Guild Wars 2

I’ve seen some people state essentially that having to make people work for dungeons make them appreciate them more. And if dungeons are easy to get together, they’ll just crap all over people. I tried to point out in this thread that I haven’t noticed any difference in player behavior with or without dungeon finders in any MMO I’ve played. And I’ve seen them get implemented in at least three different MMOs post release while I’ve been playing them.

This really just strikes me as a “In my day we had to walk uphill both ways!” argument, insisting that kids today should do the same. Well, I’ve done plenty of walking uphill, thank you very much. I’d like to do some dungeons that don’t take all night to put together and don’t fall apart if one person disconnects.

Disconnected.9253:

Do NOT pretend that LFG or even raid finder ‘destroyed’ WoW. The pathetic trash that you see in trade chat from time to time has existed long before any of this was implemented, and will continue to exist regardless (even in GW chats, although there seems to be a modicum of regulation going on).

Yeah, seriously. Do people really not remember what “Barrens Chat” meant? “WoW community” has pretty much always been “WoW community.” I played WoW from early Vanilla through the end of Wrath of the Lich King, and I admit that I was lucky enough to be in a good guild, but I sure remember pain in trying to pug Strat, Scholo, or BRD. And yeah, those runs could easily fall apart mid way (or early). They had their share of ninjas. Seriously, how often did people actually finish BRD with a pug?

I think people might be getting a little unrealistically nostalgic, then blaming the dungeon finder for the current reality. I mean, let’s face it. WoW has by far the biggest MMO population on the market. “WoW community” is just a lot of freaking people. With complete internet anonymity. You do the math.

One thing I’m noticing a lot is when people say LFG tools kill socialization, they often tell people to join a guild. This tells me that these people are in guilds that they socialize a fair amount in, and have people to call in and fill slots. I pug a lot and I rarely see much socialization in runs.

I pretty much never see people explain fights or ask if people have done boss fights before. I vary in how proactive I am in finding out if people are new, but if we wipe on a boss fight, I always try to explain the boss fight. Though someone often pulls while I’m in the middle of explaining. I usually only get one or two sentences off before someone just charges in with their face. Also we already have good examples of “that guy” who doesn’t make any attempt to explain things or help people, but yells at people if they mess up and starts initiating vote kicks right away.

So no, I am not very impressed by the “socialization” in this game, and I’m highly skeptical that having a LFG tool or chat feature or something would kill it. Again, I really wonder if the people who are against these tools really pug that much.

For those who have been pugging content exclusively, having either a global chat channel or a LFG tool, or something to make it easier to pull people together would be incredibly nice. It’s gotten considerably harder to pull a group together over the past couple weeks, and I’m getting to the point where I often just give up and play something else if enough time passes without anyone biting in several zones.

I’m in a guild of friends from other MMOs who have pretty much all dropped Gulid Wars for other games (we still all raid in SWTOR, so that’s part of it). So I have basically just pugged everything despite having a guild tag. My guardian is in full exotics from dungeons, and at least 90% of these runs were pugged. But like I said, it’s gotten considerably harder to pull a group together lately, and I would really appreciate some kind of chat feature or tool that can call out to a greater pool of people, especially when I’m flexible on what dungeon I’d run. I don’t know, maybe it’s just my server that’s dying out.

SpaceCowboy.1398:

The only other class I’m aware of that is range challenged is the Guardian, and between the Staff and Sceptre they have like 5 abilities with 1200 range. Most other classes, like the Engineer or Warrior have traits to push them beyond to 1200 (Rifle and Longbow, respectively).

Whoa, whoa. Have you played an engineer that uses a rifle before? Yeah, there’s a trait that increases your range, but every rifle ability other than the snare net is a melee attack. So basically the only use for that increased range is for the auto attack. Rifles are pretty useless for Engineers right now.

That being said, Engineers do have a good ranged attack setup with grenades (which have a trait that increases range by 25% as well as adding an extra grenade every throw). The downside is the ground targeting, which matters more for pvp than dungeons (though it matters a great deal on certain dungeons/bosses). I’m pretty good at it myself, but I admit it’s getting to be a little bit tiresome (actually that’s why I’m fishing around the other class forums).

Not saying Thief shortbow range shouldn’t be increased. Just saying that Engineers are surprisingly melee focused in a lot of their kits/weapon abilities (flamethrower, tool kit, bomb kit, rifle). Some people like Engineer pistols, though I find it a little underwhelming. It’s also shorter range. Really grenades are the main viable long range option for Engineers, and it has all kinds of issues with the ground targeting.