Guild Wars 2

I don’t really understand why end-game (for the most part) content is locked in this way.

But a couple of points and questions:

1. Is there a way to trigger explorable mode with one character, switch and re-enter with another without having everyone kicked out of the instance? I feel like I’ve left a dungeon before, having triggered it myself, and it didn’t result in everyone being removed from the instance. Is there a way to replicate this, or am I misremembering?

2. Why does it exist? Why do we have to play a sometimes completely unrelated story/instance to get to the real rewards, and why do we have to do it with alternate characters as well? Storymode in dungeons like CoE have little resemblance to their explorable versions, so in that case and some others, it’s certainly not serving as some sort of tutorial for said dungeon.

I can only help you answer 1, and yes you can do this without getting everyone kicked out as long as you’re not the party leader. If you’re the party leader and you leave the dungeon or leave your party, everyone gets booted from that instance.