Guild Wars 2

The good:

• Dungeon layouts are unique
• Scripting is well implemented (story mode)
• Dungeons unlock at just the right points in character level progression

The bad:

• Armor repair cost can kill you and if you wipe the dungeon run will cost much more than it earns. While dungeon’s should not be without risk, by making armor repair cost the primary risk you add an unhealthy dynamic to the team. Level 80’s in a lower level team may go down 3-4 times and up up with 12-15 silver in armor repair for a lower level dungeon that’s not going to pay out well. The current system discourages higher level players from taking risk and playing with lower level groups unexperienced in the dungeon because it will cost them.

• General lack of puzzles

• Team strategy as a requirement is almost non existent in this game and this is felt most perhaps in dungeons. Every aspect seems to be designed around independent play experience (I’ll play how I want attitude). You don’t need anyone except for a res and in dungeon’s while support classes are putting up boons most players probably aren’t noticing this effort. This is the flip-side of the holy trinity being gone and the end result in dungeons is the every man for himself feel. It’s alright. There is some entertainment value still, but the team feel is gone. I’ve heard GW2 referred to as the loneliest MMO ever and I’m starting to understand that.

• The end boss(s) are 10x harder than all the smaller bosses. Unbalanced.

• Anomalies are abundant (doing Twilight Arbor story mode for the 3rd time. I’m level 76. I’m scaled down but I am wearing level 72 gear. I just did armor repair. I run into the final boss zone and Logan takes me down with 1 hit. I was at full health).

• The payout in general in dungeons seems weak but I will admit this one is my opinion.

Suggestions:

• Remove armor repair cost in dungeons instead add dungeon admission tokens (call them something better than that) to the game. You could also just make dungeons free to enter, but I think there should be some risk associated. Make them something you have to purchase for karma or coin from a vendor. This way everyone puts up equal risk up front before entering. As current system is designed higher levels joining lower level players in dungeons are putting up much more risk in armor repair if they end up with a weak team.

• Add puzzles

• Create scenarios that require team strategy that adapts to the team. For game developers scripting for holy trinity scenarios it’s linear. You’ve chosen to make GW2 non-linear so my expectations would be dungeons would adapt and toss out challenges for defeating specific groups based around the five player group. If I have a team of 5 eles I would imagine they should face different challenges than five Warriors. If you want to add the team feel back this is one suggestion.

Actions I’m taking:

• I won’t run dungeons unless most of the team is the same level as my character and has done the dungeon before

• I will inquire about other players individual strategy (since there is no team strategy it’s very hard to nail down the weak links in the team and address those issues with constructive criticism or to finger point and ask them to leave)

I’ll probably end up just avoiding dungeons for the most part unless I have a team of level 80s to run it with me.

My only gripes about the dungeons are:

1) The extremely high rate of glitches and bugs in them. Obviously this will be fixed sooner or later, so hopefully it ends up being a “sooner.”

2) The fact that dying seems like a “fact of life” in dungeons. I can understand being downed, but it’s very commonplace for people to get completely killed and have to run back. The lack of a decent/fast rez capability (from total death) in the middle of a boss fight exacerbates this. Most deaths are avoidable, but not all players are capable of avoiding them 100% of the time. Plus one player getting downed often leads to another player getting downed while trying to rez them.

3) The loco cost of repairs. Repairs across the board are an order of magnitude higher than they should be. In support of the OP, in dungeons, deaths should a) NOT damage your gear, b) repairs in-dungeon should be free, or c) repairs should have dramatically reduced cost.

Hickeroar, Deaths and repairs aren’t too bad when you quit dying wink. If someone wont stop dying, well, thats not the games fault.

I won’t run dungeons unless I have a full group of competent guildies to run it with. But then again, that’s been my philosophy for the last 7 years, nothing new for me in this game.

Efaicia.3672:

Hickeroar, Deaths and repairs aren’t too bad when you quit dying wink. If someone wont stop dying, well, thats not the games fault.

I guess you just ignored the whole section of my post when I mentioned repeated death in dungeons in context of running the dungeon with less experienced leveled players who at lower levels and thus have less risk in terms of cost of armor repair. I’ve run the same dungeon with similar level players and dropped to down state three times, only died once. If you’re going to respond it would be nice if you would understand the comments.

I believe you missed my entire point

SamTheGuardian.2938:

Efaicia.3672:

Hickeroar, Deaths and repairs aren’t too bad when you quit dying wink. If someone wont stop dying, well, thats not the games fault.

I guess you just ignored the whole section of my post when I mentioned repeated death in dungeons in context of running the dungeon with less experienced leveled players who at lower levels and thus have less risk in terms of cost of armor repair. I’ve run the same dungeon with similar level players and dropped to down state three times, only died once. If you’re going to respond it would be nice if you would understand the comments.
I believe you missed my entire point

No, I neither ignored it nor failed to understand it. It seems to me that you failed to understand that section of my post where I said “If the player wont stop dying, that is not the games fault.”