Guild Wars 2

Aden Celeste.3650:

I believe that the developers are having a hard time figuring out what the people want. Some say “ITS TOO EASY!” others say “ITS TOO HARD”. The problem is the definition of “difficulty” and “fun, and interesting”.

I dont think AC is difficult, my skills are more than enough to allow me to survive the entire run. But the constant knocks those gravelings do, the frustration of protecting the npc in path 1 with certain classes who dont drop the graveling burrows fast enough, the bugs that happen on p3 and p2, the increased HP for trash mobs and hatchlings…

Those things are NOT challenging, nor fun, nor interesting. It makes the normal player rage and leave. The elite players will say otherwise and spoonfeed their desire for ridiculous mechanics unto the majority of casual players.

Couldn’t agree with you more.

Kanako Davis.5364:

I agree that the first dungeon should not be one of the harder ones but i strongly disagree that it is not possible to do with a lvl 35 group. You mentioned the spider queen AOE being very strong, well it should not matter if it is strong or not. Player who want to run a dungeon should at least know how to dodge and therefore the spider queen AOE should not be a problem.
I agree that AC might be a little too hard as the first dungeon but i think that most of the groups fail because they either are not particularly good players or they just don’t communicate. They expect to find 5 people and run through the dungeon without any communication. Then they fail and fail and fail and….after a lot of failing they complain about the game.

As for the build/equipment thing. If you’re playing with one build all the time and you don’t want to change it just because you want to play your style then you’re doing something wrong. You can’t just run around with your build all the time. You should adapt to situations and the skills of the mobs. – thats another reason why most groups fail IMO.

Yours is an opinion of an experienced player. I totally agree on dodging and avoiding the obvious red circles. But, like many other posters here, you seem to neglect the the new players, who are invited into the dungeon at level 30 only to be slaughtered there. How much fun do you think they have in there?

I did mention in my original post, that I happen to be a guild leader. We welcome new players and I personally introduce them to AC and try to teach them the game mechanics through these runs. Hovewer, after the recent update to AC I will be forced to stop this practice, as there is nothing fun and entertaining about getting killed a lot and then waiting on the floor for the rest of the team to decide your fate on your very first visit to a dungeon which is supposed to be your own level.

I will challenge you to play the new AC as a level 35 character with limited skills and whatever armor you gather from map exploration by the time you’re invited into the dungeon. Maybe you’ll share your experience then. To be continued?

IamDuddits.1692:

Problem is that old AC already taught a lot of players bad habits and now they are angry because they can’t AFK face tank Spider Queen while standing in her AoEs or completely ignore Kholer’s adds by pulling him down the stairs or burn Ghost Eater without any threat of taking damage.

I won’t say that the dungeon is perfect. It’s not. I still think it’s a joke that people run through trash mobs. A lot of the events are bugged. However, most of the complaints here aren’t about bugs (with the exception of a few posts). Most people are complaining that this dungeon isn’t “casual” friendly or isn’t an easy 15 min per path exotic/gold farm.

Dungeons, and dungeon rewards (exotic armor/weapons), are suppose to be a sign of prestige. Where is the prestige in something that any bad pug can obtain from doing one weeks worth of AC runs?

Another thing people are failing to grasp is that ANet has been, from the start, all about playing GW2 the way YOU want to play it. If you want gold/exotics, then there are many ways to get them besides running dungeons. You can craft gear as good as any of the dungeon sets. Want gold? World Events, DE, farming materials to sell on the TP, etc. You aren’t at any point required to run explorable dungeons and the story mode dungeons are easy enough so that you don’t miss out on any crucial lore.

Honestly, any prestige that could come from dungeon armor sets is negligible at this point because anyone with a weeks worth of time could’ve gotten any exotic set they wanted with minimal effort.

What you seem to miss is that Ascalonean Catacombs are designed for level 35 players, or so the in-game email and the door crier would have you believe. Are you suggesting that new players should be excluded from this ‘prestigious’ experience? Can you honestly say to the entire forum, that you would enjoy playing AC as a level 35 character, with only a few unlocked skills and none of your exotic armor and weapons?

My main question is: why should a player spend ages making a specific build for their character and invest a lot of gold in exotic weapons if they end up using totally irrelevant bundled weapon skills on bosses? This is a game breaker for me and has completely put me off Ascalonean Catacombs.

In addition, as a guild leader, who organizes regular AC runs for level 35 characters to introduce them to dungeons, I find the new experience rather inappropriate. Not only is the dungeon considerably more buggy now in exploration mode, but the advanced mechanics of the boss fights make this dungeon a no-go territory for fresh level 35 players.

Do the developers seriously expect new players who have not yet unlocked top-tier skills and often reach level 35 with lower level armor and weapons enjoy being killed every few seconds by massively increased Queen Spider AOE damage? Or perhaps they think that fighting Kholer, who even before the update had the tendency to wipe an unexpeienced team a few times, will become more fun now that they added a whole bunch of additional ghosts to the fight?

I believe the new AC is a very poor dungeon experience for a new player. I certainly cannot blame my low level guild members for never wanting to do another dungeon after this.

Overall, in my opinion, if ArenaNet want to retain their playerbase and make further profit from GW2 – they should concentrate more on developing new maps, quests and encounters, rather than introducing uncalled for changes to the existing contents.