienced pug. (or more like yelling at them, kick them, or gear check them and try the best not to group with them)

TheDaiBish.9735:

laokoko.7403:

This is what dungeon run looks like in other mmorpg:

A bunch of noob get together trying to conquer the dungeon by wiping over and over again, and when they finally beat the last boss and get the equipment they want, they never have to do the same dungeon again.

Heh. Yeah. Sure thing.

Care to name this MMO?

First of all, talking about other MMO is very rude in a mmorpg’s general forum. That is sort of like advertisement.

But what I meant is people dont’ get “as upset” in other mmorpg because they only need to successfully conquer the dungeon a few times. People rage quit in other games too of course, it’s just GW2 is much worse.

But in this game dungeon is the only end game content and people are forced to do it over and over again “and when vets get paired up with newcomers” they become very irritated.

I run enough pug and see enough people havior. It is pretty bad in this game. All those elitist only want to play with each other. And when anyone did anything wrong, people start yelling and making sarcastic comment.

laokoko.7403:

TheDaiBish.9735:

laokoko.7403:

This is what dungeon run looks like in other mmorpg:

A bunch of noob get together trying to conquer the dungeon by wiping over and over again, and when they finally beat the last boss and get the equipment they want, they never have to do the same dungeon again.

Heh. Yeah. Sure thing.

Care to name this MMO?

First of all, talking about other MMO is very rude in a mmorpg’s general forum. That is sort of like advertisement.

Ok. But in most other MMO’s, you’re running the same dungeons over and over to:

• Get a specific drop
• Get tokens for gear

I haven’t seen an MMO where you run a dungeon ‘a few times’ and then you move on. They tend to keep running the same dungeons to gear up, over and over.

I’m still interested though, so fancy pm’ing the name?

laokoko.7403:

But what I meant is people dont’ get “as upset” in other mmorpg because they only need to successfully conquer the dungeon a few times. People rage quit in other games too of course, it’s just GW2 is much worse.

But in this game dungeon is the only end game content and people are forced to do it over and over again “and get paired up with newcomers” they become very irritated.

I run enough pug and see enough people havior. It is pretty bad in this game. All those elitist only want to play with each other. And when anyone did anything wrong, people start yelling and making sarcastic comment.

How is this any different from Raids?

You got the people who are new to raids and run with more experienced players, and it’s exactly the same. Someone messes up, everyone rages, unless you’re a close-nit guild.

I wouldn’t consider GW2 to be any worse or better in this regard.

^ yes people do the same dungeon over and over again till they get the specific drop or tokens for gear. After that they move on to raiding.

But in this game you do it forever. Running the same dungeon 100+ times for gold? That’s the problem. If people already did the dungeon 100+ times, they get very irritated when someone new mess up. Remember there is no raiding, so doing the same dungeon is the only thing you can do.

In raids you are generally running with the same people, and you want to kill the boss since you never kill it before. And after the first kill every kill after it become easier since it is the same group.

If they want to make hard dungeon, they should put it on a timer. So people know that the hard dungeon is serious and not suppose to be run in pug. Since the same people are locked up for the dungeon and they can only do it say once every few days.

edit: I understand your point on new comers joining raids, but that’s the exception right? In general raids arn’t pug, that is the point.

laokoko.7403:

If they want to make hard dungeon, they should put it on a timer. So people know that the hard dungeon is serious and not suppose to be run in pug. Since the same people are locked up for the dungeon and they can only do it say once every few days.

You know what your problem is? For some reason you think that 5 man Dungeons are supposed to be easy and everything with more players involved should be difficult. This is not WoW or other games that allow such big group of peoples, this is GW2. There is nothing above 5 man groups for instanced PvE and that’s why 5 man dungeons can also be hard.

There is no Problem with difficult Dungeons, even if they are 5 ppl.

But IF I complete a very hard way, I exspect to gain something out of it, why should I go a hard way, if the reward for using the easy way is exactly the same?

Thats the big problem.

kokiman.2364:

laokoko.7403:

If they want to make hard dungeon, they should put it on a timer. So people know that the hard dungeon is serious and not suppose to be run in pug. Since the same people are locked up for the dungeon and they can only do it say once every few days.

You know what your problem is? For some reason you think that 5 man Dungeons are supposed to be easy and everything with more players involved should be difficult. This is not WoW or other games that allow such big group of peoples, this is GW2. There is nothing above 5 man groups for instanced PvE and that’s why 5 man dungeons can also be hard.

I’m not talking about 5 man or raid. I’m talking about “fixed group” or “pug”. Warhammer have hard 5 man dungeon too(at least when I played it a few years ago), And people are running it in fixed group like raid. The timer is what make people do fixed group.

I dont’ have problem with 5 man dungeon being hard. The problem is I already done the dungeon 100+ times. Yet the dungeon is still hard because I have to put up with bad players I pick up. The dungeon in warhammer are even harder, but I just finish the dungeon a few times, get my gear and move on.

And I’m not even talking about myself. That is what happen in pug in this game. The dungeon start goign bad, people start insulting each other or kick people out of group, or rage quit after a single wipe. If you havn’t seen gwlfg people start to gear check everything and not invite newbies.

My question to Anet is if they are making those hard dungeon, are we suppose to run it in a pug? That is my question.

Midius.6501:

There is no Problem with difficult Dungeons, even if they are 5 ppl.

But IF I complete a very hard way, I exspect to gain something out of it, why should I go a hard way, if the reward for using the easy way is exactly the same?

Thats the big problem.

Ya but if you complete it hard the first time, it become easy after that assume you do it with the same people all the time.

Is Anet suppose to reward you every time after that too or just the first time?

Why is CoE an offender? The only complaint at this point should be that you have to fight Subject Alpha 9 times across 3 paths and that just speaks of lazy design and is incredibly boring. Even then, it’s fairly easy.

Auesis.7301:

Why is CoE an offender? The only complaint at this point should be that you have to fight Subject Alpha 9 times across 3 paths and that just speaks of lazy design and is incredibly boring. Even then, it’s fairly easy.

Maybe his teamates is bad, that is what make it hard. The guy probalby already did the dungeon 100+ times, yet it is still hard because he got bad pick up, that’s the problem.

The whole Point of PVE is to make Progress. In GW2 this progress are Skins.

But after maybe 2-3 Weeks you get your Gear and doesn’t even need to step into any difficult way. And what now is the question.
The concept of a Fixxed rank of Gear is great, but very good player (and im not one of them) has no chance of Getting Progress over an average Playtime and THAT is a Problem in terms of long-time-motivation in PVE.

In most of ALL Games there is Progress, a difficulty that raises constantly to reward your playtime, like fractals. You need Month or even years to see everything and get to a point you can say now I have seen everything and I got the gear i wanted too. In GW2 you get it in 2-3 Weeks, 5 If you want your Lagendary.

I’m playing WvW most of the Time and this is the first Game that I even concidered doing PVP, because I’ve never seen a Game that has such a booring PVE.

.::edit:
Don’t misunderstand me I think GW2 is a great game with plenty potential and great aspects like WvW. Otherwise I wouldn’t play it or even bother to write in this Forum. ::.

Vayne.8563:

Most dungeons have a faster path and slower paths. Personally I think path rewards should be based on the difficulty of the dungeon, not universal. I think that if you’re in a path of a dungeon that takes twice as long you should get more tokens.

This is the change I want to see the most. It’s disheartening that the 1 hour slog you just did earned you the same amount of tokens as the 20 min alternate path you could have chosen.

i only played gw1 and aoc as other mmo’s but in the dungeons in these games there
were no garanteed drops either. Even in gw1 the boss drop wasnt garanteed.
In aoc it was a big group of 24 people who did the raid aka dungeon, and when you pugged people even took things they couldnt use just to sell it for a few copper lol(most stuff was bound on pickup).
guild runs were led by a raid leader who had the control, and if there was a drop, it was
given to one of the professions who could use it with a random vote generator.
If only one person could use it, or the rest allready had the drop, it was given to him/her .

So in these mmo’s it took multiple runs to to get something.
Most people in the guild didnt go for the drops, but for the fun of doing it together.

still remember gw1 runs with the guild as being lots of fun, and nobody moaned about drops.
The aoc runs were the same. open to everyone, with a few experienced players, and the raid leader explaining everything. realy fun to do.

gw2 is more or less the same. if people take the time to explain stuff to newbies and not blindly go for profit, it can be so much more fun.

just my 2 cents

yep they messed up dungeons big time so whatever nothing you can do accept it

Sages.3496:

yep they messed up dungeons big time so whatever nothing you can do accept it

Because it’s not like their reworking them, is it?

TheDaiBish.9735:

Sages.3496:

yep they messed up dungeons big time so whatever nothing you can do accept it

Because it’s not like their reworking them, is it?

dunno are they?

Sry to say but its a L2P.
CM: each person grab a barrel, run to the wall on the left of the barrels (manor) all drop the barrel ( npc will run to pick up the barrels) in the meantime you can eazzily run pick another barrel & delivet it at the door, with time to spare.
COE: dodge every 2 secs when circles apear, stay in mele for crystal & if someone die.
Cone spike wach tell & dodge.

Stop complaining about dungeon being hard, its your foult for not knowing the base game mechanics of each dungeon.

Akame.1073:

Sry to say but its a L2P.
CM: each person grab a barrel, run to the wall on the left of the barrels (manor) all drop the barrel ( npc will run to pick up the barrels) in the meantime you can eazzily run pick another barrel & delivet it at the door, with time to spare.
COE: dodge every 2 secs when circles apear, stay in mele for crystal & if someone die.
Cone spike wach tell & dodge.

Stop complaining about dungeon being hard, its your foult for not knowing the base game mechanics of each dungeon.

Your right. But thats precisely my issue with dungeons. They are not difficult, once you know how to use the mechanics properly. So at first you hate them because something is rediculously hard because you were doing it the hard way, then they are rediculously easy because you know the best possible way to do it. Thats not challenge. It promotes grinding. Its not stable content that you can play repeatedly for any other reason.

According to the title of the post, this is your humble opinion of course.

As others have said, L2P. Use your brain more and your white flag of surrender less. Dungeons are created in GW2 to be areas to problem solve with the tools that your character has. Rise to the challenge. Research and prepare accordingly.

Yes, pugs can be a pain the royal **** when they won’t use their brains either, but that’s how it is with MMOs – there is a big bucket of players, some being worse than others (you may feel there are a lot more bad players) but at some point you will make friends and create your own regular group of players, or join a guild that works for you.

I personally love tough dungeons, the challenge to get past them successfully without using exploits along the way is a finger in the face of those that can only do them with exploits. Love patch days when exploits are fixed.

Dungeons are dungeons. Places to explore and make riches in. Riches that need to be earned, not handed to you on a silver platter

So in other MMOs dungeons are fine because you do them with static group. But in GW2 they suck because you pug them.

Myth Shaia.4856:

According to the title of the post, this is your humble opinion of course.

As others have said, L2P. Use your brain more and your white flag of surrender less. Dungeons are created in GW2 to be areas to problem solve with the tools that your character has. Rise to the challenge. Research and prepare accordingly.

Yes, pugs can be a pain the royal **** when they won’t use their brains either, but that’s how it is with MMOs – there is a big bucket of players, some being worse than others (you may feel there are a lot more bad players) but at some point you will make friends and create your own regular group of players, or join a guild that works for you.

I personally love tough dungeons, the challenge to get past them successfully without using exploits along the way is a finger in the face of those that can only do them with exploits. Love patch days when exploits are fixed.

Dungeons are dungeons. Places to explore and make riches in. Riches that need to be earned, not handed to you on a silver platter

this this this & again this ; bow to the poster

Love how people complain about “poor dungeon design” based on their failure to coordinate as a group to complete a challenge.

“Oh noes, I can’t overcome this challenge. Must be the developer’s fault!”

Look at CM path 2 for instance, the many recent nerfs and exploit fixes has created an extremely poor instance,

This was comedy gold. Exploiting was the only way you found this game fun? What a punch line.

any mechanic that requires a high degree of accuracy/timing whilst underfire is in the realms of hardcore raids, and not dungeons.

Its not just design flaws like that

If “high degree of accuracy” is pressing one button after the countdown from 3, then it is not a design flaw but a flaw in the player’s hand-eye coordination (or just plain simple stubbornness to follow instructions).

placement of mobs ~ masses and masses of them

OF COURSE! The lair of Zhaitan, whose armies of Risen that has been threatening Tyria, is EMPTY. Makes PERFECT sense.

Here is a serious question I’m putting down here, how many dungeons both story and exp modes which ‘average’ pug group will most likely fail at some part of the instance and then breakup?

Arah Path 4.
FOTM 20-25

Unless your definition of “average” involves whiney children who think they deserve a gold medal just for participating…

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/6/6f/Caudecus%27s_Manor_basement_map.png

-Come from the left side
-Hug the wall to grab kegs
-Start not too close from the mob
-Player 1 drops his keg (the mob will run for this one) and runs to pick another one
-The other 4 players run to put down their keg and the last player meets them there.
Boom.

To correctly place your keg, it’s your character that needs to in the red circle.

sostronk.8167:

Your right. But thats precisely my issue with dungeons. They are not difficult, once you know how to use the mechanics properly. So at first you hate them because something is rediculously hard because you were doing it the hard way, then they are rediculously easy because you know the best possible way to do it. Thats not challenge. It promotes grinding. Its not stable content that you can play repeatedly for any other reason.

You don’t need to grind something to see where the difficulty lies and what you can do to make things easier.

TsukasaHiiragi.9730:

okay Arah can be seen as one of the few ‘end game’ dungeons here,

Arah is may be the “last” dungeon, but it is only for a few players the “end game” dungeon. Only a few players are forced to go to Arah for their legendary. The others can do Ascalon or Honor of the Waves etc. etc. It is incomparable easier to do that dungeons than Arah.
That is poor desing.

Sitael.4680:

Arah is may be the “last” dungeon, but it is only for a few players the “end game” dungeon. Only a few players are forced to go to Arah for their legendary. The others can do Ascalon or Honor of the Waves etc. etc. It is incomparable easier to do that dungeons than Arah.
That is poor desing.

That’s almost exactly how Anet planed it : each dungeon can be considered end game. They didn’t want the playerbase to only be into a single dungeon but they wanted to spread players around. And so far, it’s going well : if you want a group for nearly any dungeon, you won’t have too much difficulty finding one (the capability of the group is another story).

RedStar.4218:

That’s almost exactly how Anet planed it : each dungeon can be considered end game. They didn’t want the playerbase to only be into a single dungeon but they wanted to spread players around. And so far, it’s going well : if you want a group for nearly any dungeon, you won’t have too much difficulty finding one (the capability of the group is another story).

Maybe, but you will find much easier a group for Ascalon or CoF or HotW (usually Path 1) as for Arah. You can not compare Kohler with Lupicus, and at the end you can even skip Kohler if you don’t want do him, but you can not skip Lupicus.
I’m not against different difficulty level for different dungeons, but as someone suggested, a more difficult dungeon should be also more revarded.

There are only two LWs which ones need Arah: Bifrost and Kamohoali’i Kotaki (and the second is not really on the top 10 of the Legendary-Chart) while there are 11 other LWs which need Ascalon. So running only a single dungeon is – seemingly – wanted by ANet.
In the same time you farm Arah for the 500 Tokens, you can farm Ascalon twice. And that is IMHO poor design.

Of course you’ll have an easier time to find groups for easier dungeons. However it is true that Arah isn’t really rewarding…no higher chances to get rare or exotics, and the T6 mat you get in it (putrid essence) is worthless.