Guild Wars 2

Looking at what has been revealed with the Fractals of the mist dungeon, it seems to be an ok dungeon with a new approach. Not everyone likes the style of having a “gated” portion of content.

I am hoping that Arenanet continues to further develop new dungeons, in the same style as the existing options with no gating mechanism, and adds new “vanity” armor sets to work towards.

It is not gated, everybody can play it. Only the most difficult and deepest layers of the dungeon requires the infusions.
If this still falls in your definition of gated I am fine with “gated content”, but it would even turn every sport into gated content since you need professional equipment to be competitive on the highest level.

The deepest layers have better rewards, so yeah… while technically the same dungeon I’d consider that gated yes.

If the deepest layers were just harder and it was only skill that decided how far you go, that would be fine, but no – they require a gear grind to be able to succeed, which is pretty much the definition of content gating

It might cause more gated content in the future. ANET needs give us a real answer or suffer the same fate as Funcom!

Plunder.8195:

It is not gated, everybody can play it. Only the most difficult and deepest layers of the dungeon requires the infusions.
If this still falls in your definition of gated I am fine with “gated content”, but it would even turn every sport into gated content since you need professional equipment to be competitive on the highest level.

Except you don’t get your hockey sticks from playing hockey with twigs first. You don’t farm a bike by running the Tour de France. You buy them or get them supplied by your team.

I understand that the FoM is gated only as you have reached a few runs into the dungeon, but still eventually it becomes necessary that everyone in your party has “agony resistant” gear.

From what I can see, the FoM levels are small single room areas akin to small arenas that will probably have waves of “harder” enemies as you progress farther. Thats fine, it may be ok and even interesting, if that mechanic remains soley in the FoM dungeon.

Im more curious if Arenanet will make more full length dungeons with a story and more full sets of distinct armor sets, rather then repeating more “endless fractal” mini dungeons.

Gated is gated. Without grinding the infusions can you play through all of the difficulties as those who have? No. Gated.

The argument that “you need a certain level of gear to complete anything” is exactly what this is all about. With the gear plateaued you can expect everyone to eventually have the gear required and thus eventually they will all be able to play all of the content with anybody else. And nobody’s going to gear check you before letting you into the party if it’s easy enough to obtain that there’s no way to not have it. The factors that content is designed for after that, is how dedicated you and your team are to improving your own game knowledge and skill rather than repeating easy tasks for more numbers on your gear.

As to the OP, those are my hopes as well.

Can you play any dungeon at all in the game without leveling or getting more than starter gear?

(No, you can’t)

Doesn’t that mean every single dungeon since release has been “gated”?

lordkrall.7241:

Can you play any dungeon at all in the game without leveling or getting more than starter gear?

(No, you can’t)

Doesn’t that mean every single dungeon since release has been “gated”?

For what it’s worth, I would have preferred the game had no levels, or that leveling to top level was more or less a tutorial thing that took like 5 – 10 hours. But regardless, leveling is something people have accepted and expect and for now is required in a game like this (maybe GW3 can have no levels….)

That said, I’d wager you COULD complete any dungeon with a full group of competent players wearing vendor whites at the minimum required level for the dungeon. (full disclosure: I’ve never run Arah)

Would it be harder then facerolling it with a bunch of exotic geared 80s? Yes, of course it would. Would it be worth the time? Maybe, maybe not. But it would be possible – there’s no gearcheck content wall saying you must grind x hours to get items a, b, and c to pass this point.