Guild Wars 2

I’ve been growing more and more frustrated with this.

I’ve been playing this game since release. With skins and various other little trinkets on the Black Lion Trading Post I’d say I’ve been pretty support monetarily as well.

However, my time played vs. actual skill is being more and more player driven toward “Achievements”. These achievements are really focused on some rather ‘niche’ content.

Now, dungeon raids are frequently saying 5k AP, all Zerker rush.

Well, grand… I’ve been playing for 2 years straight and my AP is just cresting into 4,213… Yet for all that, I’ve done practically all of the achievements there are listed in the Hero: Achievements area. The only ones I don’t have are the racial ones since all of my characters are just one race and I have no desire to play the others.

It’s quite bizarre. The AP system is a wonderful fun thing , don’t get me wrong. I love them, but mathematically they force a ‘ceiling’ upon players. A ‘ceiling’ which is actually quite impossible to overcome for most. I spent most of my time in WvW. I have no interest what so ever in PvP, but my time played or experience is not the least bit represented by the AP system and that AP system is being used to block people out of dungeons and therefore getting the experience to be in the dungeon.

This creates a much wider problem. Players are being demanded to come “experienced” to a dungeon without having access to the dungeons because “You must have 5K AP to enter”.

“Okay…,” says the player… who then sets out to get their 5000 AP. Except… the math doesn’t add up. You cannot reach 5000 AP without making a number of separate races for their 10 AP from story rewards. What the heck does personal story matter? You only get 25 ap for your legendary and that sends you across the entire planet and into WvW. The hero rewards for AP are 10 each. You do more for your legendary a day than you do for that 10 minutes of cutscene watching.

Why don’t not make AP points representative of the time and effort it would their acquisition actually reflects? Stop cornering people into doing content they really have no interest in. Stop making fractals the only place to get ascended gear drops. I have no interest in playing with a bunch of fast placed, no explanation pugs (pick up groups) who hate me, the world, everything in it, and can’t be bothered to explain what to do.

So … this isn’t a video game: at least, not if it keeps going this way. This is creating a climate where the whole game is bottle-necking into a series of incidents which can be “skipped”.

If I want to go to Orr… a dungeon I have rarely ever got to do because of this… I have to know how to do the dungeon. Okay… how do I do that? I … go … and …do … the… dungeon! Whoa… what a remarkable idea!

… except no one does that… No one does dungeons except on accident, when a group is bad, or something in the scripting events get stuck. They just skip over everything because it’s not designed like a video-game. It’s designed like a bunch of scripted-trigger switches.

Players skip huge sections of the dungeon, content, anything they can and so most of it.

I’m pretty sure we all came here to play a video game. Instead, a few less than desirable people are forcing the rest of the gaming community into “skipping” the whole game so they can have their instant gratification.

- Make AP reflective of the time put into things rather than the instant of completion? The Achievement of getting a legendary weapon is NOT the moment of acquisition, it is the months and months dedicated the crafting the thing. There’s a great deal of ‘content consumption’ consumption into making one and I have to make TWO before I get any AP from this? No… that’s not reflective of my time or the achievement of that what so ever. Now, even more so when skill points buy traits if you aren’t willing or have the time (either or) to go out and get them yourself.

I’ve been playing for 2 years. I’d like to DO some dungeons. Actually do them, not just skip 90% of the content for the end. I’d like to be able to wear ALL of the varied and many kinds of gear, not just the highest dps variety. I’d like to be able to have my time and experience reflected. I’d like to see some respect given to players about just how much time they really put into things and stop seeing catering to people who think the instant of success IS the-success. Such instant gratification-mongers are deficient people, ignorant, and destructive to a community. Catering to their mentality will only harm any efforts toward community building or a ‘gaming’ climate. If you aren’t sure what I mean, look up the term “Wrath Babies” and see the trouble Blizzard Entertainment got itself into by catering to and reward only the worst of the player base.

This have a great game, but someone needs to put some breaks on this before it gets out of hand.

Have you tried creating your own adverts on the LFG tool?

I like doing dungeons the same way you do, actually doing the full thing instead of skipping most of it and then stacking in a corner spamming skills for the rest. If I don’t see a group that appeals to me I make my own advert and they always fill up quickly, a few minutes at most.

My general feeling is any group that judges based on a largely arbitrary number isn’t a group I’m particularly keen on playing with anyway.

You dont need 5k ap to be able to join a pug group, you see those lfg adds because they take much longer to fill, when i put add like “cof p1 casual run” it fills instantly.

Now if you want to learn how to run the dungeon paths you can search on youtube for video guides, or join a good guild that does dungeon runs and accept other people to join the group, because some guilds just want to run with the same people everytime, these guilds are not worth joining. You can also look for the dungeon mentors, just look at the dungeon forum section and you will see a stickied thread about then.

About skipping, some dungeons have trash mobs that are op, seriously, they can give you more trouble than the bosses, and on top of that they drop NOTHING if you kill then, specially in arah if you try to clear the trash mobs you will spend an entire evening doing it for just one path, so you need to learn how to skip, i’m sorry.

It helps a lot too if you use a pve meta build for dungeons, dont bring your wvw build there because it makes the runs considerable more difficult if the members are not built and geared properly for the content, which leads to more frustration when the run starts to fail.

I’m still under 5k achievements and have no problems getting a group for a dungeon. I just advert my group, “All welcome,” and within minutes it is filled. Then we have fun running the dungeon.

What are you talking about? I rarely see any AP requirements in my 2 years of playing. At most, I’ve only seen it 3 times in these entire 2 years.

Well, you must be doing something wrong for sure.

I also play since head start but I have almost 15k AP (about 60 points to go), I still don’t have dungeon master, I started to do pvp just after the new reward track was introduced (currently rank 28), I basically just do WvW during the tournaments and occasional EotM runs (rank 197), my fractal level is 5, and I have about 1600 hours total and I think I never did all the available dailies (but I do the 5 dailies everyday), so getting all the AP I got from the personal story with my alts and from my dungeon runs, I doubt it gets over 10k.

AP should mean exactly what it is, Achievements Points, if you pretty much just played WvW for almost 2 years you didn’t accomplished much in game, but I’m sure that your WvW rank must be amazing and probably have some titles to show off.

EDIT: Just to clear out, I also think that AP as dungeon requirement or being used to measure skill is terrible, but there is nothing blocking you to get over 5k AP if you play since the beginning.

Don’t you know AP is the new meta.

AP is one of the most arbitrary lfg requirements 2nd only to “heavies only”. I’d rather take a 1k AP necro running a meta build than the 1000th pug warrior to join my group who slots signets over banners and has no ability to adapt if things go the slightest bit wrong.

It’s not a barrier, it’s a threshold. And it being is the players’ fault, not the developers’.

Firstly, most players who set AP requirements are bad and looking for a carry, actual experienced players can pull their own weight and don’t need to set requirements. Secondly, make your own group on the lfg or join the dungeon mentor guild and get in to contact with a mentor. So you have two choices – sit here and complain or be proactive, learn dungeons, get groups and have fun. I know which one I would pick.

The funny part is i’m almost passing 5,000 ap and aside from TA up/forward for my legendary, and one or two runs because my guildies needed the extra body, i’ve never ran dungeons before :P but technically I should be allowed in their group! right? right?..

also yeah, while the “uber dungeon runners” are annoying, as people have said, make your own lfg. when I was doing TA, I typically posted something along the lines of “TA up/forward newbies welcome” and it filled within 10 minutes practically everytime

Heavies slow you down, for a start. Generally I’ve found that low AP players are fine so long as they’re thinking about what they’re doing. And really it’s only below about 2,000 AP where you begin to find players who just have no idea what’s going on.

Most of the dungeons my group runs can be done with 3 players; filling out the rest just gets it done faster. If none of the players are experienced it’s a different story, but usually there’s a lot of room for error.

Also played since headstart, I don’t go AP hunting so I’m also still below 5k AP. I tend to just ignore those ads as I don’t feel that you can accurately estimate someone’s experience through AP. I would suggest making your own groups it’s what I do when there aren’t any I want to join.

You can’t tell – it’s just a generalisation. Someone may only have 4k AP because they’re a WvW roamer and there just aren’t that many achievements to get by doing that. They might not know the dungeon paths, but they’re adaptable and should handle the pressure just fine with a little explanation on what’s coming up. Or they may only have 4k AP because they’ve done little other than bearbowing world boss / champ trains, and they’re going to fall to pieces.

Their build tells you way more than their AP total does.

Nearly everyday I create my own LFG adverts, all I do is “Px open”, theres never a shortage of people and as long as they don’t die all over the place or be completely clueless I don’t really care about AP.

You shouldn’t have a problem making your own.

I am just shy of 5k AP and have not done personal story for multiple races.

I have played through dungeons dozens of times, most of them without skipping.

Don’t let the fact that there are some people looking for some indication of player experience in their groups dissuade you. There are groups out there that fit your playstyle.

Ben K.6238:

Their build tells you way more than their AP total does.

So, apparently, does maining a ranger.

-goes back to waiting for a group-

Greatsword ranger is fine in dungeons. It’s all those people who have never used anything but longbow who give the class a bad name.

Longbow’s not a BAD weapon. Even Bearbow rangers aren’t necessarily bad. It’s players who just spam skills or refuse to adapt their strategy where appropriate that gave them a bad name.

Zaxares.5419:

Longbow’s not a BAD weapon. Even Bearbow rangers aren’t necessarily bad. It’s players who just spam skills or refuse to adapt their strategy where appropriate that gave them a bad name.

There are a couple problems with longbow rangers in dungeons.

1) A lot of the areas in dungeons are pretty tight places. It’s not always a guarantee that you can get the range necessary for Long Range Shot to deal it’s maximum damage potential. And if you can’t get that range, longbow dps doesn’t just drop off a cliff, it hits rock bottom and starts drilling for oil.

2) Even when you can, 1200-1500 range (depending on whether or not you’re dropping Spotter for Eagle Eye), puts you out of range of both buffs allies can give you, and buffs you can give allies. And when considering that Spotter and Frost Spirit are the big reasons why a group would WANT a Ranger in the party in the first place, running longbow means a very good chance you are providing neither to the party.

Eh, I switch to shortbow in dungeons, or go axe/horn most often. I cannot quite get the “flow” of melee to work for me, so I only rarely venture into sword/axe or greatsword.

chemiclord.3978:

There are a couple problems with longbow rangers in dungeons.

1) A lot of the areas in dungeons are pretty tight places. It’s not always a guarantee that you can get the range necessary for Long Range Shot to deal it’s maximum damage potential. And if you can’t get that range, longbow dps doesn’t just drop off a cliff, it hits rock bottom and starts drilling for oil.

2) Even when you can, 1200-1500 range (depending on whether or not you’re dropping Spotter for Eagle Eye), puts you out of range of both buffs allies can give you, and buffs you can give allies. And when considering that Spotter and Frost Spirit are the big reasons why a group would WANT a Ranger in the party in the first place, running longbow means a very good chance you are providing neither to the party.

Both valid points. For the first, what my Ranger would do (with the caveat that I carry a Greatsword for this exact situation and swap to it) is drop Barrage on the group for AoE DPS, then use Rapid Fire on the called target to stack Vulnerability. If the enemy’s still alive by this point, then I swap to my Greatsword.

I also carry Spotter and Frost Spirit since I adapted my playstyle to also be in melee where necessary, but in my PUGs, unless the player’s staying at range is screwing up the fight mechanics in a major way (e.g. at Mai, where the ranged player will get targeted non-stop by Mai and pulling her away from lightning fields) I don’t mind if the player wants to stay safely away. Most dungeons are easy enough that extending the run by a couple of minutes isn’t a big deal to me. (It’s different if you’re speedrunning/farming the dungeon, of course, but I don’t join those groups.)

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Eh, I switch to shortbow in dungeons, or go axe/horn most often. I cannot quite get the “flow” of melee to work for me, so I only rarely venture into sword/axe or greatsword.

What I run depends on who I’m grouped with.

If it’s a guild run with people I know and I can be sure will have all the buffs in place, I’ll actually roll sword/warhorn and greatsword, because the number of times I’ll actually NEED to leave melee range will be very, very few in number.

If it’s a PUG run or I’m dealing with guildies that are less experienced in the dungeon setting, then I pull out GS and go shortbow just in case things in melee range get too hot.

But even then, there are situations where I will deviate from that. For example, when defending the braziers in CoF I will run GS and shortbow, then switch out either GS or shortbow for the sword/warhorn just before the effigy.

Not a fan of axe either main OR offhand honestly.

The more ap someone has the longer they’ve played; the longer they’ve played the more likely they have obtained ascended gear and done the content before.

It’s not a guarantee, and I don’t personally bother to filter out people based on ap, but the runs where everyone has like 8k+ ap are almost always better than with people with 1 or 2k.

Danikat.8537:

Have you tried creating your own adverts on the LFG tool?

I like doing dungeons the same way you do, actually doing the full thing instead of skipping most of it and then stacking in a corner spamming skills for the rest. If I don’t see a group that appeals to me I make my own advert and they always fill up quickly, a few minutes at most.

Sadly according to people here it’s the proper way to play the game.

Achievement points do reveal something about how long you have played. And that is what the AP requirements are all about. The AP requirement has nothing to do with whether you can do a dungeon. It’s all about wanting people who are not new to the game. Because as long as you’re not a newbie, even if you’ve never done the dungeon, you’ll be likely to know how to play.

You can get a kittenton of AP from doing your daily/monthly. This much is apparent in the occasional thread by someone obsessed with their ranking on the AP chart asking for the AP from dailies/monthlies to be limited to completion of the full daily/monthly.

And hey, if you want to dangle your dungeon bits for all the people to see, you can always get the Dungeon Master title and equip that. I go around with Mist Runner because I do WvW.

I go around with… something. I honestly have no idea what title I’m running with. I THINK it’s The Sunbringer… but it’s been some time since I last even checked.

thread has left me scratching my head in wonder at how you can play for 2 years and only have 4200 AP, i have 12k without really trying..

do you find yourself short on laurels because you dont do dailies?
do you find yourself without any living story mementos cuz you never open the h panel to see what amusing thing anet has cooked up for you for the 3 hours youll be playing on patch day?
do you never salvage anything and therefore miss out on agent of entropy?
do you only play 1 toon and therefore only have 1-2 of the weapon master achieves?
do you avoid killing anything ever and therefore have no slayer achieves?
do you hate jump puzzles?
do you not search the beautiful world for nooks and crannies where anet has hidden chests and stuff?
did you miss out on SAB?
do you never craft anything, even just so you have access to maxed out crafts?

what does your daily routine look like? run 2 dungeons, put everything on the tp, and log off?

Eirdyne.9843:

-snip

I didn’t read the whole thing, I think I stopped early so apologies if I miss details. Anyway, if your issue is you’re being left out or feeling left out, of certain activities i.e. dungeon because you’re not breaking 5k AP, then just:

a) Don’t join them
b) Make your own
c) Invite friends/guildmates

Or just do your daily/monthly and the small APs do add up and you’ll get it anyway…

Weeeeell… Is it really that strange to ask for an experienced player? Achievement points is indeed a little arbitrary (I mean you could have 5K and not run that dungeon ever. I have some 13K AP and I still havent run all the dungeon paths). What would you rather have? Them asking for 1000 hours played or gtfo? Its the same thing. Just a way to measure how long you’ve played the game. Without any “gear level”, AP is the next logical thing. I suppose full ascended armor and weapons would be another thing to ask for but… uh… I dont think anyone is going to ask that because they probably wont have it either.

There’s a simple solution to this. As it’s becoming as harmful to the game as gear inspection is in others, treat it the same way.
Either make showing AP optional, or remove the ability to see another player’s AP completely from the game and only make it visible on the website leaderboards.

well i do think there are many group don’t has ap req, and you can always open one by yourself. Why bother join a group you are not fit?

Have you considered trying joining a guild? I haven’t joined a PuG since headstart, and I dungeoneer fairly regularly.

PuGging isn’t worth the frustation for me.

Pretty Pixie.8603:

Have you considered trying joining a guild? I haven’t joined a PuG since headstart, and I dungeoneer fairly regularly.

PuGging isn’t worth the frustation for me.

no ads.

If you spend almost all your time in WvW, that shows you have little experience in PvE.
You’re possibly one of the few cases the stupid “5k plus AP” rule works with LFG. Its purpose is to filter out the inexperienced players and you are one of them (in dungeons).

I suggest making your own LFG or joining a guild

I tend to agree that any group that advertises as 5k+ ap only is a group you don’t want to go with.

Oh look…
it’s this thread and this thread and this thread and this thread and this thread and this thread and this thread again.

However, my time played vs. actual skill is being more and more player driven toward “Achievements”. These achievements are really focused on some rather ‘niche’ content.

Only if you let it be.

Now, dungeon raids are frequently saying 5k AP, all Zerker rush.

I rarely see AP/Zerker requirements on dungeons. Not saying they don’t exist, but it’s not as widespread as you are claiming.

that AP system is being used to block people out of dungeons and therefore getting the experience to be in the dungeon.

It’s blocking you out of groups that have AP requirements, not the dungeon. Anyone can go in a dungeon.

Players are being demanded to come “experienced” to a dungeon without having access to the dungeons because “You must have 5K AP to enter”.

Only players desiring to join the “5k+ AP” parties. Not the 99% of the parties I see listed that have no AP requirements.

Stop making fractals the only place to get ascended gear drops.

You can gear yourself in 100% ascended without ever stepping foot in fractals.

I’m pretty sure we all came here to play a video game. Instead, a few less than desirable people are forcing the rest of the gaming community into “skipping” the whole game so they can have their instant gratification.

We all came here to play a video game, but for different reasons. No one is forcing anybody to do anything. Some people came here to skip content in dungeons. Some came to clear all monsters. Some came to play the TP. Others came to sit in LA and map chat.

Until there is some minimum AP requirement to post in the LFG tool, you have no reason to complain. Post in the LFG party yourself and find like-minded people. It is really, really easy to do.

Considering I am also mainly a WvW player and have over 6k AP, I question your game time. Between sPvP, some LS now and then and a ton of dailies(over 1/2 my AP) and over 80% of my time roaming in WvW so, not sure how you barely have 4k

Mungrul.9358:

There’s a simple solution to this. As it’s becoming as harmful to the game as gear inspection is in others, treat it the same way.
Either make showing AP optional, or remove the ability to see another player’s AP completely from the game and only make it visible on the website leaderboards.

I wish they would remove its ingame visibility or make it optional. Most of the points gained have nothing to do with skill (points gained doing ambient killer for example). The higher mine goes, the more uncomfortable I feel having people trying to judge my skill level by it, especially in a dungeon since I so rarely do them.

What if I tell you that people earn money on dungs ? I do 7 paths everyday to get over 15g and I really dont want pugs in my team becasue with 1 dung it doesnt matter is it 15 or 25 min but with 7 paths its over 1 extra hour . I preffer to wait 1 extra min then suffer entire path because i have idiot bearbow ranger and people who dont understand simple sentence like “ill pull boss”

Well, the AP is used by the “Elite”, who are really “Elitist A holes”, not even close to being real elite.
As they are I think it’s ok, but as you pointed out, you can’t attain the APs since you with your play style.

This also points out how idiotic decision it is by the community’s Elitist A Holes to use AP as skill indicator.

Dungeons, ANet just has to update the content with mobs and stuff that are impossible to skip or win with only berserker gear.

So for ANet:

• Make completition require all dungeon events to be done, no skipping allowed. (Kill the solo runners)
• Re-design the content of the dungeons, so that it’s impossible to win with only Berserker gear. (Even if this violates the “play how you want”, but group event content should always require cooperation)

I don’t see the AP requirement being a “trend”. I don’t see it growing and I haven’t seen one today – yet.

Maybe it’s my timezone, server or whatnot, but I don’t think it’s a thing.

Then again, their group, their requirement. Create your own lfg, it solves the problem.

15k+ achiev points here, I never ask for minimum AP threshold when I’m applying in the LFG…
skill =/= achiev points, some ppl are just morons, ignore them and create your own group

Eirdyne.9843:

The AP system is a wonderful fun thing.

I seemed to have missed that wonderful part back when I was still playing then. Darn

then again, as much as you are free to go in a dungeon playing as casually as you feel like others are equally entitled to do speed/skip/weirdrestriction runs if they feel like. join a different party or make your own.

that said, i’ve only started playing 1 year ago, never cared for achievements and yet i’m near 7k by just… doing stuff? not even having 5k ap from launch is beyond me.

Personally, I don’t join any groups that aren’t open to everyone. I also dislike speed express dungeon runs, because I have frankly a hard time even running fast enough for those people. Nothing against fighting efficiently, but I hate the feel of rushing through.

The AP requirement was there quite a long time ago already. It will not go away, I have no doubt. I just will ignore those groups. When I saw people looking for 5k AP for Ascalon Story, I did not know whether to laugh or cry.

I know plenty of people with over 14k AP that only have one character.

In fact, I find it hard to believe that after 2 years of playing you don’t have 5k AP at least. Hopefully you utilize the daily and monthly achievements. They are quick and easy AP. Hit all JPs, that’s an easy chunk of AP. Mini-games offer good AP as well, check ’em out!

Look to see what you are close to on slayer and weapon master achievements then go and kill those types of monsters/use those weapons.

It sucks that people use AP as a metric to see if you are good or not, but that’s life really. If you know that’s what people look at, then there’s no reason not to pursue increasing that number. Everyone knows that there are times when someone with high AP may not be a good player and someone with low AP is a good player, but on average, high AP implies a deeper understanding of the game’s mechanics, even if it isn’t always the case.

FrostSpectre.4198:

Well, the AP is used by the “Elite”, who are really “Elitist A holes”, not even close to being real elite.
As they are I think it’s ok, but as you pointed out, you can’t attain the APs since you with your play style.

This also points out how idiotic decision it is by the community’s Elitist A Holes to use AP as skill indicator.

---

Dungeons, ANet just has to update the content with mobs and stuff that are impossible to skip or win with only berserker gear.

So for ANet:

• Make completition require all dungeon events to be done, no skipping allowed. (Kill the solo runners)
• Re-design the content of the dungeons, so that it’s impossible to win with only Berserker gear. (Even if this violates the “play how you want”, but group event content should always require cooperation)

What is wrong with soloing dungeons? It has no impact on you and it’s only a small niche of people who even do it.

Never heard of this, but I’ve got almost 8K AP. To be perfectly honest, that seems like the dumbest hurdle to dungeons and stuff by players I’ve ever heard of. I can -count- the number of dungeon runs I’ve done and I don’t think it’s above 20. I don’t have experience with any of them really. I don’t run dungeons regularly. I come along to help a friend now and then. I wouldn’t mind getting into dungeon runs now and then but people expect you to know everything about them.

People say, “Path 1,” and I scratch my head and just follow whoever is in front of me.