Guild Wars 2

As a relatively new player, I’d just like to share my experience running this dungeon.

I heard about the notorious Aetherblade path in TA, so on a whim I decided to join a party in LFG to check if the horror stories were true. In short, Yes.

In the first major encounter, the experienced players realized there were new players who couldn’t speed run the content and promptly left. Without the usual run-stack-kill sequence, me and another Aetherpath newbie were pretty much helpless. Instead of cutting our losses and leaving, we decided to actually try to figure out how to do the encounter. Through LFG, players filtered in and we became the ultimate PUG party – no one knew what to do but we knew we wanted to finish. Thus, we learned from trial and error. This involved many many many deaths, but after each wipe, we made progress and improved our strategies.

By the time we reached to the end of our epic 5+ hour quest, we were brothers in arms, we had each others backs, we would die for each other (failed res attempts), and often did. Notably, every member was crucial, all input was valid, and single actions made or broke the encounter. This was easily the most fun I’ve had in this game while playing with complete strangers. Truly, thank you ArenaNet for such a terrible, but amazing dungeonventure.

All I’ve ever really known was – 80s only zerk fast exp pls – stack and proceed to ethnic cleanse. From what I understand this philosophy extends past dungeons into pretty much all the “farming” aspects PvE. This is might old news to everyone else, but it took me over a month to realize this: TL;DR Maybe this game is actually really fun if played as intended. Don’t get me wrong though, that legendary isn’t going to grind itself.

…ethnic cleanse?

have we stooped so low so as to invoke godwin on stacking?

Now try doing it again with a different team. And again and again and again.

^
And after a few hundred runs like that you will be caught up to the rest of us.

I totally agree with you. I’ve expierienced my best only with totally noobish PUGs. Yes, you might be bored, if you do things again and again, but why do you even need it? Really, there are plenty of different ways to get gold in this game, most of them are equal to dungeon farming, or they might be even better. Why do you ruin your game with this “again and again” grind, and spoil fun to every new player that arrives to GW2 and is totally confused that every single LFG message (even for ridiculously easy dungeons) says “zerk, exp, 10k ap”. Some might say that they have all rights to recruit whoever they want, and they will probably be right, but then again – why can’t you, as exp. players just make/join a static group. That is what they do in every game I have ever played, and this is a perfect solution to both “sides”. Seriously, leave LFG to noobies. That’s my opinion. Sorry, if I made any mistakes, but I hope you get what I mean. Have fun! <3

So, the other thread died I guess? Does it ever stop? When will this stacky stop being so fun to people? I mean seriously is there no originality left on this world? Are we all just monkey see monkey do? I don’t know about you guys but I’m sick of every time I join a group I have to avoid like 50 of these ‘stacky here players’.

Thank you and goodnight

Glad you had fun! That sounds like what a first run should be.

And is Maybe seriously complaining that some people use the LFG for finding exp groups instead of using a static? Experienced players are allowed to use it as much as noobies. That’s why there are LFG descriptions. Don’t like the groups available? Start your own.

maha.7902:

…ethnic cleanse?

have we stooped so low so as to invoke godwin on stacking?

He’s using it as a hyperbole term on the efficiency capabilities of that specified strategy. That is not to say we have not stooped that low in regards to your specific question.

EDIT, Off Topic: There used to be a person in one of my guilds who would go off in G Chat about the glorious zerker meta and would constantly spout about how he would love to go up to one of the anti meta people like myself and punch us in the face in real life, talk about how we need to learn how to dodge (despite his constant poor performance on bosses like Mai Trin, how he can bolster about player skill and get cut down by someone so trivial in seconds is beyond me), so yes, we have stooped that low.

dlonie.6547:

Glad you had fun! That sounds like what a first run should be.

And is Maybe seriously complaining that some people use the LFG for finding exp groups instead of using a static? Experienced players are allowed to use it as much as noobies. That’s why there are LFG descriptions. Don’t like the groups available? Start your own.

I am NOT complaining. I am sorry if it really seemed like it. What I was trying to say is that maybe they should give more space to the new or unexperienced players by making static groups instead of farming only with random players using LFG. I am saying this only because I am playing GW2 for about 1.5 year now, and I JUST started doing dungeons, bacically because I met a very kind person who carried me through all the tactics. But when I started to play this game I was mostly freaked out about those recruit messages and I thought that THIS “zerk-10k ap” way is the ONLY normal way to do them. I started to think that dungeon in GW2 is something that a casual player like me cannot afford to do. And I was SO wrong. Most of the dungeons and fractals seemed easy to me (and I am not a very good player, I must say), some of them are a bit harder, but doable with a bit of patience and logic. And I still don’t understand people being mad about a new player entering their exp-op-zerker group, even if this new guy takes only few minutes from your usual run. Like it takes less to find another player or leave group and start another run, than to explain few easy tactics in two words, literally. You know, “don’t stand there, do pew-pew with this”. Is it really THAT hard you have to have a zillion achievement points to do AC or CoF, for example? AP doesn’t give brain, you know. Problem is that people don’t want to communicate, they just want to do their “again and again” fast runs, and that makes me sad. I’m not saying every player is like this, but most of them are, and just like someone said earlier – others start thinking the same way sooner or later, again because they think that this is the only way! That’s not the way to go, this just isn’t what this game is supposed to be.

Again, sorry for my english, cheers!

That’s why the dungeon community has made an attempt to help people with NOOB/ARES. Lots of us like helping people, but at the same time, don’t always want to be taking that route. Personally the only way I can have fun in this game at this point is either by taking some new players through something, or by trying to do everything perfectly( or jsut fractals with my friends). But which one I’m up for depends on my mood. (I will say some of my most fun in th e game is joining “everyone welcome” Arah groups and “soloing” it for them, it’s always nice to feel like a kitten)

Sometimes I just want that super quick clean run of a path like SE1, where we just move through blowing things up and don’t stop blasting and running till the end. When I get inexperienced groups, or even groups using typical PUG tactics, it bores the crap out of me. It’s one thing to teach, it’s another to just stumble through a dungeon because people keep doing the wrong things.

I don’t see it ever ending, I’ve been dealing with it for 15 years (on both ends I used to suck at games). It’s just the way things are, people will always have different motives and opinions. It’d be nice if people could label their LFG posts to their preference but that again is never going to change. There will always be those that join a zerker group looking for a carry, or even advertise for one for the same goal. There will be the inexperienced players who don’t pay attention to it, and then the elitist type players who join groups not suited for them and then act like jerks because they aren’t “good” enough. It’s just something we have to deal with, it’s unfortunate but true.

And as for your english, it’s fine, paragraphs help though

That’s how a first run should always be.

Unfortunately, it’s just impossible to have the same kind of experience a second time: you already have figured the mechanics and have some idea on what works and what doesn’t, and it will only get worse the more times you run the path.
In the end, you’ll be left with nothing but an efficient run to enjoy (specially for Aeterpath, which requires at least 4 players).
You can also join an inexperienced group and try to guide them through the dungeon: it might be a refreshing and fun experience from time to time. You need to realize, however, that, by doing so, you might be depriving them of the kind of experience you’ve just enjoyed.

You were lucky to get people that stayed for those 5 hours. Most inexperienced pugs rage quit when things don’t go right, for some dungeons as early as in first 5mins of the run (that AC spider queen is a great rager filter).

@Maybe
I stayed away from dungeons for 1.5yr not for lfgs, but that every time I tried some dungeon/fractals with other noobs, most of the party left sooner or later. I just wish I met people like OP did.

Yes, this luck makes me jealous, too.

As for this “Unfortunately, it’s just impossible to have the same kind of experience a second time” – not true. Last night I thought that it would be fun to do some world bosses, and you know, I still had a lot of fun and when I see Jormag or Tequatl flying, that makes me think “OMG, this is so EPIC!!1”, even tho I have all the achievements and I really don’t feel like I NEED doing this. And I feel quite the same about every thing in this game. Even farming Silverwastes still seems interesting to me (Hidden Depths event is so much fun!). But well, I am also a very emotional person, maybe that’s the thing.

Maybe.7180:

Yes, this luck makes me jealous, too.

As for this “Unfortunately, it’s just impossible to have the same kind of experience a second time” – not true. Last night I thought that it would be fun to do some world bosses, and you know, I still had a lot of fun and when I see Jormag or Tequatl flying, that makes me think “OMG, this is so EPIC!!1”, even tho I have all the achievements and I really don’t feel like I NEED doing this. And I feel quite the same about every thing in this game. Even farming Silverwastes still seems interesting to me (Hidden Depths event is so much fun!). But well, I am also a very emotional person, maybe that’s the thing.

I meant the experience of understanding the mechanics around a boss/puzzle and figuring out a good strategy from scratch.
Of course the content can still feel epic and fun. It will probably be less frustrating, so maybe even funnier than the first time for those that doesn’t exactly love puzzles.