Guild Wars 2

Just wanted to say thank you for modifying dungeons for level 80’s, instead of what the actual level requirement is.

For instance, Ascalon Catacombs Explorable. Level requirement is level 35. But all the changes you have been making to it are for geared level 80s. Did we forget that a group of level 35s should be able to do this dungeon? Actual 35s in level 35 gear. Not downleveled 80s to 35, wearing level 80 gear.

So I asked around for a group for AC Exp on my Necro who is level 35. I’ve done this dungeon on my 80s before a bunch of times, but haven’t tried any of the new changes. First invite I get, I get booted right away before we even start. Second invite, someone says “kick the 35, they won’t survive” and I’m kicked as soon as I was invited. A few invites after that, same thing. I’m too low level, too inexperienced, not geared enough for this dungeon.

Since when was a level 35 in level 35 gear, not good enough for a level 35 dungeon? Seems with all the changes you guys keep making to dungeons, you have forgotten one thing. These dungeons were supposed to be for level 35s and tuned for them. Not tuned to level 80s, like what is being done.

Now no one wants me in groups cause I’m not level 80. Cause now dungeons are geared for level 80s, instead of the actual level that is required.

I believe you are confusing player opinions with design intent. My post-patch AC group had a level 36, 70, and 3x 80’s. Admittedly, that’s a pretty high level average compared to the stated level 35, but as it was our first time doing the new bosses, we came a little over prepared. I would not be surprised if we could repeat our success with a level average closer to the 35 cap.

You can do the dungeon pre 35 (Dunno about changes), but you are still inferior to a fully decked/traited 80…

I’ve never kicked a lower level in a lower level dungeon, but I can completely understand why.

Use gw2lfg.com and put yourself up there looking for others of like mind.

I totally agree with you. There should be a fine line between story and explore mode. The way I see t story mode should be a joke like the personal story difficulty while explore mode should be well for level 80s.

I do dungeons with low level guildies and it’s not a problem for me, but newer players just feel that the dungeon is more annoying than rewarding and quite frankly Story mode just has those issues.

I haven’t played AC after the update, but it just seems like plain elitism of their part. Most people only want to run their dungeon as fast they can and do something else and on their mind, having someone lower than 80 geared or not, will slow them down. But again, I’m yet to see yesterday changes.

Because most level 80s doing the dungeon want to do it as quickly as possible,which sadly means going with level 80s.
Your best bet is to look for(or start) a group of your own for lower levels.

I feel your pain, the other morning while trying to finish the monthy, I was on my 57 Mesmer. In theory this should be very survivable in AC in Explorer. I was booted almost instantly from the group. I did get a group when I switched to my level 80.

But I have run this dungeons with players less that level 40 and it always ends in disaster. AC is a tough dungeon, path 2 can often be a diaster in the last part due to the number of silver mobs popping and I have seen level 80’s wipe mutilple times to get this one done. So anything less than an 80 has no real chance in that dungeon. Sad but true.

Welcome to the world of MMOs where explorables were meant for challenge. I personally never ran with any lowbies because its faster.

He is not talking about player behaviour. He means that ANET is tweaking the dungeons with the assumption of 5xlvl80 players when they should keep it possible to do at the required level, also.

We’ve done most of the explorable mode dungeons with lower level characters in our guild. They’re not impossible, and sometimes level scaling characters up is actually very good…this is particularly true in the fractals. I’ve done many fractals on lower level characters and the level scaling works a treat.

But no matter how dungeons are designed, human nature is still human nature. There are nice people and idiots. No game can fix that. If someone kicks you for no reason, odds are they’re not the nice people.

Bedstain.6735:

Welcome to the world of MMOs where explorables were meant for challenge. I personally never ran with any lowbies because its faster.

This mentality is what has helped destroy online gaming IMO. What you said is the epitome of an oxymoron. You try to defend explorable dungeons (in terms of an end game concept) as being challenging yet you aim for groups that focus their runs on speed, (usually being built around high-end characters with the better gear) thus creating less of a challenge.

If they were truly meant for challenge then they would be level 35 content and a step up from story mode as originally implemented. What explorable modes in most MMO’s are meant to do is create a hamster wheel for players who enjoy grinding repetitive content while giving them a sense of reward for their time invested and keep them busy until the next update/expansion is released.

Vayne.8563:

We’ve done most of the explorable mode dungeons with lower level characters in our guild. They’re not impossible, and sometimes level scaling characters up is actually very good…this is particularly true in the fractals. I’ve done many fractals on lower level characters and the level scaling works a treat.

But no matter how dungeons are designed, human nature is still human nature. There are nice people and idiots. No game can fix that. If someone kicks you for no reason, odds are they’re not the nice people.

You’ve done the new AC on lvl 35s? Because that’s the dungeon OP is talking about.

YTY.4712:

He is not talking about player behaviour. He means that ANET is tweaking the dungeons with the assumption of 5xlvl80 players when they should keep it possible to do at the required level, also.

He starts saying that, but it ends up as a complaint about people not acepting a lvl 35 on a lvl 80 party. This is not anet’s fault, this is the player behavior, just plain and simple. A have run this with people bellow 40 multiple times, some times it ended in dissaster, others not I even got a video recorded with a lvl 52 doing p2 in ac, so no, anet is not tweaking dungeons for only lvl 80 in mind, they actually tried to improve the lvl scaling fuction to make lvl 80 equiparable to a the lvl they are scaling.

YTY.4712:

He is not talking about player behaviour. He means that ANET is tweaking the dungeons with the assumption of 5xlvl80 players when they should keep it possible to do at the required level, also.

Except that’s not the way the tweaking worked. I’ve done 2 out of 3 paths since patch with some sub-80’s. We did have 3x 80’s, as I’ve already stated, but it was also our first time running through the new boss mechanics. So I believe it is entirely possible to do the dungeon with sub-80’s non-exotics given enough patience and/or practice.

I like the changes to AC. I feel like it should be labeled “Hardmode Ascalonian Catacombs”.

But it in no way is meant for a 5 man team of level 35s in 35 gear.

Give it time. When the game launched everyone was screaming that AC was too hard for 35s and up. Bosses had too much health, everything did too much damage, there were too many bad guys.

Less than two months later pugs were doing explo path consistently in under 40 minutes.

This dungeon and future dungeon overhauls will be the same. They are too hard now but in a few months they will be too easy again.

I personally think they need to have the AI basing its difficulty on what the stats would be for a group of 5 all outfitted with a full set of rare armor, weapons, and trinkets for whatever level requirement the dungeon is. Rare’s aren’t hard to get and would also reward those that have exotics at the higher level dungeons. In doing so, they wouldn’t alienate those that are leveling up and wanting to partake in dungeons at that level.