Guild Wars 2

Almost every dungeon I’ve ran so far (after coming back from a few week break), everyone seems to just ignore certain enemies, and LoS others with stacking (the spider queen in AC is a popular one).

Quite frankly, I find it pretty annoying and cheesy. Not to mention, really time wasting too if mistakes are made (such as one person not making it, having to run back, or somebody not stacking properly, getting downed, and causing subsequent downs and death, etc). You didn’t make it to the stack zone through waves of enemies? Either try again by yourself, leave, or get an escort (all wasting the time of those who made it through already), and lose some coin for repair bills. I’ve seen repeated partial and even full-group wipes resulting from just trying to run past enemies.

I spoke up about it on a few occasions, and nobody really cared, which really surprises me. How on earth is that better than to just kill enemies and not have to worry about them later, and even get a bit of loot, gold, and experience in the process? Is killing non-essential enemies really that detrimental?

If I had to have a suggestion to fix this, it would be to have enemies chase you down to the death; like how they do in instances on WoW (if I recall right anyway). I can understand the open PvE space; enemies might not want to chase you to the ends of the earth. A dungeon on the other hand is a finite-space, and I’m sure the enemies there should know this.

I’m wondering whether I’m just unlucky, or if this is a normal thing? I can understand intentional speedrun groups doing this (to an extent; I still find it really cheesy), but this seems to be done in any dungeon that allows for it, story or exp, 80-only or any level.

Most people in groups just explain the concept of stacking and running past enemies as if it was a legitimate mechanic, but surely this couldn’t be the case right? I could also imagine this being somewhat off-putting to newer players too.

All pugs do this and I don’t think it will change. The reason is time.

The stacking does help a lot in increasing the time. Stacking has three important reasons. The first is to block damage from foes in the walls, while you can attack them perfectly.
The second reason is that boon’s/buffs and group heals are more easy to shared and garanteed to go to all, also the use of combo’s become a lot easier.
The third reason is that you can rez much quicker.

For example the spider in AC. The non stacking tactic would be:
1: take down a few off the small spiders, AND the gargoyles on the wall
2: take down the rest off the spiders til lthe queen pops
3: kill the queen by kiting and jumping around. Keep in mind, she will attack everyone. WoW had tanks, this game does not. Due to the need to keep dodging and moving around you have a lot less time to cast skills. Protective skills like boons can easily miss people, and when someone goes down, they are out before help arrives.

So in short, Stacking will cut the time in half for all groups!

As for skipping. The reason groups are skipped is very simple. They don’t drop anything and actually many off them are pretty annoying and hard to kill off.

So, without judging your annoyance, I do not see why and how it will happen that this will change in PUG’s. If you want to try and tackle dungeon in a more traditional way, you can try to make a lfg with the description LFG pX no stacking/no skipping and see what happens. If that fails I suggest trying to find a guild that can be convinced to do it your way and do it with guild groups.

If you’ve done the dungeon 10 or more times, you start getting efficient. And they’re designed to be done more than 10 times. Try and get a dungeon set doing it 3 times.

Have you played GW1?

Yes? Then why are you surprised?

No? Then don’t act surprised.

These mechanics have been with the series for 8 years. Go back in time and write them an angry letter.

Don’t like it? Make your own LFG stating you don’t want to stack and want to kill all foes. Let other people play the way they want to play.

Best example for this is arah p1, the skip to crystalline and p2 skip to end boss. I rarely see my full group successfully skip those. Its a major pain in the kitten for new, less experienced players or specific classes. These players end up quiting the dungeon or getting kicked most of the time.
I always suggest to clear a certain amount to help them but I guess lazyness has the upperhand here. People always take the easiest way out.

The fix itself is pretty easy and I dont get why this wasnt there since launch.
Dont let mobs lose agro in dungeons.
But for this to work there have to be a few changes:

I feel like some mobs (arah elites) hit too much. Im guessing this was implemented to avoid major skipping. You might aswell reduce the damage by 10%? as players will have to kill those mobs anyway..

The mechanic of stealth in dungeons has to be reworked. Thiefs will become very powerful if they manage to avoid agro in stealth and others dont. Thief will become the new meta in dungeons like arah/TA/etc. Players will specifically ask for thiefs in dungeons and the skipping will still happen.
If anet decides to remove stealth from dungeons then thiefs will be useless in dungeons.
They dont have anything to support their party or other classes are just better at that.

AI of mobs: Mobs cant jump up or down so if we use the terrain to our advantage mobs will be unable to reach us. So far the game fixed this by losing agro once we do that. But what will happen if they remove the losing agro mechanic? They get stuck and free for us to kill? They ignore obstacles and glitch up or down to attack us?

Stacking is fine.

It’s the “run past everything without dying” that gets me, especially in Arah where elite mobs hit HARD (with immobilizes/cc/etc) and there are almost no resting/recovery spots. I was in one group where they literally spent 30 minutes trying to run an incredibly long distance through countless mobs and repeatedly wiping. Nobody came even close to making it all the way through. What an epic waste of time….we could’ve cleared the dungeon in that time.

Not to mention some classes are just vastly better equipped to run past everything than other classes ~cough Warriors cough~.

I’m just sick of Arah pugs at this point.

It’s easy on every class if you invest in harpy feathers. “I shouldn’t have to!” In my day, we scoured the landscape for items distributed by vendors in the early game, to assist in my/our success in the late game.

Skip W-Item in FF7? Boy, you dun goofed.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Don’t like it? Make your own LFG stating you don’t want to stack and want to kill all foes. Let other people play the way they want to play.

I don’t buy that argument at all. That’s like stating that everyone who wants to should use an exploit (that’s not intended for use by ArenaNet) to easily gain level 80 in an hour and get full exotics for free, and that said exploit should remain in the game because “people want to do it”.

I may be letting personal bias show, but I really don’t understand why people would want to use cheesy tactics like this. If you really don’t want to go through long dungeons, why do them at all?

If ArenaNet intentionally implemented ways to run past enemies in dungeons and stated such (just because you can do it doesn’t mean it’s intentional), then I guess I don’t really have any argument… But I’m assuming it’s not intended.

Clivar.3176:

The fix itself is pretty easy and I dont get why this wasnt there since launch.
Dont let mobs lose agro in dungeons.
But for this to work there have to be a few changes:

I feel like some mobs (arah elites) hit too much. Im guessing this was implemented to avoid major skipping. You might aswell reduce the damage by 10%? as players will have to kill those mobs anyway..

The mechanic of stealth in dungeons has to be reworked. Thiefs will become very powerful if they manage to avoid agro in stealth and others dont. Thief will become the new meta in dungeons like arah/TA/etc. Players will specifically ask for thiefs in dungeons and the skipping will still happen.
If anet decides to remove stealth from dungeons then thiefs will be useless in dungeons.
They dont have anything to support their party or other classes are just better at that.

AI of mobs: Mobs cant jump up or down so if we use the terrain to our advantage mobs will be unable to reach us. So far the game fixed this by losing agro once we do that. But what will happen if they remove the losing agro mechanic? They get stuck and free for us to kill? They ignore obstacles and glitch up or down to attack us?

Some elements would need to be re-worked. Perhaps some monsters should just have their HP/damage slightly reduced just so it isn’t as-annoying to kill them?

As for stealth, one or some enemies in a pack should have some form of stealth detection. And for an interesting twist, upon seeing a stealthed player, that enemy should throw something that both exposes the player, and binds them to that spot for a short period of time, along with alerting nearby enemies of their group to attack said player and/or the player group if nearby.

The terrain point is a bit trickier. I’m not really too sure what to suggest for this (specific examples might help). Perhaps certain exploit areas should just be blocked off, or maybe for another interesting twist, humanoid-like enemies in dungeons should be aware of such spots, and have traps placed. Maybe even put a turret to watch certain areas too.

ANet has said time and time again that skipping mobs and stacking are not exploits. Go run Arah without skipping anything, please. And vid it.

Make your own group if you don’t like it.

Espionage.3685:

If ArenaNet intentionally implemented ways to run past enemies in dungeons and stated such (just because you can do it doesn’t mean it’s intentional), then I guess I don’t really have any argument… But I’m assuming it’s not intended.

You would be assuming wrong. It’s intentional. If they wanted you to kill all mobs, they can easily prevent your progress with a wall or door until you’ve killed the mobs. The do exactly this in many places in many dungeons. This means where they don’t do it, they are giving you a choice. (I’m not talking about exploits like going under the map or stuff like that.)

Skipping enemies, speed runs, kicking and spot selling, stacking/LoS exploiting (I don’t care what you say, it is to me)…some of the reasons I will not do dungeons in GW2. I have issues with the poor “dungeon” design, “bosses” and dungeon armor designs as well, but other players are the main reason I stay clear of dungeons in GW2.

StinVec.3621:

Skipping enemies, speed runs, kicking and spot selling, stacking/LoS exploiting (I don’t care what you say, it is to me)…some of the reasons I will not do dungeons in GW2. I have issues with the poor “dungeon” design,“bosses” and dungeon armor designs as well, but other players are the main reason I stay clear of dungeons in GW2.

stacking made you quit dungeons? Lol.

Lilius.9850:

StinVec.3621:

Skipping enemies, speed runs, kicking and spot selling, stacking/LoS exploiting (I don’t care what you say, it is to me)…some of the reasons I will not do dungeons in GW2. I have issues with the poor “dungeon” design,“bosses” and dungeon armor designs as well, but other players are the main reason I stay clear of dungeons in GW2.

stacking made you quit dungeons? Lol. ignorance truly is bliss for you huh

I did not say I quit dungeons due to stacking. How you got that I do not know.
I would also like you to elaborate on your “ignorance” statement.

People complain “I hate one shot mechanics” so arenanet designs bosses that spread mass aoe damage, people complain. “I hate stacking, its so lame and boring”, there’s no end to the madness.

The issue isn’t the developer here, the issue is the human mind finding faster methods to achieve end goal.

It doesn’t matter what they design, people will find a quick way to finish, and if not (like tequatl and wurm world bosses) they get left behind to collect dust.

I’ve learned something from these forums, developers are not destroying the game, players complaining constantly, are.

There are guilds and players who liked to kill everything and don’t require stacking or other methods in dungeons. You need to find them. Since this is not the popular method you will encounter this on occasion.

Oh, and in regards to your “have enemies chase you to death” recommendation, enemies are on a “leash” mechanic, which is built into game design for enemies. I doubt this will change since you end up having enemies stuck in walls and glitching all over the place in a world where you can jump, swim, etc.

It never ceases to amaze me that players expect to PuG group content and have things go the way they want. That sounds to me like borderline insanity.

As far as the OP’s criticism of stacking, it sounds like he’s on about mob mechanics rather than players playing group content while close together. The former is a design problem if it leads to mobs not behaving as intended by the developer, whereas the latter is this game’s team-play mechanic.

Espionage.3685:

Almost every dungeon I’ve ran so far (after coming back from a few week break), everyone seems to just ignore certain enemies, and LoS others with stacking (the spider queen in AC is a popular one).

Quite frankly, I find it pretty annoying and cheesy. Not to mention, really time wasting too if mistakes are made (such as one person not making it, having to run back, or somebody not stacking properly, getting downed, and causing subsequent downs and death, etc). You didn’t make it to the stack zone through waves of enemies? Either try again by yourself, leave, or get an escort (all wasting the time of those who made it through already), and lose some coin for repair bills. I’ve seen repeated partial and even full-group wipes resulting from just trying to run past enemies.

I spoke up about it on a few occasions, and nobody really cared, which really surprises me. How on earth is that better than to just kill enemies and not have to worry about them later, and even get a bit of loot, gold, and experience in the process? Is killing non-essential enemies really that detrimental?

If I had to have a suggestion to fix this, it would be to have enemies chase you down to the death; like how they do in instances on WoW (if I recall right anyway). I can understand the open PvE space; enemies might not want to chase you to the ends of the earth. A dungeon on the other hand is a finite-space, and I’m sure the enemies there should know this.

I’m wondering whether I’m just unlucky, or if this is a normal thing? I can understand intentional speedrun groups doing this (to an extent; I still find it really cheesy), but this seems to be done in any dungeon that allows for it, story or exp, 80-only or any level.

Most people in groups just explain the concept of stacking and running past enemies as if it was a legitimate mechanic, but surely this couldn’t be the case right? I could also imagine this being somewhat off-putting to newer players too.

No it’s not just you who’s annoyed with it-and it apparently is a legit mechanic (I’m guessing it is because I’ve actually been infarcted in the past for saying it isn’t and should be fixed, I kitten ye not -__-). Actually it, the champ trains, the event-failing farming and the ever-infarction happy moderators drove me to quit the game months ago (recent buzz around ESO made me curious to see if anything has been fixed…apparently not)-so if it’s off-putting enough to older players who’ve played through the dungeons when they were challenging I can’t imagine the impression new players get.

However some people do bring up certain points that make sense-namely the limited radius of buffs along with how poorly virtually all encounters are designed (hurray for insta-gib moves!), to suggest that whether intentional or not the game’s mechanics actually support such…er…strategies (I use that term lightly). Just to compare, Force on youtube just posted the first ESO dungeon…and that actually was fun-the type of thing I thought gw2 would be like. Now, it could degrade into gw2 style dungeons but in the vid they didn’t run past 90% of the mobs, they used cc and positioning (you know, real strategy) to make difficult encounters manageable, did a bit of aggro bouncing-very fun concept. It’s actually enticing, even though I found the animations hideous, to the point that I might consider buying it if it’s monetary aspect wasn’t so greedy.

Long story short, stacking is endorsed by ANet and if want to do dungeons and don’t like it, then either a) try to put a party together with like-minded individuals (…good luck with that) or b) quit now before you’re in too deep and wait for another mmorpg with decent dungeon mechanics while keeping an eye on this one just in case they fixed it. Ignoring enemies becomes natural because if you stack in some random corner they’ll forget you ever ran past them and they don’t give you anything worth your time anyway-not even experience if you’re already 80 (the amount of lvl 80’s I saw back when I still played made me wonder if new players were extinct or something). I believe the term is ‘working as intended’?

I actually really enjoy skipping. You guys said it yourself people die during skipping.

The use of mobility skill, invulnerability skill, chill, interrupt. Skipping actually takes learning and you are rewarded for learning things. I carry a sword with sigil of energy so I can use leap and an extra dodge. I carry a shield so I get a few second of invulnerability. For my elementist, I cast reflect with my staff, I chill enemy, I switch to earth form to use blockage skill, switch to lightning to use aoe stun to skip.

As for stacking. One of the problem I see is guardian is way too powerful. Create shield, everyone stack. Hallow ground, everyone stack. Stability everyone stack.

Another problem is everyone will naturally want to stack because of cleave damage.

But for boss such as spider queen, all they need to do is rework the mechanic. Make spider queen aoe target which is close too.

But all that do is people dont’ want to group with newbie any more. Its’ not like those dungeon are easy for a group of low level newbie.

Hey all anet need to do is make every dungeon like the dredge fractal. So no one will be complaining about stacking. Remember a few month ago? Stacks and stacks of complaints about AC is too hard for newbie.

When the game has just started, it was much more fun to do dungeons.
Because nobody knew of these stacking mechanics and stuff.
However, we spend a lot more time trying to get it right, still new and fresh off, knowing nothing.
It’s sad that new players are “robbed” of this new world experience.
But what can be done? Player’s have just found the fastest and most efficient way to do them.

Evalia.7103:

When the game has just started, it was much more fun to do dungeons.
Because nobody knew of these stacking mechanics and stuff.
However, we spend a lot more time trying to get it right, still new and fresh off, knowing nothing.
It’s sad that new players are “robbed” of this new world experience.
But what can be done? Player’s have just found the fastest and most efficient way to do them.

Actually, good mob ai like leaving aoe circles, staying at range and such were cut because they taxed the servers too heavily.

What can be done? Well frankly… in Arah specifically people run past soooooo many champs and even take the lazy way on loot pinata groups (the detonator in paths 1 & 4 iirc).

Make all non-gate guard champs drop 10 tokens each instead of like 3… Arah p1, that would easily double the # of tokens for anyone willing to take the time.
Increase the loot from killing elite mobs since the things are basically lootless champs anyway, I see no reason they can’t be worth 1s each across the board.
Possibly even increase the loot table goodies in specific areas like that corridor with the detonator mentioned above… every single mob in there drops loot and there are only about 5 elite ooze, last i actually cleared them I left with 4 extra rares and 1 exotic item…more like this, rewards for killing elites and way more champ tokens would hopefully cause the greed issues that spur dungeon skipping to slow down and actually look at the content a little more. Hey, they could even scale back the gold or two end reward to drive the point home if they made those 3 changed above.

Stacking makes certain bosses easier.

Stacking on the spider queen prevents her from spitting poison all over the room (her most deadly attack by far). As soon as one person moves out of melee range, she immediately covers the room with an unblockable poison AoE.
Stacking on Subject Alpha in paths 1 and 2 of CoE prevents anyone from getting hit with a dragon’s tooth, as they don’t appear in melee range. It also makes breaking other players out of crystals that much more expedient.

Trash is meant to be skipped. That’s why it’s coined trash. It’s boring, unrewarding and unchallenging, therefore no reason to do it. Which is also why people stack on trash that needs to be killed, to make it quicker so you don’t get bored before the dungeon is finished.

Boss skips, however, are something that should be dealt with. Very few bosses are skippable, but the ones that are (Kholer [AC], Hunting Hound [CM P2], Bridge event [COF P1], Jaddeor Icefist [HOTW P2] just to name a few) shouldn’t be. I’d even argue that some Champions in dungeons (such as the Champion Dredge on the SE P1 Bridge, or the Icebrood Wolf at the start of COE) should be bosses and therefore mandatory.

Stacking is a mechanic, deal with it. The enemies group up, but so do the players. Risk/Reward.

I think the effect of stacking itself is a bit overrated. The thing with enemies in this game is that they aren’t that big most of the time. So, when you get 5 players who melee an enemy, it is extremely hard to not stack on top of each other. I mean, the thief is usually trying to take advantage of flanking strike by standing behind the enemy, but melee combat is extremely close quarters no matter what you do.

Now, there are some issues with stacking, but they aren’t all that widespread. Enemies will change their behavior sometimes, and stacking will lead to enemies not using their most dangerous attacks. Also, many enemies don’t have cleave, so when players stack in one spot, this leads to a bit of a “supertank” where to get even one player down, the enemy has to get all 5 players down essentially

Skipping is a bit of a different issue. I’ve argued with players who skip, and the only conclusion I can come to is that they hate anyone who tells them they shouldn’t skip, and will wildly mischaracterize and insult anyone who disagrees with them. So, this latter half is mostly for people who don’t skip.

There is an often repeated myth that Anet endorses skipping. This isn’t true. Anet currently tolerates skipping. The quote by hrouda is usually misinterpreted as widespread endorsement, but really it is hrouda saying that he hasn’t come up with an adequate solution for it yet. Hrouda left, and now Anet has imposed their solution: arbitrary gates. From doors that don’t open until enemies are dead, to mandatory objectives, to escorts, Anet is designing their dungeons more and more around preventing players from running past mobs.

The act of skipping itself is done for many reasons, and they are not mutually exclusive:

A)Regular players trying to emulate the “1337”. This often ends in failure, with everyone standing around waiting for somebody to run past the mobs, and with people yelling at whomever was picked out of the crowd from the slew of attacks flying at the fleeing players.

B)Players who are rushing for rewards. Dungeons are end-loaded with tokens, so players who want those tokens will run forward as quickly as possible. These players view whomever slows them down as a personal insult, seeing teammates as tools for their wallet and little else.

C)Players who are bored with the content. Of course, this begs the question as to why players are doing something they find boring, but nonetheless there are people who just run dungeons over and over again, no matter how much they detest the act of doing so. I think this is a holdover from other MMOs, where a grind is expected, so they see GW2 dungeons as the skinner box that most MMOs are.

D)Players who find the content too hard. In many dungeons, the enemy groups can be more challenging than the bosses, especially when in glass cannon gear. The boss strategies are hammered out, but the mooks are more dynamic, leading to players dying and wiping frequently at them. This is often counter-productive, since players who can’t fight the regular mobs will often get caught and killed. This leads to players not getting better at the game.

E)Players attempting speedrunning records. This is the most admirable reason, but it is also the most non-applicable reasons (since you can still speedrun against arbitrary gates).

The thing with skipping is that most players who defend skipping will cite the whole “play how I want” mantra, but fail to realize that their actions affect everyone in the game. In particular, Anet must balance rewards for dungeons around the average rate at which dungeons are completed. If dungeons are mostly skipped and speedran, then Anet has to balance rewards around this, and ultimately this negatively impacts players who don’t speed through things.

There is the communal aspect as well. Reason above is the most hostile, and these people will actively seek out and harass those who don’t speed through with them or disagree with gear checks or full GC philosophy. This hostility drives away people who wouldn’t skip, and spreads more hostility against that notion. Soon, players who don’t want to skip can’t find a like minded social circle because they’ve all been run off.

Or something else happens: in stark defiance, players will adopt a hyper-casual mindset, which will cause them to shut off all self improvement or criticism, citing an entitlement mentality when anyone says anything.

No matter how you slice it, playing the game in such a manner to avoid content the devs designed doesn’t turn out well. I’m not a fan of arbitrary gates. I’d rather incentivize early content by speading out tokens and gold instead of just awarding it at the end. But I prefer arbitrary gates to nothing.

Go post: LFG <Dungeon Path> No stacking/skipping.

In all seriousness, it’s all about trying to decrease the length of the run. Stacking makes it a lot easier to kill bosses. Makes PuGs do little mistake if they all listen and follow exactly on the strategy.

Why run it at 20mins when you can do it at 7?

knives.6345:

Go post: LFG <Dungeon Path> No stacking/skipping.

In all seriousness, it’s all about trying to decrease the length of the run. Stacking makes it a lot easier to kill bosses. Makes PuGs do little mistake if they all listen and follow exactly on the strategy.

Why run it at 20mins when you can do it at 7?

Because they’re more interested in the journey then the goal. For instance I took my GF on the Butcher path in HotWs, and she was very disappointed by how short it was. (Luckly for her there’s Fractals) It’s pretty much some people play for the carrot on the stick and other play the game to play the game.
As for the LFG comment, it’s getting harder to find people that would go for that.

Another day, another “stack is exploit, skip is exploit, nerf pls” post. Why must you folks cry for Anet to ruin the way I enjoy playing this game? It’s clear you will not ever be in a speed run group and so will not have to ‘suffer’ through the horror of a quick, efficient stack/skip run. So why so much energy to ruin the way I play?

Help me understand how it is you folks play. Do you attack each enemy separately? Do you refuse to leave the dungeon until every mob is dead? Do you refuse to stay in melee range of enemies? Do you all run around wildly and chose to not take benefits from the boons and utilities of the party?

If you ‘hate’ speed run groups for a reason beside jealousy of loot, time, etc.. (don’t have to admit it here if that’s what it is), please do say what it is. Anet has already said on multiple counts that stacking and skipping work as intended. We know it is not an exploit and it is not broken. So, what is it?

If you go to page 4 of this wonderful subforum, you will find this thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/is-Stacking-the-new-Tanking/page/
It really annoys me that some people start hundreds of threats about the same topic over and over again.

Flissy.4093:

Boss skips, however, are something that should be dealt with. Very few bosses are skippable, but the ones that are (Kholer [AC], Hunting Hound [CM P2], Bridge event [COF P1], Jaddeor Icefist [HOTW P2] just to name a few) shouldn’t be. I’d even argue that some Champions in dungeons (such as the Champion Dredge on the SE P1 Bridge, or the Icebrood Wolf at the start of COE) should be bosses and therefore mandatory.

If they wanted to force you to do bosses they can just have a door refuse to open if you haven’t done so.

By the way, it has officially been stated that Kholer is optional. Just like the troll in the same dungeon.

Dual.8953:

knives.6345:

Go post: LFG <Dungeon Path> No stacking/skipping.

In all seriousness, it’s all about trying to decrease the length of the run. Stacking makes it a lot easier to kill bosses. Makes PuGs do little mistake if they all listen and follow exactly on the strategy.

Why run it at 20mins when you can do it at 7?

Because they’re more interested in the journey then the goal. For instance I took my GF on the Butcher path in HotWs, and she was very disappointed by how short it was. (Luckly for her there’s Fractals) It’s pretty much some people play for the carrot on the stick and other play the game to play the game.
As for the LFG comment, it’s getting harder to find people that would go for that.

Exactly. And people “stacking” is more interested in time vs reward – so why take that away from them?

And for the lfg comment, seems like more people are interested in time vs reward rather than the journey – reality sucks, but that’s the way it is.

I mean, people who like the “journey” can group together as what people who like the “time vs reward” – it’s not each other’s problem if the other cannot find more people…

Lord Kuru.3685:

Flissy.4093:

Boss skips, however, are something that should be dealt with. Very few bosses are skippable, but the ones that are (Kholer [AC], Hunting Hound [CM P2], Bridge event [COF P1], Jaddeor Icefist [HOTW P2] just to name a few) shouldn’t be. I’d even argue that some Champions in dungeons (such as the Champion Dredge on the SE P1 Bridge, or the Icebrood Wolf at the start of COE) should be bosses and therefore mandatory.

If they wanted to force you to do bosses they can just have a door refuse to open if you haven’t done so.

By the way, it has officially been stated that Kholer is optional. Just like the troll in the same dungeon.

I know that some bosses are meant to be optional, but they shouldn’t be optional – why have them otherwise? It’s a boss, deliberate mechanics designed just for that fight and they get skipped.

I’m amazed how many people equate stacking to exploitation. There is nothing exploitative about grouping together for greater control of a fight. Running around like a headless chicken isn’t somehow “legit” because you die more often from having no idea how to control your fights. Deal with it.

These dungeons are designed to be repeatedly farmed for their rewards. The path of least resistance is to assume the greatest control of each encounter to land the most damage. There is absolutely NOTHING you can do about it. It has been a staple of the entire GW franchise since day 1 of Prophecies.

Flissy.4093:

Lord Kuru.3685:

Flissy.4093:

Boss skips, however, are something that should be dealt with. Very few bosses are skippable, but the ones that are (Kholer [AC], Hunting Hound [CM P2], Bridge event [COF P1], Jaddeor Icefist [HOTW P2] just to name a few) shouldn’t be. I’d even argue that some Champions in dungeons (such as the Champion Dredge on the SE P1 Bridge, or the Icebrood Wolf at the start of COE) should be bosses and therefore mandatory.

If they wanted to force you to do bosses they can just have a door refuse to open if you haven’t done so.

By the way, it has officially been stated that Kholer is optional. Just like the troll in the same dungeon.

I know that some bosses are meant to be optional, but they shouldn’t be optional – why have them otherwise? It’s a boss, deliberate mechanics designed just for that fight and they get skipped.

For people who wanted additional loot?

Just make your own LFG, that’s wat i do.

My posts usualy look like this: No flaming/raging/skipping/glitching.
It keeps the Spam 1 zerg bots away and let’s me enjoy the game to it’s fullest. I don’t like the dungeon run mechanic so when i go do one i make sure i enjoy it (i like using my character instead of zerging stuff down).

I have two things to say about this topic,

1) I don’t have any issue with ignoring ennemies when A-net officialy stipulated you weren’t supposed to beat every encounter you saw in a dongeon. (can’t remember where I saw it, but I definitly saw it somewhere).

2) Stacking is an issue in some ways, not because melee can’t keep up with the target (there is enough cripple, immobilized and chill applications to keep it Under control), but instead because of the following issues :
- Sinds combat in GW2 was badly designed and resolve around speed clear.
- Sinds fire fields generate might with blast finisher and those are all about staying packed together and help to speed clear ennemies.

On another note, I think the real issue isn’t related from ignoring the ennemies or stacking properly. The real issue is about using exploits to ignore AI mechanics. AC is a good exemple, because in this case, stacking the party together will unallow some ennemies to use their skill properly, exploiting broken parts of the game to make cheesy runs when players should at least have a bit of challenge.

So to conclude it isn’t stacking or speedrunning we should condemn, but the AI for beeing very badly designed and the players taking advantage of that poorly designed AI to exploit every single broken part of the game.

Re: every “Exploiting Spider Queen” post ever

If being melee, which restricts a foe from using ranged-only attacks, is exploiting, then staying at range to keep enemies from hitting you with melee-only attacks is exploiting. Nerf all longbow exploits!

I find it funny how every time someone brings up this obvious flaw in the game’s design, there are at least a dozen people that reply with: Nu-uuuh, shuuuduuup!

Have higher standards people.

Espionage.3685:

Almost every dungeon I’ve ran so far (after coming back from a few week break), everyone seems to just ignore certain enemies, and LoS others with stacking (the spider queen in AC is a popular one).

Quite frankly, I find it pretty annoying and cheesy. Not to mention, really time wasting too if mistakes are made (such as one person not making it, having to run back, or somebody not stacking properly, getting downed, and causing subsequent downs and death, etc). You didn’t make it to the stack zone through waves of enemies? Either try again by yourself, leave, or get an escort (all wasting the time of those who made it through already), and lose some coin for repair bills. I’ve seen repeated partial and even full-group wipes resulting from just trying to run past enemies.

I spoke up about it on a few occasions, and nobody really cared, which really surprises me. How on earth is that better than to just kill enemies and not have to worry about them later, and even get a bit of loot, gold, and experience in the process? Is killing non-essential enemies really that detrimental?

If I had to have a suggestion to fix this, it would be to have enemies chase you down to the death; like how they do in instances on WoW (if I recall right anyway). I can understand the open PvE space; enemies might not want to chase you to the ends of the earth. A dungeon on the other hand is a finite-space, and I’m sure the enemies there should know this.

I’m wondering whether I’m just unlucky, or if this is a normal thing? I can understand intentional speedrun groups doing this (to an extent; I still find it really cheesy), but this seems to be done in any dungeon that allows for it, story or exp, 80-only or any level.

Most people in groups just explain the concept of stacking and running past enemies as if it was a legitimate mechanic, but surely this couldn’t be the case right? I could also imagine this being somewhat off-putting to newer players too.

This is the case.
Just as you can opt to fight these mobs you can also opt to not fight them – it is a matter of choice and efficiency.

When I do AC I do it for the 1.5 gold at the end of the run – not for the experience, and certainly not to waste time beating the same mobs HUNDREDS of times over.

There is no reward that these " trash mobs " drop that could be worth the time it takes to kill them.

HOWEVER – speed clearing and skipping groups is an OPTION.
An option most players have chosen to take since everybody is pretty much bored with the dungeons anyway. The vast majority run them for profit not pleasure. So you want to get as much gold for as little time.

Almost every day i’ve seen groups form that sound like " dungeon x , full clear no skip" – there are people like you OP – seek them out and play with them but DON’T Force others to see things or worse PLAY THINGS YOUR WAY.

Play how you want is pretty much it.

Espionage.3685:

I don’t buy that argument at all. That’s like stating that everyone who wants to should use an exploit (that’s not intended for use by ArenaNet) to easily gain level 80 in an hour and get full exotics for free, and that said exploit should remain in the game because “people want to do it”.

I may be letting personal bias show, but I really don’t understand why people would want to use cheesy tactics like this. If you really don’t want to go through long dungeons, why do them at all?

If ArenaNet intentionally implemented ways to run past enemies in dungeons and stated such (just because you can do it doesn’t mean it’s intentional), then I guess I don’t really have any argument… But I’m assuming it’s not intended.

Some elements would need to be re-worked. Perhaps some monsters should just have their HP/damage slightly reduced just so it isn’t as-annoying to kill them?

As for stealth, one or some enemies in a pack should have some form of stealth detection. And for an interesting twist, upon seeing a stealthed player, that enemy should throw something that both exposes the player, and binds them to that spot for a short period of time, along with alerting nearby enemies of their group to attack said player and/or the player group if nearby.

The terrain point is a bit trickier. I’m not really too sure what to suggest for this (specific examples might help). Perhaps certain exploit areas should just be blocked off, or maybe for another interesting twist, humanoid-like enemies in dungeons should be aware of such spots, and have traps placed. Maybe even put a turret to watch certain areas too.

Anet has commented on this – and they’ve been very clear.
If you want to fight the mobs – you can do that. If you want to skip the mobs – that’s fine too.
Not every mob inside that dungeon is meant or designed to be fight. You can choose to do it or not.
This is NOT an exploit.

IF they wanted us to fight every mob rooms wouldn’t open until everything in the previous room was dead.
IF they wanted us to not stack they would have made mobs lose aggro and return after a small distance. Or have crazy AOE.

These are VALID tactics not exploits. They’ve been in the game ever since launch. There have been threads like this one before.
If the devs were to agree with you they would have changed the game by now.

it IS intended.
Why?
Because fighting your way through a dungeon is a fun experience. Maybe for the first time, second or third.
But what about the 400th time? Do you still think that player has the same attitude/feeling towards the dungeon?

ALSO
" If you really don’t want to go through long dungeons, why do them at all?"

Because I need the gold. I couldn’t care less about the dungeons that I do at the moment – i’ve done them so many times I can draw them from memory complete with encounters and dialogue.
I want to go in -get the gold – get out asap. And I’m not the only one.

As a side question : how many hours of gametime do you have and how many times have you run AC?

I have a feeling after you’ll have done the dungeons a couple hundred times your views on this will change.

over 24 hours old and it hasn’t been moved to the dungeon subforum?

0.o

Young Somalia.1706:

Re: every “Exploiting Spider Queen” post ever

If being melee, which restricts a foe from using ranged-only attacks, is exploiting, then staying at range to keep enemies from hitting you with melee-only attacks is exploiting. Nerf all longbow exploits!

This. For the love of God, don’t people understand anything about this game? People just find excuses to be anti-meta.

A simple difference between melee and ranged attacks from a boss is suddenly exploiting. What is this world coming to?

Young Somalia.1706:

Re: every “Exploiting Spider Queen” post ever

If being melee, which restricts a foe from using ranged-only attacks, is exploiting, then staying at range to keep enemies from hitting you with melee-only attacks is exploiting. Nerf all longbow exploits!

Auesis.7301:

This. For the love of God, don’t people understand anything about this game? People just find excuses to be anti-meta.

A simple difference between melee and ranged attacks from a boss is suddenly exploiting. What is this world coming to?

May I please ask you to read my post again… I said I’m against people exploiting BROKEN INGAME MECHANICS, if someone exploit his range abilities to kite an ennemy because he has the tools at his disposal to do it, he is playing the game and exploiting his abilities at best (and it’s fine).

If someone finds a small spot where he can attack an ennemy while avoiding all his AoEs during a whole fight (like Arah p3), there is probably an issue right there and the guy exploiting that spot is using a broken element of the game to gain unfair advantage over a challenge (and that’s not fine).

In the case of the AC spider, the AI is just broken, depending to how you confront her she will use her ranged poison fields even if everyone is in melee range, exception made if everyone is packed very close together. Don’t you see a problem right there? Why would she not use her ability, wich works on melee targets, while i’m glued to my allies while she still does it when I just take a step on her flank while still staying in that same melee range? It meens her attack is supposed to target a secondary critter and something is causing an issue in her aggro table when everyone is glued together.

If that’s not broken in some way than I strongly disagree with both of you!

skipping is fun is almost like a Jumping puzzle a good skipper has skill. Look arah P1

If u are a bad skipper u can learn it or use a thief it helps or if u hate skipping make a lfg write Arah P4 no skipping bring a Book and a lot time we will stay here a day to clear it out! HuYAAA!!!

Ambrecombe.4398:

In the case of the AC spider, the AI is just broken, depending to how you confront her she will use her ranged poison fields even if everyone is in melee range, exception made if everyone is packed very close together. Don’t you see a problem right there? Why would she not use her ability, wich works on melee targets, while i’m glued to my allies while she still does it when I just take a step on her flank while still staying in that same melee range? It meens her attack is supposed to target a secondary critter and something is causing an issue in her aggro table when everyone is glued together.

If that’s not broken in some way than I strongly disagree with both of you!

It is not broken. If a possible target is out of range of her melee attack, she will fire off poison fields. Just one is enough. That is all there is to it. I have run AC upwards of 1000 times and I can tell you this for a 100% fact.

Again… don’t blame the players, blame arenanet for making bosses and mobs so lacking.

Honestly, I’m getting tired of this type of threads.
The thing is, all the dungeons in GW2 are poorly made. The boss fights in this game are broken.
I personaly don’t get much of a thrill off of any fights in this game. There are no bosses that actually make my heart skip a beat while fighting it.
I just played for a few days FF14 and while GW2’s combat is a lot more dynamic and fluid. I just love the dungeons in that game. Now I’m not saying that game is better than this game, or anything. But honestly the dungeons/raids/trials over there are exceptionally made. Just a small example: there was this final boss that you had to fight inside a room with 4 candles in the corners. These lanterns would light up during the fight (2, 3, 4 times, depending on how fast the boss dies). If the lanterns weren’t turned off by interacting with them fast enough, they would do massive aoe damage to the whole party. Trash adds would also spawn regularly and aggro the players that tried to turn off the lanterns. The tank had to keep aggro of the boss, the dpsers had to quickly finish off the adds before turning off the lanterns while the healer had to be careful when healing to not get aggro from the boss or adds and keep the tank up.
The amount of coordination in that dungeon required was amazing. And all the dungeons over there were like that (starting from lvl 10)
Trash mobs before the bosses were taken care off in a minute per stack (usually in groups of 3). I don’t know, GW2 is a great game and everything, but I honestly miss dungeons where stuff requires coordination.
Until ANet completely change the current dungeons, people will continue to stack and skip.
Add mechanics to bosses, tone down the trash HP bars, and make it so people actually need to coordinate while playing.
Currently, you don’t have to coordinate at all, all you need to do is stack in a corner and DPS down, while I don’t consider that wrong or anything, I don’t consider it fun.

Ropechef.6192:

over 24 hours old and it hasn’t been moved to the dungeon subforum?

0.o

Maybe the mods are as tired of seeing the daily “skipping/stacking exploiting” thread in the dungeon forum as we are?

to OP, it is easy man …

ask before hand “do you guys stack in dungeon?”

if the answer is yes just quit the group, and good luck find one that doesn’t..

or simply make a guild group We Don’t Stack In [Dun]…

Harper.4173:

…ALSO
" If you really don’t want to go through long dungeons, why do them at all?"

Because I need the gold. I couldn’t care less about the dungeons that I do at the moment – i’ve done them so many times I can draw them from memory complete with encounters and dialogue.
I want to go in -get the gold – get out asap. And I’m not the only one.

As a side question : how many hours of gametime do you have and how many times have you run AC?

I have a feeling after you’ll have done the dungeons a couple hundred times your views on this will change.

Isn’t this what fractals are for though (forgive me if I’m far off with that assumption though; never actually did any yet)? From my “very” limited understanding of them, aren’t they like mini-version variants of dungeons you should be familiar with?

Also, I’m pretty sure either fully clearing dungeons, or skipping through them 400 times will end up pretty boring either way.

As for your reasoning why you want to quickly clear dungeons; that’s like stating you should be able to insta-boost to level 80 in full exotics because you’ve leveled plenty (plenty being different for every person) of other characters to 80 in the past.

I haven’t tried making a group requesting full-clears/no stacks, mostly because I just assumed most people rather “take the easy way”. I’ve never seen any group advertised that stated no stacking and/or no skipping, so with that in mind, I didn’t really assume anyone to be interested in such a thing.

Sins.4782:

Maybe the mods are as tired of seeing the daily “skipping/stacking exploiting” thread in the dungeon forum as we are?

I honestly didn’t figure this to be a popular issue at all, mainly because… everyone seemed to of done it, without question. But I guess it’s interesting to know it is at least discussed.

Espionage.3685:

Isn’t this what fractals are for though (forgive me if I’m far off with that assumption though; never actually did any yet)? From my “very” limited understanding of them, aren’t they like mini-version variants of dungeons you should be familiar with?

No, fractals aren’t shorter versions of other dungeons, they are unique pieces of content. They are individually shorter than some dungeons, yes, but you have to complete 4 in a row to get the full reward and that reward is usually much less than what you get for completing a dungeon that is three times as short.

Espionage.3685:

Also, I’m pretty sure either fully clearing dungeons, or skipping through them 400 times will end up pretty boring either way.

Skipping through the dungeon will be boring for 20 minutes, fully clearing it will be boring for 1 hour.

Espionage.3685:

As for your reasoning why you want to quickly clear dungeons; that’s like stating you should be able to insta-boost to level 80 in full exotics because you’ve leveled plenty (plenty being different for every person) of other characters to 80 in the past.

That is a bit of a skewed analogy, since the methods to skip mobs and clear the dungeons fast are available to us and we can’t just insta-level to 80. The one is using what tools you have at your disposal to quickly and efficiently complete a task, the other is asking someone to do the job for you.

Espionage.3685:

I haven’t tried making a group requesting full-clears/no stacks, mostly because I just assumed most people rather “take the easy way”. I’ve never seen any group advertised that stated no stacking and/or no skipping, so with that in mind, I didn’t really assume anyone to be interested in such a thing.

I have seen groups that state no stacking/skipping, but the reason (I think) that there are so few of these is that the people that preach about the evil that is skipping and stacking don’t want to do a 1 hour AC p1 either, so they either don’t do dungeons at all or adapt to the strategies most pugs use.

Espionage.3685:

I honestly didn’t figure this to be a popular issue at all, mainly because… everyone seemed to of done it, without question. But I guess it’s interesting to know it is at least discussed.

We get one of these threads about every day. I think there are multiple on the front page right now.