Guild Wars 2

As I said earlier in a previous post, the mechanics for the new encounters is not bad, they are simply overdone in execution. To much 1shot, to much stunlock, to much AoE damage in general.

Pro-tip for Anet – Vast majority of gamers hate “quick-time events”, or “press b not to die” modes. Get this in to your mindset and go with instead a “three strikes” mentality. It should take 3 major events/mechanics/effects to kill the player characters, that way we get 2 bites at the cherry to survive and if we fail on #3 we die. Thats a mechanic we ALL can get and work with.

My biggest problem with the new dungeon mechanics is really the way that this was all branded. Let me preface my comment by saying I have completed all three paths and did so without using any exploits or other shenanigans in order to see what has been going on. Sure, they’re difficult, but they’re doable if you have five people who are willing to talk out strategy before a fight.

Thus, my problem is this. The fact that boss fights are supposed to be more dynamic is essentially true, you have to worry about more then spamming damage on the boss in each fight for each path of AC. However, I find more and more that these fights hinge entirely on the NPCs making INTELLIGENT use of THEIR abilities. I.E. In path 1 the fight can become MUCH easier if Hodgins spams the rings of fire in USEFUL areas. Grast in path 3 can only help if he actually uses his bubble properly, and an entire party can wipe if Rumblus decides to use his boulder drop twice consecutively (if it is a bug, it has happened to my group) because he will not recast it. Path 2 requires Detha to activate traps so that you can even finish the boss.

Basically, each path while ‘dynamic’ is essentially an attempt to bend the players’ wills to try to force an AI character into doing what would be helpful. I feel like this is not really intelligent design and doesn’t make fights more complex. Giving players the 2 flaming scepters in path 1 would be interesting, the traps in themselves for path 2 were interesting (Detha is eternal frustration), and the invulnerable bubble from Grast is more-or-less okay. A tip for path 3— use ctrl+T to target Grast so he is much easier for the group to keep track of.

Basically, don’t give our group an auto-fail boss fight that relies on an NPCs intelligent use of their mechanics. It isn’t really all that great to ‘hope he does it right’ every fight.

Edit: A little bit of grammar, still not perfect. Sorry!

yeah thx for just ruining whole AC, a team with 3 80’s and 2 35s makes it impossible. thx Anet

I loved pugging for AC. Especially those that kill Kholer. We could have a whole party of 80s or 60/45/74 and things still work out in the end. Now even with a full party of 80s in exotics, I get people rage quitting. It’s rather sad. Love the spider bit, but the knockback graveling, stealth howler, are a bit much. We were only given 2 dodges, not 20. These days we can barely afford to have someone below 60 into AC. AC, the FIRST dungeon. “Required Level 35”.

The same amount of time spent trying to get Grast to make his shield = time taken to down Alpha. Probably spent lesser time on Alpha.

It was my first AC run a few nights ago and I must say, I’ve never had less fun in a dungeon before. We were all level 80 full exotic except for one player, but I’ve never had a bigger repair bill in 500+ hours of playing. Spider Queen was ridiculous with her poison and immobilise super combo, and Ghost Eater kept getting stuck/bugged. One of our group disconnected at the end of the run and got absolutely nothing for her efforts. All in all, it must have taken us at least 2 and a half hours, and no one got anything other than greens and blues. Totally not running this dungeon again, even if someone pays me.

HuntsForge.3260:

Did p1 other night, found it to be mostly easier only real problem was I got lag and gravelings not loading. Never had lag in a dungeon before and the not loading issue has only happened in WvW.

And the Troll hits too hard for Story Mode, was doing it with a party of 35-50 and he instantly downs at least 3 of us, was doing 3-3.5k damage with one attack.

Was a mixed group of lvl50 – 80. It felt like doing the dungeon for the first time rather than being with a group that runs past everything. Overall I’d say its a like a new challenge and worth doing again.

Admittedly lvl35 will struggle but thats partly to not having access to all the skills yet.

And yet it’s supposed to be a lvl 35 dungeon, not a hard mode for exotic 80’s. Make a 35 green group and get back to us on it’s doability. Vid too.

Another post to speak for the (mostly) silent majority, although in partial agreement with the vocal minority…

I love the changes to Ascalonian Catacombs. The end-of-dungeon bosses didn’t have any particular “flavor” (or character) before, and now they do.

Kohler is only about 10% harder on my scale. I used to be able to solo him on my mesmer and I don’t think that should’ve been possible. It was fun, for sure, but also kind of silly.

The only thing I don’t really like is the FPS issues I had on Detha’s path during the pull-chains, activate-spike-traps part of the dungeon.

These opinions are those of someone level 80, though, and on my first run through the revamped AC, one of my first comments to my party was “this is more fun now, but it is a little harder… maybe too hard for the first dungeon players will experience,” but we all concluded that not having known what it was like before, new players won’t know what to complain about and will probably be better players for having experienced more difficult content early on.

I hope so, anyway. There’s some pretty terrible PUGs out there.

I don’t understand why Anet would waste resources on changing something that isn’t broken. We have tons and tons of other dungeon bugs yet effort is put into fully changing probably one of the nicest dungeons there is.

Troll is just a joke. Take away the ability to fear us off the edges and its ok.

Ghost eater is a just clusterkitten .

Won’t be doing AC for a while now. This is from a group of 5 who can down lupus in 1:46.
We have our kitten together but half of the mechanics are just annoyances rather than difficulty.

PROTIP:

1. Make a test server.
2. Invite PvE players to attempt new dungeon bosses in a Colosseum type arena. Just 5 players vs the boss on a plain battlefield. (FotM style)
3. Let us help actually give feedback before things are released.
4. ???
5. PROFIT

I must say I am very pleased by the new additions to the AC dungeon.

I feel motivated to do all the bosses now and for the first time, as we no longer rush through AC, we kill Kholer! It is great as each path is worth about a gold, so most of my guildies are interested.
We are also currently teaching the new guys how to do it, as it takes more skill then stats now and lots of people like it in our guild.

So thank you Anet and great job.

Oh this dungeon has the only NPC in game that I feel the need to protect or revive. Good job, and I can not wait to see what you do to CM.

For everyone talking about people complaining it’s too easy, what fractal level are you on? I quit on level 48 two months ago because the rewards are trash.

Now on to the real point of why your AC changes indicate that Robert has no idea what he is doing. People play MMOs because they are social. AC was the perfect social dungeon – want to bring 1-2 lowbies? No problem, the other 3 of us will played geared 80s. Try that now.

yeah. It just must not be my cup of tea. AC was a good dungeon to take noobies through for their first dungeon run, now I take groups through and they die every other second, and never want to run dungeons again.

Don’t understand the reason behind this change? it was a level 35 dungeon for a reason… if we were getting to many rewards from it, scale the ending rewards down… but don’t make a noob dungeon harder..

It’s the lowest dungeon for a reason.

Fail, in my opinion.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

All new stuff in dungeons is going to be hard for the first few days. We see it all the time with new content – people fail and get knocked down when they aren’t used to that sort of thing, and they claim it is too difficult.
Give it a week or so for everyone to develop strategies, learn encounters, and build fundamentals, and they will claim it is too easy. Trust me when I say this, the numbers are punishing (but less than they were before), but knowing the mechanics will greatly mitigate the danger.

New mechanics or not, you made it ridiculously hard and frustrating now. The graveling knockdowns are just too much.

I did path 1 and 2 of AC and I didn’t think it was hard, it was just terrible. As in, terribly annoying. Getting KD spammed every .5 seconds in not “fun” or “interesting” to say the least. It’s just plain annoying and only a masochist would enjoy it. The path 2 boss is long, boring and awful. Shooting laser beams for 30 minutes while half asleep is not what I would call “fun” or “Interesting.”

Barius.1089:

Giving players the 2 flaming scepters in path 1 would be interesting…

I would LOVE this. That would reduce the reliance on faulty AI and make the combat more about teamwork.
+1

JNetRocks.3652:

Barius.1089:

Giving players the 2 flaming scepters in path 1 would be interesting…

I would LOVE this. That would reduce the reliance on faulty AI and make the combat more about teamwork.
+1

That, sir, is a wonderful idea!

censual seduction.6345:

3. I like teamwork, but I think Anet should focus on keeping people from “skipping” encounters. especially Kholer, which would have made the dungeon fair to people who are not there just for the “end tokens”. This makes pug groups less cooperative since they can have thier own agenda going in.

Yeah we do dungeons for the thrill and fun of killing trash mobs. Fair enough if you are a low level group having difficulty by skipping, but then again with the new mechanics the trash mobs becoming even more challenging for said groups.

There was another comment about decreased LFGs for AC in GW2LFG. Is that the silent majority voting with their feet? Once the novelty wears off, ie 1 or 2 runs, expect even more AC attrition from the low level groups. Farmers and levellers will go on doing their biz there, new mechanics or not.

Hardselling the new AC isnt going to work.

I’m not sure how the insane amount of knockdown stun could be considered fun. Especially when it is combined with traps that kill you and prevent anyone from rezing you if you can’t move. Last I checked I can’t chain stablility, and how many stun breaks do you need? Poor mechanics like that encourage players to find exploits.

to all the people saying they love everything in the new AC, are you telling me you find NO PROBLEMS with the p2 boss fight?

as in, you think it isn’t convoluted to kitten that you have to drop what you’re doing, pick up a stupid stick off the ground, get 1 guy to lift 1 out of 5 ectos, get the remaining 4 to squeeze around 1 trap, and all spam pull on that one ecto, do it 2 more times, draw the boss over, drop the stupid stick, beat on him for 10 seconds, pick up the stick you dropped, run over to another trap and redo the entire thing again? for 3 times or more?

really? you guys think that is ‘brilliant’ gameplay?

it’s bloody pointless and convoluted.

I think more should be said about p3 final boss and the broken NPC protective shield. That’s the only major problem we have doing this dungeon (experienced dungeon players, in guild groups).

alcedonia.7831:

to all the people saying they love everything in the new AC, are you telling me you find NO PROBLEMS with the p2 boss fight?

as in, you think it isn’t convoluted to kitten that you have to drop what you’re doing, pick up a stupid stick off the ground, get 1 guy to lift 1 out of 5 ectos, get the remaining 4 to squeeze around 1 trap, and all spam pull on that one ecto, do it 2 more times, draw the boss over, drop the stupid stick, beat on him for 10 seconds, pick up the stick you dropped, run over to another trap and redo the entire thing again? for 3 times or more?

really? you guys think that is ‘brilliant’ gameplay?

it’s bloody pointless and convoluted.

There are a few things that can make this encounter easier. The first is to make use of the ctrl+T function in the game that will call out an ectoplasm for you to target. The second is to assign two people to levitation and 3 people to pulling.

The dungeons are supposed to encourage group coordination. I ran this tonight with a pug with no problems.

Here is the rationale for “fixing what is not broke” from a corporate standpoint:

1) Gem sales are down, so some mechanism is needed to increase revenue without it being overly obvious to the player base

2) In-game metrics show that AC was a very popular path for equipping exotics – maybe a little too popular (lower level toons saving tokens for their graduation to level 80, thus bypassing the TP)

3) Increase dungeon difficulty of AC to the extent that 5 level 35 toons in greens will probably rage quit

4) Frustrated lower level players (and even fully kitted 80s in exotics looking to outfit themselves in dungeon armor for pride and prestige)

5) Open wallet —-> buy gems —-> convert to gold —-> purchase exotics on the TP or the materials to craft them yourself.

6) Conclusion: more money for the corporation

I’m not even going to elaborate on the severe lag issues (new) and bugs (new and old) that continue to plague this dungeon and have yet to be acknowledged.

Now we need a team full of exotic to finish it, poor lvl 35 they will not finish this dungeon.

Path 1 defend hodgins while he looks for info on the flame sceptres is next to neigh impossible to defend him due to the long knock-down and the increased amount of ads; I have tried this with PUG’s and my guild we still can not do it no matter the tactics

carabidus.6214:

Here is the rationale for “fixing what is not broke” from a corporate standpoint:

1) Gem sales are down, so some mechanism is needed to increase revenue without it being overly obvious to the player base

2) In-game metrics show that AC was a very popular path for equipping exotics – maybe a little too popular (lower level toons saving tokens for their graduation to level 80, thus bypassing the TP)

3) Increase dungeon difficulty of AC to the extent that 5 level 35 toons in greens will probably rage quit

4) Frustrated lower level players (and even fully kitted 80s in exotics looking to outfit themselves in dungeon armor for pride and prestige)

5) Open wallet —-> buy gems —-> convert to gold —-> purchase exotics on the TP or the materials to craft them yourself.

6) Conclusion: more money for the corporation

I’m not even going to elaborate on the severe lag issues (new) and bugs (new and old) that continue to plague this dungeon and have yet to be acknowledged.

How true. Considering there are tons of bugs everywhere in the game, many of them have been existed since launch, they are quietly left aside due to “no resources”. Then boom, a complete “renovated” AC. No resource my “neck”.

LoopySnoopy.7923:

Path 1 defend hodgins while he looks for info on the flame sceptres is next to neigh impossible to defend him due to the long knock-down and the increased amount of ads; I have tried this with PUG’s and my guild we still can not do it no matter the tactics

Hodgins now also takes more damage while standing there like an idiot not fighting back.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

All new stuff in dungeons is going to be hard for the first few days. We see it all the time with new content – people fail and get knocked down when they aren’t used to that sort of thing, and they claim it is too difficult.
Give it a week or so for everyone to develop strategies, learn encounters, and build fundamentals, and they will claim it is too easy. Trust me when I say this, the numbers are punishing (but less than they were before), but knowing the mechanics will greatly mitigate the danger.

I’m pretty sure that you & your team haven’t test this w/ a group of level 35s with their skills, traits, armors, weapons appropriate to their levels. The spider queen will laugh at your group at least 2,3 times, the mob in the tunnel before Kholer maybe 1 time, Kholer & the cave troll might be 10 times or more, all other bosses at least 10 times or you guys rage quit.

At level 35, you will have 35 skill points and it takes 26 skill points to access your elite skill bar. And with 9 skill points left, you won’t be able to buy your 1st elite skill point (I look at my Guardian tree, and the 1st elite skill needs 10 skill points). I don’t even bother to look at Traits because it’s not even optimized with only 35 points to spend.

Remove that label “minimum requirement level 35” and it will solve the problem. How hard is this to change the text display when you have plenty of resources and time to “renovate” AC.

I hated the changes, the more they “FIX” things the less I like.

As many ppl here said it was kind of easy especialy for lvl 80 groups that have done it many many times before. But what the hell it is the first dungeon, it is meant to be doable by a lvl 35 group of players that are still learning the dungeon mechanics. I seriously doubt group of lvl 35 players can do it now.

Path 2 last boss is annoyingly boring with those stupid guns you HAVE to use. My God it’s terrible imo.

Looks like Anet just have this need of nerfing or changing what ppl like most, why I can not understand.

Anet fix your GD dungeon ASAp. there is no fun here and i would not be suprised if you lose more new players next week than u have since southsun cove and fractals.
this isnt a dungeon this is an excuse to make something harder. why cant you jsut sometimes learn to leave well enough alone?
P3 is dumb, P2 is a chore and a half, and p1 is d—n near impossible to clear the hodge defence for. the rest i imagine wouldnt be to bad but as it stands me and the rest of the 3rd largest guild on dragonbrand (uhoh) will not be doing AC anymore at least as a guild.

So, for someone who loves running dungeons while leveling GW2 is not the right game then? Also for someone who just started GW2 it’s not easy to properly gear his char properly due to lack of crafting skills or gold (meaning buying the level 30 yellow gear just for the sake of running dungeons).

Long story short: GW2 and its community is only for hardcore and elitist gamers. Newbies unwanted.

Hopefully the elitsist invest enough money to keep the game going

I think there is a big disparity in the comments in this thread since GW2 is a high skill game. All players need to watch animations, react, move, and plan. Monster knowledge, class knowledge, cross-class knowledge, skill knowledge, weapon knowledge, trait knowledge, it’s all important. A high skill player can perform immeasurably better than an unskilled player.

For example, Kohler has an animation and you need to dodge. Simple? A less skilled player cannot just spot the animation and dodge – they need to plan to have endurance or an evade skill ready – they need to watch Kohler’s start of animation – they need to know how long the animation takes – and then they need to execute the dodge at the right time (not too early or too late). For someone new to dungeons this is enough challenge. It does not need summoned ghosts that are really difficult to manage for anyone new to the game with no cross-class knowledge whatsoever.

Essentially, the introductory dungeon needs to seem really simple for skilled players, and challenging for beginners. There probably isn’t anything in between due to the nature of the game. There do need to be introductory dungeons since the gap between unskilled play and skilled play needs to be bridged somewhere. If this means that the introductory dungeons should provide less barter items for level 80 exotic armour then that should be the design decision.

The are some parts of the new AC that clearly are just a matter of strategy. Keeping the NPC alive while killing burrows is one of them.
The burrow king requires the group to coordinate, but it’s not too bad.

However, parts of this dungeon are just outright unforgiving.
Spider Queen?
If a single player gets downed in the middle of the aoe field then you may as well give up on them, you’re not likely to rezz them without getting yourself killed and then them killed again.

Kholer?
He’s fine, and then he does his ae pull and downs 3 or more of your group at once.
This one skill needs to be toned down just a bit or have a greater tell before it happens. Having the boss fight depends on exact dodge timing is very intense, especially for what was supposed to be the first dungeon.

I think a lot of the dungeon is fine and players will figure out how to work around, but I don’t think fights like the spider queen and kholer should require perfect timing to beat.

Stooperdale.3560:

Essentially, the introductory dungeon needs to seem really simple for skilled players, and challenging for beginners. There probably isn’t anything in between due to the nature of the game. There do need to be introductory dungeons since the gap between unskilled play and skilled play needs to be bridged somewhere. If this means that the introductory dungeons should provide less barter items for level 80 exotic armour then that should be the design decision.

You want the introductory dungeon to be hard for everyone new? That’s a great way to get players to mass exodus the game.

This dungeon is not a bridge between skilled and unskilled. It’s a wall for the unskilled players. Sure, a lot of players will get better and then have no trouble at all. A large number more will just get too frustrated to even try. You have to ease people into new content and difficulty, not make a do or die situation.

I liked that the original AC boss was one of the few bosses that was fun to melee, avoid the scream or die, now it has become another ranged fight… Path 1, range and run around fire circles… easy. Path 3, go range or the bosses regular hit knocks you back… lame.

That’s my only complaint other than the buggy NPC in path 3 and insta wipe from falling rocks as they’re unavoidable and not enough dodges if NPC doesn’t shield or you can’t wipe the defiant stacks. Very unforgiving.

I think some people, mainly the one’s that are arguing old AC was fine as it was, are confused on what an introductory dungeon is suppose to accomplish. Introductory dungeons are suppose to teach the basics of working as a team and understanding more complex mechanics than what you would find in an overworld environment. Please explain to me how pre-patch AC accomplished any of this?

Pre-patch AC required absolutely no team work to finish. This is why everyone pug’d it. You could stand in AoEs, face tank bosses, and dodging wasn’t a necessity.

I won’t argue post-patch AC is perfect, but it’s a step in the right direction. Mechanics teach you to not stand in AoEs, to dodge, to kill adds in boss fights, to work as a team (Path 2), interrupting channels (Path 3) and to watch your surroundings for cues on what you should be doing (Path 1 and 3).

Aside from the lag issues that have appeared, I think the main area that needs to be improved upon is hit points on trash and trash leashing. People still speed run passed the trash mobs. If this is working as intended then I wonder why even bother having the mobs there to begin with. I’d say look into lower hit points on the trash and remove leashing so that you can’t just passed every mob. The trash mobs shouldn’t be the huge time commitment of killing as they currently are, but in their current state one must ask why they are even in the dungeon to begin with.

WBL.6715:

I liked that the original AC boss was one of the few bosses that was fun to melee, avoid the scream or die, now it has become another ranged fight… Path 1, range and run around fire circles… easy. Path 3, go range or the bosses regular hit knocks you back… lame.

That’s my only complaint other than the buggy NPC in path 3 and insta wipe from falling rocks as they’re unavoidable and not enough dodges if NPC doesn’t shield or you can’t wipe the defiant stacks. Very unforgiving.

Stability and protection are your friends. As for the rocks, it’s been mentioned that you can interrupt it.

“You want the introductory dungeon to be hard for everyone new? That’s a great way to get players to mass exodus the game.”

No. Challenging means that new players go in, face a challenge within their limits, and can find success if they get beyond beginner status.

Stooperdale.3560:

“You want the introductory dungeon to be hard for everyone new? That’s a great way to get players to mass exodus the game.”

No. Challenging means that new players go in, face a challenge within their limits, and can find success if they get beyond beginner status.

This is a good point. To expand on this: If the dungeons are a cake walk as AC was before then the player finds no satisfaction in conquering the dungeon; if you make it too difficult then it becomes out of their reach and they give up. Either one of these will cause this mass exodus you speak of.

Challenging dungeons are a good way of making the game enjoyable and keep the players engaged in the content. If you make the introductory dungeon a mindlessly easy gear grind (which is exactly what AC was) then you set the tone that all dungeons will be like this.

It’s rather presumptuous to call AC a failed introductory dungeon right now, as most seem to be claiming. ANet could be setting the stage for a revamp of all dungeons, and AC could be a sign of more complex mechanics for the later dungeons. It really depends on if they plan to have later dungeons build on the basic concepts that they attempt to teach new players in the revamped AC.

So far with new AC, I like it being bit more challenging and only issue I can find is on path 3. Currently taking your chances with Warmaster Grust is a big gamble. Will he cast shield or will he try to hit boss with hammer or just stand still. They ether need to make caving in part evadable or give Warmaster some stacks of defiant because so many times I’ve failed the dungeon because he didn’t use the shield. Running to the wall and back every time boss uses the skill inst solution because sometimes you wont even have time to get back to boss before he repeats the attack

I liked AC before the changes. Just ran through with a group on path 1 and couldn’t get past the burrows. Dungeons when compared to pve were a good challenge. Harder, but not impossible. I liked the change of pace of killing everything with ease at lvl 80 to needing to really work and not go on auto pilot. Now, it’s too hard. Sure, who and what is in your group has a lot to do with it. But there was nothing wrong with it to begin with. First dungeon shouldn’t be impossible. They should be more challenging for what level it is.

Yeah, Try to find a group that will even take a lvl 35 toon now in this “revamp” of a dungeon. This is the first dungeon and you almost have to be 80 to be accepted in a group. I don’t think this was Anet’s intention, but come on.. you really didn’t see this coming?

Nobody runs AC now. Everyone else is either farming dragons in open world for easy Rares or grinding COF over and over and over.

Yes, the revamped AC is FUN AND CHALLENGING. But is it worth it now compared to other money making activities? Do people actually like it now? Can a party of all level 35 players can accomplish all paths without ragequitting?

I seriously loved doing AC dungeons and I am not complaining about how super hard or difficult it is now. As others have said, it’s challenging but still doable that needs a LOT of coordination. A random pug with some lowbies or beginners will get owned by that stupid Spider Queen’s bajillion AOEs that mean instant death on anyone standing in the wrong spot at the wrong time.

I’ve done the new AC a few times now, but as time passes, less and less people are now attempting to group up to run AC and it’s really hard to pick up a group which does not gearcheck or require you to be level 80 in order to join them. Heck, the entrance to AC which was once teeming with players looking for a group is now a wasteland like the rest of Plains of Ashford surrounded with ghosts. Go see for yourself.

The devs intention on revamping AC is nice, but the outcome as what everyone else is seeing/experiencing is showing otherwise.

Please do something about it before the rest of us finally give up and join the bandwagon of COF farmers. Oh wait, I’m sensing you’re going to make that dungeon FUN AND CHALLENGING too in the future patches. Which was supposed to be the more sensible thing to do first rather than upping the difficulty in a level 35 dungeon and destroying the chance for new dungeon crawlers to experience their first dungeon.

I did AC with some Guildies last night and unfortunately it was the most frustrating night I ever had in GW2 since Beta.

The forums are not always a true indication of the majority of players.
Send Everyone an in game mail asking One Simple Question:
Ascalonian catacombs , More enjoyable pre-change Or post-change?
When the result is post-change then i will believe that i am in a minority- until then i firmly believe i feel, as do the majority of players.

Valdur.3607:

I did AC with some Guildies last night and unfortunately it was the most frustrating night I ever had in GW2 since Beta.

I had one of those nights- wanna know what i did? logged out (not /ragequit) went on you tube and watched some trailers for forthcoming mmo’s in 2013 then signed up for beta’s and newsletters.
Frustration will result in the loss of players (customers) whereas a marginal increase in enjoyment will not result in new players (customers)

BurnWeed.5902:

The forums are not always a true indication of the majority of players.
Send Everyone an in game mail asking One Simple Question:
Ascalonian catacombs , More enjoyable pre-change Or post-change?
When the result is post-change then i will believe that i am in a minority- until then i firmly believe i feel, as do the majority of players.

Check LFG website. Even though it’s not representative of the whole players’ base but it’s pretty convincing. Post changed LFG of AC is now much less than CoF when before, it’s more.

in last two days, ive made few AC runs
first time after update with my guild took us 15 mins for p1, with few wipes on spider
p2 took us 30 mins, with few wipes at last boss, to figure what to do.
p3 took us 30-45 mins, with lots of wipes at last boss
all players had best gear on chars and 4k+ achivment and know how to play and still strugled on some areas

next day i tried doing it with PUG
took us 2h to complete full run, and all were lv80, with loads of wipes, raging

yesterday ive run it again with full dps group(3w,1g,1m) and took us 45 mins to finish full run, with few wipes at spider

so i think its gonna be rly nice farm for ppl who like AC, and use good team, and max lv chars, and gonna be pain in the back for all the random pugs, and low levs who try to lev up by AC

my only problems there are

-spiders poison is way to strong
-evading of champ mobs and perma KD is rly anoying
-NPC at boss at p3 can be rly slow and can take few sec to start shield and all party can wipe in that time)

My 2 cents on AC p3… BUUUUUULLLLLSSSSHHIIIIIIT!

How are you suppose to win now that the boss rocks the entire room and the kitten npc never uses his shield? You CAN NOT interrupt him as stated before.

Karnage.2860:

My 2 cents on AC p3… BUUUUUULLLLLSSSSHHIIIIIIT!

How are you suppose to win now that the boss rocks the entire room and the kitten npc never uses his shield? You CAN NOT interrupt him as stated before.

You can interrupt him. Problem is, when you do interrupt him, he gets 5 stacks of defiant (immune to CC). You have to remove those stacks first in order to successfully interrupt him. It needs a crapload of coordination and timing with your team in order to successfully perma CC his rock-wailing-the-sky-is-falling skill.

A random pug not talking to one another will eat and shizt bricks and rocks.

Maestro.5376:

alcedonia.7831:

to all the people saying they love everything in the new AC, are you telling me you find NO PROBLEMS with the p2 boss fight?

as in, you think it isn’t convoluted to kitten that you have to drop what you’re doing, pick up a stupid stick off the ground, get 1 guy to lift 1 out of 5 ectos, get the remaining 4 to squeeze around 1 trap, and all spam pull on that one ecto, do it 2 more times, draw the boss over, drop the stupid stick, beat on him for 10 seconds, pick up the stick you dropped, run over to another trap and redo the entire thing again? for 3 times or more?

really? you guys think that is ‘brilliant’ gameplay?

it’s bloody pointless and convoluted.

There are a few things that can make this encounter easier. The first is to make use of the ctrl+T function in the game that will call out an ectoplasm for you to target. The second is to assign two people to levitation and 3 people to pulling.

The dungeons are supposed to encourage group coordination. I ran this tonight with a pug with no problems.

this is not a “how to run AC” thing.

this is a “why is it so convoluted” thing.

when a-net makes us take off our pants because they want us to wear it on our heads, the answer to the question “why?” isn’t “tighten the belt so the pants stay on”.

the NPC could be the one doing the lifting. just remove the kitten pulling nonsense. the group could dps the lifted ecto to charge up the trap. like a variation of lupi and his grubs. that would make things A LOT LESS convoluted, make the fight smoother and MORE ENGAGING, while keeping the trap idea.

i find it amusing that you say dungeons are meant to encourage group coordination as an excuse for the mess that is the present AC P2. especially since the present AC P1 is nothing but adds. more adds. more adds. and the tactic to get through P1 is straightforward: kite. step 1. you either press “a” or “d”, step 2. left click on the mob or boss you want to kill, and that’s it. in trouble? step 3. double tap “a” or “d”. repeat step 1. i literally 2man-ed the final boss the first time i did it. with absolutely none of the ‘teamplay’ you claim dungeons encourage.

the entire AC at the moment is a schizophrenic mess. the ‘difficulty’ in P1 consists of mechanics with the creativity of my keyboard. the ‘difficulty’ in P2 consists of making the player juggle as many things as possible. pick up new weapon which does no damage. arrange the group at 1 trap. 1 guy designates an ecto to pull. everyone pulls it. repeat 3 times. pull boss over. drop shiny new weapon which does no damage. beat the boss for 10 seconds. pick up still shiny weapon. run over to the next trap. repeat. it’s not hard. it’s just CONVOLUTED. it’s like making a guy take off his pants, dance a jig, balance a ball on his head, whistle a tune backwards, so that he could take a fart. P3 is fun. or at least fun until you realize grast bugs apparently 90% of the time and refuses to cast his bubble until 5 seconds into the meteor shower.

i like anet and i like gw2. but i’m not going to sit here and listen to anyone tell me that dog doo is not only good for me, it is high in vitamin c and helps to prevent colds, so i should eat it.

Explorable mode is supposed to be a challenge, if you want to do a dungeon introduction, do story. Colin Johanson said this himself in London with gw2guru, Dungeon explorables are considered hard-mode.

It’s an insult that it’s super easy where explorable mode was called to be needing coordination and teamplay. And then people in this thread say, PUGs with no communication can’t do this. That’s the point, you need to work together, recognize the skills your opponent is using, feeling out the damage the AoE is doing.

Tbh the spiderqueen gave me a scare with that aoe that used to be a total poison joke which now is a poison death trap. But what do you do? Complain the spiderqueen is hard, or do you actually pay attention and get your kitten out of the AoE? If you do the first, you’re clearly not in the right mindset for a dungeon explorable.

Also with defiance on bosses, use this smartly, coordinate with your team so that you remove the stacks before he needs to be interrupted. Use your CC with a brain and things become easy fast. But granted, knowing this even I find coordinating your team around it fairly difficult.

So as a player you end up dealing with the consequences, You’re constantly knocked down? Stability utilities and traits that activate on those can help you out if you have access to them. Loads of conditions? get skills and traits that deal with conditions, for you AND your allies. Takign loads of damage? Try to find out when it’s coming and dodge it and stack a few boons (protection pls) when people are not able to deal with it.

Ofcourse with half of the players being easily discouraged after the first wipe, getting agitated so quickly they only see the red pixels on the screen. Yeah that’s not going to help (also being tired doesn’t help, I failed many encounters due to being tired. lol)

My guild-group, which isn’t super-pro really, managed to do path 3 first time around, no wipes. (Then again they had me lolol) So even if you have 4k achievement points doesn’t mean you’re experienced. :P To be honest, you’re experienced when youre able to not skip parts of dungeons to make it go faster, because you will nail it anyway.