Guild Wars 2

Hey people. As a mmorpg player i really love doing instances/dungeons with a small group and was really exited by the way gw2 advertised explorable dungeons, but yeah “reality hits you hard bro”. Well after anet mentioned that they would revamp the actual dungeons and did a pretty good job with the boos in AC (especially with ghost eater) I again got all pumped up and expected to see dungeons being revamped pretty fast well after all those months nothing happened and we don’t even seem to have more info about it.
So i decided to make this thread so people would post they primarily what they would like to see as changes to dungeon encounters or even the system as a whole.

So i’ll go first.
I would really enjoy the actual system to be explorable which would mean something exiting and surprising, and I will in a first time explain what i think could improve the exp mode experience.

First of all the I would redesign the way the instance works no paths, well I am not abolishing the path system but am making making it more discrete one, so a group enters the instance do the couple of preliminary event (if presents) then reach the npc group here they can chose to help one of them to reach a certain route and complete the npc route and get their tokens usually the “path run” would end here but lets say that you decided to help X npc first you would be able to come back to the camp and help a second npc in his route then a third one etc all this without the need of reseting the instance. well it wouldn’t change much from the actual system but lets now add a priority mechanic if npc A route is completed first npc B & C etc routes reach level 2 as a difficulty level and we go on till all the paths are done.By difficulty level i don’t mean mobs with an absurd amount of hp or damages(of course those are needed) but more mechanics involved like new aoe shapes or adds popping reflection skills and cc. Well a good example of the design would be for example cof p2 last encounter if it is completed first well we have the usual encounter if second the Gaheron is nearly revived his avatar is now able to damage putting more pressure on the group if done last he’s revived and now the fight takes 2 stages kill him them put him down forever.

The question is why would the player struggle even more well doing the paths without resetting the dungeon will give more reward one after the others (mf buffs etc) and if all the paths are done cheer you get a daily chest(like jade maw’s one with maybe unique skins).

So we are done talking about the structure, the base. What could we add to the dungeon making them even more exiting which isn’t reward. I think random random events like the troll these thing are welcome and these event should add something from a simple unique drop/skin (players need to feel like this was special) to a buff for the whole adventurer group (like the mf,gold or even hp regen or stats boost of course only inside the dungeon).

finally one thing I would like to see is the possibly to incorporate some kind of mini/hard jumping puzzles requiring team/single player effort and timing to get the team to a hidden chest, a totem that will buff the team or even npc helping the group.

In conclusion I think that all these changes would make the dungeon experience more exiting and enjoyable: while not punishing casual or non skillful(don’t take it pejoratively) players it would reward players which have more implication and would even create more links between players you could start to play very often with a player because hes able to one shot this really hard jumping puzzle and give this mf buff to the team and it could even give birth to dedicated player groups.

well i hope you enjoyed my block and am waiting for your feedback/suggestions.
NB:i didn’t put the thread on the suggestion subforum because i really wanted dungeons enthusiasts to read it and give their feedback and maybe one day some dev would stumble upon our ideas and brig them to the dungeon designer team.

Without providing specific examples as you have, I’d say this:

Balance Input vs Output.

If they split Input into ‘time spent’ and ‘difficulty/teamwork needed’, to balance this with output, being rewards.

If they can do this with each dungeon, then people will wanna play all their other dungeons and their player base won’t get burnt out by the same ones, and actually wanna play all the other ones they made.

One of the suggestions I’ve heard that I like most is a stacking Magic Find multiplier that increases the more mobs you kill in a map. For stricter balancing, I’d probably implement it as:

• Every mob group has a set bonus that they will grant the team, upon the entire group being eliminated.
• Each group bonus varies based on how difficult it is, and whether or not it the group was required to defeat anyways.
• Endless Spawn events would give a bonus once the event is cleared, regardless of how many mobs were actually killed.
• MF bonus potential would vary from path to path. This could allow some incredibly long paths (SE 2, for example) to gain purpose as MF farms with a great drop chance on the final boss.

There’s a few other ideas to toss around, such as the bonus decaying gradually the longer you spend in a map or if anyone in the group is downed, or allowing some amount of the MF boost to affect the drop rates from Chests.

1) remove aoe cap to balance current war/guard meta
2) lower mob and boss damage
3) defiant should become a timer or a % resist
4) random encounters and mechanics to avoid them being a boring repeat of the same pattern….(also prevent speedrunning farms)
5) balance players and environment CC to be more in line….

BUT the most important:
6) STOP balancing professions on PvP….that results in some professions asking for “difficult content” and other being cut off from the endgame.

P.S. also a small tokens bonus on % mobs cleared to make completionists happy.

Balancing:
For every ranger/non zerker/condi damage in your team you get a special buff that gives your team +2000 Power to make up for lost DPS for not taking all warriors/mes

About rewards:
Look at Domain of Anguish in GW1. There are four “paths”, each rewarded for (if I remember) 2 gems, so you can clear one path, exit to the city, change builds and jump into the next path. However, when you decide not to exit after you do one path, the next one is open for you and when you clear it, you get twice as many gems, so it goes like this: 2, 4, 8, 16. Imagine how many tokens you would get from this system.

But beware, DoA was very hard, even with famous DvG build you couldn’t just faceroll this place. You had to really think what you are spawning (there were mobs hiding in the ground so if you rush forward, you’d die literally in a second). So what I want to say is that I’m not sure how it would work in GW2 system, when you can change your traits and skills whenever you want. Maybe if entering the dungeon locked this ability, we’d see better coordination in teams instead of just dps builds.

kitten I miss DoA.

JJBigs.8456:

Balancing:
For every ranger/non zerker/condi damage in your team you get a special buff that gives your team +2000 Power to make up for lost DPS for not taking all warriors/mes

Great idea. You know that 5 Engis would mostlikely oneshot any boss when using grenade kit F skill?

It isn’t possible to create perfect profession balance unless they are all exactly the same. But by simply increasing the damage skill coefficient it would at least come much much closer to having some sort of balance. Warriors would still be a favorite but a necro wouldn’t deal just 1/3 of a warriors damage.

Add new “story mode” paths to them, based on their already present explorable paths, but lower in difficulty. Rewards, same as regular story mode, perhaps an additional achievement.

Mob AI and other balance changes:

Easy to bypass territorial and unintelligent mobs, and encouraged. Harder to bypass intelligent mobs, stealth/invisibility/teleports/ or similar should be used. If skipped while aware of you intelligent mobs should increase the difficulty of the rest of the dungeon in some manner, ie report forward, follow, ambush, etc.

Higher hit points and lower damage output on the dumb trash. Lower hit points and higher damage output on the smart trash.

Improve the group support abilities of most classes. There should always be a passive reason why any individual class would help.

Bosses should not be immune, or nearly immune to XYZ. Why bring XYZ if the mobs that matter, ignore your XYZ.

Mathog.3157:

About rewards:
Look at Domain of Anguish in GW1. There are four “paths”, each rewarded for (if I remember) 2 gems, so you can clear one path, exit to the city, change builds and jump into the next path. However, when you decide not to exit after you do one path, the next one is open for you and when you clear it, you get twice as many gems, so it goes like this: 2, 4, 8, 16. Imagine how many tokens you would get from this system.

But beware, DoA was very hard, even with famous DvG build you couldn’t just faceroll this place. You had to really think what you are spawning (there were mobs hiding in the ground so if you rush forward, you’d die literally in a second). So what I want to say is that I’m not sure how it would work in GW2 system, when you can change your traits and skills whenever you want. Maybe if entering the dungeon locked this ability, we’d see better coordination in teams instead of just dps builds.

kitten I miss DoA.

All my what…

First of all, the gems were 1-2-3-4 in NM and 2-4-6-8 in HM, not 2-4-8-16.

Second of all, the famous DwG build? What are you, high?

DoA was a faceroll with a good SC team. Taking 35minutes or less per run. DwG was a travesty to be honest.

Not to mention, such a system will be very hard/impossible to implement in GW2 dungeons, because many paths have overlaps. In Arah p1 and p2 have overlapping sections, and p3 and p4 have as well. Not to mention, all of them have Lupi. In CoE, p2 and 3 are exactly the same for 70% of the run. CM has overlapping parts as well etc.

For my suggestions in regards to fixing dungeons, I’d like to redirect you to this thread. TL;DR, bring back dungeons skins like in EotN, and you’ll have a big motivation to many players to go out of their way to farm dungeons.

1. A complete and never-ending re-tune of PvE combat mechanics including but not limited to: actually putting mechanics into the game. This will of course mean heavy splitting of skills for sPvP and even WvW. The reasons should be obvious. Balancing professions should not begin with sPvP then trickle downward to other areas of the game. Ever.

2. Stats need to made important. Toughness should not be something 1 person (the anchor) should stack and everybody else ignores. Mobs should never hit as hard as they do now. There needs to be a clear distinction between ‘I can live with this damage (but not indefinitely), provided I have the support from my team’ kinds of damage and ‘this is obvious damage I need to make serious effort to avoid’ kinds of damage. Clutch play can be found with certain professions providing benefits against certain mechanics (through build, utility or combos), rewarding players that are capable of rubbing a few brain cells together.

3. Besides visual cues for attacks, sound should be implemented. Make enemies taunt or roar or whatever at you, not just wipe 90% of your health away from within a ball of fuzzy particle effects. The little text bits under the nameplates on certain mobs detailing their behaviour should be maintained more, especially as combat mechanics (hopefully) become more complex.

4. Defiant needs to be completely re-worked. This suggestion really should be rolled up with #1, but highlighting the effects this failed mechanic has had on PvE content should be brought to attention. Don’t ever muck up as bad as Defiant. Set Defiant as the benchmark for failure. If you ever develop something as bad as Defiant, you’ve done bad and need to go sit in the developer time-out corner.

5. Complete overhaul of the rewards system. Honestly, for all the things they did RIGHT with GW2, how could they keep the most WRONG thing with MMOs in the game?
RNG needs to go. Take it out somewhere secluded and do the right thing by everybody and just end it. Remember to salt the earth and pre-dig a couple of shallow graves ready for Agony and Magic Find.

6. Hire a dungeon dev team.
7. Set up a test realm.
8. ???
9. Free QA, feedback and profit, or something.

Siv.4351:

6. Hire a dungeon dev team.
7. Set up a test realm.
8. ???
9. Free QA, feedback and profit, or something.

I think that you have a big point here(a circle eh…) we actually have no dungeon dev team which really is at this point bad we are playing a mmorpg and dungeons should definitely be looked at there should be a team working on it, listening to player feedback
and actively address the issues

If we look at the AC revamp we saw
- NPCs being made more useful
- Reduced the health of big mobs
- Added group tactics to boss fights

Those were all in fact double edged improvements. It was good that the NPCs were useful but bad that they were necessary and died too easy. It was good that boss mobs died faster once a fight was under control and bad that you could kill mobs like breeders without needing to control them. Tactics were added to boss fights but they were buggy and pick-up groups don’t want to learn tactics so they exploit bugs instead.

For changes to dungeons I’d like to see less red circles, NPCs being useful and with reasonable survivability, better use of audio/vocals and less text, good use of cut scenes, no combat messages in chat window (as with Canach), far fewer bugs, bosses that are not exploitable through positioning.

Don’t worry, we do all hate ourselves.

About how we would rework the dungeons, which isn’t as easy as most people may think. I’d not rework them at all except adjusting some loot issues.

Bright.9160:

First of all, the gems were 1-2-3-4 in NM and 2-4-6-8 in HM, not 2-4-8-16.

I wasn’t sure about that, good to know.

Bright.9160:

Second of all, the famous DwG build? What are you, high?

What do you mean?

Bright.9160:

DoA was a faceroll with a good SC team. Taking 35minutes or less per run. DwG was a travesty to be honest.

Everything is a faceroll with a good team.

Bright.9160:

Not to mention, such a system will be very hard/impossible to implement in GW2 dungeons, because many paths have overlaps. In Arah p1 and p2 have overlapping sections, and p3 and p4 have as well. Not to mention, all of them have Lupi. In CoE, p2 and 3 are exactly the same for 70% of the run. CM has overlapping parts as well etc.

It’s obvious that they’d need to rework all the dungeons if they wanted to implement it here. I guess, if reworked, there will be a new reward system anyway.

Mathog.3157:

Bright.9160:

Second of all, the famous DwG build? What are you, high?

What do you mean?

That DwG was a broken skill, but that the DwG DoA clears were a complete joke run by terrible players and a big waste of time.

Mathog.3157:

Bright.9160:

DoA was a faceroll with a good SC team. Taking 35minutes or less per run. DwG was a travesty to be honest.

Everything is a faceroll with a good team.

DoA before EotN release would like to have a word with you.

Mathog.3157:

It’s obvious that they’d need to rework all the dungeons if they wanted to implement it here. I guess, if reworked, there will be a new reward system anyway.

The thing is, your proposed system of running all paths consecutively, although not necessarily bad, would require a complete overhaul not only in mechanics, but in design as well, and I doubt that they would want to put so much effort in a part of the game they obviously don’t care about.

Wait, why is this thread back on track?

Bright.9160:

That DwG was a broken skill, but that the DwG DoA clears were a complete joke run by terrible players and a big waste of time.

Well, I enjoyed these runs, even if they could be done faster.
I don’t consider anything enjoyable a waste of time.
I understand that you were able to play with skilled people and consider DwG a lame thing, but I wasn’t, so I had to do DoA with pugs.

Bright.9160:

DoA before EotN release would like to have a word with you.

I didn’t play GW before EotN (I heard that Factions missions were hard without NF heroes), but right now I think there’s nothing hard with all the stuff you can use.

Bright.9160:

The thing is, your proposed system of running all paths consecutively, although not necessarily bad, would require a complete overhaul not only in mechanics, but in design as well, and I doubt that they would want to put so much effort in a part of the game they obviously don’t care about.

It all depens how much they want to change dungeons. I just gave an idea, it’s not that I was thinking about it since GW2 release.

Mathog.3157:

Wait, why is this thread back on track?

Because I don’t like posts that only bring offtopic to the thread.

Mathog.3157:

Well, I enjoyed these runs, even if they could be done faster.
I don’t consider anything enjoyable a waste of time.
I understand that you were able to play with skilled people and consider DwG a lame thing, but I wasn’t, so I had to do DoA with pugs.

Don’t take it personal, I easily get on my high horse when it comes to DoA.

Mathog.3157:

Bright.9160:

DoA before EotN release would like to have a word with you.

I didn’t play GW before EotN (I heard that Factions missions were hard without NF heroes), but right now I think there’s nothing hard with all the stuff you can use.

They were especially hard because you either had to play with PUGs, who were not what I would call reliable… Or with Henchmen, and then you’d be stuck with terrible builds and ‘oi doi’ AI.

Mathog.3157:

Mathog.3157:

Wait, why is this thread back on track?

Because I don’t like posts that only bring offtopic to the thread.

Meh, you’re no fun

To “continue” the explorable dungeon, just implement a port to the dungeon entry after the boss fight. There you can now choose one of the other paths and that path gets resettet (with double tokens, money, chance of loot whatever).
Surely does not make a lot of sense story wise, but lets be honest. After leaving the dungeon, going back in and doing the same story again doesnt either.

Don’t waste your time trying to make the game better guys it just wont happen.

I just came back from a 6 months break and none of the PvE problems have been solved… In fact it seems nerfs on drops continued which means things got worse.