Guild Wars 2

I must say I am a bit distressed here.
Every personal story step that gets complained about, gets nerfed very fast.
But the dungeons are not touched.

Now, I don’t mind them being difficult.
I’ve said it many times: challenge is good.
I have some issues with what ANet understands as challenge (buff all attributes by 100, and then HP bar a bit more) but I do appreciate challenge, in general.

My problem is, however, that there is no learning curve in this game that can prepare more casual players for the dungeons.
There is NO place for them to learn about what they need to complete them nowhere in game apart from structured PvP, and I know many people simply don’t like PvP and will never go there.

I see this lack of learning curve as a huge problem.
Probably one of the biggest issues with dungeons for me right now (well, apart for the HP bars… shave the HP bars… I have nightmares about red bars that don’t go down…).
I understand ANet doesn’t want to make dungeons trivial and is basically politely telling people “learn to play”, the problem is: where exactly?

Everywhere else in the game you can use one weapon set and never change your traits not utility skills and complete EVERYTHING.
I was shocked the first time I’ve heard from a friend of mine that “he doesn’t need to unlock all utility skills because he’ll never use them”. He was the first person in my guild to complete the world map, btw. I thought: maybe Thiefs are different than Mesmers: my Mes has all her skills unlocked and I really used them all, albeit some rarely (never used Moa in PvE).
But really?

MoA is good for areas that require stability, but you don’t have anyone to provide it. Instead of giving everyone stability to prevent them from being knocked down to kill a monster faster, you use MoA on the monster so that your party isn’t being knocked down and is able to focus the monster down more quickly.

And, yes. I agree. Currently, there are people who feel like dungeons are easy to execute, because they’ve already learned all the mechanics and ins and outs of the dungeons. There are also people on the other side of the spectrum who feel dungeons are impossible, because they don’t know the encounters. It also does not help that they are grouping with others who do not know the encounters as well.

Some people have taken it upon themselves to ferry players from inexperience regarding dungeons to being experienced at them. The majority, though—having already attained their dungeon prowess—, simply look down upon others who have trouble.

There’s no middle ground. You either know them, or you don’t. And, in order to know them, you either have to group with someone experienced or kind of run your face into them until you learn. I feel like there should be stepping stone dungeons to encourage new players to learn their professions without racking up huge repair bills in the process. I’m not suggesting anything to do with the repair bills themselves but a variety of difficulties for dungeons.

It would help ease players into the more challenging dungeons.

Though, I still don’t like how these dungeons are designed. Most of the “difficulty” comes from high health and damage. Technically, most bosses are fairly basic. There isn’t much variation in execution. You learn the boss timings and abilities, learn to dodge or survive them, and just beat on them for however long. I guess I’m oversimplifying.

Maybe this is the best we can do for now, until the next big thing.

The personal story is intended for everyone to be able to complete by themselves.

Dungeons, explorable in particular, are optional.

The best way to train newbies for the dungeons is to run them through with an experienced group and show them what needs to be done. Most players will pick things up fairly quickly and do just fine with organized team work.

Rpgtabbycat.5869:

The best way to train newbies for the dungeons is to run them through with an experienced group and show them what needs to be done.

That sounds like the same old boring MMO attitude to me. I was of the mind that Guild Wars 2 was for everyone regardless of ability. For anyone to jump in, play and have fun with. Why cant a causal group of new players jump into a dungeon and have fun with it and still come out with something to show for their time and effort? I really dislike MMO elitism in regards to dungeons.

The game is for everyone regardless of play style, not ability(i.e. I play 2 hours sessions 3 times a week vs I play 5+ hour sessions everyday) . I would say a much larger percentage of this game’s population is seeing the end game than in any other MMO release. The end game content requires 5 people to complete, which is a much easier number for casual players to put together. To assume that it should be completely devoid of some sort of skill based requirement is to alienate another part of the games population though. As far as getting something for your efforts redirect your disappointment to the people who saw fit to run the same two bosses over and over again in Arah for the way the current system is. At least before you got some tokens even if you couldn’t finish the run, but people had to go and ruin it and force the hand of the developers. Maybe in the future, when you see it happening you will be aware of the consequences on the entire population and attempt to dissuade people from doing these things.

I haven’t had issues completing a single dungeon. What dungeon are you having problems with?

Rich.9503:

Rpgtabbycat.5869:

The best way to train newbies for the dungeons is to run them through with an experienced group and show them what needs to be done.

That sounds like the same old boring MMO attitude to me. I was of the mind that Guild Wars 2 was for everyone regardless of ability. For anyone to jump in, play and have fun with. Why cant a causal group of new players jump into a dungeon and have fun with it and still come out with something to show for their time and effort? I really dislike MMO elitism in regards to dungeons.

To be honest, i still remember TA exp, my first approach. A pug of newbies, all of us, exploring a new world. Well, not just we cleared the path forward forward (slowly, why not), but i died just 2 times, they died a bit more, maybe 4 times at best. I was leading them, like if i was experienced. I just used my eyes, studying the behavior of enemies around me, suggesting what i tough was the best strategy. All of us had a great experience, as much was a long run (around 1h). Arah was even better (an other pug of newbies, we took path 1) with this uber giant, Lupicus. I figured out alone the strategy, what is now on youtube and on wiki. Elitism?

Gies.3824:

To assume that it should be completely devoid of some sort of skill based requirement is to alienate another part of the games population though.

Not really. I was thinking along the lines of difficulty modes. If some one wants more of a challenge or an easier time with it then a difficulty mode is ideal. Its also a great way to learn the ropes as it were.

Learn the ropes in story mode, apply what you have learned to Explorable mode. Try doing the dungeons in order. Start with AC path 1 do it, go to the next one. Come read forums if you get stuck, look at videos. It’s out there. Different difficulty modes is available in other games if you like that design, personally I don’t really like multiple difficulty modes for the same content though.

This has a lot to do with the entitlement gamers have these days. The reverse can be asked about the more casual oriented players.

I don’t have as much time to play games like I used to now that I have to work full-time, I don’t run dungeons as much as I’d like, but that doesn’t mean I can’t complete them.

Why is it required that EVERYONE should be able to complete explorable modes? Keep in mind, everyone can, it’s just a matter of being able to do it, seriously that’s all it is. If you’re grouping with PuGs that are still solo-oriented and all decked in Berserker’s Gear, then you’re going to have a bad time, dungeons are a group activity tackle it as one.

It’s not like explorable modes are the norm, there still are story modes. Even before we get to explorable modes, we have people complaining about the difficulty in story. If you’re having trouble with story modes, why are you banging you head against explorables? They didn’t come out and flat out make dungeons just for the hardcores, they made two differing modes to cater to multiple crowds.

Additionally, while Dungeons are a method of gearing up in this game, you can also get the best gear stats wise from Karma, WvW and Crafting. The stats may not be optimal as I want Power/Tough/Vit for my Guardian, but that isn’t available from crafting. However my solution is that I have two pieces of it from Karma, I’ll just use Clerics in the mean time for the other slots.

It’s also not like you NEED the gear to be play any area of the game. You can honestly do fine in any of the zones without exotics. sPvP? You don’t even need to grind gear for that and well WvW? You may have an argument there, but I’d argue tactics and siege weapon placement/group organization has a greater impact on the outcome of such a big battle versus to just how decked out you are.

You shouldn’t expect to clear everything in the game, especially when considering explorable modes are meant to be the most challenging content in the game. It’s true they hold the most SHINIES, but the difficulty also adds to the value of it. What’s wrong with having content you actually have to prove yourself before you can earn the rewards?

Seriously.. even if you may not have as many hours to devout to the game, don’t let that be an excuse for sub par performance. This is especially true when GW2 is set up in a way so you can circumvent that more than any other traditional MMO.