Hey there, first time poster. Haven’t been around much until recently, just got a couple things to say. Did the Ascalonian Catacombs dungeon for the first time yesterday (took me long enough I know, bit of a story) and I was so amped up for it, I was genuinely excited which doesn’t happen too often. Anything GW1 related is my jam, I played the absolute heck out of Prophecies, a Ranger/Warrior going through with whatever PUGs I could find, never went through it again on Hard Mode or did the post Ring of Fire quests like I wanted to but I loved every minute of that world, it’s story, and the challenge that continued to escalate right up to the end. Spent a good deal of time in the Random Arenas and got darn good at it (especially at nailing interrupts on their most important skills), played some Factions and beat the heck out of that but somehow it just wasn’t the same, maybe because I brought my old character over and that was my first impression rather than making a new one to begin with. Point is, anything relating to the GW1 games is something I have a pretty soild appreciation for.
I guess I’ll tell the story anyway, there’s a reason why this matters a bit. GW2 launches and I admittedly lost interest some time after launch, I was doing the events and looking around, at some point hearts were added in and I was doing those, I was liking it but while there were a lot of other people around I wasn’t having any sort of connection with any of them. Everyone was off going about their own business, as soon as the event was over they’d be gone. While the last few missions of Prophecies required multiple tries and waiting for a pretty good amount of time to even find a full group as people came and went, I relished that challenge because I could see ways to beat it and at least there was cooperation and communication there, actually met a couple pretty cool people going through that game. GW2 felt a lot simpler and more fun but also empty, an MMO where nobody talks to each other, and in a lot of ways that’s what it still is but it doesn’t get to me as much, more on that later.
I picked it up again on account of my ex-girlfriend that I’d been seeing for 2-3 years at that point, she was at college in another state as she’d been for a good chunk of our relationship while I studied closer to home and I was looking for something we could play together when we were both free that we’d both enjoy, something relatively simple and fun, and after talking about it I grabbed her a copy and I was back, showing her around Ascalon and breaking new ground in the Shiverpeaks on my Charr and her Norn. I finally shot well past level 30 (previously stopped at 24-ish) but I held off on the dungeon because I figured it would be nice for us both to experience something new together rather than going through places I’ve already seen and while looking forward to it I wasn’t in much of a rush. We break up about a year after that and a few months later I’m back in GW2 again. I can run around, fight things with other players, and not have to get emotionally involved with any of them? I can fight without having to be concerned with other player’s incompetence or stupidity throwing off my groove, like most of the other multiplayer games I’m into? Great! kitten people! (Alright not really, I still use a fairly team oriented build using the Warrior’s Tactics spec and lots of shouts and I try to use combos to good effect and I’ll res anyone I see and chat a little and so forth, but you get what I mean)
Fast forward to now and I’m going to fight fugging Adelbern, this is my jam! I make a party, two people join right quick, one person jumps into the dungeon and I go in after them. By the time I finish watching the cutscene… the party’s full and everyone’s off killing the heck out of anything in their path, blazing through before I even know what’s going on. I ask them to slow down a bit a few times, I mean I’m the guy that made this party and I’m trying to savor this here, only one person answers and that’s just to tell me that “speed is of the essence.” The trend continues with me watching a cutscene and by the time I’m out of it the boss is about to die. I try to have a bit of a look around and grab the points of interest but only one person is paying me the slightest attention, waved at me to come on a couple times. Most of the bosses are down, they all warp away to that waypoint near where Adelbern’s chilling, I think “I’ll just walk, it’s not that far and I’ve barely seen this place.” They start fighting him and I’m like “kitten fine I’ll warp” but of course the waypoint is now disabled, and Adelbern’s dead before I even get there because they facerolled him like they did everything else.
It was distinctly unfulfilling.
Now listen, I know that I’m a few years late to basically everything. I get that most/all of the people in that party have all done that dungeon literally thousands of times, they all had a big golden number under their level and I get that they don’t give a kitten anymore and they just want to get the most loot the fastest, I can see now that the story mode of the very first dungeon is really easy, but I don’t care about that. If I wanted to play a game about me getting all the treasure asap… I wouldn’t because grinding bites and I’m not part of any group to bother being competitive with, that’s never been what Guild Wars has meant to me. I enjoy the gameplay, I enjoy the combat, I enjoy exploring the amazing world that’s been built with such care. I can’t make anyone change, that would just be a waste of time, but I’m going to ask something of all of you people who are stronger than I am. If you see someone who’s going through one of these dungeons for the first time, who’s trying to chat about that lovely lore and asks you to hold up while they’re watching the bosses intros, have a care. I’m not asking you to just stand around while they examine every nook, cranny, and oddly shaped rock, but I would have at least liked to have witnessed the full extent of what all those familiar faces from before the Foefire could do instead of missing everything and being almost entirely ignored. I can try running through it a couple more times until I find a group with a more lax pace and I probably will, but it would have been much appreciated to have been able to do that the first time around.
What I’m more concerned about is that this is probably what I can expect every single dungeon to be like. Oh, you’re new and actually care about the story? You care about seeing everything the game has instead of just the cutscenes or just the fighting? Well, I want more money because the millions of gold I probably have just isn’t enough so too bad. Pick one and keep up if you can, you’re a complete non-factor to me either way.
I understand that this is just one bad experience, but based on what I’ve seen elsewhere in the open world I have a sneaking suspicion that the rest isn’t going to be too different. This is still the most fun I’ve had playing a game in some time but now and again maybe tone it down a bit?