Guild Wars 2

I’d really like to know and I really hope so. I am so, so so tired of everyone skipping every single part of the dungeon except the absolutely necessary bosses. What is the purpose? or me and 3 other players being stuck in a group with an “Lol guardian i can tank all” guy who runs past everything enduring and leaves us all slaughtered. No one is skipping because it is too hard, its just constant skipping because they can. I find it highly annoying.

My only hope is this next update starts making parts of dungeons mandatory. No one tries anymore. Even the mesmer nonsense is annoying though it can’t be fixed. Must have 1 mesmer in each group because no one will try to run past the rocks in CoF. I can do it 8 times in front of their face and they just refuse to try, wait for mesmer. I mean honestly? it is not difficult at all. The laziness of dungeoners is irritating. If you don’t skip you get kicked. And don’t get me started on exploits and areas where you cant be targeted.

Skipping trash won’t be patched, don’t get your hopes up. The optional encounters people are designed to be Able to skip. If you want to do a “full” run, explore the social side of the game, build a regular dungeon group (guild perhaps?) and run with those people.

I just feel thats a terrible waste of a dungeon is all. Like TA for instance, 90% of that dungeon is skipped, all except the necessary bosses. Everything else is just spam swiftness and run past. I mean are those really all considered trash mobs?

I’m not referring to the “Bonus Event” parties but like the entire beginning of TA?

Don’t go with PUGs if you don’t want to skip stuff. Most people only want to get it done with as fast as possible and get out of there.

Just be more up front about your desires when group-making and take a commanding stance. The first one should go without saying, the second one kind of bears some explanation.

Although each side of this debate would like to claim the majority for their own. Truthfully, the vast majority of people are simply Indifferent. They just kind of numbly follow ‘the group’ which is basically dictated by whoever takes it upon themselves to step up the plate. Speedrunners tend to accidentally do this, taking charge by virtue of the simple fact they’re running ahead of everybody else forging a path the indifferent follow. If you’ve put together a group with the intention to do fighting, don’t sit there passively. Be the first person into a room, be the person initiating combat, be the person throwing down targeting reticules.

Also, do more story modes.
Carrying newbies is a harder hard mode than hard mode is nowadays, and there isn’t much skipping/exploiting by virtue of the fact people either don’t know or don’t care enough about the rewards to try and figure it out. Which is, admittedly, kind of depressing when you think about it.

Hilda Raven.8641:

…
I find it highly annoying.

My only hope is this next update starts making parts of dungeons mandatory.
…

So, because you find something annoying, you want all others to play the game the way you want? Nice.

Most people skip because they’ve done that particular path many times and frankly, killing the same trash pack loses its thrill somewhere between the 1st and the 5th run. They’re not there for the entertainment, they just want to get to the end to get the tokens/money. Nothing’s wrong with that.

If you don’t want to skip anything, simply say so in your shouts or your ad on the LFG site.

I hate when people skip content. It isn’t fun and ruins it for me. But if anet wants to fix it they can. I remember in world of warcraft, if a monster gets aggroed in a dungeon it will follow you forever unless you leave the dungeon. If this was implemented in gw2, then skipping would be impossible.

but but, all i want in arah is to fight big puppy. those bad risen are only an obstacle. why shouldn’t i be able to tell them to go away nicely.

the closest thing you will likely see in GW2 to stopping skipping is making tash weaker to where it becomes worth the time to kill to motivate people to kill them.

but sadly, it will likely never be a large enough change to actually make it worth it to most of the players to have it become the norm in pugs to not skip. you may find a shift to more wanting to kill, but it will likely never be the majority.

I doubt it will change because even in WoW (7 yrs?) and Aion (3 yrs?), a lot of groups STILL skip mobs, especially in speed run groups, because they simply want bosses loot as they are the best.

Maybe if they make trash mobs as rewarding as bosses then things will change but if that happens people will simply then farm trash mobs.

A solution could be to make it a quest to kill x number of trashy mobs, or a a pseudo “barrier” to progress where you NEED to kill trashy mobs to do a boss at all / have access to the best loot. For example, a boss will not appear unless you kill x number of minions. Alternatively, there is an obstacle like a door, and only a random trashy mob has the key etc…

EDIT: Oh and in WoW and Aion, if there is a glitch, you can guarantee that most groups will use it to their advantage as much as possible. Less effort for same rewards =!

Hilda Raven.8641:

I’d really like to know and I really hope so. I am so, so so tired of everyone skipping every single part of the dungeon except the absolutely necessary bosses. What is the purpose? or me and 3 other players being stuck in a group with an “Lol guardian i can tank all” guy who runs past everything enduring and leaves us all slaughtered. No one is skipping because it is too hard, its just constant skipping because they can. I find it highly annoying.

You play it your own way killing everything and let others play their way of skipping trash. When joining groups, ask beforehand the nature of the playstyle. If it bothers you so much, you should only join games that specifies no skipping.

Your frustration comes from the fact you can’t handle skipping mobs without dying. Playing with likeminded people makes a lot of difference.

mosspit.8936:

Hilda Raven.8641:

I’d really like to know and I really hope so. I am so, so so tired of everyone skipping every single part of the dungeon except the absolutely necessary bosses. What is the purpose? or me and 3 other players being stuck in a group with an “Lol guardian i can tank all” guy who runs past everything enduring and leaves us all slaughtered. No one is skipping because it is too hard, its just constant skipping because they can. I find it highly annoying.

You play it your own way killing everything and let others play their way of skipping trash. When joining groups, ask beforehand the nature of the playstyle. If it bothers you so much, you should only join games that specifies no skipping.

Your frustration comes from the fact you can’t handle skipping mobs without dying. Playing with likeminded people makes a lot of difference.

You kidding? When my entire group skips it I have no choice but to skip. There is no always dying. I die on occasion, and those are the times when the entire party is dying except the guardian or the thief who conviently self stealths. I can skip and do skip like everyone else absolutely fine, because there is no option with a room full of silvers that the party has just blazed right past. I never stand there and complain and demand everyone come back and do the mobs, I follow the group. Dying comes from trying to do the dungeon as intended only to find out the entire party or half of it has left. So just me and another person are there. Now I just do what the group does, that is the only way.

I am curious as to everyone’s definition of trash mobs. Trash mobs to me means lower than silver, and/or out of the way. SE for instance, those groups of dredge guarding the mortars cannons, we/I can shoot the cannons without agroeing no need to fight every single batch of them and that makes sense. I consider that a trash mob. But a group of silvers on a one way path to the next room, that are auto agrooed when you enter, I just don’t see the point.

This isn’t about making people play the way I want. This isn’t about me saying everyone should walk instead of using fast travel or something similar. Did the devs design dungeons for everyone to breeze past the large majority of it? No. What a waste of time and effort that would have been. And this is not an issue about the mobs being hard, they typically aren’t.

Even asking beforehand isn’t always reliable, there will always be some manner of skipper.

I’ve collected hundreds and hundreds of tokens, I am not new to dungeons, or anything or the sort, just something I’d like to see.

If it isn’t required to kill to get the 60 tokens or drop a bag of wonderous goods it’s a trash mob, a good example is that champion scavenger in AC path 2 his trash. I do see your point somewhat on short dunegons like COF and AC, even if you do add infinite aggro like wow had stealth will negate it like it did in wow but here we have AOE stealth in mass invis and refuge that drops aggro plus spy kits.

Then you need to think about Arah, some of those paths take hours with skipping. the trash mobs like the oozes are brutal and there is a truckload of them.

p.s its fun to take a mesmer to cof 1, to have some use besides a time warp bot and that tanky guardian should be running with you giving you stability and heals when they skip, I have 2 tank characters and a super squishy mesmer so I know both sides of the coin for skipping, isn’t much fun getting 1 shotted by trash on my slow kitten mesmer while everyone else runs off

The words ‘trash mob’ and ‘skipping’ and (god help my stupid kitten) ‘normal’ have given me so much trouble communication-wise.

Hard and fast rules based on easy to spot visual cues seem to work better than slang. I got this idea from somebody else on the forum, but I’ve had a lot of success with ‘If we aggro it, we kill it’. There’s just no confusing something like that.

You could probably use ‘killing every silver mob’.

Even asking beforehand isn’t always reliable, there will always be some manner of skipper.

If you put together a group that’s been clearly advertised as doing things a particular way, if somebody’s not getting with the program they need to be brought in line or kicked. That’s true regardless of what the program is, it’s not like speedclearers have some kind of bizarre immunity. Don’t assume the people following are necessarily giving that behavior a vote of confidence. After all, if you’ve seethed in silence for the sake of being polite, what’s to say they aren’t?

Hilda Raven.8641:

You kidding? When my entire group skips it I have no choice but to skip. There is no always dying. I die on occasion, and those are the times when the entire party is dying except the guardian or the thief who conviently self stealths. I can skip and do skip like everyone else absolutely fine, because there is no option with a room full of silvers that the party has just blazed right past. I never stand there and complain and demand everyone come back and do the mobs, I follow the group. Dying comes from trying to do the dungeon as intended only to find out the entire party or half of it has left. So just me and another person are there. Now I just do what the group does, that is the only way.

I am curious as to everyone’s definition of trash mobs. Trash mobs to me means lower than silver, and/or out of the way. SE for instance, those groups of dredge guarding the mortars cannons, we/I can shoot the cannons without agroeing no need to fight every single batch of them and that makes sense. I consider that a trash mob. But a group of silvers on a one way path to the next room, that are auto agrooed when you enter, I just don’t see the point.

This isn’t about making people play the way I want. This isn’t about me saying everyone should walk instead of using fast travel or something similar. Did the devs design dungeons for everyone to breeze past the large majority of it? No. What a waste of time and effort that would have been. And this is not an issue about the mobs being hard, they typically aren’t.

Even asking beforehand isn’t always reliable, there will always be some manner of skipper.

I’ve collected hundreds and hundreds of tokens, I am not new to dungeons, or anything or the sort, just something I’d like to see.

No I am not kidding. Just find like-minded ppl on chat or gw2lfg to run with. Be really strong in your wording to represent the frustration you are feeling now so ppl will know what to expect.

I am not questioning your competency to dungeon. But you are frustrated dying and being left behind when skipping. Sometimes the one heads the charge will be in a safer situation just so you know.

I propose guilds with “kill every mob that exists, that will exist or ever existed” member rules. Makes life easier for the rest of us and we know who to avoid.

I wish these guys go into open world and get stuck there killing infinite spawns.

The keyword here is trash mobs.

They are trash in every sense of the word.

The only things worth looting are bosses and chests currently.

Anet needs to make the trash mobs not so trashy and worth killing.

Hilda Raven.8641:

…a room full of silvers…

Where? Everyone would like to know.

Make it known you don’t want to skip mobs beforehand, or form groups with your friends.

Everyone has a different way of playing, you can’t tell people not to skip mobs and for them to listen, if they don’t want to.

Why is it that people feel like skipping is such an issue? I really don’t get it.

Why are you so concerned with how others play the game?

You guys might want to read.

1. I am not stuck dying continuously. This is a rare occasion. I run through/skip parts fine in every dungeon I have done, which is all of them minus Arah. This isn’t a stop skipping cause I die! plea. This is a please play the dungeon like it was made for.
2. I don’t force/tell/beg anyone to not skip content in game. I stay with the group. In the time it would take me to complain we’d all die.

3. Im not talking about trash mobs, not endless spawns, not guys on the otherside of the map you’d never even aggro unless intentionally, not a patrol that is patrolling specifically so you have the opportunity to avoid etc. The goal isn’t to kill every single target-able thing possible but atleast have time to enjoy the dungeon. In the beginning people would skip one room or so that was annoying. Now people skip every single part possible. So the taking it to extremes with insane examples is pointless.

Remember I said for example, running through a room designed for you to have to fight them, there is no way around, they are all agrooed as you proceed through. That is what I mean.

Example again TA, those first few tree creatures right before the vine boss room. Yea we can all swift past them, but why not just kill them? It would take all of 2 minutes or less.

Yes finding non-skippers is a possibility but can be much of a hassle. On the times I do do that, new exploits come. Everything from people screaming “Nuuuh don’t kill the last boss so I can logout and bring our super low chars in and ninja the xp, or not suffer from DR” to just outright cheating in areas they cannot be hit. That is why I wish it’d just be fixed.

Okay I see you’re obviously not getting it.

Dungeons are designed to be challenging activities.

10 mins, running past everything and farming tokens is not a challenging activity.

Nor is it forcing everyone to play my way.

Wasabi have you noticed the past updates at all?

Go read the update forum, pretty sure you will find
“Fixed an exploit that was allowing players to skip content.” and similar for other dungeons in the past.
Which means it is not intended.

Except developers have stated that they’re fine with people skipping, and that it is intended.

And do you really think killing mobs makes a dungeon challenging? Do you really think that killing those trash mobs will make a dungeon challenging? Get real.

Hilda Raven.8641:

You guys might want to read.

1. I am not stuck dying continuously. This is a rare occasion. I run through/skip parts fine in every dungeon I have done, which is all of them minus Arah. This isn’t a stop skipping cause I die! plea. This is a please play the dungeon like it was made for.
2. I don’t force/tell/beg anyone to not skip content in game. I stay with the group. In the time it would take me to complain we’d all die.

3. Im not talking about trash mobs, not endless spawns, not guys on the otherside of the map you’d never even aggro unless intentionally, not a patrol that is patrolling specifically so you have the opportunity to avoid etc. The goal isn’t to kill every single target-able thing possible but atleast have time to enjoy the dungeon. In the beginning people would skip one room or so that was annoying. Now people skip every single part possible. So the taking it to extremes with insane examples is pointless.

Remember I said for example, running through a room designed for you to have to fight them, there is no way around, they are all agrooed as you proceed through. That is what I mean.

Example again TA, those first few tree creatures right before the vine boss room. Yea we can all swift past them, but why not just kill them? It would take all of 2 minutes or less.

Yes finding non-skippers is a possibility but can be much of a hassle. On the times I do do that, new exploits come. Everything from people screaming “Nuuuh don’t kill the last boss so I can logout and bring our super low chars in and ninja the xp, or not suffer from DR” to just outright cheating in areas they cannot be hit. That is why I wish it’d just be fixed.

In that case, is it intended that those mobs that you referring that take that 2 mins or so to kill have the just about the same loot as those that are found on the overworld but have much more hp than them?

The husks I will skip them everytime because they drop crap even if they are easy to fight with stability or otherwise. Okay okay you are NOT dying continuously. Only occasionally. But what is your trigger point for all of these? A bad experience due to selfish and uncooperative gamers. Those are the problem not game mechanics and no amount of game mechanics can stop this group of gamers from being being selfish and uncooperative.

Hilda Raven.8641:

Okay I see you’re obviously not getting it.

Dungeons are designed to be challenging activities.

10 mins, running past everything and farming tokens is not a challenging activity.

Nor is it forcing everyone to play my way.

Wasabi have you noticed the past updates at all?

Go read the update forum, pretty sure you will find
“Fixed an exploit that was allowing players to skip content.” and similar for other dungeons in the past.
Which means it is not intended.

Funny why should people play the way the way dungeons are designed. CM exp is the best example: you can either stealth your way in or pull mobs from the next room in order to progress. Not sure if the designers made CM with thieves and mesmers in mind or not.

Why should you have a problem with people who don’t want to kill mobs that take an extra 2 min to kill if they choose not to? If it doesnt matter either way, you wouldn’t be complaining and asking for a patch for it to be compulsory. And how is killing mobs challenging etc in most cases? HOTW path 1 patrolling wolves is a good example in my opinion: you can either skip these and go straight to troll or just kill them all. I prefer killing as I play aoe glass cannons in HOTW and they may drop T6 mats (even the odd rare and the very small chance of exo) but I completely understand if the party wants to skip because its time consuming/boring/dangerous to their builds/classes.

I wonder who will keep running the same dungeon over and over and over again if there weren’t after the rewards, because repetition sure isnt fun. TBH if they hadn’t implemented the boss gold system, I wouldnt be playing GW2 until the next major expansion pack comes along.

Skipping is part of the design.

If you know your class well enough to dodge/absorb/nullify mobs to skip, the game allows you to skip them. If you are new or don’t play well enough to do that, you have the option of hitting your head against the wall and bruteforce through it. Both are viable.

When I take new players into AC, I will kill Kholer and other mobs that might prove an obstacle in case they die. When I run with players that know what they are doing, it’s simply much enjoyable to be able to zip through the dungeon in sync through the packs of trash with impunity.

Just because you have some strange personal vendetta against skipping, do not frame it for an argument.

Why is it that people feel like skipping is such an issue? I really don’t get it.

As a general concept it’s really not.
It’s just that as time wore on people got better and better at it, so a ‘normal’ dungeon run and a speedrun increasingly became these radically different experiences. This sort of thing always happens, but, this is pretty noteworthy in the degree that it’s happening. It’s gotten to the point it’s actually fractured the playerbase. Not only has that ‘always happy to see another player’ design pillar gone straight out the window, but it added another subsection to an already heavily sectionalized activity that was by no means holding a monopoly as the only endgame activity in town.

I think the radical extremes on both ends need to be tapered in and brought back closer to a sane middleground. I think some the more out-of-the-way mobs can just be removed completely, and I think more sections that aren’t obviously intended as skippable via alternate level designed paths should be made unskippable.

By the by, does anybody have a link to that reddit post about what the general direction of changes to mobs will be for this year? Can’t find it for the life of me.

Skipping is fine, what is becoming a raving problem is the…. LFM – You should be a mesmer or a warrior, must be a commander, must have 10k achievment points, must have all legendaries and 20k gold in the bank.
The amount of regular groups are decreasing steady fast.

Hilda Raven.8641:

Okay I see you’re obviously not getting it.
Dungeons are designed to be challenging activities.
10 mins, running past everything and farming tokens is not a challenging activity.
Nor is it forcing everyone to play my way.
Wasabi have you noticed the past updates at all?
Go read the update forum, pretty sure you will find
“Fixed an exploit that was allowing players to skip content.” and similar for other dungeons in the past.
Which means it is not intended.

In my opinion, dungeons were desing to be “easy” challenges for casual players. Except Arah, wich I haven’t run because people refuse taking first timers in, every other dungeon may be some challenge the first 5 times you run it. After that you just learn it and there is no challenge at all.
Most bosses don’t require much skill other than knowing a few mechanics, the rest is just a large HP pool.
So I agree that it’s fun to not skip things at the beggining but after +50 runs you just want your tokens (or your silver/cores).

And btw skipping is not the same as exploiting. Skipping content by stealthing/running through is intended. Doing a ‘jumping puzzle’ between 3 paths to get 180 tokens in one run is an exploit, and that’s not intended.

Tamachii.2918:

Skipping is fine, what is becoming a raving problem is the…. LFM – You should be a mesmer or a warrior, must be a commander, must have 10k achievment points, must have all legendaries and 20k gold in the bank.
The amount of regular groups are decreasing steady fast.

Lol I totally agree, but we can’t complain to Anet about it :p

If ANET make the aggro follow you everywhere they will just find a rock or a wall to climb and break aggro. Or will use spy kits and shadow refuge. There is so much ways to break aggro in GW2 that if they make something someone will find a way.

There is only two ways to force people to not skip.

1 – Walls, the only way to pass thru something is killing the mobs (TA exp has some interesting ways to do this)
2 – Spineless NPCs, there is a event in Kessex Hills http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Help_Kari_back_to_her_mother_in_Overlake_Haven the NPC don´t move if there is a mob in her way.

The first method if not well implemented will be more annoying than having to kill every mob in the way. The second is better to implement and is more justified but will need a lot of work to rewrite some of the NPCs to act more cowardly.
____________________________________

Edit: This idea happened before my post. Most people just think that non skip people are just bad players that don´t know how to skip. Well for me skipping people is someone that is really bad in killing mobs or power MF users that need to skip mob so will not die frequently. See there is always two ways of thinking. So stop treating non skip people as noobs.

Well.. that is not the point, just some words of wisdom. The point is, why skip? Now we have a huge 2h account DR. Skip every mob for me is just a wast of chance money. Good players can kill most of these called trash mobs in 2 or 3 minutes. And most don´t even change dungeons, they just want one (most ascalon for money farming).

Well.. that is not the point, just some words of wisdom. The point is, why skip? Now we have a huge 2h account DR. Skip every mob for me is just a wast of chance money. Good players can kill most of these called trash mobs in 2 or 3 minutes. And most don´t even change dungeons, they just want one (most ascalon for money farming).Let´s make an analogy, some people spend a minute or two to buy a lottery ticket. Why they do that? Is just a waste of time, if they SKIP this they will have more time to do something to get money? Ironic? Yes. It´s what´s called chance money, a little waste of time and a chance to get a good reward, if they get nothing. Well, more luck next time.

Well.. that is not the point, just some words of wisdom. The point is, why skip? Now we have a huge 2h account DR. Skip every mob for me is just a wast of chance money. Good players can kill most of these called trash mobs in 2 or 3 minutes. And most don´t even change dungeons, they just want one (most ascalon for money farming).Let´s make an analogy, some people spend a minute or two to buy a lottery ticket. Why they do that? Is just a waste of time, if they SKIP this they will have more time to do something to get money? Ironic? Yes. It´s what´s called chance money, a little waste of time and a chance to get a good reward, if they get nothing. Well, more luck next time.Just like dungeons, I got a bunch of Rares just killing those called trash mobs. Don´t have to waste a lot of time doing this and with a 2h wait, for me this is well spend time. I´m not talking about killing every mob because it will consume a lot of time. But there are some champions and some silvers that can drop something worthy are easy kill and people skip it anyways (ac has a lot of this monsters as examples).

Well.. that is not the point, just some words of wisdom. The point is, why skip? Now we have a huge 2h account DR. Skip every mob for me is just a wast of chance money. Good players can kill most of these called trash mobs in 2 or 3 minutes. And most don´t even change dungeons, they just want one (most ascalon for money farming).Let´s make an analogy, some people spend a minute or two to buy a lottery ticket. Why they do that? Is just a waste of time, if they SKIP this they will have more time to do something to get money? Ironic? Yes. It´s what´s called chance money, a little waste of time and a chance to get a good reward, if they get nothing. Well, more luck next time.Just like dungeons, I got a bunch of Rares just killing those called trash mobs. Don´t have to waste a lot of time doing this and with a 2h wait, for me this is well spend time. I´m not talking about killing every mob because it will consume a lot of time. But there are some champions and some silvers that can drop something worthy are easy kill and people skip it anyways (ac has a lot of this monsters as examples).So to me skip is like not buying a lottery ticket because I´m wasting time.

Rewards from killing mobs along the way to the end of the dungeon must be such that the result is more reward per minute by not skipping as opposed to skipping. Anet shouldnt waste their time trying to outsmart a million players. Can AC path 1 boss also be ranged from the underwater exit of the unfinished jumping puzzle there? Idk. So they allow the boss to run up the stairs to the safe spot or something like that and one of the million players just figures something else out. Now the boss has to do the jumping puzzle? Not saying that would work I have no idea.

@Slither

Even if they put rewards on killing mobs, most of these skippers are farmers, they will not care, they will skip it anyways because the faster they do the fast they get. Instant rewarding, a problem created to make society pay more for one thing in credit card than store the money and wait to pay cash with a big discount. Even if you use mathematic to show them that it´s more rewarding than skip they will just not listen (or read…).

Aleph Naught.9034:

Hilda Raven.8641:

…
I find it highly annoying.

My only hope is this next update starts making parts of dungeons mandatory.
…

So, because you find something annoying, you want all others to play the game the way you want? Nice.

Most people skip because they’ve done that particular path many times and frankly, killing the same trash pack loses its thrill somewhere between the 1st and the 5th run. They’re not there for the entertainment, they just want to get to the end to get the tokens/money. Nothing’s wrong with that.

If you don’t want to skip anything, simply say so in your shouts or your ad on the LFG site.

I don’t get this, why do the content if you don’t find it fun? Ya, you’re getting gear upgrades, but is that really worth it to subject yourself to something you don’t enjoy? I like getting new gear upgrades too, but I’ll only do it if the content required to recieve those upgrade is still enjoyable, or else I’ll stop doing it. Play for fun, not because you have to.

If players didn’t have this mentality, dungeons wouldn’t be filled with so much freaking trash skipping.

Pardon my possible naiveness in the matter, but it doesn’t seem like that troubling an issue to resolve, the issue of risk/reward/effort balancing, that is. You have to calibrate the rewards and the dungeon itself so that the time and effort necessary to get the first “reward” is comparable to the time and effort necessary to get the next “reward”, and then reward people extra for full completion to incentivize doing it all the way. You make mobs more rewarding as you get further in and you “commit” more to the dungeon, and then people get to a point where they “may as well finish the whole thing for the end reward, that is great anyway”.

The solution is two-fold. Give people a core for completion of entire paths when NOT suffering from DR. This does a few things:
- Doesn’t inflate the market
- Massively incentivizes completing a dungeon
- Helps a lot with the current prices of lodestones without being too intrusive a change (Talk to John Smith about it!)
- The DR note is important, because it prevents people from totally facesmashing against a single path (CoF 1 for instance). You would want to avoid DR to get your core, and so people would be very mindful of not blatantly repeating content, and if they chose to, they’d willfully be giving up the cores.

The second part of this is to make drops from later mobs better than earlier mobs, but improve mob drops significantly regardless. This isn’t asking for 1s from every mob, or guaranteed drops, or whatever. Just improve the loot tables, and make the loot tables even better for enemies later in the paths. This further incentivizes players to get further in the dungeon.
- To avoid the risk of people simply running to the end of the path for late-path mobs because they drop better, you could scale it instead to how many mobs have been killed. The more you kill, the better your loot.

These are just some ideas that would go a long way to improve the current situation. I understand design is a difficult task, and has many hoops that you must pass through to get something put into the game and appropriately controlled, but this (risk / reward and dungeon value) is about the #2 most important thing that could be had in dungeons right now, with #1 being exploit / bug fixing.

I’m relieved. Anets seems to at the very least be aware of what the issue is; mobs not worth killing.

Hmm, I’ve always looked at skipping trash mobs and other non-exploitative ways of speeding up dungeon runs as almost a game into itself. It feels like as much of a triumph over the game systems as turning the critters into pulp, and has the added benefit of being shorter too.

Anything that increases my fun while simultaneously allowing me to do additional fun things in the same time span is automatically win-win in my book.

As an aside, and purely out of curiosity Robert, do you have stance on the idea that avoiding combat can be as satisfying and personally rewarding as combat?

One possible solution. There are some champions that don’t drop any money but are difficult to kill. Perhaps either declassify them as champions, or have them drop money. If you had them drop money, then most probably people would not skip them as frequently.

MOST people will take the easiest/best reward.
Have the loot from trash mobs drop bags. that can only be opened when the boss is defeated. Or the bags can only be opened at a certain location.
multipart reward system is already used within the game adapt it
Have it so that clearing mobs increases the loot tables for the final boss

Robert Hrouda.1327:

It’s one of those human things to do something with the path of least resistance and danger, especially when there is a reward at the end. I could make enemies never drop their aggro on players and force them to fight every single mob, but I don’t see that as a viable solution right now.
I think the better solution is to look at why people are skipping things, and approach from a different angle. Trash mobs have too much HP, and can’t be counted on for lucrative drops from a Risk/Time vs Reward, so people interested in making money (most groups) aren’t incentivized to do it, whereas the end chest/boss are more guaranteed and accountable returns on time and risk. I also think there is something to be said about interesting trash mob mechanics making them more enjoyable of a fight.
I can’t make the rewards from trash mobs so lucrative though that people just farm the first couple trash mobs/boss in a dungeon and then rinse/repeat. We encountered this when people just farmed the first boss in an instance and then restarted it (earlier around launch time), and we had to adjust the content as a result. It’s a fine line you have to walk to encourage players to get to the end, but make the process of getting there rewarding enough as well.

I don’t imagine this next update will resolve all the skipping behavior. The path of least resistance is engrained in people, and even if I do everything I could to incentivize people, there will still be those who skip stuff. I have been fixing exploits that will require players to complete more of the events in dungeons, but I am sure people will still skip what they can to get to their end goal.

For now I would encourage those not looking to skip to find some folks who don’t like skipping and make a guild with them… or maybe look for guilds that are dedicated to not skipping, and tag along with them. I’m in a couple of them (anonymously), and it really is an effective solution to playing the game the way you want to play it: Find other people with similar interests and band together with them.

So the reason why you won’t give rewards on trash mobs is, that people could farm them endlessly and wouldn’t do the actual dungeon?

To me, there appears to be a simple solution to that: Introduce a concept which measures how well / complete the dungeon was and make the reward based on that. Similar to the concept of the bonus goals in Guildwars 1, the completion of the bonus goal is logged, but not rewarded until the end of the dungeon.

Just increase an counter for every boss in the dungeon (and large enemy groups) and calculate the final reward based on what the players actually killed. In case of respawning groups, make them count once a certain number of waves has been killed.

So if the group want the bonus for a certain area, they have to kill all the enemies inside, skipping them will just cut their profits. They may still run straight for the endboss and may even skip bosses in between (either by exploit or because it is optional), but rewards will be lower.

Don’t forget to throw in an additional bonus, if a group decides to wipe the WHOLE dungeon (at least every area which is reachable from their path). This way groups are rewarded to do the whole dungeon or at least large parts of it, without making quickruns impossible.

Also give the group an indication every time their reward level raised, to keep them motivated!

Exterminans.9723:

Robert Hrouda.1327:

It’s one of those human things to do something with the path of least resistance and danger, especially when there is a reward at the end. I could make enemies never drop their aggro on players and force them to fight every single mob, but I don’t see that as a viable solution right now.
I think the better solution is to look at why people are skipping things, and approach from a different angle. Trash mobs have too much HP, and can’t be counted on for lucrative drops from a Risk/Time vs Reward, so people interested in making money (most groups) aren’t incentivized to do it, whereas the end chest/boss are more guaranteed and accountable returns on time and risk. I also think there is something to be said about interesting trash mob mechanics making them more enjoyable of a fight.
I can’t make the rewards from trash mobs so lucrative though that people just farm the first couple trash mobs/boss in a dungeon and then rinse/repeat. We encountered this when people just farmed the first boss in an instance and then restarted it (earlier around launch time), and we had to adjust the content as a result. It’s a fine line you have to walk to encourage players to get to the end, but make the process of getting there rewarding enough as well.

I don’t imagine this next update will resolve all the skipping behavior. The path of least resistance is engrained in people, and even if I do everything I could to incentivize people, there will still be those who skip stuff. I have been fixing exploits that will require players to complete more of the events in dungeons, but I am sure people will still skip what they can to get to their end goal.

For now I would encourage those not looking to skip to find some folks who don’t like skipping and make a guild with them… or maybe look for guilds that are dedicated to not skipping, and tag along with them. I’m in a couple of them (anonymously), and it really is an effective solution to playing the game the way you want to play it: Find other people with similar interests and band together with them.

So the reason why you won’t give rewards on trash mobs is, that people could farm them endlessly and wouldn’t do the actual dungeon?

To me, there appears to be a simple solution to that: Introduce a concept which measures how well / complete the dungeon was and make the reward based on that. Similar to the concept of the bonus goals in Guildwars 1, the completion of the bonus goal is logged, but not rewarded until the end of the dungeon.

Just increase an counter for every boss in the dungeon (and large enemy groups) and calculate the final reward based on what the players actually killed. In case of respawning groups, make them count once a certain number of waves has been killed.

So if the group want the bonus for a certain area, they have to kill all the enemies inside, skipping them will just cut their profits. They may still run straight for the endboss and may even skip bosses in between (either by exploit or because it is optional), but rewards will be lower.

Don’t forget to throw in an additional bonus, if a group decides to wipe the WHOLE dungeon (at least every area which is reachable from their path). This way groups are rewarded to do the whole dungeon or at least large parts of it, without making quickruns impossible.

Also give the group an indication every time their reward level raised, to keep them motivated!

Totally agreed. I would also suggest making the final reward scale quadratically with the number of bosses/mobs killed, making it more time-efficient to kill everything than skipping. Thus, skipping would be very undesirable.

I agree that the trash mobs HP could be nerfed, but Exterminans point is spot on. I usually wipe the entire dungeon when I go with my guild, we really don’t like skipping anything, as it usually doesn’t help if we want to backtrack. I believe that a reward system should be put in place where the more mobs the party takes down the better the rewards. As a matter of fact, I would say to have the chest open at the end of the dungeon instead of multiple occasions, and the loot inside depends on the number of mobs killed!

Yesterday I wrote on gw2lfg.com:
“LF 2 more for CoF path 1, NO skipping”.
It was midnight, there were not many players and I thought we’d have had an hard time find people. I just found them in 2 minutes and we run the path in 14 mins.
I start thinking “no skipping” is a good way to skim good players.
Why is people skipping the bridge in CoF path 1? It’s fast, it’s an event and it’s rewarded with karma and 1.5 silvers (plus mob drops… my guildie dropped a rare from the champion).
I’m tired of people skipping paths.
I usually play in dungeon with my guild team, but when I have to go with PUGs in the future I’ll keep writing “No skipping”.

I imagine you all at Arenanet have already considered/tested this, but just thought I’d throw it out as a possible solution:
Diablo III “solved” their problem with skipping by making each elite pack the player killed increase their magic find value while in that chapter (here translated to instance).
If GW2 trash mobs would slightly increase a player’s magic/gold find values during an instance, I’m sure most if not all players would take the time to kill them all off.
Since different dungeons/paths have radically different numbers of enemies to kill (AC gravelings come to mind) the values could be percentage based, i.e. : kill 50% of enemies in the dungeon and get +15% magic find, kill 100% get +30%.

Rage The Numbers.7943:

One possible solution. There are some champions that don’t drop any money but are difficult to kill. Perhaps either declassify them as champions, or have them drop money. If you had them drop money, then most probably people would not skip them as frequently.

That isn’t necessarily a good incentive. Some things are still not worth fighting. For example anything in AC that involves scavengers is on a list of things which are potentially not worth fighting.

The scavengers are either broken or broken by design. As is every other place that involves being chain CC’ed. Having enemies with CC is fine. Having enemies with extremely long knockdowns with an extremely long duration that keeps knocking down even after the initial attack is not. Then there are enemies/environments that render condition removal pretty much irrelevant because all the enemies’ auto attacks will reapply anyway. The fact that you can get knocked down/back/pushed/pull mid-dodge doesn’t help either.

Those things are not limited to dungeons but they contribute to making dungeons not fun and that is only a tiny excerpt of the full list. When there are things that are not fun but is the only source for something (weapon/armor skins) then people are going to try to minimize the time they need to spend there.

I generally prefer to kill everything in the path but I don’t feel as strongly about things where I feel the content designer has basically cheated to attain a certain difficulty/time to kill. The things mentioned above contributes to that.

Last but certainly not least, people in these sort of threads always seems to confuse skipping with exploiting. They are not the same thing. Some skipping might require using an exploit but that doesn’t make them equivalent.

Prahl.1057:

I imagine you all at Arenanet have already considered/tested this, but just thought I’d throw it out as a possible solution:
Diablo III “solved” their problem with skipping by making each elite pack the player killed increase their magic find value while in that chapter (here translated to instance).
If GW2 trash mobs would slightly increase a player’s magic/gold find values during an instance, I’m sure most if not all players would take the time to kill them all off.
Since different dungeons/paths have radically different numbers of enemies to kill (AC gravelings come to mind) the values could be percentage based, i.e. : kill 50% of enemies in the dungeon and get +15% magic find, kill 100% get +30%.

At least two problems with this. Certain mobs are just completely out of the way. In CM some seem to be behind closed doors. Many paths do not have a chest at the end, for all those there is never a reason to go for 100%.

Khisanth.2948:

At least two problems with this. Certain mobs are just completely out of the way. In CM some seem to be behind closed doors. Many paths do not have a chest at the end, for all those there is never a reason to go for 100%.

If you’re looking for a reason to go 100%, DDO did it perfectly.

Number of kills, objects destroyed, and ‘side-quest’ objectives completed were a few of the many ways dungeons racked up their own set of points to be tacked on to the final run-end reward.

That encouraged people to kill, break, find, help, and essentially ‘complete’ as much as they could to get that top-end reward.

Perhaps a system like that could be worked out for dungeon tokens on the ‘first run’ daily bonus.

Hilda Raven.8641:

I’d really like to know and I really hope so. I am so, so so tired of everyone skipping every single part of the dungeon except the absolutely necessary bosses. What is the purpose? or me and 3 other players being stuck in a group with an “Lol guardian i can tank all” guy who runs past everything enduring and leaves us all slaughtered. No one is skipping because it is too hard, its just constant skipping because they can. I find it highly annoying.

My only hope is this next update starts making parts of dungeons mandatory. No one tries anymore. Even the mesmer nonsense is annoying though it can’t be fixed. Must have 1 mesmer in each group because no one will try to run past the rocks in CoF. I can do it 8 times in front of their face and they just refuse to try, wait for mesmer. I mean honestly? it is not difficult at all. The laziness of dungeoners is irritating. If you don’t skip you get kicked. And don’t get me started on exploits and areas where you cant be targeted.

Definitely hoping to see some improvements on these aspects of dungeons as well. Hopefully when we start seeing some of the dungeon revamps.

an interesting phenomenon i observed in fractals: around level 22, 23 or so, people start asking “kill?” again instead of “skip?” when encountering groups of optional trash mobs, like the sons of svanir in the snowblind fractal or the trash in the solid ocean fractal.
now, i’m not sure if this was just coincidence in the PuGs i’ve been in (i exclusively run with PuGs, btw) or whether this is actually common. but i imagine someone at ArenaNet might have access to interesting data about this.

i am not sure how to get the same thing to happen in regular dungeons, though, since those do not have higher scales/levels.

Redscope.6215:

Khisanth.2948:

At least two problems with this. Certain mobs are just completely out of the way. In CM some seem to be behind closed doors. Many paths do not have a chest at the end, for all those there is never a reason to go for 100%.

If you’re looking for a reason to go 100%, DDO did it perfectly.

Number of kills, objects destroyed, and ‘side-quest’ objectives completed were a few of the many ways dungeons racked up their own set of points to be tacked on to the final run-end reward.

That encouraged people to kill, break, find, help, and essentially ‘complete’ as much as they could to get that top-end reward.

Perhaps a system like that could be worked out for dungeon tokens on the ‘first run’ daily bonus.

Logged in to say something along these lines.

If you don’t want to give players an incentive to kill the early monsters on the basis that they’ll clear the early content of the dungeon and then leave to respawn the enemies, hence never clearing the dungeon – instead give the players a reward at the end of the dungeon based on the amount of content they cleared.

For example, rewarding dungeon tokens based on total kills rewarded after clearing (perhaps 1 per regular enemy, 2 per veteran and 3 per champion), or have mobs drop keys which are needed to open chests that spawn at the end of the dungeon – incentives that make players want to kill mobs, but also want to clear the dungeon.

I think there should be Vanquishing rewards. If I got a good reward for killing everything I’d do it every time. The Magic find increase is a great idea too.