Guild Wars 2

This is my opinion, based off my experiences.

I used to enjoy AC. I didn’t care for the armor, but I liked doing the runs. It was pretty chill. A nice way for me to kill an hour and spend some time on Skype with my friends.

Now?

Now, I find, AC to be a mass of burning hell and anger. EVERYTHING is buffed. I’ve run with atleast 4 different groups, 2 of which were all on Skype coordinating our moves (We’re usually extremely good at group events and can overcome most things.) and they’ve taken atleast 2-3 hours. The last of which took 4 hours, and we didn’t even finish. I just left to go CoF.

This is a bit extreme. Granted, some of you guys may do much better, the point being is it had NO need to be buffed to this degree. I shouldn’t need to worry about running from the Waypoint to the Howler King without dying. I never worried about that before. I could easily make it, without even getting hit. Now I’m lucky to make that first left turn without 15 things tackling my kitten to the ground. Oh, dodge roll, you might say. We all did. Everyone but the thief got their kitten handed to them.

I understand that the “If you don’t like it, don’t do it.” rule applies, but once again, the principle of it is that it is far too buffed now. It takes far too long. It needs to be brought back down..

#Begin trolling/flaming/whatever.

I agree slightly…

I think the problem is that ArenaNet thinks adding little gimmicks like the ghost buster thing encourages teamplay depth when all it really does is gate content from pugs. It doesn’t accent the combat system depth or the clever design of the skills, it actually draws you away from that. In GW1, this type of design would never have flown. In all honesty, it’s a shallow cop out and is neither fun nor engaging for most. This is an MMORPG. If i, and others, wanted Action / Adventure / Platforming, we’d be playing Assassin’s Creed or the other multitude of games that do this better, plus have a better story.

They just have no clue how to design in the absence of a deep skill system. It just makes everything boring, bland, brain-dead, and arbitrarily frustrating to have to cooperate with your team, not inside the games inherent combat system parameters, but within a tacked on gimmick that adds nothing to gameplay.

Alernatively, an example of good design in GW2 is one that encourages dynamic and innovative skill use that has tangible, immediate effect on the outcome of combat. These types of gimmicks are just frustrating and stupid, serving only to gate pugs with artificial difficulty in improperly balanced numbers.

AC really isn’t that hard.. I’ve done p2 a couple times with guild and that’s it, but the other day I joined a random pug group for p1 compiled of the less wanted classes generally(thief necro ranger), we beat p1 easily, then p2, then p3. No Skype interaction, no knowledge about the pugs playstyles etc etc etc… I’d guesstimate it took us 1.5-2 hours for all 3 paths. Which I would say is a decent time, I’ve spent longer having a tough time in arah path X and cof path 3 before.

This dungeon doesn’t need to be nerfed it’s fine and fun.

A lol moment for me was when you said : " I shouldn’t need to worry about running from the Waypoint to the Howler King without dying. I never worried about that before." Answer to your problem : kill the adds. No one has any right to complain about dying from a waypoint to anywhere because they didn’t take the time to kill the adds, that’s all on you.

Some paths like path 1 and 3 are faster for me after the change. Almost all mobs have their health reduced by half, at least. The only buff I could see is maybe the spider hatchlings? They don’t die in 1 hit now.

All the final bosses have their instajib moves nerfed big time too, aside from warmaster grast bugging out and not bubbling sometimes, rumblus fight is basically tank and spank, with even less moving needed than before the changes took place. Howling King is easier done ranged, but only because you can pull ads with more freedom. None of his attacks are a threat at all. Ghost eater fight is the only one that actually require thinking, but if you are skypeing it up, that should be no problem.

Obligatory troll: I wouldn’t say L2P, but I’ll say stop playing WoW.

No, that’ on the party. Not me.

I’ve never played WoW. I’ve done worse. I played Maplestory for 7 years :x

Majora.6028:

No, that’ on the party. Not me.

How many times did everyone try to suicide through? Did you change your skills to help you get passed or just keep your normal ones on? Did nobody think " if we keep dying running why don’t we kill them?" or “Yo sneaky kitten thief who got passed, cmere and stealth all of us in 1 magical click so we can run through”

Anywho, hopefully you got some ideas now for next time you try.

I did AC (all three paths) for the first time since the update last night.

It was really fun.

The end boss for Detha’s Path was my favorite!
GHOST BUSTERS!!!!

The only path that is absurd is 3, and that’s mainly due to the NPC hardcore derping if you “interrupt” rumblisk at all.

Edit for clarity: Interrupting Rumblisk doesnt stop cave-in (bug) and causes the NPC to never react the rest of the fight (bug).

Seems your problem is you expect it easy. I imagine Anet might be in the process of tuning up CoF right now for the same reasons, so you can kiss that goodbye too.

If you’re having problems running from the waypoint to the boss, maybe the solution is to kill that trash so it doesn’t kill you all day? maybe? no?.

I played all the paths since the changes. They seem slightly more difficult but it’s all still fine. I had a problem where the ghost eater bugged out and didn’t spawn at all, but that’s probably fixed by now.

I find that AC is more fun now.

The only problem at the moment is that the majority of the players still have the zerg-fest, brain-dead encounter comatose that Anet has placed them in since launch.

Now that Anet is moving forward and is actually making use of their talents to provide is with engaging encounters, most people are slowly waking up from their comatosed state and starting to complain.

This will probably blow over soon as people get used to the new mechanics that introduced into the game.

Chickenshoes.6250:

Seems your problem is you expect it easy.

How many dungeons are there for casuals, if this keeps up? Is it really THAT bad to have a dungeon people can run relaxed for fun? Does everything, including PvE, have to be an edge-of-your-seat experience?

A good piece of music alternates between tension, and relaxation. This game should be no different. Make a few hair pullers. But also make a few easy, relaxing dungeons. The loot drops can be less, I don’t mind. But This AC thing isn’t helping the casual guilds one bit.

I like the increased difficulty of the bosses. But they did not need to give everyt single f-ing mob in the dungeokittensecond knockdown. lol.

Everything was nerfed, though.

UnrepentantProcrastinator.7420:

Everything was nerfed, though.

whaaaaat have you been smoking and can I have some lol.

Quick Mouse.7635:

UnrepentantProcrastinator.7420:

Everything was nerfed, though.

whaaaaat have you been smoking and can I have some lol.

I’ve been smoking the easiest runs of AC I’ve ever done since the patch happened.

It’s virtually fool proof now.

Chickenshoes.6250:

Seems your problem is you expect it easy. I imagine Anet might be in the process of tuning up CoF right now for the same reasons, so you can kiss that goodbye too.

If you’re having problems running from the waypoint to the boss, maybe the solution is to kill that trash so it doesn’t kill you all day? maybe? no?.

I played all the paths since the changes. They seem slightly more difficult but it’s all still fine. I had a problem where the ghost eater bugged out and didn’t spawn at all, but that’s probably fixed by now.

I can’t wait until they buff up CoF. The QQ will be glorious.

I shall drink of the tears of the CoF Farmers.

ThiBash.5634:

Chickenshoes.6250:

Seems your problem is you expect it easy.

How many dungeons are there for casuals, if this keeps up? Is it really THAT bad to have a dungeon people can run relaxed for fun? Does everything, including PvE, have to be an edge-of-your-seat experience?

A good piece of music alternates between tension, and relaxation. This game should be no different. Make a few hair pullers. But also make a few easy, relaxing dungeons. The loot drops can be less, I don’t mind. But This AC thing isn’t helping the casual guilds one bit.

Dungeon Explorables were never “for casuals”. Anet has always said that they were for solid groups that achieved “group synergy”. Now it’s one of the few things they’re revamping to keep their word on, and you want it to stop?

If the PuGer can’t learn the instance and how to adapt to different groups, then they shouldn’t be PuGing. If the PuGer refuses to find a group/guild to get set, than they shouldn’t be playing Explorables.

Tried p2 last night with some guildies and gave up after an hour and a half of just ghosteater. We can do the co-ordination to charge the traps but i believe we didn’t think far enough ahead. It definately needs a full team. Some kind of VOIP is also a good thing (saves time typing). I suggested several times to have 1 person call target and others on trap duty. In hindsight, i should have gone further to say have the team split to 1 target duty, 2×2 on trap duty to fill 2 traps at the same time. When GE loses his shield ofc all dps, when he regains it drag him over to the 2nd charged trap, BUT 3 dps and 2 peel off to charge the 3rd trap. This would prob have to be repeated. Is there a better/more straightforward way of doing it?

I think the new AC is better, and lol at taking 4hours at completing one path. I did path 3 with 3 of my guildmates (guardian, ranger, elementalist, thief) from start to finish ( our 5th had lag problems ) in around 50 minutes and wiping twice at Rumblus because we didn’t know the mechanics. And don’t mistake this for some kind of boast as I think of myself/my guildmates of pretty average players and I believe the new AC is easier than the old one, especially on low level characters.

@ Funky: why would you need a full team for it? I bet that a good experienced party can manage the boss in 4 or even 3, while some of GW2 best players could duo it. That being said your strategy seems pretty good but I would keep one player in melee range of the boss all the time as the traps don’t get charged if Mr. Ghost Eater is standing inside the circle. Also take into account that no matter your DPS, the boss will regain its shield at 75%, 50% and 25% hp.

Funky.4861:

Tried p2 last night with some guildies and gave up after an hour and a half of just ghosteater. We can do the co-ordination to charge the traps but i believe we didn’t think far enough ahead. It definately needs a full team. Some kind of VOIP is also a good thing (saves time typing). I suggested several times to have 1 person call target and others on trap duty. In hindsight, i should have gone further to say have the team split to 1 target duty, 2×2 on trap duty to fill 2 traps at the same time. When GE loses his shield ofc all dps, when he regains it drag him over to the 2nd charged trap, BUT 3 dps and 2 peel off to charge the 3rd trap. This would prob have to be repeated. Is there a better/more straightforward way of doing it?

Charge all the traps. Lure him into each of them and DPS away.

Kholer destroys me, I’m so incredibly terrible at avoiding his scorpion wire. It’s a good thing my guildies are awesome at avoiding. I take a lot of spinning swords to the face.

Pennry.9215:

Dungeon Explorables were never “for casuals”. Anet has always said that they were for solid groups that achieved “group synergy”. Now it’s one of the few things they’re revamping to keep their word on, and you want it to stop?

If there are 7 other dungeons, as well as fractals, for the hardcore player, then yes I would like them to keep one dungeon for more relaxed group play.

One frikkin’ dungeon, that’s not a spamfest of instakills and permastuns…is that too much to ask?

lothefallen.7081:

They just have no clue how to design in the absence of a deep skill system. It just makes everything boring, bland, brain-dead, and arbitrarily frustrating to have to cooperate with your team, not inside the games inherent combat system parameters, but within a tacked on gimmick that adds nothing to gameplay.

Quoted for truth.. it’s why we have a ton of instagibs and lazy design, first I would suggest never going melee in this game. Even though I do half the time, it absolutely favors range 99.9% of the time. Melee in AC. LOL. No. Permaknockdown/instakill/etc etc. just horrible horrible design, it forces everyone ranged and makes the content even worse for those that actually enjoy melee.

Btw if you are having trouble ranged, idk what your problem is.

IMO the only bosses that were actually buffed are the first spider and the troll. I’ve only done AC twice since patch but at least now I see someone dying on the first boss, for the first time ever, since it was a ridiculous fight (but for, oddly enough, those hatchling spitting you to death if you were brainafk). Troll is plainly stronger with that fear-chaindaze-earthquake thing, which is the only thing I’d like to see slightly tuned down out of being pretty annoying.
Skelk bosses are probably actually easier once you got the new tactic. But I don’t think they’re actually funnier (except for IMMASHOOTINGMAHLAZERS’ boss and funny Ghostbusters moments) since everything’s hp pool has been nerfed.

Oh, and Stalkers, they’re annoying too, but, you know, “big red circle = dodge the hell away” rule still stands. At least Leapers don’t munch your face off anymore and that’s a relief.

The troll is bugged though. None of the projectiles it casts can be reflected.

Yep, that’s painful too when your class could be able to just reflect those.
And also, is it me or the spider’s pools’ ticks cannot be blocked anymore?

Majora.6028:

I shouldn’t need to worry about running from the Waypoint to the Howler King without dying. I never worried about that before. I could easily make it, without even getting hit. Now I’m lucky to make that first left turn without 15 things tackling my kitten to the ground. Oh, dodge roll, you might say. We all did. Everyone but the thief got their kitten handed to them.

Reasons to clear trash mobs. Especially the second time.

Quarktastic.1027:

I can’t wait until they buff up CoF. The QQ will be glorious.

I shall drink of the tears of the CoF Farmers.

Drinking the tears of AC farmers was hilarious, but then I was hit by terrible remorse about all the exotic gear I could have bought with them instead.

Hopefully they beef up CoF so people start to spread themselves through more dungeons. CoF is so ridiculously easy in terms of time spent for value it’s a no brainer and is discouraging people from playing more challenging content which is frankly more interesting than farming mode

There are currently 8 dungeons designed for the casual player known as “story modes”

Explorable modes are designed to be for hardcore players and are the “hard mode” dungeons of other games. The problem was they vastly underestimated the skill of players and the result was facerolling all the hard content. They are now correcting that problem one dungeon at a time.

Explorable modes have always been the GW2 PvE equivalent of raiding. I don’t think they’ve changed this philosophy because Fractals were released.

“Casuals” should play the appropriate content for them. You have the entire world and story modes for your “casual” content.

If facesmashing your head against a keyboard and blindly running into fights is what you consider casual content, I’m glad they’re changing it.

Sorrow’s Embrace Paths 1 and 3 are just as easy as the old AC if you want something to do.

ThiBash.5634:

Pennry.9215:

Dungeon Explorables were never “for casuals”. Anet has always said that they were for solid groups that achieved “group synergy”. Now it’s one of the few things they’re revamping to keep their word on, and you want it to stop?

If there are 7 other dungeons, as well as fractals, for the hardcore player, then yes I would like them to keep one dungeon for more relaxed group play.

One frikkin’ dungeon, that’s not a spamfest of instakills and permastuns…is that too much to ask?

Here are some dungeons that are easier:

• CM: Asura and Butler
• Sorrow’s Embrace: Path 1 and 3
• HotW: The entire thing
• CoF: 1 and 2

After you’ve done all the easy ones, Try TA and CoE to get to be a bit better.

By most of your logic, we might as well remove fractals 1-40 from the game and have everyone start at level 41.

Story mode is not an acceptable alternative for explorable dungeons, in fact, some of them are tougher than AC was.

Casuals shouldn’t be condemned to the open world and replaying story mode. I’m asking for just 1 dungeon to be relaxed to go through. Implementing a hard mode would suffice for me too.

Otherwise, just make them all level 80 instead of feigning to the player that they can actually complete it as a level 35 group.

EDIT: Also, I’m very much aware that there are alternatives still. The question is however: how much longer will they exist?

New AC ? It’s the beginning of the end, Dont see why it needed to be changed, Was a great dungeon i was doing it daily. Now I just dont do it anymore…Not Fun and Waste of time, Sorry guys, i just like ghost busting at halloween. Cant believe some1 was paid to screw it up

I love the new AC Some encounters are a bit tough to pull off with pick up groups, but they are really good with an organized team. I think ANet did a good job with AC.

The best part is that now even pugs want to kill Kholer, because he’s easier

Pennry.9215:

Dungeon Explorables were never “for casuals”. Anet has always said that they were for solid groups that achieved “group synergy”.

Would you mind explaining how it is impossible for “casuals” to achieve “group synergy”?

Because it sounds like you’re using “group synergy” as an excuse to try and claim that dungeons are supposed to be designed only for “hardcore” players. Which tells me that you don’t know what “group synergy” even is.

Would the idea of re-vamping all story modes to include scenarios that teach players certain aspects that they can expect to encounter in explorable mode be feasible? The reward should be another tier that opens from the dungeon vendor, that allows the player to purchase rare gear lvl 35-80 with normal currency. The gear needs to be soul bound on purchase & cannot be savaged for ecto’s or runes attached, also they cannot be thrown into the mystic forge.
This could be ideal as casual players can still be rewarded for doing story mode and slowly learn the mechanics of dungeons. With the new tier gear from the vendors being no use to farmers

ZudetGambeous.9573:

There are currently 8 dungeons designed for the casual player known as “story modes”

Are you serious? You realize the “story modes” basically give no rewards worth mentioning, and seem designed to be run once per character (only real reward you get is a bad yellow headpiece, and it’s a one time deal)? They are only useful as introduction to explorables, repeating them is totally pointless ATM.

Haven’t done enough of the new AC to formulate an informed opinion yet (yes, I’m slow), but I see this argument brought up occasionally, and I feel it needs to be shot down. We can debate explorable difficulty/accessibility, but let’s not bring story modes into it, as at the moment they are not a viable alternative for anyone – and, judging by the way they are designed, I don’t believe they were supposed to be seen as such.

Libertine.1047:

I love the new AC Some encounters are a bit tough to pull off with pick up groups, but they are really good with an organized team. I think ANet did a good job with AC.

The best part is that now even pugs want to kill Kholer, because he’s easier

Kholer was never hard, the animation he does in preparation to shoot the pull wire was blatantly obvious. It is silly though how it’s a guarantee’d death if you get hit by it. Bravo to balance, typical ANet lazy design. That’s the crap that make people not enjoy the encounters and simply skip it.

ThiBash.5634:

Casuals shouldn’t be condemned to the open world and replaying story mode.

Condemned? It’s Open WORLD. It’s big, wide and rife with sights to explore and quests to complete. That’s like saying a free person is condemned from entering a high security prison and yet they can still go out and travel the whole world…oh and you could still enter the prison but not the places where the prisoners are kept.

The biggest part is, the open world is still growing. More zones will become opened over time and new cities to visit. One new area has already been opened since the game released. Dungeons, on the other hand, feel like they’re limited time offers now.

Granted I’ve enjoyed my times with the new AC, but old AC felt completely different and I’d have loved to do both old and new when the urge hit. But instead the old was replaced, never to be played again. Same with the holiday dungeons that you’ll have to wait an entire year to enjoy again. It’s just effed up

Majora.6028:

This is my opinion, based off my experiences.

I used to enjoy AC. I didn’t care for the armor, but I liked doing the runs. It was pretty chill. A nice way for me to kill an hour and spend some time on Skype with my friends.

Now?

Now, I find, AC to be a mass of burning hell and anger. EVERYTHING is buffed. I’ve run with atleast 4 different groups, 2 of which were all on Skype coordinating our moves (We’re usually extremely good at group events and can overcome most things.) and they’ve taken atleast 2-3 hours. The last of which took 4 hours, and we didn’t even finish. I just left to go CoF.

This is a bit extreme. Granted, some of you guys may do much better, the point being is it had NO need to be buffed to this degree. I shouldn’t need to worry about running from the Waypoint to the Howler King without dying. I never worried about that before. I could easily make it, without even getting hit. Now I’m lucky to make that first left turn without 15 things tackling my kitten to the ground. Oh, dodge roll, you might say. We all did. Everyone but the thief got their kitten handed to them.

I understand that the “If you don’t like it, don’t do it.” rule applies, but once again, the principle of it is that it is far too buffed now. It takes far too long. It needs to be brought back down..

#Begin trolling/flaming/whatever.

Really? Besides path 2 being wildly annoying, path 1 and 3 are actually nerfed in my view, the mobs have much less hp and the bosses are a joke now. Before you had like a tiny range in which you could dodge the aoe shout for the p3 boss. Now you can face tank that crap and not break a sweat.

You are doing it wrong, we managed every path in under 30min killing everything with a group who didnt enter AC after rework.

Leo G.4501:

ThiBash.5634:

Casuals shouldn’t be condemned to the open world and replaying story mode.

Condemned? It’s Open WORLD. It’s big, wide and rife with sights to explore and quests to complete. That’s like saying a free person is condemned from entering a high security prison and yet they can still go out and travel the whole world…oh and you could still enter the prison but not the places where the prisoners are kept.

It’s also not a place you get decent rewards. I did about 20 events yesterday just walking around randomly… got nothing but whites and blues, it felt really low and unrewarding. Rewards are CRAP in open world GW2. You need incentive to repeat the things you’ve already done, and there is zero incentive to. If you wanna make money, you are FORCED to run dungeons.

There is no way you can make as much in open world as you can running dungeons. If ANet drastically buffed general event awards all across the board maybe I wouldn’t be the only person soloing in the map 99% of the time… seriously it’s a freaking ghost town.

I mean no disrespect but I dont see this impossible dungeon everyone complains about.

The spider queen and cave troll are significantly harder but we have yet to come close to wiping on either encounter. Kohler is very easy now as you don’t even have to avoid scorpion wire unless you’re glass. I have no doubt that I could solo the Howling King, Ghost Eater bugging out sucks but a good group that manages its defiant stacks has no problem. We skip Colossus Rumblus until the encounter is fixed.

We’re not wiping anywhere in the dungeon even when we have 3-4 alts in the group.

I just do not see this insanely hard dungeon.

dungeons are where the gameplay shine.

open world is for the rpg/exploring part.

and the kitten dailies.

I tried it with a random pug and eventually left because it was taking too long. Kholer boss also reset on me at 1% HP on steps when everyone was dead but me. Makes me wonder why they nerfed my Stealth so bad when they didn’t even fix the resetting.

I did all 3 paths later with guildies, some who never ran AC at all and one who knew the new path’s mechanics and we went through really fast~ some changes made easier. Think the main issue may just be a learning one since everything isn’t just shoot/hit things.

Rukia.4802:

Leo G.4501:

ThiBash.5634:

Casuals shouldn’t be condemned to the open world and replaying story mode.

Condemned? It’s Open WORLD. It’s big, wide and rife with sights to explore and quests to complete. That’s like saying a free person is condemned from entering a high security prison and yet they can still go out and travel the whole world…oh and you could still enter the prison but not the places where the prisoners are kept.

It’s also not a place you get decent rewards. I did about 20 events yesterday just walking around randomly… got nothing but whites and blues, it felt really low and unrewarding. Rewards are CRAP in open world GW2. You need incentive to repeat the things you’ve already done, and there is zero incentive to. If you wanna make money, you are FORCED to run dungeons.

There is no way you can make as much in open world as you can running dungeons. If ANet drastically buffed general event awards all across the board maybe I wouldn’t be the only person soloing in the map 99% of the time… seriously it’s a freaking ghost town.

Then you have to ask yourself, what do you need the money for? If you’re a casual player, you only need rares to do any of the content, including dungeons. Why do you farm for exotic and ascended stuff? Likely for something to do which probably means you’re not a casual player.

Leo G.4501:

Rukia.4802:

Leo G.4501:

ThiBash.5634:

Casuals shouldn’t be condemned to the open world and replaying story mode.

Condemned? It’s Open WORLD. It’s big, wide and rife with sights to explore and quests to complete. That’s like saying a free person is condemned from entering a high security prison and yet they can still go out and travel the whole world…oh and you could still enter the prison but not the places where the prisoners are kept.

It’s also not a place you get decent rewards. I did about 20 events yesterday just walking around randomly… got nothing but whites and blues, it felt really low and unrewarding. Rewards are CRAP in open world GW2. You need incentive to repeat the things you’ve already done, and there is zero incentive to. If you wanna make money, you are FORCED to run dungeons.

There is no way you can make as much in open world as you can running dungeons. If ANet drastically buffed general event awards all across the board maybe I wouldn’t be the only person soloing in the map 99% of the time… seriously it’s a freaking ghost town.

Then you have to ask yourself, what do you need the money for? If you’re a casual player, you only need rares to do any of the content, including dungeons. Why do you farm for exotic and ascended stuff? Likely for something to do which probably means you’re not a casual player.

What? So if you are looking for something to do, you’re a non-casual? That’s nonsense. So just because you perceive someone as casual, they aren’t allowed to have gameplay with incentives? Because only hardcore players should be rewarded, right?

I realize that dungeons are supposed to be a challenge and I can certainly appreciate that. However, through all of this it seems to come back to me that this dungeon is designed for a level 35, or at least it should be. It’s hard for me to imagine a group of 35’s in good gear beat the ghostbuster path, which by the way is incredibly awful.