Really, does anyone 100% support the dungeon system in its current state?
Here is a list of problems I see with it.
Time Consuming does not equal Difficulty
Mobs simply take too long to kill, there is nothing really interesting in certain fights, especially if you have already played through the dungeon and you are going in for round 2. Honestly some fights become boring, I would rather spend 5-7 minutes on a mob because my team isn’t doing something right than spending 5-7 minutes on a mob because that is just how long it takes to get its enormous health bar to 0. There is this one Champion mob in the Dungeon with Zoija, which took longer to kill than the epic boss at the end. This fight was not interesting/difficult in any way, it simply padded the time for the dungeon. Something taking a while to do doesnt mean its difficult. Sure this is one example but there are countless others
Rewards
Chests
1 out of maybe every 20+ chests I open in exploratory mode give me something worth any money, almost every time I get useless Blues and Greens. Sure about now you’re thinking about the Token system, but please hold that thought till the next part. The Chest give me no sense of “That was rewarding”. simply just the same as a mob pick up. It is a sad, sad day when you have just taken out this Huge Undead Giant that gave your a group a run for their money at the exciting ending to a dungeon and all he drops is a white lvl 76 war horn and 50 copper, and if you count the chest 2 blues and an extra 1 Silver.
Tokens
The Token system is stupid. Terribly designed. Please if you support this system explain to me why. The thought behind it was, “You don’t have to keep doing dungeons and not getting the drop you needed, every time you complete a dungeon you will work towards something you can use”. Lets us the Citadel of Flames (CoF) for example because everyone is running it and realizes this inherent problem. The first run of the day on any explorable mode yield 30 Tokens (15 from chest, 15 for completion) which there are 3 explorable modes, so lets say it yield 90 for 1st time runs. Now you need 1,380 for just a legendary set armor, and lets say you want a sword and shield, and a great-sword to go on your second set. this ends you up at 2,280 tokens. Now running all 3 modes of the dungeon you need to run it 38 times, that is 114 runs of CoF to get a full set. Okay maybe I over exaggerate, maybe you dont need the sword, shield and great-sword, you only want the sword, so you’re at 1,680, if you run all 3 modes then you’re looking at 28 times per 3 runs that means 84 times running through CoF. Now lets look at the CoF “Speed Run” 30 Tokens for 1st time then 20 tokens for every time after that, just for the armor (1,380) you need to run it 68 times, okay running it 68 times in one day sounds really boring, so lets say you want to do it in a week, 7 day, that rounds up to be about 9 times a day for a week and an extra run in one of those day. I’m sorry but running something 10 times a day for a week to get 1 set of Max Armor is ridiculous . Not only does the Token system take away from the rewarding factor of opening a chest in a dungeon run, but it also makes you grind dungeons. I am not asking for the removal of the token system, simply asking for a re-vamp of doing it, their prices are too high or you don’t get enough tokens. Maybe increasing the Difficulty of the explorable modes and making it so you get enough tokens in 1-2 runs enough to buy you 1 piece of armor then I would be fine with that. At current standings you have to run on average 12 times per 1 piece of gear.
Now please don’t get me wrong, I have had a spectacular time going through some of these dungeons, there are some really interesting mechanics, and some rooms require a great deal of proficiency and skill to get through smoothly. I’m simply stating that the currently Dungeon system is not good at its current state. Simply the fact that it feels like a huge time commitment and lack of rewards really over shadows the great job Anet did with the actual dungeon system, the Narratives are great, the different Mechanics/Gimmicks are fun (at times). I honestly feel Anet has a back-bone of a great dungeon system and experience, it just needs to be refined.