Guild Wars 2

What if the “Caithe’s Reconnaissance Squad” instance in the last update had been tuned for five players instead of one – with the addition of a single challenging boss (Mordrem Plant probably) at the end?

Would that have upset anyone?

I ask because I see an opportunity here that I think ANet should consider taking advantage of. This past release included 3 combat instances (and one story focused instance), which seems to be the average.

I think they should try to make one of every three combat instances geared toward dungeon runners (or even one of every six) – giving us short 5-player instances alongside the single player ones.

As long as the main storyline is communicated well in the single player instances, I think this would work – and tremendously deepen the Living Story experience. They could use the 5 player content for less critical story steps (or side stories).

I bring up Reconnaissance Squad because that particular story step really wasnt critical to the narrative. It felt extraneous anyway. So, why not use those resources to deepen the 5-player experience as well as the single player one?

This could easily become an alternative to dungeons – and provide easily converted content for future fractals.

We’ve had 5 Living Story releases so far this season. If there had been one short 5-player instance introduced with each one, that would have been five engaging bosses and trash paths. That’s more than most dungeons in the game have now .

Just a thought.

I think it would upset a number of people. Just look at the huge backlash on the Personal Story. It could all be soloed up until the end which is a 5 man dungeon. That has caused major complaint. I think they learned their lesson on this.

All of that said, the Living Story did actually try this in the first few episodes and I for one really enjoyed it. Remember the “Flame and Frost: Retribution” chapter? It ended with a well made (in my opinion) dungeon called the “Molten Facility.”

So, I think some would like it, but they’d also get hate from a large enough population that they won’t likely risk it.

maybe at the end of the season add new achievements for 5 man versions of several of that seasons instances each with a couple new challenges. then when someone who has that particular chapter unlocked approaches the instance you get the options for which version you want to run.

this could even be released a bit before the new season starts to get people diving back into the previous season/boost sales of chapters people didn’t get when live.

that would give a small team time to retool some of the instances into coordinated 5 man challenges

Personally I believe that now that we can replay living story, all the instances should be soloable, mainly because if they’re not you might end up without being able to continue the story unless you find a group interested in doing it, and while it would probably be very easy to find groups when the update is live and everyone is doing them, imagine someone that just started playing and might want to do them several months from now.

One thing I would agree, though, would be to have a “hard” or “explorable” option like dungeons. For example the Caithe Reconnaisance Squad mission, maybe once you finish it on a character, you unlock the hard version, then you can go into that mission anytime you want with a group, and with encounters, bosses and above all, rewards geared for a full group instance, kinda like a mini dungeon.

The final instance in Glint’s Lair could also be retooled as an unlockable mini dungeon this way, IMHO..

If ANet pulled that again, I’d uninstall and never look back – forced group content as a mandatory living story step is not acceptable.

I totally support any calls for more dungeons, btw. Even if I’m not interested in them, I get that other players are. I just feel they should be entirely optional, with their own reward structures. I find it intolerable when pug/guild content gets interwoven with solo/open-world content.

I still haven’t forgiven ANet for the Mawdrey/Fractals debacle.