Guild Wars 2

Awhile ago I began leveling a hunter through PVE in the open world, but I eventually got bored and put the game down, because I rarely came across any situations in which I was really challenged, and forced to team up with other players. I assume that this is something offered by dungeons, but I never found one in my time with my hunter.

Of course there was the occasional dynamic event that couldn’t be easily soloed, but 90% of the time the region was so empty that it was difficult to find teammates.

Plus, you never really have to team up for those tough dynamic events – you can always just gain a few levels and come back to solo the content. In that sense, it seemed to me that any challenge in open world PvE was made by hurdles that you had to artificially create for yourself, not hurdles that you HAD to overcome to advance.

Maybe MMORPGs just aren’t my thing. I do enjoy some multiplayer games, but it’s because they force you to overcome significant challenges to succeed, like LoL for instance.

I know I can find that in PvP, but I absolutely love the beautiful open world in GW2 – it’s just a shame that I can’t seem to find any real adventure there. Thoughts?

Guild Wars 2 tends to lack difficult PvE content. The only real challenge is Fractals of The Mist (mini-dungeons).

That’s right, Fractals and Dungeons are your only bet.

The overworld mobs all work with the same “Press 1 until player dies” mechanic, just with various degrees of damage and toughness. Maybe if they used different skills like they did in GW1 the fights would have some variety to them… On the other hand, if you enjoy this sort of thing, it’s right up your alley.

You could also visit Kessex hills, the Toxic knights have the most varied skills in the game, and are actually pretty fun to fight.

What is a hunter . . .

Tibago.8276:

What is a hunter . . .

I’d guess he’s not playing GW2 in English.

LOL, I’m sorry, I meant ranger.

dgmulf.2349:

Awhile ago I began leveling a hunter through PVE in the open world, but I eventually got bored and put the game down, because I rarely came across any situations in which I was really challenged, and forced to team up with other players. I assume that this is something offered by dungeons, but I never found one in my time with my hunter.

Of course there was the occasional dynamic event that couldn’t be easily soloed, but 90% of the time the region was so empty that it was difficult to find teammates.

Plus, you never really have to team up for those tough dynamic events – you can always just gain a few levels and come back to solo the content. In that sense, it seemed to me that any challenge in open world PvE was made by hurdles that you had to artificially create for yourself, not hurdles that you HAD to overcome to advance.

Maybe MMORPGs just aren’t my thing. I do enjoy some multiplayer games, but it’s because they force you to overcome significant challenges to succeed, like LoL for instance.

I know I can find that in PvP, but I absolutely love the beautiful open world in GW2 – it’s just a shame that I can’t seem to find any real adventure there. Thoughts?

You could always try WvW if you want a challenge. Solo and small group roamers are quite sought after these days and the best mobs to fight are the ones that fight back with human in control.

Ranger is a very easy class to solo most open world PvE content on, including champions – it is sort of one of the class’ strengths.

You might want to try some other classes as the various class abilities do make the content harder or easier.
Some classes are high skill level to master and that also keeps things interesting.

As for harder content: as some have said try dungeons and fractals, go do a Teq fight- try the toxic alliance while they are still up.

From time to time the living Story has things like the queen’s gauntlet- that was great one on one content.
you can also take a trip to Orr and do some temple runs and go hang out in Southsun with the Karkas.

try to solo Lupicus, and yes, he is soloable
if you miss Liadri, too bad, and yes can be solo too
how about the botfw defense?
have you tried soloing toypocalypse?
go solo Champs at Lv80 preferably at Orr, yes they can be soloed

You can set your traits lower, you could go down to greens, you can solo champs, you can go to southsun and pull a couple of vets and juvenile karka and see how long you last (clear the camps solo). Lots of ways to change your difficulty.

Are fractals accessible to low-level characters, or should I have decent gear before trying?

The challenging content in GW2 is not going to show up while leveling out in the world.

Fractals of the Mists is a Dungeon that has 50 levels of difficulty, it gets pretty silly. This is mainly only available @ level 80 though.

Then there are regular Dungeons. Ascalonian Catacombs is available in Story Mode(easier) @ level 30 and in Explorable Mode(harder) @ level 35.

In addition, Rangers are the easiest class to play. I can’t stand playing them for more than a few minutes, since the combat is neither challenging nor engaging. An Engineer or an Elementalist with the right builds is an absolute blast to play; I have to try really hard to be as effective as possible in almost every combat scenario. The difference is immense.

Dungeons & FotM requires a 5-man group. The best thing is generally to do them with guildies, as Pick-up-groups can include a lot of nasty people and rage-quitters (AC is the worst case, since it’s @ the lowest level)

dgmulf.2349:

Are fractals accessible to low-level characters, or should I have decent gear before trying?

FotM = level 80. If you’re going to do any dungeon, make sure to have Gear appropriate for your level. Higher-quality items is helpful, make sure to equip a full set of trinkets (more important that the former). If you’re dying a lot, equip more defensive attributes and so on. . .

Challenging content you find only ind dungeons and fractals. Also the challenge comes from using melee weapon against the bosses, just spamming longbow all the time makes the fight easy for you but you won’t be contributing much to your team. I recommend you to use greatsword and shortbow in dungeons, and after you get pro at ranger start using sword+warhorn or sword+axe or sword+dagger, but you need to be very skilled in order to be able to fight with sword as a ranger, that rooting effect and the leaps from the auto atack can be a pain for you.

The challenge in this ggame is being effective. A lot of players whine about the lack of challenge in dungeon, yet they take eons to complete a path that shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes. It’s like when Anet removed WP while the team was in combat : the whining it generated was amazing, especially coming from the same players who said weeks earlier that dungeons were too easy.

Point is : you can do all the content even if you are terrible because
-your team will carry you
-there’s no time limit (except for some very few events)
-you cannot fully wipe and fail in a dungeon

For challenging pve you need to go back like 25 years in the videogame industry.

I think PvE can be annoying if you get swarmed especially in certain places because how mobs are placed cough cough Ascalon ghosts cough cough

Depends on what you mean by tough.

Some of the JPs are the toughest content in terms of just general difficulty I’ve done in my 12 year gaming career.

The combat in FotM and some dungeons like Arah and Aetherpath I feel gets more difficult than most MMOs, because they aren’t as tightly scripted as the general endgame you find in MMOs and so contains a element of randomness and chaos which can force you to adapt very quickly.

Also, the difficulty is… different. In most MMOs, you just need to master your own role. As a DPS for example you’re concerned with managing optimal damage rotations, managing DPS, and staying outside the red zones, and maybe pulling a few support skills every now and then, whilst as any class in GW2, you’re concerned with every mechanic of a fight.

Having said that, as many have pointed out, a part of the difficulty isn’t there as people can carry entire parties if they’re good enough, apart from very specific cases (like being a Guardian in high-level FotM) most roles in encounters can be taken by anyone and be given to anyone.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Tibago.8276:

What is a hunter . . .

I’d guess he’s not playing GW2 in English.

In GW2 hunter = ranger. Never seen a PvP title “Champion Hunter”?

OP, my advice would be to quit the bows and start playing with greatsword and sword, and quit tanky pets (bear/drakes)
And if you aren’t enjoying open PvE, just farm chain events or champions till you are lvl 35 and join some lowbies Ascalonian Catacomb groups.
But if PvE is what you like you might want to level a different class. Could try ele/thief as it’ll be quite harder to survive and be decent in PvE.

Orr was challenging for me with my Elementalist. After that I would say try soloing champs. Now that’s a challenge.