Guild Wars 2

Most of the regulars here have frequently expressed annoyance and irritation at how the game has been managed. Some of us still play, some of us don’t.

I think it’s safe to say that for most of us, dungeons are the most enjoyable part of the game. It’s also safe to say that this aspect of the game has been neglected since launch. There’ve been a few tweaks here and there, even one new path (at the expense of TAFU) when the LS was generous enough to meander into our realm. But for being 2 years into the game’s life, there really isn’t a whole lot to show for it. Worse, the people at ANet/NCSoft who used to regularly communicate with us and let us know that there might be more changes coming have been laid off (RIP Hrouda), likely due to a shift in focus by management (content —> gems). We have the same stale content we’ve mastered long ago, now the only “challenges” left are speed clears and soloing.

So, fellow dungeoneers, rather than just complaining and begging for new content (And, yes, I know I’m probably one of the biggest whiners on here), let’s discuss what things have been done right.

What keeps you here? Which aspects of the gameplay keep you engaged? What about the dungeons keeps you coming back? Is it even the game, or is it a social reason? Or perhaps just some personal desire to reach “the next level”, whatever that means to you (e.g. being able to solo, learn all classes, get every legendary, etc)?

On the other side of the coin, if you no longer actively play and just hang around the Dungeon subforum for the delightful, quirky atmosphere, what was the final straw that made you stop playing?

Friends, community and hope (futile hope) is the only thing keeping me here. That and theres no other games I want to play.

I stopped playing a while back because i felt completely burnt out. I couldnt even motivate myself to leech dungeons off the guild. The lack of new skills and end game content this late into the game has finally taken its toll. Theres no freshness anymore. The season 2 patches are what caused me to finally give up i think. They gave me some content to enjoy for a day, but after that i couldnt be bothered to do anything else.

I will be playing a bit again soon. But i dont expect ill ever get back to being fully active like i was several months ago. Unless we get some new stuff which makes the game feel fresh (new weapons, skills and dungeons).

Friends.

I stopped playing actively because it was getting boring. Same kitten, different day. I’ve clocked nearly 3.9k hours on this game, and now I’m suffering from the burnout. Never mind the fact that I live in the SEA timezone and am still studying, which makes it difficult for me to join you lovely forumers for a run (reference point: reset is at 8 am for me).

Now I really want a reason to get back into the game, but as far as I can see the only thing that can make me start playing actively is to have a stable crew. I used to have one, made up of my RL close friends, but that was back when I was an uninformed (and bad) player. I chose to adopt the meta and get better, but my friends… well, let’s say they weren’t as receptive to the meta and efficiency as I am. They eventually went casual and ultimately quit. This was around the time I started showing up more actively in this forum.

Over the past 6 months I’ve been playing on and off, with the bulk of my playtime in this interval being in the first 3 months. I gradually lost interest as I was unable to find a solid group of runners. I applied to and joined LOD in hopes of finding one, but how was I to know that nearly all of the active OCX core (who had extended an invitation to trial to me) just upped and left 3 days later? I just left as well (perhaps a mistake on hindsight).
I continued playing a little with them following the split, but after some of them became part of DnT I started losing touch with the group.

I later joined ZERK, but by this time I had already lost a lot of interest, and I felt like I was being haunted by failure (some of you might know what this failure is, all I can say is it happened twice, and both times due to impatience). Lots of other factors combined with lack of interest led to me vanishing with barely a trace.
All of these affected my forum activity as well. Since I was no longer playing actively, my information was no longer up to date. And since my info was no longer up to date, what could I help people with? I hate misinforming people, and any advice I could give others could do better. So I just stopped appearing as much. It’s a vicious cycle – the less I show up, the less people remember me. One day I’ll probably just vanish completely, and when I appear again I’ll feel so strange and alien. Heh.

So there you have it! My own story. Make what you will of it. Meanwhile… I’ll go lurk somewhere.

I haven’t played for a month, came back, logged in, didn’t feel like playing, logged out.

I might be taking an even longer break now or just play a dungeon here and there and that’s it.

I’m only here because of gw2dungeons.

The combat, and getting arah recordings done. <5 lupicus, alphard w/box intact, ooze, wraithlord, balthazar and lyssa solos still on my to-do list in addition to a belka that doesn’t suck (<2 min). The dungeon forum is just a toxic hellhole full of people whining about ‘casuals’ and ‘pugs’ rather than trying to just get over it and realise not everyone is going to play on their level.

Friends and fractals and fashion.

I’m not even sure.

I like the combat system, and I guess I see some potential in the game, and am foolish enough to hope for ANET to exploit it.

Also, Holy Trinity of DPS.

Friends mostly, waiting for another game to come out to jump ship. Currently fashioning my characters up.

FenrirSlakt.3692:

I like the combat system, and I guess I see some potential in the game, and am foolish enough to hope for ANET to exploit it.

I was getting ready to write my reply, but you just did it for me :-) I’ve tried a few others, but it’s always been the better combat system that brought me back.

Combat is so fun in GW2. I wish we’d get more long-term, instanced, challenging content to use it in :-(

Wildstar sounds interesting, but investing in a subscription for a game that was made by the folks who have abandoned this one…no thanks.

Once something else comes along I see little reason to stay. They had a great thing here, and they’ve let it rot.

dlonie.6547:

FenrirSlakt.3692:

I like the combat system, and I guess I see some potential in the game, and am foolish enough to hope for ANET to exploit it.

I was getting ready to write my reply, but you just did it for me :-) I’ve tried a few others, but it’s always been the better combat system that brought me back.

Combat is so fun in GW2. I wish we’d get more long-term, instanced, challenging content to use it in :-(

Wildstar sounds interesting, but investing in a subscription for a game that was made by the folks who have abandoned this one…no thanks.

Once something else comes along I see little reason to stay. They had a great thing here, and they’ve let it rot.

hey, very few games threw out the trinity. The question is how long before they can create new encounters that are much more interesting than grawl shaman.

I want a boss that has an large array of aoe but those aoes do little damage. His one hit ko attacks are telegraphed.

edit: anet overzealous work filter. Removing somewhat common words.

I stay because of rT
The game gives enormous room for creativity and that’s what we like to play with in the guild. Sometimes it does not pay off, but it’s always fun

I also really enjoyed the idea of competitive PvE.

I enjoy the gw2 combat system, and even now I still enjoy dungeons. What keeps it fresh for me is that I solo on every class, and I pug regularly on every class. On occasion I run tours or dungeons with some your guilds when you guys need a 5th, and it is fun being able to blast through all the paths effortlessly. But I feel that if that was all I did it would quickly become a grind (note that for me dungeons are not a grind.. yet anyway) and I would get burnt out so fast. Sometimes when ppl on my friendslist ask me if to join for tour, i usually tell’em something like “sure, if you don’t mind me bringing my mesmer/necro” Sometimes they don’t care but, if they do I don’t mind, why bother making a premade when someone is bringing a useless class lol.

Playing in pugs and not expecting speedy runs definitely changes up the daily routine. I enjoy the higher chances of fail and thinking up of ways to carry. Not to say that things don’t get frustrating from time to time, but it comes with the territory.

So I’m still going strong.

I’m curious though, what is everyone’s Hobby Dungeon Explorer number? That would be interesting to see along with your responses.

I lost intrest in this game around the new year mark. That was the point when a couple of my friend also quit the game.
I came back when some idiots in the warrior forum were claiming bullkitten about PS builds.
I wanted to do some wvw back then, but my motivation quickly died due to having to face zergwars2 multiple weeks in a row.
The tournament of dungeon legends gave me back some intention to play, but after that I lost my internet connection for a couple of weeks and haven’t logged back in.
The reason why I quit the game is simple: The lack of challenging content. Catering to baddies (not casuals, playing casual doesn’t mean beeing bad at the game) for the majority of time, even robbing players of their achievements and replacing more and more parts of the game with passive stats/effects to let thy autoattack be the ruler of all.
Having no good solution for pvp vs pve mechanics(split, different stats, different scaling etc.pp.) and neglegting, even ridiculing wvw, it’s balance and matchmaking made the pvp part boring too.
Lastly lazy fixes of glitches and bugs (invisible walls and such) instead of really getting to the root of evil made “exploration” in arah nigh impossible while still allowing fancy exploiters to skip 90% of the bosses, including lupicus.
My hobby dungeon explorer is, even after 2k-3k hours of playtime at 0. I never bother to finish dungeon master, since I don’t think that title deserves to exsist.

I enjoy the game. I enjoy putting in my time and doing whatever seems to come to mind. I really have no intentions of leaving for another game as I have only ever played GW1 and 2. I also have friends in GW2 that I have been playing with since GW1 day 1. Keeps me playing.

I just keep gravitating back here. :/

7393 hours and I’m bored out of my mind. But keep coming back and doing same things over and over.

Lindbur.2537:

I applied to and joined LOD in hopes of finding one, but how was I to know that nearly all of the active OCX core (who had extended an invitation to trial to me) just upped and left 3 days later? I just left as well (perhaps a mistake on hindsight).
I continued playing a little with them following the split, but after some of them became part of DnT I started losing touch with the group.

Real talk, we didnt know that was going to happen and we actually felt really bad for you when it did, we didnt plan on leadership collapsign 3 days after you joined and then all peacing out. WAS JUST REALLY BAD TIMING Q-Q

J Eberle.9312:

I just keep gravitating back here. :/

7393 hours and I’m bored out of my mind. But keep coming back and doing same things over and over.

7.4k hours? And I thought I was bad…

As for me… I just enjoy the game as a whole, even with all those problems it has. I enjoy dungeons, since I usually only have 1 or 2 persons I could even ask I pug a lot which really spices things up sometimes, I enjoy exploring the map (I guess I’m one of the few here, but I keep finding new things every now and then whenever I 100% the map with a new char), sometimes I even enjoy the mapchat of different zones.
What really helps though is the combat system; with all that active defensr it reminds me of Hack’n’Slay games which I’m a sucker got. Normal MMOs never were interesting for me, only GW1 managed to catch my interest, but even GW1 was vastly different from “generic” MMOs.

Don’t know the count of my hobby dungeon explorer, gotta check tomorrow/later.

I have to admit dungeons are becoming less of a reason to stay, I am just getting too grumpy with PuGs. I had a TA run with four people from a random guild where the leader kept telling me what to do. When he told me to keep my staff on all the time for the vines and I saw that this was because most of the party was ranging I told him"Sorry, could you stfu?" As the loading screen appeared and I found myself back in Caledon forest it occurred to me that I would never have been so short tempered a year ago. Bad play in dungeons I know well used to create interesting challenges, now it annoys me more often than not.

Oh well, at least I am enjoying Living Story.

Just joined a ping gear zerk only party since they usually do well. A full Ptv guardian joins and asks if thats ok even though he knows its full zerk team. The person who started the LFG and the group said yes. I left. He doesn’t understand why. lol.

I guess that’s motivation to keep playing -.-.

This game is like one big MSN to me, I use it to keep contact with close friends and thats the main reason to stay

This is my first pc game, and MMO. To me, it’s still fun as hell. I love pugging (I know, what’s wrong w/ me) and helping people bring their skill levels up. I get excited teaching new people or helping newbies do things in arah that they fail repeatedly on. I get really pumped when I’m pugging and someone can’t make a skip, but when I offer how to do it, and they listen, they pass it like it was nothing. I am still in awe of colsey’s condi solos, Goku and Dub’s Lupi solos, DnT, Club, rT, SC, and our dungeon speed clear records.

I guess what keeps me coming back is this:

So, I’ve been through all Arah paths, but just followed at didn’t learn very much. Dying on trash mob run/skips and kinda sucking at Lupi gets me kicked more often than not. I really want to learn, but no one in my guild wants to even step into Arah, much less show me the ropes. I’ve been studying all of Strife’s Arah videos and know the theory to everything, but putting it in actual practice is another thing. Is there a guild or anywhere I can go to learn from people with more patience than a PuG? Happy to listen and change build/weapons/whatever.
Thanks!
tl;dr: I suck but want to learn Arah. Help!

That was me, 9 months ago. Iaharl helped me immensely later on that day (or week, can’t remember exacts) and I haven’t stopped going. I want to do for everyone what was done for me.

Sarahfull.4930:

This game is like one big MSN to me, I use it to keep contact with close friends and thats the main reason to stay

I miss MSN. Good times.

That, and I really like the most of the regulars on here. You guys are crazy, terrible people who are going straight to hell (not really. Except for you Swifty ;-P ), but you’re pretty cool. The youtubers and twitch streamers are funny as hell to watch (a huge thumbs up for Eugene), and it’s a great feeling to do something that I enjoy the hell out of with people who are having the same amount of fun that I am.

spoj.9672:

Friends, community and hope (futile hope) is the only thing keeping me here. That and theres no other games I want to play.

I stopped playing a while back because i felt completely burnt out. I couldnt even motivate myself to leech dungeons off the guild. The lack of new skills and end game content this late into the game has finally taken its toll. Theres no freshness anymore. The season 2 patches are what caused me to finally give up i think. They gave me some content to enjoy for a day, but after that i couldnt be bothered to do anything else.

I will be playing a bit again soon. But i dont expect ill ever get back to being fully active like i was several months ago. Unless we get some new stuff which makes the game feel fresh (new weapons, skills and dungeons).

This, except I’m only just phasing into what spoj here has described. I have played a lot, but not for as long as many of you guys so my motivation wasn’t shot until recently due to a series of bullsh__ things happening (Twitch getting bought by Google + ferocity + strength runes nerf + bloodlust nerfed + warriors getting nerfed, etc).

Purple Miku.7032

ferocity + strength runes nerf + bloodlust nerfed + warriors getting nerfed, etc.

It’s ok, after around the 6th or 7th nerf patch you pretty much get used to it.

I’ve been playing since head start. I took a couple breaks though last year, one lasting about a month and then later on another lasting roughly three months. I had almost decided to not come back during the three month break but did and I’m glad. I have accomplished a lot personally in he game within the last 7-8 months. I was almost at the point of quitting again recently due to some things but stayed and ended up accomplishing more within this last month or so.

I still have a lot to do and improve on personally, I just know that it can burn me out at times. I guess it’s just goals and friends that keep me and I’m sure others are the same way.

Agony.3542:

Lastly lazy fixes of glitches and bugs (invisible walls and such) instead of really getting to the root of evil made “exploration” in arah nigh impossible while still allowing fancy exploiters to skip 90% of the bosses, including lupicus.

This pushed me enough to take a few multi-month long breaks, too. Mountain goating was so much fun, but they decided it was easier to kill it than make bosses unskippable. A huge source of fun was taken out of the game for me when they put up those walls. I still have a buried hope that they will do the right thing someday — make the bosses required for rewards and take down the walls. It still kittenes me off that I can’t explore the dungeon as freely as I used to (without making any profit, btw), but folks can still skip Lupi and sell.

#GiveUsBackArah

As for some of the stats, I’m at 1.5k hours and have 86 stacks of Hobby Dungeon Explorer. I’m sure that’s a fraction of what some of you have (lol @7.5k hours swifty), but it sounds like a lot to me O.o

4.576 hours across 634 days, I bet approximately 1.000 hours of those are idled because I let the game run when I do whatever.
220 stacks of hobby dungeon explorer.

I ask my self why I keep playing almost everyday.

I really love the combat in this game. I really like the dungeons we have, i wish could get more of them; I would be happy if we could just get one new dungeon of arah quality per year.

Idk maybe i should like go outside and do rl things… prolly not

Cavendish.2168:

I ask my self why I keep playing almost everyday.

I really love the combat in this game. I really like the dungeons we have, i wish could get more of them; I would be happy if we could just get one new dungeon of arah quality per year.

Idk maybe i should like go outside and do rl things… prolly not

What is this outside you speak of?

JasmineLong.6514:

Cavendish.2168:

I ask my self why I keep playing almost everyday.

I really love the combat in this game. I really like the dungeons we have, i wish could get more of them; I would be happy if we could just get one new dungeon of arah quality per year.

Idk maybe i should like go outside and do rl things… prolly not

What is this outside you speak of?

Best graphics possible, worst gameplay ever.

frifox.5283:

Purple Miku.7032

ferocity + strength runes nerf + bloodlust nerfed + warriors getting nerfed, etc.

It’s ok, after around the 6th or 7th nerf patch you pretty much get used to it.

#JustMesmerThings

mainly the graphics…

2-3 hours biweekly to follow up the LS

dlonie.6547:

Agony.3542:

Lastly lazy fixes of glitches and bugs (invisible walls and such) instead of really getting to the root of evil made “exploration” in arah nigh impossible while still allowing fancy exploiters to skip 90% of the bosses, including lupicus.

This pushed me enough to take a few multi-month long breaks, too. Mountain goating was so much fun, but they decided it was easier to kill it than make bosses unskippable. A huge source of fun was taken out of the game for me when they put up those walls. I still have a buried hope that they will do the right thing someday — make the bosses required for rewards and take down the walls. It still kittenes me off that I can’t explore the dungeon as freely as I used to (without making any profit, btw), but folks can still skip Lupi and sell.

#GiveUsBackArah

As for some of the stats, I’m at 1.5k hours and have 86 stacks of Hobby Dungeon Explorer. I’m sure that’s a fraction of what some of you have (lol @7.5k hours swifty), but it sounds like a lot to me O.o

You’re wrong. I can show you how to get to all of the places, for example that old coral. Mountain goating will always survive. ALWAYS.

I mainly play because of my RL friends. Sadly they don’t play anymore and I will probably quit the game when Destiny comes out. Now don’t get me wrong, I love this game, its just I have no one to play with atm and I am the type that loves to play with the same people all the time so we can develop complex strats so pugging just doesn’t cut it for me.

Purple Miku.7032:

dlonie.6547:

Agony.3542:

Lastly lazy fixes of glitches and bugs (invisible walls and such) instead of really getting to the root of evil made “exploration” in arah nigh impossible while still allowing fancy exploiters to skip 90% of the bosses, including lupicus.

This pushed me enough to take a few multi-month long breaks, too. Mountain goating was so much fun, but they decided it was easier to kill it than make bosses unskippable. A huge source of fun was taken out of the game for me when they put up those walls. I still have a buried hope that they will do the right thing someday — make the bosses required for rewards and take down the walls. It still kittenes me off that I can’t explore the dungeon as freely as I used to (without making any profit, btw), but folks can still skip Lupi and sell.

#GiveUsBackArah

As for some of the stats, I’m at 1.5k hours and have 86 stacks of Hobby Dungeon Explorer. I’m sure that’s a fraction of what some of you have (lol @7.5k hours swifty), but it sounds like a lot to me O.o

You’re wrong. I can show you how to get to all of the places, for example that old coral. Mountain goating will always survive. ALWAYS.

Are you offering mountain goat tours?

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Purple Miku.7032:

You’re wrong. I can show you how to get to all of the places, for example that old coral. Mountain goating will always survive. ALWAYS.

Are you offering mountain goat tours?

Shut up and take my gold!! Lemme guess, you just climb up a bit higher and jump over the wall they put up? Just like every other time they “fixed” the skips?

But seriously, is it just 10x more time consuming/frustrating to get anywhere now?

Nope. There’s only one little jump in the many places that I know to that will be super frustrating at first, but once you get it then everything becomes a sinch.

It can all be done with an ele, engineer, guard (I think?), and I guess other classes can too if they borrow a LH. Warrior and engineer are by far the best classes for mountain goating, but with engineer reigning supreme.

I’ll take you on mountain goat tours on EU if you’d like so just send me mail and I’ll pm you back when I’m next on :o

I’m NA :-( I know of some exploration paths that still get you to Farnaz and eventually Corrupted Lights, but haven’t gotten around to trying them yet. I need to get back in there and see how far I can get again :-)

And I totally understand the frustrating jumps. The old way out of the lobby with the coral (after they put in the first wall…) took me about an hour the first time I did it, but after a few runs I had it down to about 3 minutes. Just gotta learn where the invisible bumps are.

I think my favorite was the one after Belka. Man, you could see everything from on top of that one. I wonder if you can still get there from p3…

It’s like a more challenging SAB with random boss fights thrown into the mix

Some players enjoy the climb and quit when they get to the top. Other players enjoy the view from the top much more than the climb.

While it doesn’t really apply to this sub-community, but I’ve seen lots of players who work their kitten off for a legendary and then quit. For them, the game was about getting the legendary and then they won and were done. It doesn’t compute for me. I enjoy running around and playing with the legendary 10x more than the awful grind to get it. Whats the point of having Twilight if you don’t play with it after you get it?

In regards to dungeons specifically, I look back at how comparatively bad we were two years ago and I think to how comparatively good we might be in two years from now. The fun for me is refinement and optimization and getting ever better.

Two years from now I really hope we will have moved away from dungeons and got into more entertaining PvE

Tree.3916:

Some players enjoy the climb and quit when they get to the top. Other players enjoy the view from the top much more than the climb.

While it doesn’t really apply to this sub-community, but I’ve seen lots of players who work their kitten off for a legendary and then quit. For them, the game was about getting the legendary and then they won and were done. It doesn’t compute for me. I enjoy running around and playing with the legendary 10x more than the awful grind to get it. Whats the point of having Twilight if you don’t play with it after you get it?

In regards to dungeons specifically, I look back at how comparatively bad we were two years ago and I think to how comparatively good we might be in two years from now. The fun for me is refinement and optimization and getting ever better.

I look back at how comparatively bad I was 7 months ago and even just 1 month ago how much has changed.

2 years from now… I hope I will have found something better to do with my time.

But if I don’t then 2 years from now… I guess I’d like to see more dungeons, perhaps permanent SAB, new races and new fashion, and the extinction of the Sylvari race.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

2 years from now… I hope I will have found something better to do with my time.

But if I don’t then 2 years from now… I guess I’d like to see more dungeons, perhaps permanent SAB, new races and new fashion, and the extinction of the Sylvari race.

I’ll be happy with dead sylvari and asura

Lilith Ajit.6173:

and the extinction of the Sylvari race.

nooooooooooo

SAB is the only thing that is keeping me in this game truth be told, it’s the one thing in GW2 that feels balanced and complete.

JasmineLong.6514:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

2 years from now… I hope I will have found something better to do with my time.

But if I don’t then 2 years from now… I guess I’d like to see more dungeons, perhaps permanent SAB, new races and new fashion, and the extinction of the Sylvari race.

I’ll be happy with dead sylvari and asura

The Asura will have exterminated the tree dragon minions.

JasmineLong.6514:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

2 years from now… I hope I will have found something better to do with my time.

But if I don’t then 2 years from now… I guess I’d like to see more dungeons, perhaps permanent SAB, new races and new fashion, and the extinction of the Sylvari race.

I’ll be happy with dead sylvari and asura