Guild Wars 2

I’m a semi-new player with a question. I played WOW for quite a few years and while it was fun there was always that focus/push to build your gear to the best possible so you could be a strong player. What I enjoy most about GW2 is the focus is more on enjoying the game……playing how you want to, not a specific way to be a ‘perfect’ player. I love this!!!

But I have also read some people’s comments about getting kicked out of dungeons for not playing well enough or not doing things the way they should. I absolutely would try to contribute to the group but am a little hesitant to even try GW2 dungeons because of the nastiness that I experienced with pug dungeon and raid groups in WOW. Yes I was a member of a serious and successful raid group at one time but totally stopped LFG because of how horrible it was. And playing GW2 I do have that hold over worry that I won’t do things ‘correctly’. So anyway this is my long winded way of asking if the ‘enjoy the game’ mentality extends to dungeons in GW2? …..Or are the world bosses and spontaneous groupings that happens in game more enjoyable than the dungeons? What are your experiences and opinions?

You can always advertise your own group and choose the kind of players you would have the most fun with. =)

Good luck.

The best way to experience dungeons in this game is to join a casual guild. But also keep in mind dungeons in this game are older content that less people focus on now. The focus now is on Fractals which is more rewarding than dungeons.

Frankly you seem to be wired more to enjoy a group of people who play together and like each other than being at the mercy of random strangers who may or may not treat you well. Just my opinion from what you’ve said.

Unfortunately, elitism can be found in every online game. Make your own parties or go with friends / guildies. I never use meta builds yet I always find people to play with. Welcome to GW2!

Dungeons:

Anet have made it clear that dungeons are not a priority for them at this time. They are not expanding or really maintaining them, and in fact took heavy measures to discourage players from continuing to play dungeons by nerfing rewards for running dungeon paths and making it much more lucrative to do other things like meta events or farming chests in Silver Wastes. Because of this, it can be hard now to find parties to run dungeons…hard, but not impossible if you are patient. I have run thousands of dungeons, almost all with pugs, and I could literally count the number of bad experiences on just one hand. In other words, most people in GW2 running dungeons are just there, like you are, to have fun and complete achievements. It is very rare that a party is going to give you attitude or a hard time. The trick though is to avoid idiots that think its more important to run a dungeon fast than it is to treat others with respect and understanding (the wording in the LFG messages are usually a good indicator of such people). Also, dungeons are so easy now that no one really cares what kind of gear you bring (unless they are going for a speed record) or what your skill level might be (as long as you are not getting 1-shot at every encounter). The only time people will get frustrated at you is if you DON’T know what you are doing. Fortunately, you can avoid this by doing 2 things. First, watch a YouTube video of the dungeon you are planning to run. Many of the dungeons have puzzles that you must be familiar with to open gates, kill bosses, ext. And secondly, just be honest with people and tell them its your first time. That way they can help explain things for you.

Fractals:

You can go do fractals 1-19 with no worries. They are short, easy, and require no agony resistance. Just follow the group, do what they do, and you will be fine.

Raids:

Go get some experience with dungeons and fractals before thinking of doing raids. Raids are the hardest content available and require you to have good gear and good skills. You MUST know how to play your class or you will definitely get kicked. Best to go with friends or your guild to learn raids.

I have the same mentality as you OP. But if you want to work on any legendaries you’re going to have to bite the bullet and form or join a group to farm 500 tokens.

My experience was this: first read the wikipedia article on explorable modes, specifically each path so you are at least familiar in theory with the encounters or runs.

Make note of which path is easiest in that dungeon and look to run that one first. Most of the time it is P1 but there are some exceptions. You want to be familiar with the difficult paths and try to avoid doing it in a pug.

Open your group finder. Don’t join groups looking for experienced players. A group such as “CoE P1” is fair game. Alternatively you can make your own listing like that.

A lot of the encounters the group will just stack in a corner to LoS mobs so they stack up on you and you burn them down pressing F to revive if someone dies. Simple.

Some encounters have very specific mechanics and you will needs at least 3-4 group members who know what they’re doing (it sucks to be the clueless one).

You should run a DPS build on your gear or you will be letting the group down. Wearing Knights for example (the boosted character armor) will make you do pretty much half the DPS of a berserker. The longer a boss lives, the more damage it will dole out and the higher the chance of it wiping your group. Quick kills are your freind. Learn to dodge and use defensive skills.

Be polite friendly, and don’t be afraid to apologise if you do something wrong eg. “Sorry, forgot about that” “Sorry, first time here” 99/100 times you will get “NP” as a response. Establishing a friendly atmosphere with greetings, polite conversation or even a bit of brown nosing eg. “I really like your armor dyes playerx” can go a long way. Most people are just in there to get something and bail so you won’t see much beyond “hi” usually but don’t take it personally.

Finally two warnings:

Twilight Arbor Aetherblade path is not really puggable. Coordination is needed in that place.

Arah is painful unless everyone knows the way, knows what they are doing, knows how to run past trash and are patient. Even P1 can be a nightmare, but I have pugged every path so it is doable. If you are an squishy Elementalist, well may god have mercy on your soul as you try to run through consecutive corridors full of ranged undead monsters that one shot you.

The advice is either (or both) to join a guild and go dungeoneering with your guildmates or create your own group with a tag “Casual dungeon run, no rush, fun exploration” or something like that. I bet people will join. You might also get a few unexperianced players making the run quite interesting and fresh for everyone.

Elitism definitely can be a problem in dungeons, but it’s usually easy to avoid if you make your own groups and make it clear in the description what you’re looking for. In particular if it’s your first time doing that dungeon/path or you’re open to people who have never done the dungeon before say that, if you want to watch cut scenes, you don’t want to skip parts, or whatever else make sure you say that and you’re much more likely to get a group of like-minded people.

A good thing to mention is if you don’t want to skip the “trash” mobs – something which usually requires special skills to facilitate running past them and knowing exactly when and where to run. This is a key requirement of elitist groups (who usually just want to get the dungeon finished as fast as possible). If you mess up it’s highly likely you will die and then either they have to come back and ressurect you (which takes time), you have to go back to the last waypoint and attempt the run alone, which makes it more likely you will die again (which wastes time) or they have to carry on to the next boss who unlocks a new waypoint with fewer people, which makes the fight take longer.

As a result failure to skip correctly is one of the things most likely to get someone kicked from an elitist group, which makes it a good “dividing point”. (Although not all groups which skip mobs are elitist, I’ve done dungeons many times with people who attempted to skip but were willing to rescue people who got caught, or clear some sections so there was an easy path from a waypoint to the next boss.)

The LFG tool in GW2 helps with this because unlike some games (possibly including WoW?) it doesn’t automatically put you into a group – instead it’s just a place for groups to advertise and then people can choose one to join.

For example yesterday I did Arah (the last and in theory hardest dungeon) with a group made up of a couple of guild people and a couple of people kittenponded to a LFG ad which said “Any explorable – 1st timers welcome”. I think 3/5 had never done it before, I hadn’t done it for months…possibly over a year and one guy knew what to do.

Of course we died a lot. We even wiped on the hardest boss which caused the boss to reset so we had to start over. But everyone was very patient, understanding and helpful. We all did what we could to help each other and over the course of about 2.5 hours we completed 3 of the explorable paths.

(And on other side you’ll want to avoid groups with descriptions like “speed clear” “exp / xp”, “exp only” or “zerker”. Speed clear obviously means they want to do it as fast as possible. Exp/xp/exp only in this case means they want experienced people, someone who has done the dungeon before and knows all the mechanics, where to stand, when and where to run etc. Zerker means Beserker gear, which is a pure-damage ‘glass cannon’ build, used to finish fights as quickly as possible but at the cost of defense which means any mistake can kill you.)

I’d advice you to simply try it yourself. Most dungeon advertisements are pretty casual nowadays. There just aren’t that many anymore now that dungeons lost their popularity.

In any case, you will always meet an kitten or two no matter which content you play. The idea that almost everyone is some elitist that will kick you for any mistake is just silly and wasn’t even true during the old dungeon farming days where people expect others to be experienced as well as very geared.
I find that more often than not people who claim to have gotten kicked for no reason were actually at fault themselves. And taking myself as an example, I usually do not even kick someone even when they clearly do not fit any requirements I set or know the dungeon I want to run. It includes myself swapping to some group support for the skips and waiting on the less experienced.
Most bosses are so easy that you can take them down with four to allow those who didn’t make the skip to teleport to you. Funny enough, it is a lot more common to see those who died skipping leave the group because they missed out on some trash loot than to see the mean elitists kick them for missing the skip.

It would be great if they just lowered the difficulty to be run with Two People or Solo. If they are really trying to phase it out I feel like making it easier to run might be the best way. It doesn’t seem like they can ever get rid of them because of the currency.

I think it’s a bit of an exaggeration to say Anet are trying to phase dungeons out.

They said a long time ago they weren’t planning to make new ones – which I think came as a surprise to some people who saw running dungeons as GW2s “end game”. Then at some point they changed the rewards so running dungeon paths over and over again wasn’t as profitable as playing in some of the newer maps.

They’ve now restored the gold reward, but in a new format where you need to run 8 different paths instead of just doing whichever is fastest/easiest multiple times, which means people are more spread out.

But in my experience it’s not difficult to get a group together, although there do seem to be less of them advertised in the LFG tool. Whenever I’ve decided to do a dungeon it’s taken about 5-10 minutes to get a group together, including when I was doing Arah the other day.

It may take longer if you have strict requirements. Often on any given night there’s one advert in the LFG that sits there for ages not being filled, usually one that says something like “P1 exp zerk war 10k ap”. But that’s understandable because they’re looking for a fairly specific kind of person (in this case a warrior in beserker gear with at least 10,000 achievement points who knows the path already).

But there always seems to be people out there who want to do them, whether it’s for the achievements, the gold, the unique skins or (as in my case with doing Arah) because you need the tokens for a legendary.

Esquilax.3491:

I have the same mentality as you OP. But if you want to work on any legendaries you’re going to have to bite the bullet and form or join a group to farm 500 tokens.

I don’t understand why Anet made Dungeons something that people don’t want to play but we still MUST play them if we want Legendaries. I also feel bad for anyone wanting achievs and other things from Dungeons now that they aren’t popular anymore.

If youre deadset against repeating the dungeons for legendary crafting tokens, they are attainable through WvW and PVP reward tracks now (you do still have to do story mode dungeon once).

To the OP’s note, I would second the advice many are giving. There are plenty of friendly guilds out there with people who think like you do. Additionally, if you word the LFG carefully (“lfm for low drama AC paths 1,2,3. not speed running”) you will probably be able to form a pretty good group of pugs.

GW2 is probably the least elitist filled game you will find. You just have to look for those who play the way you do.

people get kicked out of dungeons alot less than something like raids ive learned. if you want to do raids good luck. even the new willing to teach noobies guilds require experience.

sophiewhite.3149:

people get kicked out of dungeons alot less than something like raids ive learned. if you want to do raids good luck. even the new willing to teach noobies guilds require experience.

Agreed. Raids are where this problem really exists. It really is a shame they chose to design 10 player content as restrictive as they did. Doesn’t really fit well with the rest of the game.

Djinn.9245:

Esquilax.3491:

I have the same mentality as you OP. But if you want to work on any legendaries you’re going to have to bite the bullet and form or join a group to farm 500 tokens.

I don’t understand why Anet made Dungeons something that people don’t want to play but we still MUST play them if we want Legendaries. I also feel bad for anyone wanting achievs and other things from Dungeons now that they aren’t popular anymore.

I don’t know if it’s only me who feels this way but I find I only don’t want to do them when I haven’t done them for a while.

I hadn’t done any dungeons for a few months before doing Arah the other day and I spent about 3 days making excuses to myself (like ‘I don’t have enough time’, ‘I don’t know how long I’ll be online and it’d annoy the group if I had to leave’, ‘I don’t remember any of the paths and that will annoy the group’) before I finally got on and did it.

But when I did it was fine, we actually ended up doing 3 paths and had a really good time. Now I’m back to feeling like I should really do them more often and maybe finally finish the dungeon master achievement.

I’m like that with a lot of things though. For example I’m actually fine with giving talks to groups of people, up to the size of a small lecture theater (I’ve even been told I’m good at it). But if I don’t have to do it for a while I start feeling really nervous about it and almost convince myself I can’t. Then I have to, and it’s ok again.

Thanks for all the encouragement! I’ve found the GW2 environment to be much more friendly than WOW and I appreciate it immensely! I like running dungeons when you’re with a fun group but it’s hell when you’ve got elitist jerks.

I am in a friendly guild but most of the regulars are running more end content that I’m too small for right now. I will check for groups who say they’re looking for fun dungeons runs. I don’t have a problem being honest and saying its my first time but didn’t want any flack because of it.

I think what it is with me is I’m loving the game so much and didn’t want to have anything ruin it. I guess I just need to get over myself and go for it! Haha

At this point I’m just happy when someone joins my dungeon lfg. Took almost 15 minutes for cof p1 to fill today, with no others listed…

Anyway, just read the lfg and join if you meet the requirements. If it only says “p1,” for example, just mention you’re new to the path. There is less elitism now that fractals and raids are the focus.

I’ve had the game since launch and still haven’t done most of the dungeons. Mostly due to the first couple months always being kicked from groups because i played a warrior so i just stopped trying.

Finaldeath.1059:

I’ve had the game since launch and still haven’t done most of the dungeons. Mostly due to the first couple months always being kicked from groups because i played a warrior so i just stopped trying.

Man how times have changed. You’d be welcome in most dungeon groups now.

Been playing for years.

Still don’t know or ever experienced certain dungeon paths.

Literally just follow the others in front of you and stack where they stack. Gw2 has one of the most friendly communities.. So people will help you out. Sure you may get salty players who just want to rain on other’s parades but every game has them.

I learnt quite a few dungeon paths just by randomly joining in the LFG tool; memorize the dungeon path and spots to stack plus what is effective on the mobs and you’ll be fine. It’s easy.

Fractals are content similar to dungeons but unlike dungeons ANet has placed full focus on them and Raids too. Early fractals are easy, you won’t need AR much at all. Later Fractals you will need the AR which means getting ascended gear (top end gear).

Raids are the next step up and for some or many are considered the challenging, harder content and you WILL need to know your class, maintain your role properly be it DPS, the tank or condi etc as well as being situationally aware; multi tasking the mechanics involved but also gear yourself properly.

I don’t do raids seeing as I have a job and can’t commit to a schedule in game but I do know that it is appropriate to know all of the above when considering raiding. You don’t want to be a liability nor bring down your squad. There’s probably websites out there that contain meta builds regarding raids plus videos on the fights which I recommend you look into be ore jumping in… Also helps if you have a guild that would be willing to teach newbies etc.

Different people want different things from a dungeon group than others. Your best bet is to find a group that wants what you want. While it’s certainly more convenient to get into any group right away, convenience can be the enemy of a congenial experience.

I’m going to say that much of the toxicity spoken of is usually mob mentality. It’s more likely that someone will leave a group out of frustration than someone getting kicked. If a kick happens, there’s usually a good reason for it. Of course there’s always a toxic experience mentioned on the forums, but no one is going to go on the forums and be like “Just got kicked out of a party, but they were very nice about it” thread.

general reasons why people get kicked

• Not well geared or wrong set of gear. Had to kick a engi because he was running trinkets with toughness causing him to draw aggro. We were willing to wait on him to get another set if possible, but he didn’t have one.

• Unwilling to bring what’s expected of their class. Most people are skeptical of special snowflake, but surprisingly majority of the groups I’ve been in were willing to give it a try. My first VG kill had a condi elementalist. However, everyone has an expected role. If you’re the only warrior in the party and you’re not giving might or carrying banners expect to be asked to change builds or get kicked.

• Joining the wrong type of party. If you’re new and you join a squad with the “exp” tag, expect them to notice and kick you. If you’re new join a party with “teaching” or “mentoring” in the title. You can even join one without, just make sure you tell them you’re new.

• Toxic behavoir from the individual . I met one today in a AC run who gave the whole party kitten for wiping when he just entered. We wiped because we were 3 maning a boss and we thought we had the blue bar broken but my skale venom wore off at the last 10%. I couldn’t dodge the dangerous attack because I dodged earlier for the bonus damage on my warrior. He kept egging us for the whole run even though we destroyed the rest of the encounters in mere seconds. I considered kicking, but I whispered the rest of the party beforehand. They told me to just ignore him since we only had like a minute left.

I know it’s probably no big deal/normal for most of you on the forum but I absolutely love the way everyone uses the word ‘kitten’! Haha Love it!

I don’t even group when I wanna do dungeons. I duo or solo most of them.

KickzNGigglez.4958:

• Joining the wrong type of party. If you’re new and you join a squad with the “exp” tag, expect them to notice and kick you.

It’s funny you should mention that. I hadn’t played for a while and I was wondering if they meant experienced or explorable with that simply because when I opened up the group finder and saw one group with story and another with exp. So I went with the exp group because I wanted to do the explorable version. Lucky for me I managed anyway.

I can imagine new players making that same mistake.

Gehenna.3625:

KickzNGigglez.4958:

• Joining the wrong type of party. If you’re new and you join a squad with the “exp” tag, expect them to notice and kick you.

It’s funny you should mention that. I hadn’t played for a while and I was wondering if they meant experienced or explorable with that simply because when I opened up the group finder and saw one group with story and another with exp. So I went with the exp group because I wanted to do the explorable version. Lucky for me I managed anyway.

I can imagine new players making that same mistake.

I agree, I think most parties should just type out experienced when using the lfg to fill a exp group. Although I think dungeons are currently so easy with the raw power of elite specializations that we can honestly move past that. Only portions you’d need some experience is on the stealth skips. The little gimmicky stuff like the door openings in CoF1 can honestly be taught in a few secs. From a combat perspective, many classes have simplistic rotations like the daredevil staff. It’s only when you get that axe necro or perma rifle warrior you start questioning things.

KickzNGigglez.4958:

Gehenna.3625:

KickzNGigglez.4958:

• Joining the wrong type of party. If you’re new and you join a squad with the “exp” tag, expect them to notice and kick you.

It’s funny you should mention that. I hadn’t played for a while and I was wondering if they meant experienced or explorable with that simply because when I opened up the group finder and saw one group with story and another with exp. So I went with the exp group because I wanted to do the explorable version. Lucky for me I managed anyway.

I can imagine new players making that same mistake.

I agree, I think most parties should just type out experienced when using the lfg to fill a exp group. Although I think dungeons are currently so easy with the raw power of elite specializations that we can honestly move past that. Only portions you’d need some experience is on the stealth skips. The little gimmicky stuff like the door openings in CoF1 can honestly be taught in a few secs. From a combat perspective, many classes have simplistic rotations like the daredevil staff. It’s only when you get that axe necro or perma rifle warrior you start questioning things.

In the end people are more concerned about how fast they can finish a dungeon and not whether you will be able to beat the challenge or not. That by itself is the problem from the start. Generally dungeons could be beaten no matter what you brought as long as you dodge and ress. That hasn’t changed but people’s patience has changed because you can roflstomp most of the dungeon content and people get upset when it takes 20 minutes instead of 15 minutes.

I get that, but it does indicate some core issues with the game in general.