Guild Wars 2

I recently read the article from Colin Johanson on dungeon difficulty, and sorry Colin but I disagree with you completely. But rather than ranting about it, I would rather open up a bit of meaningful discussion, and bring up how some of these issues could be solved. I apologize in advance for the wall of text. And please note this is not just a mere complaint rant. I want to provide some meaningful discussion on how the dungeons could be improved, because I enjoy pretty much the rest of the game just fine.

How many of us have done one of these dungeons with their guild, only to have pretty much everyone say at the end: “This was horrible, I’m never doing this ever again.” To me, it has happened countless times. Many of my close friends who have played quite a number of MMO’s simply find the dungeons in GW2 “not fun” and “frustrating”. That saddens me a bit, but I find myself in agreement. Whereas in GW1 plenty of dungeons were fun simply for the sake of doing them, the only reason I find myself doing GW2’s dungeons is the armor, but without having fun. I’ll try to explain my personal issues with the dungeons step by step.

Some of the main problems I currently have with dungeons in explorable mode are:

-Immunities
-The invulnerability mechanic
-Obstructed
-Armor repairs
-Gimmicky obstacles
-Waypoints
-Bosses
-DOA

Immunities

I’ve been doing several dungeons lately, and the frustrations have been piling up. There are so many monsters that are completely immune to various trademark necromancer powers, that it almost becomes silly that they are even in the game. And I’m sure necromancers are not the only profession to suffer from this issue. But please tell me what the point of the fear mechanic is, if even the simplest of enemies in any dungeon are completely immune to it? I can understand a tough boss monster being immune to fear (although that also just crushes your options for stratagies). And what about ranged attackers that are hiding behind a tunnel filled with traps? Surely Spectral Grasping would be a clever way to… no, no… they are immune to that as well. Do all of these opponents have to railroad you down one strategy, and completely eliminate every other strategy? It bothers me to no end. Please, for the love of Grenth let us grasp those ranged attackers over to us. And if an enemy has an insta-kill move, allow us to knock him down.

The weird thing is that some giant bosses that I’ve encountered in Honor of the Waves can easily be both feared and knocked down. But a simple ranged soldier in Caudecus is immune to all of the above. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it, no logic, and on top of that the descriptions of the enemies also do not state that they are immune. How are we as players supposed to form a logical strategy?

Invulnerability

-The invulnerability mechanic destroys any advantage that might be gained from making full advantage of height. This is a 3d game, right? This is no longer GW1, we have a Z-axis? So why make monsters completely invulnerable as soon as we find a clever spot to attack them from. These could be fun strategies, FUN being the operative word here. Please get rid of invulnerability and allow us to climb on top of stuff, and attack our enemies from a vantage point.

Oddly enough, there seem to be countless rooms in for example Ascalon Catacombs that were specifically designed so players could make use of height differences. But the moment they do, enemies turn invulnerable because they can’t reach the players, or so it seems. Invulnerability kills strategy, forcing players to be on the same floor as their enemies, and denying them to make use of a strategic position.

Obstructed

While on this subject, I should also bring up the issue with being obstructed. Often players will have a perfect line of sight of an enemy, and still it is considered obstructed, making it impossible to hit. This seems to be more of a bug than a design issue, and probably deserves attention.

Armor repairs

Don’t get me wrong, I understand this mechanic. I understand why it exists. But what it currently does, is punish players for trying to figure out how to tackle a dungeon. This means that attempting a dungeon is mostly a costly affair, where the loot gained from drops often does not way up against the costs of the repairs. I don’t think that’s fair to the players. By all means, make it hard, but don’t make us pay for what is clearly an unfair challenge that requires some kind of gimmicky approach. There are bosses in some of these dungeons that will instantly kill you with one attack, and you will not see it coming. Before you know it you are paying over 9 silver on armor repairs. That’s the equivalent of 8 or 9 quest rewards that are instantly taken from you. I don’t have a problem with the difficulty, I do have a problem with it not being fun, and punishing you for trying.

And then think of Giganticus Lupicus in the Arah dungeon. First time we attempted to take him down, he must have killed us well over 30 times. That’s between 20 and 30 silver down the drain just for trying to figure out the mechanics. It felt like we were being punished for doing the dungeon. Armor Repairs are just a pain. I understand that there should be some kind of punishment for dying, or there would be no difficulty, and players would just grind their way through some encounters. But some dungeon encounters are so absurdly difficult, or take so long, that many players will end up having to release/respawn several times in a row anyway, just to beat one boss. And then the armor repairs add up, and no one is having any fun.

Gimmicky obstacles

There are so many obstacles in these dungeons that eliminate every other common sense strategy, and force you down one narrow path. One way to solve an obstacle, and no other. If you want to talk strategy, that is the death of strategy. That is what makes people look the dungeon up on the wiki. It is not fun. There are various encounters in these dungeons that frustrate players to no end, not just because they are hard, but because there is only one way to do them.

Take for example the tunnel filled with traps during the Butler path in Caudecus Manor. One long tunnel littered with instant death traps, and ranged attackers at the end, which are out of reach of ranged weapons. First thing we tried to do, is find a switch to turn off the traps… nope, no luck. Then we tried using pull-moves such as Spectral Grasp to pull them towards us. Nope, they are immune. Then we tried fearing them. No luck again, they are immune. Teleporting then? Ugh, too far to teleport. Alright lets just all run through and hope someone makes it to the other side.

Another example is the obstacle with the killer bees in Twilight Arbor. The odd thing is here that the thing eventually does shut down if someone made it to the other side, if he ventures down the path far enough. But the players have no way of knowing this. There is no other way to cross this obstacle, and the bees are easily pulled towards the nectar that makes you invisible, making it impossible for anyone to use it. But this part had my party members throwing their keyboards at the walls. Worst of all, is having to respawn, and walk all the way back.

Waypoints

I love waypoints, but they seem very rare in dungeons. Especially just before really hard encounters there seems to be an entire lack of any waypoints. This often forces players to track through the entire dungeon again to return to a boss battle that may or may not be over by the time they run all the way back. A lot of the waypoints seem really inconveniently placed. You would expect a way point to appear in a spot that is closest to your goal, so that you don’t have to run back and forth all the time. But in GW2’s dungeons, the opposite seems to be the rule. I don’t understand this. Why can’t we have waypoints closer to a really difficult boss?

If there is a fear that players will simply grind their way through the boss by respawning countless times, then there is probably something wrong with the boss battle itself. Which brings me to the next point.

Bosses

Take any game that has bosses, and you’ll find that most of them have boss encounters that last anywhere between 5 or 15 minutes. 5 minutes might seem a short time, but most boss battles get tiring and repetitive after 5 minutes, especially if nothing new is introduced in the fight. Take a game like God of War for example, any of those bosses tend to last 5 minutes, with only one being 15 minutes in GoW2 (The Sisters of Fate, which is actually 3 boss battles in one). Boss battles don’t have to take half an hour. There are a lot of bosses in GW2 that have huge health pools, where eventually you are just wailing at him, hoping he’ll kick the bucket soon. Some of them take forever. Giganticus Lupicus for example, or many of the bosses in Honor of the Waves, or Caudecus Manor.

Take that hunting hound for example in Caudecus Manor. That thing takes forever, and its a dog! A dog! We are hitting a dog with meteorshowers, blocks of ice, and everything we can call down from the heavens, and it just won’t die. That battle just keeps going and going, and nothing new happens. He keeps fearing people, we keep hitting him with attacks. Its such a boring affair. Please tone some of the healthpools of these bosses down. They don’t have to take that long to die.

Large healthpools on bosses and enemies cannot disguise that dungeons are in essence really short.

Domain of Anguish

I have to quote Colin on this one:

No they did not view it as the most fun thing in the game. DOA was one of the most painful elite areas to get a group together for, and the only reason people were doing it was for the Armbraces (for which you had to grind countless gems) and for the HOM statue. And it was also a painfully mindless repetitive grind. It was a zone where most encounters revolved around one tank taking all the beating for a while and abusing the simple/dumb ai of the enemies, while the monks spammed their healing like crazy, and everyone else nuked the foes into little pieces. DOA took extremely long, and the different areas were also not balanced in difficulty. The biggest stumbling block was the Foundry of Failed Creations due to its unfair mechanics to lock players in a tiny room with overpowered enemies. It was a pain. You can’t seriously be bringing that up as a good thing?

Players tried EVERYTHING to cheat around the system of DOA because it was so unfair and not fun. They would try to teleport behind gates, they would try to rebirth through walls, they would try to get the final boss Mallyx stuck in the gate, or skip his cutscene to escape his room. And you know what was done? They eliminated all of those clever strategies and forced players to do it one way only.

Oh, and lets not forget about the consumables. Consumables were a must, and it was painful to get everyone to bring their fair share. Consumables in GW1 had to be crafted, and because with the introduction of the Eye of the North expansion everyone started using them, the costs for materials skyrocketed, making them very expensive to craft. So every group would ask players to pay money, and you had no guarantee that the party leader wouldn’t just yell “K, thanks, buh bye” -and run off with your money.

On top of that, paying your share for a consumable set was a bad investment. Often you’d be halfway into the zone, and some jerk would leave the party because he really only needed the gems of one area, and didn’t bring any consumables at all. So at that point your team would be scr*wed! You would not have enough consumables or team members to finish the entire run, and everyone just wasted a lot of gold.

And since Foundry of Failed Creations was the hardest of the 4 DOA areas, most people would always be low on Titan Gems, which dropped only there. And DOA rewarded players with more gems if they did all the area in one run, with each consecutive area rewarding you more gems. So as a logical result of that, people would always do the foundry last. But keep in mind, foundry was also the hardest area. Meaning you could still fail after countless wasted hours, and have wasted a lot of money on consumables.

For the love of all that is holy, please don’t bring DOA up as a good thing! And don’t make GW2’s dungeons like DOA. Please don’t tell me we have to do the whole expensive consumable-set collecting again in order to beat dungeons in explorable mode. Consumables killed fun in GW1. They were too powerful, and too expensive, thus introducing a money requirement to do certain dungeons. It was hard enough to find people to do DOA anyway, since it is basically 4 areas, that could either be done all in one run, or one at a time. So at any time you would have groups that were doing an area you didn’t need, or the entire thing. And they would ALL ask for consumables. You had no choice but to pay money to do DOA.

Fun

But forgive my ranting on DOA, let me get back to the core issue here. Dungeons should be fun.

If I were to design one of these dungeons, I would probably not make them just a lot of corridors filled with enemies with large health pools. I would create set pieces with multiple ways of tackling them. I would involve platforming, puzzling, levers, buttons, siege weaponry (that can be used by both players and enemies), pressure plates, traps (that also affect enemies) and of course a lot more underwater sections as alternative paths.

The idea of each dungeon having 3 paths in explorable mode is good, but that doesn’t mean all 3 have to be lineair experiences. You can have alternative paths within those 3 paths. So instead of creating a tunnel littered with traps and a couple of ranged enemies at the back (Butler path in Caudecus Manor), I would create a large room where crossing the traps is an option. But there may also be a secret way underwater, or a route across some scaffolding that avoids the traps, but involves jumping. The party may even be forced to split up at points, where one player must tackle some tricky platforming, and other players must open gates for him along the way, or shut off dangerous traps on the platforms (while fighting the enemies that guard those devices).

This is what I’m missing in the dungeons right now. Options. I would like to see just hubs with multiple options to an obstacle. You present the players with an obvious conundrum first, then allow them to figure out their own strategy to overcome it. Never was this more obvious than in Sorrow’s Embrace, where there is this big room filled with Dredge and some siege weaponry hitting you from the ledges. Your only options here are, kill everything, or skip it. Just one big room and there basically is nothing else to do than fighting, with one entrance and one exit. Remember in Sorrow’s Furnace how many paths you could take? You could get lost in that place, but THAT was a dungeon. And depending on which route you took, you would be facing different bosses, foes, and obstacles. In Dungeons and Dragons Online even the normal quests have dungeons that are more interesting. They incorporate switches and platforming sections, and multiple orders in which to handle the tasks. There are even quests where stealth is preferred.

I would love to design, -or redesign a dungeon for Guild Wars 2. Maybe the designers were in a hurry, maybe they simply approached it the wrong way. Don’t take any of this criticism as a personal attack, because I have nothing but the greatest respect for GW2’s design team. But currently I have been in so many dungeons where people left “because they were not having fun, and it was only costing them money for armor repairs” or “because it was a nightmare and they are never doing this again”. This is not a matter of the players being inexperienced at the dungeon, its a matter of the dungeons not being fun to begin with, and thus not fun to learn either.

For the record, I think Honor of the Waves is okay. The enemies seem easier, which might be for the best, and it mixes underwater sections and bridges well with just normal corridors. But others such as Caudecus Manor, Ascalon Catacombs and especially Twilight Arbor are not much fun.

-There should be checkpoints before a boss, or at least right after an annoying challenge so you don’t have to redo it every single time.
-Enemies once killed, should stay dead. And they should never ever spawn right underneath your feet. The player cannot anticipate this.
-Once an obstacle has been passed, deactivate it please. We don’t want to redo it every time the boss defeats us.
-Bosses should not take half an hour. Lower the healthpools please.
-Make traps affect enemies equally, like in Sorrow’s Furnace in GW1. Using traps against your enemies adds an extra layer of strategy and it is fun to do.
-Provide multiple ways to tackle obstacles. Don’t force players down one frustrating path.
-Remove invulnerability due to players not being on the same level as enemies.
-Fix issues with players being obstructed, when they have a clear line of sight of their enemy.
-Don’t punish players for trying to learn the dungeon with high armor repair costs. I would not be against removing armor damage completely, but of course that is kind of a drastic change to the whole game.

(If you read all the way to this point, good for you. Thanks for your interest.)

I agree with most of your points the obstructed problem is an error known by Anet and Anet are trying to fix it.

Immunities: there should be Immunities but enemies should also have vulnerabilities, i cant fathom why an ice creature don’t receive double damage from fire damage and how can it be that ice creature boses are immune to it.

Due to the difficulty level of the dungeons Armor repairs should cost about 50% then in the regular world.

The bosses in GW2 are a lot less interesting then the bosses in GW1 most of their mechanics are simpler, their real difficulty is their insane HP and damage output, but there are some cool bosses in there, The funny thing is that the personal story bosses and mechanics are a lot more interesting then the dungeons. Eye of the north gave a promise that Anet never keeped the dungeons ware brilliant ive been in shards of orr more then 100 times and finished it in countless strategies (although my favorite was vloxen excavations)

The main problem in GW2 dungeons is that thy tried to make them feel longer with HP boost and damage output instead of size and mechanics. i want to see real traps that will hinder the foes not like the giant falling traps in surrow’s embrace that can kill the player in a sec but the enemy totally ignore it, why can’t i pull the enemies toward it and see them squish to death, this was a fun tactic in Nightfall’s the first city giant falling bell and in Frostmaw’s Burrows rolling snow balls, it was hard but rewarding.

I agree entirely. It is such a contrast to play Sorrow’s Embrace, because it is not even a shadow of what Sorrow’s Furnace was in GW1. In GW1 is really was fun to lure enemies into traps, but in GW2 enemies are immune to traps completely… unless it is one trap that is specifically placed to kill mobs of enemies (Ascalon Catacombs).

The crushers, the falling bells, the rolling snowballs… all of those were so much fun in GW1 because they affected the players and their enemies alike. It would be so much fun to Spectral Grasp enemies into a flamethrower, and it would open up so many fun strategic possibilities. I don’t understand this design decision at all.

-There should be checkpoints before a boss, or at least right after an annoying challenge so you don’t have to redo it every single time.
The lack of WP is due to because they don’t want you mindlessly zerging. They want you to step back and take the time to re-access why you are failing.

-Enemies once killed, should stay dead. And they should never ever spawn right underneath your feet. The player cannot anticipate this.

They do stay dead. I have no idea what you are talking about. I suspect that you don’t even play dungeons. Unless you are talking about some dungeons that are scripted to have trash mobs that spawn again or the SE dungeon with grenaiders coming after another.

-Once an obstacle has been passed, deactivate it please. We don’t want to redo it every time the boss defeats us.

Every challenge like CoF’s fireballs, CoE’s laser, CM’s spikes, AC’s spikes actually do have a disarm or does disarm itself or they are simple to do and you are mindlessly zerging your way through. I don’t know about TA’s bees.

-Bosses should not take half an hour. Lower the healthpools please.
I agree. HotW really needs to be looked at.

-Make traps affect enemies equally, like in Sorrow’s Furnace in GW1. Using traps against your enemies adds an extra layer of strategy and it is fun to do.

Not really, runs will require people to pull them over and over and over again. It doesn’t add an extra layer of strategy, it just removes them instead because it is easier to pull them to a trap and then you can kill them. If you want traps, bring a ranger/thief trapper or buy the Charr’s land mine consumable.

-Provide multiple ways to tackle obstacles. Don’t force players down one frustrating path.

I agree but players will just choose the path of least resistance, every other path will be ignored.

-Remove invulnerability due to players not being on the same level as enemies.

You mean glancing blows.

-Fix issues with players being obstructed, when they have a clear line of sight of their enemy.
It is already being looked at.

-Don’t punish players for trying to learn the dungeon with high armor repair costs. I would not be against removing armor damage completely, but of course that is kind of a drastic change to the whole game.

Disagreed. Without the High repair cost, players will just mindlessly zerg zerg zerg their way. They will not step back and access the situation and ask themselves why they can’t go forward. If you are highly skilled, you will never die and you will never worry about repair cost.

They do stay dead. I have no idea what you are talking about. I suspect that you don’t even play dungeons. Unless you are talking about some dungeons that are scripted to have trash mobs that spawn again or the SE dungeon with grenaiders coming after another.

I mean the infamous death flowers in Twilight Arbor. These annoying things will spawn right underneath the feet of players, instantly killing them before they even see the flowers. And every time a player dies, he will have to run through the same tunnel filled with insta-kill flowers again. Often, due to bugs I assume, the flowers will be invisible but still just as deadly. These things should just stay dead if you kill them.

Disagreed. Without the High repair cost, players will just mindlessly zerg zerg zerg their way. They will not step back and access the situation and ask themselves why they can’t go forward. If you are highly skilled, you will never die and you will never worry about repair cost.

Yes, if you are highly skilled everything is a piece of cake. But most players aren’t highly skilled. Players have to learn a dungeon first, and shouldn’t be punished for trying to learn it, or discouraged to play it. If a boss encourages a zerg strategy, something might be wrong with the boss encounter itself to get the players so desperate that they are willing to face the repair costs if just for the sake of getting past the boss.

Not really, runs will require people to pull them over and over and over again. It doesn’t add an extra layer of strategy, it just removes them instead because it is easier to pull them to a trap and then you can kill them. If you want traps, bring a ranger/thief trapper or buy the Charr’s land mine consumable.

You are missing the point. Luring enemies into traps used to be a lot of fun in GW1. It would only apply to mobs that happen to be close to a trap, and it also makes sense. Why would any enemy be able to walk through giant crushers as if they do not exist, yet they instantly crush a player? Fun again is the operative word. It allows diverse strategies. Mindlessly beating an enemy over the head with sharp objects is always an option, but it isn’t until you introduce alternatives that combat becomes interesting.

The lack of WP is due to because they don’t want you mindlessly zerging. They want you to step back and take the time to re-access why you are failing.

Does this still apply to the bridge of killer bees in Twilight Arbor? This is basically a none-combat challenge, it takes practice. Does this mean that every player that fails needs to be kicked to the start of the dungeon, run past all the insta-kill flowers again, back to the challenge? The process of having to run through the entire dungeon again to reach a boss is just a dreadful thing regardless if it stops zerg strategies.

I’m not asking for the dungeons to be made more easy. I’m asking for them to be made more fun, and less frustrating.

No the dungeons for the most part are wonderful. The people who think they are bad are bad and should stop trying to run them with bad gear and bad groups.
Would love to be nice but saying the dungeons are bad is insulting the work of people who worked really hard on this game.

I am so glad you wrote your post Mad Queen and I have to say I completely agree with you. I can’t say I have experienced as much as you have though, but that is because of what you stated in some of your post.

My highest character is lvl 69 and I have tried a few runs into AC and CM. And as you stated in your original post, that was enough for me. It left a bad taste in my mouth and I really didn’t want to to experience anymore of dungeons. So I basically stopped.

I gave up posting anything here though anymore cause I didn’t really feel all that positive about how my feelings and opinions would be received. I have read enough posts about being “unskilled”, " a whiner" so on and so forth. So didn’t feel it necessary to continue to invite those responses into my experience.

But I’m so glad you posted what you did. I don’t feel as alone. And another thing you posted as well certainly was my experience also. I had to stop doing my few dungeon runs due to not being able to afford anymore repair bills.

So, to conclude I just wanted to say thanks Mad Queen for taking the time to write and post what you did. And for having the courage to say it.

No the dungeons for the most part are wonderful. The people who think they are bad are bad and should stop trying to run them with bad gear and bad groups.
Would love to be nice but saying the dungeons are bad is insulting the work of people who worked really hard on this game.

I’m sorry you feel that way darling. But I mean no insult. I’m a professional level designer myself, so my intent is not to insult the hard work of those that made these dungeons. I know first hand how much work is involved with designing, creating, scripting and decorating a level. And creating a dungeon is no small effort.

Frankly, I wouldn’t mind having a go and redesigning one of these dungeons myself. I only want these dungeons to be fun, and currently they sadly, despite all the hard work put into them, are not fun. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be fixed.

Oh and thanks for your kind words ToadOfTruth. Know that I am in a guild filled with people who feel exactly the same way as you do. You are definately not alone.

Darling can you list the gear you’re trying to run dungeons in and having such a horrible experience?

Frankly Anet has decided they were competent enough to hire their own devs and you are entitled to your opinion that the dungeons are bad and not fun and only you can correct the design of them but that doesn’t make your opinion any more valid than mine.

Anet is the developer of this game and anyone that doesn’t enjoy the game can always play something else.

Frankly they have already nerfed the dungeons so I don’t see the need for further qq’ing.

You are clearly not understanding the purpose of the post, or you feel insulted because your favorite game is being criticized. Rest assured I am just as much of a passionate Guild Wars player as you are. As I stated in my opening post, the intention is not for mindless QQing because of insufficient gear. My comments are not directed at the difficulty of the dungeons, but at the fun-factor.

I have tried to get my guild to participate in dungeons, but after a few runs most of them experienced it as being such a terrible affair that they never want to play any of the dungeons ever again.

Surely this is a response that deserves some attention from the development team? I can understand that in the rush of getting a game released on time, with as few bugs as possible, concessions have to be made. This can mean that a game is released with dungeons that are far from perfect, despite the obvious talent of the team. And like I said, at no point do I doubt the talent or creative minds of the team responsible. That is not what my post is about. Nor is it about nerfing dungeons.

All I want to call attention to is the “lack of fun”. The missing fun-factor in dungeons. And there is no reason for you to feel offended by that. I am not attacking your favorite game unjustly.

Drew: can you please explain why STORY MODE version of the ascelonian catacombs should require end game gear, it is the hardest story mode dungeon in the game?

I lead few story mode/explorable mode dungeons with people with less then perfect gear we used TeamSpeak to communicate, we never zerged or rushed, pulled and used our brain and the max death toll was two deaths for one player. I do not complain about the difficulty, it is doable in my opinion but it doesn’t mean that thy are fun and it doesn’t say that the dungeons are perfect, there are a lot of aspects that can and should be fixed and i hope that the next dungeons will work better. the core mechanic of the dungeons are mass amount of HP and damage, the damage can be avoided with the right skills and maneuvers but the mass HP pool make the combat less then perfect in many aspects tedious rather the challenging.
If you have GW1 please try to enter vloxen excavations, shards of orr and Slavers’ Exile in hard mode without any gimmicky builds (sorry SoS should be out, and no 3 necro team).

I cant understand how can it be that a game that require good communication can’t provide a voice chat (DDO and LoTRO provide it) or create mini dungeons that will train players for the level difficulty of the dungeons.

Make traps affect enemies equally, like in Sorrow’s Furnace in GW1. Using traps against your enemies adds an extra layer of strategy and it is fun to do.

Not really, runs will require people to pull them over and over and over again. It doesn’t add an extra layer of strategy, it just removes them instead because it is easier to pull them to a trap and then you can kill them. If you want traps, bring a ranger/thief trapper or buy the Charr’s land mine consumable.

If the traps are created smartly pulling the enemy toward it means that the player need to risk his toon’s life, pulling enemies toward the rolling snowballs in Frostmaw’s Burrows meant that you had to walk threw them in order to pull and back in order to escape in this way the player risk his toon’s life twice and take into account that not every pull is perfect.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I’m a professional level designer myself, so my intent is not to insult the hard work of those that made these dungeons. I know first hand how much work is involved with designing, creating, scripting and decorating a level. And creating a dungeon is no small effort.

I am sorry this really irritates me on forums. Calling yourself “X” job title does not immediately make you someone to go running for advice in design or anything in real life.

Some things to note:

Immunities – Totally agree. Its a real hard balance, but I have never ever liked the “well lets just make them immune”. Want to make people not fear? Make it a long duration fear (With DR hitting as you chain fear like in most MMO’s, including EQ) with mobs nearby – they fear – you get adds. People won’t fear. That imo is smart design

Invulnerability – This totally breaks underwater combat. Anyone who has done HoTW path 2/3 can tell ya – having to fight underwater just to have the mob run inside a wall go immune and leesh is terrible.

Obstructed – As you said a bug, but sometimes can be annoying. Nothing game breaking on my runs though.

Armor repairs – This is a dual edged sword. ACex is some of the best money you can get and it is a level 35 dungeon. You can easily run path 1/2 in 15-20 mins and earn a chunk of change. Armor repairs are the sink. Every Modern game has them from EQ2 to WoW, and both have you wipe and wipe and wipe (Especially on raids).

Now if you were to lets say – have Story Mode with free repairs (As story mode is supposed to be built casuals and not hardcore dungeon runners), I would definitely say that is fine. But for explorable? It is fine as is. Also 9 silver in repairs is all fixed in the end (80 reward is roughly 26 silver iirc).

Using Giganticus would be the equal to say comparing a non nerfed heroic dungeon in WoW or EQ2 and can’t be used to “Most pugs”. Especially since he is one of the harder bosses in the game and is located in the “end” dungeon.

Gimmicky obstacles – I totally agree with you. This isn’t even a “GW2” problem it is a genre problem. Back in Everquest they didn’t really restrict you (It got worse as times went on), but way back you can do as you please. Want to kill that mob? Kite it – then they added summoning to stop that. Ok. Lets pull this boss far out so we can ignore adds – Nope he just “looses interest” when you walk past that door. – Ok. Green pet pull! Such a incredible hard tactic to pull off but so worth it – Nope, gotta fix that. You MUST use “X” class to pull. Ok. Ohh man if you keep “X” mob alive it doesn’t respawn so you don’t deal with adds – Nope gotta kill it because we said so. And so the list goes on. The more scripted fights get the more restricted you are. It is why they mock raids and modern dungeon design as “dancing”, because your just following steps made from someone else (Dev) and be kitten if you trip once.

Waypoints – I agree. If you have to WP zerg, your not doing it right and your punishment is armor repair. A good player just doesn’t die in this game (usually).

Bosses (Hp issue) – It varies. Certain mobs/zones are HP battles (Dog/HoTW all paths), but most I have found really aren’t. A lot of the problem is that we can’t see group DPS, because it can vary HUGE from group to group. Were no longer looking for X3 DPS that we know will at least do a min of “X” dmg. Were going LF2M AC explorable path “X”. That changes the dynamics of groups – you can have lets say 5 warriors all be DPS,Tank,Support (I am just using this as simple example) and barely know it till you start killing.

Still the dungeons beat out most I played before – And it is because it is fun to play. I no longer have a healer pumping me with numbers or preventing numbers. Sure I use my brothers healing spring and my banners to provide AE heals, but that is more fun to work with than “Heal/boon me”.

Your really backwards if you think HoTW is fine but TA/AC (Which are speed cleared daily for Easy Cash aren’t) – Butchers is the one people do, and underwater combat is so wonky they have mobs go Superman through the roof.

Butchers path is one of those “bad bosses” that you ignore all totems to DEEPZ the boss because they respawn too fast anyway. That is bad design. Another example is AC path 2 with the turrets that nobody uses.

:EDit – Also anyone else irritated by the amount of boss encounters with no loot (Looking at you CoE)? Nobody seems to bring this up. Mini bosses (Mr. Robot/CM dog) that take 5 mins to kill NEED a chest.

I mean the infamous death flowers in Twilight Arbor. These annoying things will spawn right underneath the feet of players, instantly killing them before they even see the flowers. And every time a player dies, he will have to run through the same tunnel filled with insta-kill flowers again. Often, due to bugs I assume, the flowers will be invisible but still just as deadly. These things should just stay dead if you kill them.

These flowers can also revive you if you kill it if the strategy guide was right.

Yes, if you are highly skilled everything is a piece of cake. But most players aren’t highly skilled. Players have to learn a dungeon first, and shouldn’t be punished for trying to learn it, or discouraged to play it. If a boss encourages a zerg strategy, something might be wrong with the boss encounter itself to get the players so desperate that they are willing to face the repair costs if just for the sake of getting past the boss.

Here is how you can learn, if you die once, you better remember why you die(Fireball to the face). If you make the same mistake twice or three times, then you will remain bad, it won’t make you any better if you have a WP next to the boss. You can also set yourself from the distance and see what tools are there available. Make up a plan and better execute it perfectly.

You are missing the point. Luring enemies into traps used to be a lot of fun in GW1. It would only apply to mobs that happen to be close to a trap, and it also makes sense. Why would any enemy be able to walk through giant crushers as if they do not exist, yet they instantly crush a player? Fun again is the operative word. It allows diverse strategies. Mindlessly beating an enemy over the head with sharp objects is always an option, but it isn’t until you introduce alternatives that combat becomes interesting.

You’re thinking of short term. It is fun for one battle, but if you are going to run the dungeon over and over again, luring mobs to the trap will be the most viable strategy more than beating things in the pulp. In CoF path 2, no one wanted to kill the mobs to defend Magg while he implanted bombs. It was fun for a while, but in the end, it gets tedious and boring.

Again, use Ranger/thieves trap instead. You can place traps and then you can kite the mobs into the traps yourselves. It is the extra layer of strategy that you imagined. Not gimmicks that does major damage or knockdowns.

Does this still apply to the bridge of killer bees in Twilight Arbor? This is basically a none-combat challenge, it takes practice. Does this mean that every player that fails needs to be kicked to the start of the dungeon, run past all the insta-kill flowers again, back to the challenge? The process of having to run through the entire dungeon again to reach a boss is just a dreadful thing regardless if it stops zerg strategies.
I’m not asking for the dungeons to be made more easy. I’m asking for them to be made more fun, and less frustrating.

If the player is bad enough, go ahead and kick them. I kick bad players if he cannot take care of himself well, if he deals little to no damage, or he does not support his teammates. The point of running is so that it will take time to get point A to point B. Otherwise the boss will not reset when your group wipes. It’ll make the dungeon too easy if the boss doesn’t reset.

If you want the game be more fun and less frustrating, why not ask for laser beams that instant kill enemies? Because everything you suggested seems that you just want to make the dungeon easier than it already is.

Yeah I exspected dungeons to be more fun as well,
no they can’t be engineered to be as technical as
those in DDO (Dungeon & Dragons Online), due
to the lack of actual skills known from RPGs, though
something similar could be implemented to work
with the current GW2 system, to make fun dungeons.

In fact some of those jumping puzzles which includes monsters
you have to kill once in a while, I feel they are more fun and
dungeons, rather than the actual dungeons.

I completely agree with each and every point listed by the Mad Queen (expressed in excellenet prose and content) in regard to this PROBLEM. It is a problem and a major one as your personal story goes through these dungeons. Every fact listed by the OP is correct and perfectly stated, and lists all the reasons that I have stopped playing GW2. I feel your personal story should be coherent and it bad enough to have to “grind” your level for so long to level for your next “story mode installment” that you cannot remember what was in the preceeding chapter; so you then add in these “ROADBLOCK” dungeons. Now you have to deal with “impassable dungeons” – yes frankly impossible (due to IRL monetary constraints – the costs of gems is exhorbitant due do how little you get for them); apparently since the players that got done early with these dungeons got ANET to include more difficulty (like what happen in DOA with the added burden of “environment effects” – still managed to do it with heros and no cons, but I digress). I have abandoned GW2 due to the IRL financially impossible nature of the dungeons – I have limited funds and paying alot of IRL currency to simply complete a “story mode” dungeon is non-viable. I see no reason to continue my character since it not possible to complete the story line in its appropriate order. Hopefully Anet will listen to this excellent original post as it is absolutely correct in all its points. The “pay to play” has to balance out with in game play and it does not for “dungeons.”

The real problem is monsters try to kill you when you try to kill them. People don’t want “challenge” we want loot pinatas.

Rhinala this is GW2 not GW1 and they are not the same game.

This game has no subs so why should they feel required to provide a service like teamspeak or vent for free?

I like milkshakes but I don’t think I should get those free if I decide to buy a meal somewhere just because another place has them included with a meal.

Drew: The fact that those game are not identical is not relevant. what i’m stating is the fun factor, difficulty level and boss mechanic. you mean that in GW2 there couldn’t be any trap that will damage the enemy and if the player want to use it that player have to take a huge risk? you mean that In GW2 using elevated spot in order to attack enemies is not possible? I wrote that voice services or mini dungeons that will explain the new mechanics, i don’t believe that Anet will ever provide a service like TS but why cant thy add instanced mini dungeons from level 15, with a dungeon every 5 levels every dungeon will have a raised difficulty until reaching the difficulty level of AC. By the way GW2 used GW1 mechanics in some boss fights like kudu in SE when he summon a golem he is invulnerable and will not attack the player but when the golem is dead the player can attack kudu, this mechanics is similar to shards of orr final boss

Ergo Proxy: Why do you think anyone here want reduced difficulty? did you read the thread or rushed to post because you know what is written?
The dungeons in GW2 are not that hard but sometimes are not fun, there are some brilliant boss fights like the necro boss in CM path 2 or 3 (cant recall sorry) where the player allways have to be on the move. but a lot of the boss fights are tedious.
This thread ask that the tediousness will be replaced with interesting skills.

It seems like i cant Edit my post , sorry that im open a new post for it.
I think that GW2 is a brilliant game, it dose most things correctly. i dont think that the dungeons have a poor design i think that thy are ok but could be great with some tweaking and changes. Dungeon runs require good communication, communication that is hard to receive in written chat (but again doable) and a zerg free run.

this post has been VERY well written you have literally covered EVERYTHING ive thought of when doing dungeons in the last week. i hope ArenaNet takes atleast SOME of your advice with an emphasis on dungeons being both fun AND challenging instead a maddening and extremely annoying chore you must do if you want to get tokens

support + bump
=)

I honestly disagree with most of your points. I’ve been running the dungeons lately and have been really enjoying them.

Immunities
I’ve never ran into this problem. Yes, I play a thief instead of the necromancer but I still get to fear people every now and then when I steal the skull that fears foes. It has almost always worked, even on bosses with defiant stacks. The only times it didn’t work is on mobs with stability (mainly in Arah) or those rooms in CM.

Speaking of which, that’s one example that you mentioned for mobs that were immune to your CC. Only CM has this (from my experiences so far). Why would you put all dungeons in this group if this problem only arises in CM? CM is designed around humans being clever and having set traps for you. So you have to maneuver around those traps. I just did the butler path with a full PUG party, and we breezed through that because we discussed how to get through the room. It was simple.

Invulnerability
Being able to attack mobs from a vantage point, but the monster can’t attack you, how is that fun? You are merely exploiting the boss because he can’t reach you. Unless Anet implements ways for each and every monster int he game to hit people that are on vantage points, I don’t think this will change.
Furthermore, it’s awesome to kite and control the monsters in question instead of finding a safe point and mindlessly spam 1.

Armor Repairs
I don’t mind this. I like the fact that when you die, its noticeable and encourages you to play better.

Gimmicky obstacles
I discussed this a bit in the immunity section. But again, so far, I don’t mind what Anet has thrown at me. I find it fun to figure out the strategy behind fighting a battle and then executing it. If it doesn’t work, figure out what to change and do it again. Or those obstacles like the bees in TA, what’s so difficult about them? If you pull them to the fountain it’s so easy to dodge back to the bridge until they reset so you can get to the fountain again.

Waypoints
I somewhat agree on this. I don’t think there needs to be a WP in front of every single boss room (that’ll make it too easy to zerg it) but some dungeons desperately need closer WPs, TA especially.

Bosses
Again, somewhat agree. Some bosses DO have too much HP and take forever to die, like that stupid dog. Small bosses shouldn’t take too long to kill (which is the case, most of the time). I think big important bosses should retain their large HP pools though, or if anything, nerf them by a small amount.

Fun
Like I said, I’m having a ton of fun running all these dungeons. Not all of them are as straight forward and linear as you think. Back to CM, there was one party where you can easily run past some mobs, go up some stairs, skip a large pack and use LOS to take out the silver snipers. It was great. Arah also has a lot of mobs you can go around depending on the route you take.

Finally, it honestly seems like you’re taking your opinion after doing very few dungeons. Try them a bit more, practice and they won’t be so tough anymore. A good example is giganticus lupicus. He was a huge WTF for me when I first fought him. Now I think he’s a pretty fair boss and just punishes sloppy play. He’s an annoying dog, but he’s cool all the same.
Oh and those TA flowers that spawn on top of you, someone said it earlier in the thread, those things revive you if you go down and you kill one, their awesome.

They don’t revive you if you’re dead. If they happen to spawn underneath you, they instantly down you, and kill you, and then nothing will revive you. Often when running through the tunnels, a whole bunch of invisible death-flowers will explode underneath you, and you are instantly killed. No revive possible.

You may think this rarely happens, but it happens to all the teams I’ve been all the time.

I am sorry this really irritates me on forums. Calling yourself “X” job title does not immediately make you someone to go running for advice in design or anything in real life

I was simply pointing out that I respect the work involved with creating dungeons from a professional point of view. No reason to instantly assume I’m claiming superior knowledge based on my job or credentials. I think the sentence you quoted is quite clear what my meaning is. Why twist it in such a negative light? That was not what I was saying at all.

The flowers are easy to use to rally and are specifically there to harm you if your group doesn’t understand the concept of watching for them and using aoe to kill them as they spawn and if you or your party members are standing in a cloud of green they are going to die.
Many classes have a heal that also removes conditions that make the flowers easier to deal with.
If you die in a downed state you and or your party is doing something wrong. This has nothing to do with the game and EVERYTHING to do with player communication and skill.
The dungeons in this game are strategy and team work based. They are intended to be end level and game content and not something that is easily learned and completed.
If players aren’t able to complete the dungeons they can always level a craft and make their own gear with the EXACT same stats as the armor in this games dungeons or you can buy gems and exchange them for gold and buy the same gear on the TP.

Drew, you didn’t read the opening post thoroughly, nor the points regarding the death-flowers, because you seem to be misunderstanding the issue at hand. First of all, the flowers spawn on top of players, instantly setting them off before they are visible. Second, the flowers spawn and remain invisible, which means you can’t target them. An entire tunnel can seem empty, but when you run in the invisible flowers still explode and instantly kill you.

Thirdly, my post is not about dungeon difficulty. Its about flaws in the design that directly have a negative effect on the fun-factor. There are even flaws that undermine strategy, such as the case of Ascalon Catacombs. In AC explorable you’ll often run into rooms that seem to have been designed with utilizing height differences in mind, yet the invulnerability renders these options impossible, There is a direct conflict here regarding what seems to be intended by the dungeon’s designer(s) and the game mechanics.

Please read what the topic is about. It’s not about dungeon difficulty, I have completed most of these dungeons just fine. Its about them not being fun, and people not wanting to play them ever again.

The game is full of extremely interesting mechanics, and these mechanics are so under used in dungeons. Dungeons are a linear affair, tedious, and take much longer than they should due to enemies with way too much health. Scale their health down and it turns out most dungeons are only a few rooms. The tedium of bosses with way too much health seems to disguise how short the dungeons are. And they could be so much more fun, if they offered more strategy than “how do I hit this mob over the head the most effectively”. The dungeons could have a brilliant mix of underwater and land sections, but it is staggering how few of the dungeons actually make use of underwater. There could be platforming, pulling switches, puzzles, and branching paths.

We know these mechanics are in the game. We know they can be fun. Why aren’t they in most dungeons? Why are the dungeons not more fun than they currently are? Why do they feel frustrating and annoying, rather than fun and challenging?

I experience these frustrations both in story mode and explorable mode. Redoing path 3 of Ascalon Catacombs over and over again, trying to take down the burrows. Respeccing the whole team to do massive aoe damage, discussing tactics how to kite the gravelings… and still we get slaughtered. Its not that its too difficult, but the entire challenge isn’t fun or engaging to begin with. It doesn’t feel rewarding the moment you finally manage to DPS the burrows to death fast enough. And this problem is all over a lot of these dungeons.

The only reason I pointed out Honor of the Waves as slightly less bad, is because at least it doesn’t include gimmicky obstacles. Sure, the bosses have way too much health, and the butcher battle currently doesn’t really work well (because the totems respawn so fast, you might as well not bother). But at least it mixes height differences a little, and it has underwater parts, and interesting environmental hazards, along with overpasses and bridges.

I agree. I ran AC and CM 6 times and wish to never go to either one again. They are poorly designed, don’t require a whole lot of strategy, and mass chaos. And to think i waited ALL the way to lvl 30 for this? ha!