Guild Wars 2

I am honestly having a really hard time playing the game when it comes to dungeons. I really do not understand what is going on and don’t really find dying frequently to be fun at all.

I have tried necro, engineer, and ranger up to 60 and guardian, warrior up to 40 thinking that maybe if I found the right profession it would all come together for me. I am starting to think the game is just too difficult for me. Things happen really fast and I can’t seem to take it all in or adapt to changing circumstances. I really don’t like the feeling of being a disappointment and dead weight in a group.

The only dungeons I have done are AC story (went pretty poorly, we wiped about 3 times) Fractals1 (an absolute nightmare, wiped about 7 times, and even when we completed it I was angry and stressed out.)

I also was requested to come into a CM explore which was an absolute debacle. We couldn’t get the bombs situated to open a door and died many many times before everyone left angry.

My question, I suppose is, is this pretty much what the rest of the game is like? I am starting to think I am just too slow and the difficulty curve is too much for me.

Since the rewards are good, they made difficulty in dungeons high.

They should have used, instead, a system like the one used in the fractals, with progressive difficulty you can choose when you enter and which cap you increase by playing in the dungeon.

I’m sure this system will probe to be way better and I hope they end up implementing it for the other dungeons too, so everyone can do it, progress in difficulty at their own pace, and those that can do better get more rewards, without taking much from those who can’t do the harder difficulties.

It seems to be working in fractals, and people in Diablo III seem also to be quite happy in average with that monster power thing that lets everyone play and rewards getting (and gearing) better.

I would go as far as allowing players to set a personal difficulty setting in explorables that is set per-party and allows players to handicap themselves in exchange for some magic find.

I prefer variable difficulty over fixed.

Anyone remembers Sin Episodes? You could start at the lowest difficulty, and it scaled on its own. By the time I reached the end, I got so good on my own pace that I was close to max difficulty.
That was really nice.

I agree that the dungeon difficulty in this game is somewhat too hard for casual players, comparing to all the recent MMOs I have played (WoW,Rift,SWTOR,TSW). It is just fine for me being an experienced player at nightmare raids, but I am worried that this difficulty is going to drive casual players away.

Level 1 of the Fractals need to be something to let you learn the mechanics of each fractal, not this hard and challenging (not all of them though, but some are really hard and punishing for even experienced players). I understand they don’t want you to farm an easy mode level 1 over and over again, but I think it would better to add some sort of DR in this case, i.e. You first level 1 run reward 5, 2nd run reward 4, and so on until the daily reset. After all, you can already see that hardcore players have no interest in low level fractals at all. Currently there are simply too many deaths before you manage to learn the mechanics, not to mention that those jumping puzzles are not favorites for everyone.

I haven’t run too many dungeons, because I have had some pretty bad experiences eith them.

You remember playing a game, and feeling disappointed in it, because instead of making things clever, they just ended up brute forcing the difficulty as you progressed? Ya know they either just tossed more mobs at you, and just made them hit harder or and have more hitpoints, just for the sake of making things harder?

Thats how I feel about Anets dungeon design. That and the feeling that their idea of difficulty or rewarding is based on how many times they think you should wipe per visit.

This is the discouraging aspect of the game… there seems to be some hidden “method” to play that game that nobody seems to be able/willing to articulate to me.

What I get when I ask for help is “You have to try all the professions, and all the weapons, and all the build and just find one that works for you”.

I don’t know what works at all. I just die. I don’t know why I die or how it could have gone better, I just pay to respawn and pay to repair. I am not a theorycrafter nor do I wish to spend a bunch of time and effort trying to play.

I guess I just don’t… “get” this game.

I like that topic, not like the other that say that dungeons/game are too easy ;P

Well it’s best to do dungeons in mixed group where at least sb know what to do and explain it. If you are casual player and not experienced in dungeons, at lvl 60 or 40 you would need some 80s to cover you.

Watching dungeons runs on net(Youtube) also help if you don’t know what to do. And do you do them with guildies/friends or random people?

@damian Still I don’t know how you want to play. If you don’t know what you want or how you want to play it’s hard for other people to advise you sth.

damianlxl.3621:

This is the discouraging aspect of the game… there seems to be some hidden “method” to play that game that nobody seems to be able/willing to articulate to me.

What I get when I ask for help is “You have to try all the professions, and all the weapons, and all the build and just find one that works for you”.

I don’t know what works at all. I just die. I don’t know why I die or how it could have gone better, I just pay to respawn and pay to repair. I am not a theorycrafter nor do I wish to spend a bunch of time and effort trying to play.

I guess I just don’t… “get” this game.

The solo PvE part of GW2 is very similar to most other MMOs out there, but must dungeons are something completely different and that can be a little frustrating.

The “method” you are looking for is rather simple: In other MMOs you beat encounters and dungeons, in GW2 you survive them.
If you want to do dungeons for the first time you’d better be a rather good player or don’t use a glass cannon build. Toughness and Vitality should be among you main stats, you can’t just go for e.g. Power + Precision + Crit Dmg if you don’t know the mechanics you are about to face very well. The same is true for your weapon sets and utility skills, at least 3 of your skills (weapon + utility) should be defensive.

Well I don’t usually use too much strategy and tend to charge things and smash them down as fast as possible. I quite enjoyed tanking in other MMOs because I could both control the fight and keep enemies focused on me, while absorbing all the damage.

Since neither holding threat or passive mitigation is an option in this game, I don’t see how any form of defensive stat is worth investing in. If the only way to stay alive is positioning and dodge-timing, an extra handful of vitality/toughness is a wasted stat because it is only going to keep you alive for another hit or to before you fold. I think what they are going for is for you to never get hit in the first place which I have not figured out how to do.

I don’t see conditions helping at all from my experience on necro and engineer. They take ages to tick down and meanwhile I am running around in panic or getting pummeled.

Healing too seems to be a wasted stat; I invested in a whole suit of healing gear and it did not boost my survivability in any noticeable way. If it lowered the cooldown on my personal heal I could see it being valuable but…

So the only thing I have really done is throwing everything into power/crit and just… hoping for the best while I thrash wildly at the enemies until one of us dies. I can kite an enemy around for ages on an engineer but the damage was pathetic and the playstyle was not fun at all. Felt like I was chipping away at them with a toothpick-gun.

damianlxl.3621:

Well I don’t usually use too much strategy and tend to charge things and smash them down as fast as possible. I quite enjoyed tanking in other MMOs because I could both control the fight and keep enemies focused on me, while absorbing all the damage.

Two thing you should absolutely not do in GW2 dungeons (at least not as a first timer):
- just charge in without any strategy
- try to control mobs like an oldschool tank

Since neither holding threat or passive mitigation is an option in this game, I don’t see how any form of defensive stat is worth investing in. If the only way to stay alive is positioning and dodge-timing, an extra handful of vitality/toughness is a wasted stat because it is only going to keep you alive for another hit or to before you fold. I think what they are going for is for you to never get hit in the first place which I have not figured out how to do.

That’s not correct. You are not supposed to get hit by certain attacks but there is always some random damage which you will take and have to deal with. You need your defensive stats to survive that damage long enough until your heal is ready again.

I don’t see conditions helping at all from my experience on necro and engineer. They take ages to tick down and meanwhile I am running around in panic or getting pummeled.

Conditions are rather weak, that’s true.

Healing too seems to be a wasted stat; I invested in a whole suit of healing gear and it did not boost my survivability in any noticeable way. If it lowered the cooldown on my personal heal I could see it being valuable but…

Healing is a wasted stat unless in WvW if you are playing as a support.

So the only thing I have really done is throwing everything into power/crit and just… hoping for the best while I thrash wildly at the enemies until one of us dies. I can kite an enemy around for ages on an engineer but the damage was pathetic and the playstyle was not fun at all. Felt like I was chipping away at them with a toothpick-gun.

This is what you are doing wrong. At least 30% of your stat points, at a rough estimate, should be Vitality and Toughness.

If you are wiping on fractals you are in terrible groups, except for the statue one, that’s easy to get knocked off and bugged.

Hmmm… well I can try it. If I throw all of my gear into vitality/toughness I wonder how long it will take me to kill anything though.

I only like to stack one stat and use one specialty/move in these kinds of games. I think part of the problem I am having is you have to play several roles simultaneously regardless of profession, and I am a very single-focus type of person.

I don’t really rely on using debuffs and I don’t really utilize any kind of defensive mitigation because they are so brief I really don’t see the point. I guess they designers want you to switch gears from playing offensive, to playing evasive/defensive and I have a really hard time doing that. Like i said… I am kinda slow and I really don’t -like- challenges. I didn’t feel pride or joy when I completed that horrible fractals run, I was just tired and upset that I died so much.

I kinda prefer hack-n-slash mechanics of “give me a big freaking hammer and let me just smash things with complete impunity so I can loot them” and I get the idea this is not the way GW2 works.

Not sure if GW2 dungeons are hard

or buggy

damianlxl.3621:

Hmmm… well I can try it. If I throw all of my gear into vitality/toughness I wonder how long it will take me to kill anything though.

You don’t need to go all Toughness and Vitality, it just has to be enough to keep you alive.

I only like to stack one stat and use one specialty/move in these kinds of games. I think part of the problem I am having is you have to play several roles simultaneously regardless of profession, and I am a very single-focus type of person.

You are right about that too. You can’t do dungeons with just one set of skills or one weapon, you have to adapt to each new situation. If you are fighting a certain boss our trash pack you sometimes should swap skills or weapons.

I don’t really rely on using debuffs and I don’t really utilize any kind of defensive mitigation because they are so brief I really don’t see the point.

They are only effective for a brief moment, but that’s more than enough if you know when to use them.

I guess they designers want you to switch gears from playing offensive, to playing evasive/defensive and I have a really hard time doing that.

One set of gear is enough to do anything, unless you want to specialize in something. But don’t forget, specialization comes at a cost, e.g. a glass cannon is really squishy so you better have good reflexes and know the dungeon inside out.

Like i said… I am kinda slow and I really don’t -like- challenges. I didn’t feel pride or joy when I completed that horrible fractals run, I was just tired and upset that I died so much.

If you don’t like challenges you should probably stay away from anything but solo PvE or huge public events in this game.
Btw, the Fractals are one of the easiest dungeons in the game. The encounters are rather linear, nothing special to do and most of them just use one attack at a time. Even when Agony kicks in at level 10 the damage is still moderate and the mechanics don’t change that much (if at all).

I kinda prefer hack-n-slash mechanics of “give me a big freaking hammer and let me just smash things with complete impunity so I can loot them” and I get the idea this is not the way GW2 works.

No, this is not even close to what GW2 is like. This is not D3.