Guild Wars 2

You introduce them to us through the mail system. You introduce the story of the destiny’s edge group into our personal story.

Then you design the dungeon with cheap mechanics and a hair-pulling difficulty, and then afterwards you take our hard-to-hold-onto gold from us in repair costs. Most of your player base (the casual base) is not running your dungeons. Even though they want to see the story, they have rejected your content.

Why did you add this content, in this fashion, when what is probably ~90% of your player base is avoiding it?

Story Mode of dungeons are actually pretty easy. I just did Arah yesterday, the level 80 dungeon with a bunch of randoms. I only died one time and one of the other members didn’t die at all throughout the whole thing.

The dungeons aren’t that hard.. but if your mind can’t handle dodging one 1-shot attack which takes 2 seconds to cast don’t play mmo’s..

If the whole party is dedicated exp modes are challenging, but very do-able.

McDili.1549:

Story Mode of dungeons are actually pretty easy.

QFT, if you want the lore just do the story mode dungeons, explorable mode is not intended for casual PUGs.

As McDili said, story mode isn’t really hard if you know your class.
OP, you just have to accept the fact that the explorable modes are intended to be the hard, high-end PvE content that isn’t mean to be mastered (but certainly can be done) in a few weeks within release.

Jamais vu.5284:

As McDili said, story mode isn’t really hard if you know your class.
OP, you just have to accept the fact that the explorable modes are intended to be the hard, high-end PvE content that isn’t mean to be mastered (but certainly can be done) in a few weeks within release.

My thoughts

Story Mode is a piece of cake if you learn the mechanics of the boss. Once you know a boss’s tricks, it’s extremely easy if you know how to play your class and actually dodge important attacks.

For example, that one golem everyone thinks is too hard in Sorrow’s Embrace? If you learn his patterns, which is not that hard to do, and dodge his flame the fight becomes a piece of cake.

Explorable Mode, on the other hand, isn’t meant to be PUG’d and requires teamwork and communication. Even then, explorable mode isn’t that hard either. Unless you have a terrible group, than you’ll have a terrible time.

People need to understand that even with the holy trinity gone there are still roles that need to be taken, and strategies to be utilized. For example, switching skills for certain fights. Projectile heavy fights should utilize heavy blinds and projectile absorption/reflection. I could go on, but I do agree dungeons could use slight improvement, but to say they have cheap mechanics and hair-pulling difficulty is way exaggerated.

GW2 Dungeons needs to be harder.. this is a joke compared to other games i’v played be4.. lol

Dungeons in Gw2 are horrible, I did the 30-60 dungeons each once and vowed never to do another, I’d rather cut myself.

hate when people say “is easy, i never die, i just kill him whit my noob character” IS a kitty lie, we dont asking more easy dungeons we asking for a less ridiculous dungeons. i dont feel like get killed by 1hit from a random mods…so what my defense mean? why im wasting my time in armor and weapon if i gonna die every hit, AND DONT COME TELL ME USE DODGE, dodge is 2 use and they dont wait untill you dodge bar refill

So here we have a bunch of people who have “<insert bannable word>” that is bigger than everybody elses. Too bad were are so tiny.

Story Mode dungeons are “real easy” ?
Really ?

I bet you play with your friends/guildies only.
I bet one of them, or more, have played a lot of time in the betas.
I bet you had the proper survivability build. (Survivability happens to be a real PvP mindset, not a PvE mindset).

I went into AC StoryMode. With friends. Who were not all the most experienced MMO-players. I had a “glass cannon” build on my Thief. When I went into melee range, I get one-shotted. When I stay at range, I get 2-shotted. If I do nothing (and avoid aggro), I can dodge 2 AoE, and then still get knocked away and one-shotted. Never had such a frustrating night in a looong time. In StoryMode …..

I am pretty sure I am above average skill-level of the average MMO-player. I didn’t stand a chance. How is the average player gonna experience StoryMode AC ? Are they gonna like it ? Are they gonna say “that was a fun dungeon, and a cool story, can’t wait for the next one” ?

I was lvl37 when I entered AC. My mates were 36-38. I guess that was dumb. You’re not supposed to do StoryMode content at the appropriate level. I had a build I enjoyed during leveling. I guess that was stupid, I need to examine the perfect build (and gear choice) as if I am going to do raiding ? “Once you know the bosses, it is easy to dodge them”. I was told it was StoryMode. The bosses give no audio-clues what they’re gonna do. They might give visual clues, but in the hectic fight, I didn’t see much. Maybe I should have studied a guide on the net ? Study a fight, as if I’m going to into a progression raid ? Should I have practiced in lower-level dungeons first ? Oh wait, this was the first dungeon.

It was StoryMode. A dungeon that will tell me a story. And it was the first dungeon. A dungeon that is supposed to lure people over to come and do more dungeons, and play more of this game. AC did not do the job.

Exploration Mode at level-80 is another story. You can make those hard. But StoryMode at the current AoE-fest, rez-fest, zerg-fest ? No thanks.

God forbid we have some decently difficult dungeons in this game , OP. Story modes aren’t all that hard, though some can be a pain.

Gryz lets just give up, they are just gonna say l2p and we suck no matter what data sheets or experience we give to them. Because they have done it, then it must be easy and always same experience to us. Or we just dont DODGE enougf. They completed dungeon we didnt, so we suck and dont know anything about difficulty.

@ Gryz your problem is “I had a “glass cannon” build on my Thief.”

By having less survivability presumably that means you have a higher damage. That means that mobs are A more inclined to attack you and B you can take less hits. Simply put glass cannon builds in dungeons don’t work (speaking about pug groups here, I’m sure there are ways to make them work in organised groups).

You have to remember unlike many other MMOs there is not a single ability to make a mob focus onto you at all times so you cannot expect someone else to take all the hits while you wail on it with really high damage, it simply won’t work.

People need to be responsible for their own survivability, I’ve seen far too many people moaning about how their paper thin build gets one shotted and that means the dungeon is too hard. No, just because normal PvE is easy as heck does not mean you can just faceroll into mobs with no armour and expect to live in dungeons.

End rant.

I am not gonna give up. These forums have just opened. And the next few days I’m gonna spend just as much time here as in the game.

The real problem is in the macro design of the game. The “architecture” of gameplay.

It seems companies think they have to design games in one particular way. Either for the hardcore, or the true casuals. Or they think they can make one dungeon that is good for everyone (Blizzard likes that). It saves them resources in development. But middle-of-the-road approach isn’t always good for anyone.

The true beauty of MMOs is that the world is huge. It can contain content for everyone. We have games with PvE and PvP in one game. Separate content. Why can’t we have content for different levels of skill ? Not everything easy, not everything hard. And not everything exactly in between. Why can’t we have true easy, entry-level, storymode dungeons. And have difficult dungeons.

Right now, we lack the easy dungeons. StoryMode is not story-mode.

Gryz.8376:

I am not gonna give up. These forums have just opened. And the next few days I’m gonna spend just as much time here as in the game.

If you have time for this, better l2p, think about WHY you are dying, and not just whine here. I (many other ppl) will be laughing, after Anet changes nothing in current dungeons. They are fun, challenging, the way they are should be.

Jakeshipton.6520:

@ Gryz your problem is “I had a “glass cannon” build on my Thief.”

Very true.
But nobody told me I couldn’t have a glass cannon build. I know the risks. I have played glass cannon in other games before. I have played a glass cannon during level without problems.

Another problem is that there were only 4 of us. The others were more optimistic than me. Two of them even thought the “gate keeper” was a boss. They wanted to keep going, so I stayed. But still, even if there had been 5 of us, I’d still be dieing 2-3x per trash pull and 4-8x per boss fight. I got a lot of rezzes, I guess a 5th player could help there. But still, it would be impossible to play with a glass build.

Another problem was that I used pistol/pistol. I maybe should have used shortbow. I’ve practiced with it now, it feels a little more robust.

Another problem was that I was 37. Maybe I should have waited till 40. So I could get 20 points in toughess/healing.

I understand aggro, and how glass cannon builds make that worse. But I have played dps for years, in high-end raids. And in pugs with terrible tanks. I know to wait with dps at the start, I know how to switch targets and spread my aggro a bit, I know to stop when I pull aggro (unless mob is almost down). Etc, etc. I know to look for AoE. I have decent reflexes and very low ping. Nothing helped. I get a condition on me, I almost die. I get 1-hit (AoE or direct), I lost 80% of my health.

People need to be responsible for their own survivability, I’ve seen far too many people moaning about how their paper thin build gets one shotted and that means the dungeon is too hard. No, just because normal PvE is easy as heck does not mean you can just faceroll into mobs with no armour and expect to live in dungeons.

End rant.

That was not a rant. That were valid points.
I did make some mistakes. But how was I supposed to know ? It was the first dungeon after all. Where could I have learned ? Also, the word “StoryMode” made me expect something easier.

About your own survivability.
What tools do I have ?
I have one healing ability. It heals me when I do damage. Very nice. But not enough. I can’t use the active ability, because a) it heals me only for 50%, and b) during the cooldown I lose my self-heal-on-doing-damage.
I have no ways to remove conditions. Unless I change my healing ability, and then it’s a) long cooldown, b) I lose my heal-self-on-damage.
I have 2 dodges, with relative slow recharge. Using shortbow with “evade backwards” is kind of another dodge.
There are just not enough tools for survivability. I depend on synergy with other classes, I guess. (Don’t know all the details there yet). And luck. I just didn’t feel I had any control over my character’s faith.

It just feels too much like hardmode dungeons. Not StoryMode. The fighting is pretty hectic. That shouldn’t be too much of a problem. But combined with the contant dieing, being rezzed and/or running back into the fight, it just didn’t feel like fun.

Good i quess you understoond my srcastic joke hidden in the message.

I hope Anet aknowledges persons like Gryz around here who are talking some sense.

Instances should be challanging. But not filled whit mobs whit healthpools of mounteverest and weapons that throw 4-8-8-4 “Big Boy” Locomotives on us. The use of dodge is fine but if as melee i must dodge even basic attacks of mobs im gonna die soon. 2 Evades for melee just aint enougf in situations where you have aggro. Add that also if mob does aoe bigger than 1 evade can get you away from. Death waits.

I find myself agreeing tbh.
I did AC at lvl 30, died a few times but was easy enough once we’d gotten used to things. Aside from having to zerg-kill Vassar and his friend since the boulders did nothing.
Did CM at lvl 40, that one was pretty easy, didn’t die at all.

TA (Story) at lvl 50-ish that is atrocious. Easy enough up till 2nd Champ, then it took us a while, a bit of zerging and lots of kiting but eventually got it done.
Eventually end up at what I think was end-boss, with the Nightmare versions of Rytlock + co.
90mins worth of wiping, Eir one shotting the clothies, Rytlock dashing around knocking people over so Logan could sit on their face.
‘’Hang on!’’ I thought ’’There’s a big tree in the middle of the room!, Let’s do some kiting!‘’
/runs behind tree
Rytlock proceeds to run THROUGH the tree and bash my face in.
My Elementalist and Engineer friends decide to do the same.
Eir shoots THROUGH the tree, one-shots the Ele, while Rytlock goes dashing through to whack the Engi about a bit.
Needless to say, we gave up and I’m very reluctant to go back into a dungeon.

It’s not a case of ‘’L2Dodge Noob’’ or ‘’L2Respec First’’
I can dodge, twice. Usually that’s plenty, but while you need to dodge Eir + Rytlock, there’s your dodges gone. Enjoy the next arrow to the face.

I’m not complaining about difficult dungeons, I’m complaining about ridiculous fights in dungeons. That fight could certainly be toned down a little.

Before this game was released they were very adamant about ‘’Bring the player not the class’’ but it would seem that what classes you bring are important to whether you’ll actually get the dungeon done or not.

Those who say ‘’All Dungeons are easy L2P’’ are either lying, exaggerating, or went in there with a group of friends that can already work together.

I definitely understand that story mode may be a bit overwhelming and should ease new people in a lot better and not just throw you in at the deep end.

And level doesn’t matter too much I did the dungeon with level 30 pugs first time as a level 30 and now i’m 80 and went back to help a friend through i dont find myself doing much more damage or being able to take more hits.

However i’m not sure that I agree about the lack of survivability tools (you learn quickly just how valuable vigor is in dungeons) and being that your playing a thief you have more survivability than you think, obviously you have the usually vigor, swiftness self heal skill but you also have stealth which helps a lot and more importantly smoke combo fields, the ability to make you teams attacks blind enemies helps a lot for team survivability (not so much against bosses but works fantastically against mobs).

okI will admit We ran our lvl25 thief guildmate through AC story and he didnt die when he did what I told him to do.

You are right the game doesn’t really tell you how to use your skillls, set up traits and such. I personally always thought that was a great selling point. Up until yesterday or the day before I had 3-4 different sets of armour on my char at all times. Each specialised in a different role.

TA story. my first time was walked through by an experienced player. PUG. He explained every last detail. He cracked jokes.

We spent the first 5mins going over some rules about who to target first and what skill s we had avail that we could use. I was s/d ele. He told me for the the “room with the nightmare peeps” get infront of eir and use the staff, 4 ability which reflects projectiles, then when it gets close to cooldown drop glyph of storm on her for blinding then tornado her whilst they got rid of her.

We wiped 3 times that whole run. Once meeting the knight the first time. We sorta didnt pull out of hallway and got steamrolled. 2 and 3 because we got distracted after killing eir and forgot to scare away that other weedwoman and she got rezzed.

As for all dungeons being easy l2p. No they arent. BWE1 everyone was crying kholer was the most op sob around. It took my pug group 2 wipes for everyone to say he is moving too much. I went chill/ blind/ immob, a second person went the same. we sat and talked fro about 5 mins then tried again. wiped. Lets try again. Kicked his BUTT easily.

Tried it again with guildmates. wiped like crazy they screamed it was BS OP nonsense. Then I told them you could dodge the throw out thingies.

they raged because I didnt tell them. I simply said " you think anyone told me bwe1?" Wouldnt you feel more kickbutt if you solved your own problems instead of me telling you “what skills to use, when to use them, how to use them”? Why not jsut give me your account and I will explore for you, I will play for you, I will spend hours trying to get to thatkittenrich copper vein hidden in that jumping puzzle, and when I get screenshots of me and that 1 other person who didnt give up with me, I will tell you about it. We then went on tokittenhim and his silly dagger throwing butt in silence.

It is not learn to play, Its learn to observe, look for patterns, stop & communicate, and realise that everything will not run the same for each group.

for cem I usually do the one with protecting the guy near the table. My pug groups usually have enough dps to just stand there and laugh at the gravelings. My guild doesnt have the right kind of dps. we wiped alot. Then hadaal said look at the order at which they come out. take that one that one then this one that one that one. BOOM done no whipe. All because he paid attention during our failed attempts and noticed the pattern. What that pattern is? I dont know I refuse to run it with anyone but him now and he just tells me where to stand. (hypocrisy i knowXP)

run on sentence, lack of proper punctuation bah humbug ill save all that for my research papers not for a game forum

MMO expert? I dont think so. GW1 Fallen Earth STO HKO GW2 couple chinese/korean untraslated tossed in there thats it.

someshta.3809:

when what is probably ~90% of your player base is avoiding it?

Made up numbers are made up. I see people making groups and clearing AC all day er’day.

In order for content to be considered sufficiently challenging, there MUST be a portion of the population who is unable to complete it. If 100% of the player base can down a dungeon, then it’s obviously too easy.

The people who can’t figure out how to clear any of the dungeons in GW2 need to pay attention to the players who can, and then improve their gameplay.

Don’t nerf the dungeons. Force players to buff themselves.

I really hope they don’t make the dungeons easier, even in story mode. The thing is this is the first time through, you aren’t very familiar with your class and its abilities yet. Every class has condition removal, every class has CC — not going in with a glass cannon build and being willing to switch skills or master traits depending on which boss you’re facing at the time is important. But, being difficult this first time, before we’ve learned how the class/encounter/mechanics work gives me hope that it won’t just be a frolic through the park on the 3rd character, or the 8th.

This is an MMO, and I plan to enjoy it for years. Trying to get the devs to make it easier 2 weeks into the game isn’t right. You say, “How was I supposed to know” but now you DO know, and in 2 years when you finally get around to rolling the 8th profession you’re going to seriously KNOW. Right now dungeons, even in story mode, are difficult. I’ll readily admit that. It’s all a learning process. But lets work at learning instead of asking them to make the lesson easier. Figure it out, change your build, go again, if you don’t have the skills you need right now do something else until you can get them, then go again. Someone quitting the game because they didn’t get it easily the very first time is as foolish as asking them to change it because they didn’t get it the first time.

I’ll readily admit that I’m learning to play. Learning what vigor is and how it helps, learning which skills are best for condition removal, and learning to spec in some toughness. Unfortunately, a lot of people say L2P in a nasty and condescending way, when it doesn’t have to be nasty or condescending either one. Ignorance is curable. It’s a process and I’m learning; that doesn’t make me a bad player, it makes me a good player in the making.

Please, A-Net, don’t make this easy for me. Let me learn to play.

Oh, and aren’t dungeons completely optional? I’m up to 50th level in my story and I’ve only completed the 30th level dungeon, so I’m guessing that the story is MY story and the dungeons are Destiny’s Edge story and if I choose to ignore dungeons I can do so and still “finish” the game. I think this actually is the optional, hard, content.

Dungeons are completely optional.
If you have trouble beating dungeons, level up more. Unlock more traits. Get better gear. Learn to play your profession better (try different weapon sets and utilities). Spec more into defensive stats.
When I did Ascalonian Catacombs the first time as a level 35 or so I thought it was friggin’ hard. Taking up my own advice I went back to the dungeon later and completed it pretty easily dying a lot less than my first time.

The moral of the story is. Don’t quit after your first try. Take a break from it if you need. Think of what went wrong.
If you got owned by red AoE circles. Try to learn to dodge faster.
If you got 1-shot. Spec more into defence / bring more defensive skills and buffs.
If you as caster get constantly grabbed by melee, bring snares, blinds and knockbacks.
If you see your teammates making dumb mistakes, don’t yell or swear at them. Be patient and explain to them what they do wrong and how to do better.

Milennin.4825:

Dungeons are completely optional.
If you have trouble beating dungeons, level up more. Unlock more traits. Get better gear. Learn to play your profession better (try different weapon sets and utilities). Spec more into defensive stats.
When I did Ascalonian Catacombs the first time as a level 35 or so I thought it was friggin’ hard. Taking up my own advice I went back to the dungeon later and completed it pretty easily dying a lot less than my first time.

The moral of the story is. Don’t quit after your first try. Take a break from it if you need. Think of what went wrong.
If you got owned by red AoE circles. Try to learn to dodge faster.
If you got 1-shot. Spec more into defence / bring more defensive skills and buffs.
If you as caster get constantly grabbed by melee, bring snares, blinds and knockbacks.
If you see your teammates making dumb mistakes, don’t yell or swear at them. Be patient and explain to them what they do wrong and how to do better.

Dungeons are not necessarily “optional”. Some (all?) are meant to be end game content, which means its one of the only NEW thing to do once you get to lvl 80, other than go farm stuff.

To those saying its mean to be played with friends or guilds: what about us that don’t have/want a guild or have friends who play (or even who play but aren’t on/appropriate level)? How the heck are we supposed to do the explorable mode for the achievements (or heck, even GRIND out the tokens for the armor sets)? It needs to be completable by a casual PUG group, since not everyone is “elite” as you?

skullmount.1758:

Milennin.4825:

Dungeons are completely optional.
If you have trouble beating dungeons, level up more. Unlock more traits. Get better gear. Learn to play your profession better (try different weapon sets and utilities). Spec more into defensive stats.
When I did Ascalonian Catacombs the first time as a level 35 or so I thought it was friggin’ hard. Taking up my own advice I went back to the dungeon later and completed it pretty easily dying a lot less than my first time.

The moral of the story is. Don’t quit after your first try. Take a break from it if you need. Think of what went wrong.
If you got owned by red AoE circles. Try to learn to dodge faster.
If you got 1-shot. Spec more into defence / bring more defensive skills and buffs.
If you as caster get constantly grabbed by melee, bring snares, blinds and knockbacks.
If you see your teammates making dumb mistakes, don’t yell or swear at them. Be patient and explain to them what they do wrong and how to do better.

Dungeons are not necessarily “optional”. Some (all?) are meant to be end game content, which means its one of the only NEW thing to do once you get to lvl 80, other than go farm stuff.

To those saying its mean to be played with friends or guilds: what about us that don’t have/want a guild or have friends who play (or even who play but aren’t on/appropriate level)? How the heck are we supposed to do the explorable mode for the achievements (or heck, even GRIND out the tokens for the armor sets)? It needs to be completable by a casual PUG group, since not everyone is “elite” as you?

But you can complete it with a PUG, though. All my dungeon runs have been PUGs. I’ve never once had to disband a group because the content was too hard and we wiped too much.

Gryz, if your glass cannon build doesn’t work for you, then you need to change your build. I think even an average player that doesn’t do much in MMOs is going to be able to figure that out.

Honestly, Im fine with all the bosses, their difficulty and mechanical setup, you are kinda supposed to wipe the first time if on a full first time group.
What i dont like is that some generic creeps/mobs actually hit harder/have nintendo hard (instakills without taunts or their taunts looking exactly the same as normal attacks * cough eir snipe shot compared to her normal attack cough * or even worse, mobs that ignore collision on projectiles like the snipers in CM explo and i think 8 of em are in normal mode, they can kitten hit you even if you dodged just as they do the smoke from rifle taunt and the red circle around you shines a bit), dungeons give no breathing room between most boss fights. Is it so hard to give 25 mobs of that 5 you can kill with 4 aoe skills instead of giving us 5 spiders smaller than the model of the hand of a charr that take 25 skills to kill?

I like a challenge but dungeons in Gw2 doesn’t feel right and are not fun.

Maybe it’s the un trinity, I don’t know. I would love a decent threat system however.

Maljas.6948:

God forbid we have some decently difficult dungeons in this game , OP. Story modes aren’t all that hard, though some can be a pain.

Why can’t they keep the “decently difficult” content in explorable mode? Go figure…

The first time I did AC was at 35. It was everyone first time. We died many times, but in the process learned how to do the mobs. We completed it.

I took my guildies in the day and still died a bunch but a lot less.

Anyone that says dodging is pointless is wrong. I have been saved many times by dodging out of AOE attacks.

Explorable is harder but still fun. I don’t mind dieing.

The BIG difference between GW2 and lets say WoW is if you die more then once your likely to be booted on the spot.

There is a challenge to these dungeons, you have to constantly move, you have to dodge, you have to actually use a strategy and just not stand there and spam damage as one person tanks.

shaidyn.4016:

someshta.3809:

when what is probably ~90% of your player base is avoiding it?

Made up numbers are made up. I see people making groups and clearing AC all day er’day.

In order for content to be considered sufficiently challenging, there MUST be a portion of the population who is unable to complete it. If 100% of the player base can down a dungeon, then it’s obviously too easy.

The people who can’t figure out how to clear any of the dungeons in GW2 need to pay attention to the players who can, and then improve their gameplay.

Don’t nerf the dungeons. Force players to buff themselves.

You think your small sample is indicative of this massive playerbase. I’ll speak from the perspective of every friend of mine and each of their friends, most of who are not running guild runs.

Also, if you don’t believe my numbers, I would suggest you look at Wow’s sub numbers during their last Cataclsym expansion. And then look at Blizzard’s reaction. You are misinformed, not me.

Aye.8392:

Oh, and aren’t dungeons completely optional? I’m up to 50th level in my story and I’ve only completed the 30th level dungeon, so I’m guessing that the story is MY story and the dungeons are Destiny’s Edge story and if I choose to ignore dungeons I can do so and still “finish” the game. I think this actually is the optional, hard, content.

It’s not presented as optional. They are making efforts to include this content in the primary story.

For who you ask?

I’ll tell you. Not for you. This not WoW. You are NOT guaranteed to succeed in every aspect of the content. If you can’t complete a dungeon, then it’s either you are not good enough or this type of content is not for you and you should find other activity in the game that suits you.

Dungeons are designed in the way not everybody can finish them – this you should accept. Whether they change it or not it’s up to them.

Personally I think dungeons, especially explorer mode are.. too easy.

Have done the first four dungeons in story mode. The dungeons aren’t too hard, there is just no real learning curve. The jump in difficulty from the event content (glass cannon AoE fest most of the time) is quite jarring. They also differ quite drastically in difficulty, both the dungeons themselves and the bosses inside each dungeons.

AC is pretty challenging, especially for the first dungeon. After you know what to look out for, just the lovers are challenging and that one point where you have to pull 3 rangers at once can be tricky, the rest is pretty easy.
CM is just the easiest dungeon, quite the difference there. Should be the first dungeon imo. Also plays boring, the story is pretty boring and… yeah. Kind of a waste, since I really like the scenario, it’s pretty unique.
TA is about the same level as AC, the normal mobs are probably a bit easier. The boss who summons spiders is annoying and the end boss is very chaotic.
SE was a disaster for my group, though the group wasn’t the best to be fair. The Kudu’s fire golem was by far the hardest, the biggest problem was the “heals with conditions” since this completely hosed my necromancer…
The one golem boss was the exact opposite, just stood there and let us kill him.
The end boss was very cool though. Kind of a “puzzle boss”, aka once you know the attack pattern and know how to beat him he’s easy.

Overall, as kind of a casual player, I like the dungeons because they actually are a challenge and force you to learn the combat system, in contrast to the event zerg, which just gets boring after a while. They still need to be looked at in terms of balancing and they should have a difficulty curve instead of just being all over the place in terms of difficulty.
Maybe give each dungeon or boss a mechanical “theme” ? Like one is all about dodging, the other about condition mechanics, the third about learning to interrupt and so on. They should be a basic skill test, but not too hard imo.

ConterK.3972:

GW2 Dungeons needs to be harder.. this is a joke compared to other games i’v played be4.. lol

agreed, everything is a cake walk after you do it once.

skullmount.1758:

Milennin.4825:

Dungeons are completely optional.
If you have trouble beating dungeons, level up more. Unlock more traits. Get better gear. Learn to play your profession better (try different weapon sets and utilities). Spec more into defensive stats.
When I did Ascalonian Catacombs the first time as a level 35 or so I thought it was friggin’ hard. Taking up my own advice I went back to the dungeon later and completed it pretty easily dying a lot less than my first time.

The moral of the story is. Don’t quit after your first try. Take a break from it if you need. Think of what went wrong.
If you got owned by red AoE circles. Try to learn to dodge faster.
If you got 1-shot. Spec more into defence / bring more defensive skills and buffs.
If you as caster get constantly grabbed by melee, bring snares, blinds and knockbacks.
If you see your teammates making dumb mistakes, don’t yell or swear at them. Be patient and explain to them what they do wrong and how to do better.

Dungeons are not necessarily “optional”. Some (all?) are meant to be end game content, which means its one of the only NEW thing to do once you get to lvl 80, other than go farm stuff.

To those saying its mean to be played with friends or guilds: what about us that don’t have/want a guild or have friends who play (or even who play but aren’t on/appropriate level)? How the heck are we supposed to do the explorable mode for the achievements (or heck, even GRIND out the tokens for the armor sets)? It needs to be completable by a casual PUG group, since not everyone is “elite” as you?

I don’t have any friends that do dungeons. I don’t have a guild that does dungeons either. I just join a PUG and run explorable. Not one PUG I’ve joined has not been able to finish an explorable so far.

Milennin.4825:

Dungeons are completely optional.
If you have trouble beating dungeons, level up more. Unlock more traits. Get better gear. Learn to play your profession better (try different weapon sets and utilities). Spec more into defensive stats.
When I did Ascalonian Catacombs the first time as a level 35 or so I thought it was friggin’ hard. Taking up my own advice I went back to the dungeon later and completed it pretty easily dying a lot less than my first time.

The moral of the story is. Don’t quit after your first try. Take a break from it if you need. Think of what went wrong.
If you got owned by red AoE circles. Try to learn to dodge faster.
If you got 1-shot. Spec more into defence / bring more defensive skills and buffs.
If you as caster get constantly grabbed by melee, bring snares, blinds and knockbacks.
If you see your teammates making dumb mistakes, don’t yell or swear at them. Be patient and explain to them what they do wrong and how to do better.

This is pretty much it.
If you’re the kind of person that quits after a few tries, please don’t come to the forums & hope they’ll make the dungeons boringly easy for the rest of us :/.
Enjoy the rest of the PvE, go kill some big dragons, it’s all extremely easy.

That being said I’d still want to encourage people to keep trying, or like the person I quoted stated, take a break and go back once you feel more prepared. No one is forcing the dungeons on you!

I enjoyed pugging each story mode and I’m enjoying going through the explorable content with a group of friends I’ve played previous games with, we’ve had issues but it’s been fun overcoming the challenge of the dungeons and is much more rewarding than if there were no difficulty or challenge at all. As soon as we removed our glass cannon trait setups and started utilizing condition removal skills for particular dungeons, everything went very smoothly.

Communication too is key in explorable and many times pugs don’t wish to communicate which is why story-mode is puggable but explorer mode may not necessarily be so for each of the dungeons currently offered.

I’m by no means a ‘raidpr0’ or anything, I’m just an average player who doesn’t give up and enjoys a good challenge with other average friends who like the MMO genre, and we thoroughly enjoyed majority of the explorable modes and the rewarding feeling when we conquered what others deemed ‘impossible encounters’ via these forums and so many others.

I dont understand how people can find the dungeons here easy. What have you been playing before this that was actually comparable to these dungeons?

In all seriousness i’ve raided end game content that was easier.

THe problem with these dungeons is that there is NO introduction, the abilities of the bosses are way to hard to grasp unless you are being walked through them or know them allready. The guys saying oh lolz this is easy, not its not. Its hard, uts unrewarding and its ruining the fun of the game. YOu alrleady know the dungeon, ehck you most likely found the best spec for your class online and then went on to study every single pull in videos on the net. Well thats not fun nor rewarding in any way, thats just doing it.

Make a vid of you doing a dungeon you dont allready know at the difficulty of AC explorable mode with a class you havent read up on online before doing it.

This content REEKS of wow end game raiding. You have to study before playing for fun.

Everyone needs to run around with the same build to be able to survive. You cant make your own character the way you want because that just doesnt fit the meta of wow mmo’s.

The dungeon system in any mmo is make it or break it for me. This broken thing just…. broke it for me and my friends. We went away from wow because we where tired of raiding. We dont want to continue that here. And pvp is boring :/

Although I haven’t played a lot of MMOs, I did spend a good amount of time in SWTOR. Its true that the dungeons seem a little harder in this game compared to SWTOR, but it’s really not as bad as what people make it out to be. I’m a lvl 35 thief and I’ve cleared AC story and exp. its just a whole different play style and it really isn’t all that bad. I actually like it cause it doesn’t have the old boring “tank and spank” mechanic.

KableZone.9137:

I dont understand how people can find the dungeons here easy. What have you been playing before this that was actually comparable to these dungeons?

In all seriousness i’ve raided end game content that was easier.

THe problem with these dungeons is that there is NO introduction, the abilities of the bosses are way to hard to grasp unless you are being walked through them or know them allready. The guys saying oh lolz this is easy, not its not. Its hard, uts unrewarding and its ruining the fun of the game. YOu alrleady know the dungeon, ehck you most likely found the best spec for your class online and then went on to study every single pull in videos on the net. Well thats not fun nor rewarding in any way, thats just doing it.

Make a vid of you doing a dungeon you dont allready know at the difficulty of AC explorable mode with a class you havent read up on online before doing it.

This content REEKS of wow end game raiding. You have to study before playing for fun.

Everyone needs to run around with the same build to be able to survive. You cant make your own character the way you want because that just doesnt fit the meta of wow mmo’s.

The dungeon system in any mmo is make it or break it for me. This broken thing just…. broke it for me and my friends. We went away from wow because we where tired of raiding. We dont want to continue that here. And pvp is boring :/

This is not true at all.
Any player using common sense and playing experience can run a dungeon.
Common sense including:
-Don’t spec in offence only
-Use your dodge wisely
-Know your skills and weapon swap wherever needed
-Be willing to adapt to the situation (if a mob keeps chasing you, focus more on snares and knockbacks)
-Don’t treat dungeons as mindless DPS zergfests. Work with your teammates. Use support and res downed people.
I never looked up guides or builds online. I run my own build that I use everywhere in PvE, join PUGs for dungeons, never looked up a guide for a dungeon.
The only difference for me in dungeons is that I use staff instead of dual dagger as Elementalist. Bring a different Elite skill. And maybe a different utility if it seems needed somewhere in the dungeon.

With an organized group -dungeons can be a breeze. Without that organization -dungeons are a chore. My limit is now only 1 pug per dungeon run. 2 Pugs that refuse to follow direction will ruin your dungeon run.

Creepjack.2851:

For who you ask?

I’ll tell you. Not for you. This not WoW. You are NOT guaranteed to succeed in every aspect of the content. If you can’t complete a dungeon, then it’s either you are not good enough or this type of content is not for you and you should find other activity in the game that suits you.

Dungeons are designed in the way not everybody can finish them – this you should accept. Whether they change it or not it’s up to them.

Personally I think dungeons, especially explorer mode are.. too easy.

I’ll tell you who dungeons aren’t for: they aren’t for people who want to play with a certain trait/weapon setup. I’m sure I could sleepwalk and auto-strafe my way through dungeons using a bow or a rifle, but frankly I find that type of gameplay snooze-worthy. GW2’s combat system is not competitive with a polished FPS, which is what I’d play if I wanted to concede that ranged is hands-down superior to melee in every way.

Melee Damage is not a viable role. I’m not interested in playing a game where a significant chunk of the “skill” involved is back-loaded onto simply picking the “right” spec. If that “right” spec were different for every boss fight and trash pack, then maybe it’d be justifiable. However, it’s not. It’s not even close to that. It’s “ranged unless there’s a very specific anti-ranged gimmick.” It’s “support/control are infinitely superior to damage.” It’s “if you want to play melee, spec full tank or prepare for a gibfest.”

Ultimately, GW2’s combat system didn’t solve a central issue of MMORPG’s and ARPG’s, which is that dealing melee damage is tons of fun, but isn’t complex or engaging enough to actually require any skill.

With the way dungeons are set up right now, I personally don’t think players should be able to spec out of support/control, ever. It’s clearly not intended for them to do so, so why dangle the carrot of glass cannon builds, which a huge chunk of the playerbase finds so much fun?

The Dungeons are ridiculous.. I sometimes find myself wishing to respec traits to full defense, but the gold cost and lack of trainer in dungeon makes it impossible.

Which leaves to me think that when you do a dungeon, your group must have a dedicated TANK before attempting the dungeon. Choose not to bring a dedicated tank and you’ll have a big repair bill from all the wipes.

I really thought since GW2 did away with the HOLY TRINITY you could enter dungeons with any composition of players, but obviously this mostly applies to open world PVE and not Dungeons.

Sorry you’re playing a game that takes some skill to win……

KableZone.9137:

I dont understand how people can find the dungeons here easy. What have you been playing before this that was actually comparable to these dungeons?

In all seriousness i’ve raided end game content that was easier.

THe problem with these dungeons is that there is NO introduction, the abilities of the bosses are way to hard to grasp unless you are being walked through them or know them allready. The guys saying oh lolz this is easy, not its not. Its hard, uts unrewarding and its ruining the fun of the game. YOu alrleady know the dungeon, ehck you most likely found the best spec for your class online and then went on to study every single pull in videos on the net. Well thats not fun nor rewarding in any way, thats just doing it.

Make a vid of you doing a dungeon you dont allready know at the difficulty of AC explorable mode with a class you havent read up on online before doing it.

This content REEKS of wow end game raiding. You have to study before playing for fun.

Everyone needs to run around with the same build to be able to survive. You cant make your own character the way you want because that just doesnt fit the meta of wow mmo’s.

The dungeon system in any mmo is make it or break it for me. This broken thing just…. broke it for me and my friends. We went away from wow because we where tired of raiding. We dont want to continue that here. And pvp is boring :/

During beta I believe our team wiped 2 times when fighting Vassar & Ralena in AC story.
Then we noticed the hearts popping up whenever they were next to eachother, we separated them and it was much easier after that.
Now after launch I noticed they have no “Unshakeable/Defiant” status. So you could pretty much keep them knocked down forever with the hundreds of boulders that lie around the room and have the other 3 killing them if it really came to that.
That’s just an example how we learned from our mistakes(by we I mean I or whatever pug I joined at the time) and didn’t need to look anywhere online or be taught by anyone how to beat it.

The whole game is end game content.
Once you’ve done all explorable paths in all dungeons, you’re pretty much with the game when it comes to PvE.
Yes they should be hard, you should wipe a few times, maybe even quit and come back when better prepared(when you learn to use your skills, learn to dodge, how combos work(25 stacks of might for 30 sec on whole party melts all enemies away)).

Ukaei.8694:

The Dungeons are ridiculous.. I sometimes find myself wishing to respec traits to full defense, but the gold cost and lack of trainer in dungeon makes it impossible.

Retraiting costs ~3.5 silver at around level 80 =/.

DonQuack.9025:

It is not learn to play, Its learn to observe, look for patterns, stop & communicate, and realise that everything will not run the same for each group.

i like this bit. mainly because (and i was guilty of it), there’s an inherent need to “rush” through mmos. especially dungeons. everyone wants to hurry up. get to the end. fast fast fast! hey, can you “run” me through?

but gw2, especially with dungeons, seems to be asking you to slow down. to smell the roses, so to speak. to pay attention.

i think the majority of people having problems seem to have jumped in, looked for traits and skills which give them “moar powerz” and the run headfirst into the nearest boss’ fist. they’ve died. then gone, “hey! it needz nerfz!”

as it shows, it needs more communication and more teamwork to get through the tough fights. which it would, because it’s not as simple as the trinity any more. you need to work together. look at your combos, take your turns with the cc and think on your feet.

and how is that not the greatest challenge a game can give you? i never understood the appeal of wow dungeons, myself. they were too much like mario brothers. you really could learn every single step of the dungeon and literally play it blindfolded. by the end, you could faceroll them. i think gw2 has given enough mario brothers in its jumping puzzles.

everyone was always demanding more challenging dungeons. they wanted to have to work as a team. demanded it be hardcaw. i am finding it rather surprising those same people are now demanding it all go back to the fluffy handholding of wow.

Cyferwolf.1089:

Gryz, if your glass cannon build doesn’t work for you, then you need to change your build. I think even an average player that doesn’t do much in MMOs is going to be able to figure that out.

Yep, I know that now.
But I had rather learned it while playing. Not by reading forums or guides on the Internet. E.g. by doing increasingly harder dungeons in Story Mode. That give you time to learn and adjust before you hit level-80 and start doing the harder dungeons. Not by being hit by a big truck immediately the moment I step out of my front door.

Btw, I’ve read more suggestions on these forums. Just speccing health, toughness and healing isn’t enough. You need traits/abilities that remove conditions. You need traits that give vigor (to recharge your dodging quicker). Dps should go ranged, you can’t do melee. I was also told you need different sets of gear while leveling, to be successful in doing dungeons (before being lvl80).
You seem to need lots of specific stuff in your build, or else you’re an idiot for not having the right spec.