Guild Wars 2

Meglobob.8620:

Wait till 80 to do dungeons.

I have done every path in ACexp with a lvl 35-45 group, and have PUGed AC (again every path) repeatedly with mixed level groups between lvl 35 and 50.

There is absolutely no reason to deny or be denied a group spot based solely on level.

However, that said, dungeons are pretty tough, and an inexperienced player is an inexperienced player regardless of what level you are.

Lower level players are at a SLIGHT disadvantage due to not having full builds unlocked and potentially losing out on some tricks. However, stat-wise a lvl 35 in greens is intended to be very similar to a lvl 80 in exotics within AC exp. How close I have not tested since the change to level scaling.

Sounds like you found a poor player for your 5th. I am always happy to do AC with new or inexperienced players, and there are lots of others too.

Libertys Knight.4520:

Ioflux.4369:

A lot of the problem is that people feel that they should have the same rewards and entitlements as the ones who’ve taken the time to become skilled w/o taking the time and effort to do so.

Sorry, Didnt see the post where everyone was wanting something that wasnt already givin for 5 months and then taking away. Kind of like ur dad giving u ur first car and then 5months later telling u that u anit good enough to drive it.

More like Dad taking away the car cause its missing 3 wheels and you shouldn’t have been driving on the sidewalk (Even though its the ONLY way to get to work quickly if you can’t change lanes very well).

New character creation option to replace butterflies with tiny charr helicopters is required!

Waiting for 10 minutes because you died at the beginning of a boss battle due to a stupid error is not fun. Neither is getting spoon fed ‘success’ without a high likely-hood of failure.

Ill take one ‘I died, and had to wait’ un-fun run once in a while over EVERY run being a trivial boring time sink.

Anyone else thing the Charr mesmer is underplayed?

Mesmers have the largest selection of weaponry of any of the caster classes. They utilize higher tech weapons like pistols, infused with magic, and phantoms to turn one soldier into an army. For the magically inclined charr, it seems like the natural path within the Iron Legion, moving away from the hated shamans.

Now if only we could get rid of the butterflies.

CHIPS.6018:

Mirta.5029:

CHIPS.6018:

Chillmastor.9234:

Your suggestion is awesome but obsolete because this IS ALREADY the case
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akoLjsITrk0
This group does arah p4 in 43 min. That means there is no path that takes longer. I really like the dungeons in GW2 and the time it takes to complete them.

You are right. But honestly you and I both know this doesn’t fix the problem.

Reduced title to 25 minutes. ^^

why would you do that? Do you want all dungeons to be CoF? That’s the reason I don’t ever go to CoF. It’s too easy! Arah is supposed to be the hardest dungeon. I’ve been preparing for it for ages. It should not be nerfed. It shouldn’t be run by everyone either.

You have to understand that there are players out there who can only play for 2 hours a day. Anet need to cater the game to them too if they want their money.

I am not saying making the dungeons easier. I am saying that they should break the dungeons down into smaller pieces, part 1,2,3, etc. By breaking the dungeons down they allow and encourage the casual players to try these dungeons.

Those that can play 12 hours a day, think of this as a way of paying for the server. The casual’s money is just as good as the hardcore ’s money. And there are A LOT more casual players than hardcore players.

I would say that there need to be SOME dungeons that require only 20 minutes for a path, and others that require more investment.

Or better yet, Every dungeon should have at least ONE path that requires only 20 minutes at greatly reduced rewards (but still tokens) while others offer a more in depth experience for those that have more time.

Dungeon tokens should always be a viable way to purchase relevant gear for any level doing the dungeon. Since dungeons scale players down to the appropriate level, (and provide the players actual level in loot), it seems reasonable that the non-exotic rewards from dungeon token vendors should scale UP to the players level to remain relevant.

This would work similar to the karma vendors in WvW Borderlands, providing rare armor for at players level (rounded down to the nearest multiple of 5) at a formulaic cost. This would help players stay geared when leveling in dungeons, and make some of the sub-68 level dungeons viable to farmers looking for ectos.

Level means almost nothing in this game other than you having more tricks available to you. If you don’t know how to use those tricks, they wont help.

The whole point of the (exploreable) dungeons in this game is to provide a consistent challenge regardless of level.. and is one of the things that is truely unique and refreshing about this game. Now if only people would figure this out and stop insisting on lvl 80s for AC…

(Dear ANET, maybe another round of scaling nerfs are in order.. this time making it perfectly clear that a lvl 80 in exotics will have the same stats in AC as a lvl 35 in greens)

Sera.6539:

I don’t know if it’s because of the patch or not, but I’ve been getting kicked from a lot more dungeons. I like to do dungeons to level my alts because it’s simple and easy. I have a Dungeon Master title I display on my alts most of the time. But all people see is the level when I initially join. Hell, I just got kicked from a CoF path 2 for being on a level 78. That’s 2 under 80.

With the changes to CoF path 2, it’s even more brain dead easy, guys. I have a feeling people are becoming less tolerant of under 80s. It’s no wonder that newer players have terrible experiences in dungeons. They get crappy treatment, and there’s no tolerance for anyone that may seem new.

Its not ‘people’ who are less tolerant, its ‘fools’. Just hang in there and educate, or failing that, start your own group and pick up some other pre-80s and complete it without issue.

I think the existing utility res skills (for each profession) should affect defeated players… maybe increase their cool down slightly.

andreibianu.8051:

I fail to see how adding more and more penalties when attempting to get the already laughable “rewards” for ones time and effort – couple that with the fact that some accounts/toons have inherently bad RNG and you get players sick and tired of beeing cheated out of the time invested in the game

I should clarify.

My point was that people are complaining about the dungeon changes for a lot of reasons, some are legitimate and require rebalancing bosses etc or other aspects of the game, but others are with regard to perceived behavior from other players.

The OP stated that the changes were bad because people who arnt getting instant loot and gratification are quitting the team and ruining it for everyone… The OP suggested that these people should be given their instant reward to stop them from quitting. I only suggest that its the ‘quitting’ that is the problem.. and like a small child throwing a tantrum, quitters need to learn that things only get worse when you lose your temper.

Turning you into a chicken for quitting a dungeon was intended to be ironic.

Or, stop people from quitting… make it so if you leave a team currently in a dungeon you get a 3 hour cooldown timer that turns you into a chicken and unable to join new groups.

Dyroth.5063:

I feel that’s an insult to casual players. I don’t view casual players as players who want less challenge or anything of that type but a group of players who take their time progressing as needed due to whatever issues they have going on. This change really impacts those unable to learn game mechanics or those who refuse to use them. I have played with some casual gamers who, while still dying a fair bit, weren’t horrid players because they looked at the mechanics. On the other hand I have dealt with some people who play a lot and die tons because they look to just stand and hit stuff with a sword all day. Don’t confuse the two groups.

Personally I love where this patch is forcing the game to go. It makes people look at the best way to approach things and adds penalty to being dumb. I have had PUG groups that kept zombie zerging certain parts in AC and were getting no where, that wouldn’t happen now because you are forced to stay together and work collectively more. Yeah it sucks when the tiny screw ups or cheap mechanics get you but over all it isn’t too bad.

I couldn’t agree more. Please please please everyone stop using the term ‘casual’ to mean someone who can not learn to dodge to save their life… (literally). Casuals have limited playtime, not limited ability. Casuals ALSO have real lives and understand that the would does not come on a silver platter, and you do NOT need to get everything. Life is about choices and sacrifices, and that is what makes those choices special… anyone with kids can tell you that.

Love the dungeon changes. When I log on for an hour after a long day at work, I don’t want to be spoon fed exotics… I want an Adventure!

RiKShaw.8795:

Is that if you die in the first 5 min (could be stupidity, could be luck) then you’ve could have half an hour of waiting if you’re in such a position where you cannot be gotten to by your teammates, EG: Lava in CoF.

Last night this happened and people would alt tab and… idk what but they wouldn’t come back. Even after we have wiped. My friend suggested the idea of being a ghost and being able to run around and do emotes.

While thats a cool idea, why not go a step further. Bring back the ability to res in combat except that you’re a ghost. Unable to cast spells, however, people can still res you. This way you can run around like an idiot if you want, OR you can put yourself in a safe spot and wait for someone to come res you and then if the boss jumps aggro to your savior, and starts bombarding that area with AoE’s you can run to the other side of the arena and get ressed there.

It is still going to require teamwork to get a player back. Its still a disadvantage to the team if you die.

Lol!

I had this idea earlier as a joke on everyone complaining to be ‘bored’. Let you walk around the area as a ghost with some special emote/dance skills in your weapon bar.

George Steel.1804:

Robert Hrouda.1327:

my remapped skills (Use your pinky finger)
7 = ctrl+1
8 = ctrl+2
9 = ctrl+3
10 = ctrl+4

That way I can remain mobile through WASD while also using my fingers to use utilities and elite if needed. I typically mouse-click my heal though, so I don’t accidentally hit the key at the wrong moment.

Not to toot my own horn, but I have some of the slickest character control around..

6 = F
7 = Q
8 = E
9 = R
10 = Shift + R
F1 = Shift+1
F2 = Shift+2, etc

All utilities near movements skills, use right click hold while moving to strafe etc. Even works great for my ele buddy (he copied me) and he plays one of the best ele’s on the server

Mine is similar.

First 5 skills are mapped to; Q, E, Shift-F, Shift-Q, Shift-E
Heal is mapped to C
Utility skills are mapped to; 1, 2, 3, 4
and finally Proffession Skills (F1-4) are mapped to: Shift-A, Shift-D, Shift-S, and Shift-Space
Dodge is V

I have been using this mapping for basically every MMO for the past 7 years and I find it works well, even for the elementalist finger dance.

Gaiawolf.8261:

The greatest trick a charr mesmer ever pulled was making the forums think he didn’t exist … and just like that (Blink) he was gone.

As a Charr Mesmer…. THIS!!!

Oh man I am tired. (editing original to fix it)

Stu Grockalot.2937:

What a stupid idea this was!
Now the entire part must be punished for one weak player.
This wont increase teamwork it will ostracise players that are weak in the group, as in future other players won’t want them in the party.
If you want to discourage res-rushing all you do is to put a greater downed penalty on re-spawning compared to being revived. Or make it permanent for re-spawning and temp for a revival or something.
Before the change if you had four good players they could cope for a while when one person is downed, thus that person can make the tactical decision to wait for a revival or re-spawn. Now the part HAS to revive him, could very much face a party wipe now! As when there is only one person left he has to revive the other 4, he can’t kite while the other 4 res and come and help him. There is no way one person can take a beating from a boss and res a fallen party member.
Again. What a stupid idea!!!

Yes, party wipes are now possible… life is no longer an automatic pass.

DeathPanel.8362:

Khisanth.2948:

Gasu.6254:

I just failed this part with my PUG. There was a player who acted like an idiot and obviously didn’t even understand what to do.

Maybe I should not party with people who have under 2k achievement points from now on…

Achievement points is NOT a measure of intelligence.

You don’t need intelligence for dungeons, you need experience.

Any half brained idiot can do the preset things required to beat events. All events are methodically beaten by specific predefined strategies and setups, not actual on the fly intelligence.

From my experience, people with below 1000 achievement points usually have no experience with alot of dungeons.

I wouldn’t mind if they say so and accept help from teammates but that is usually not the case.

LF2M CoF, Halloween Jumping Puzzle Achievement Only!

(yes… metrics are stupid, just team with who you find and have some fun… your grinding for useless gear and fake money you know)

Revelstoke.8924:

Hey folks. So I’m verhemently against doing dungeons right now simply because there is no solid dungeon matchmaking or LFG system. I hate standing around or /shouting for groups, I just feel it’s a waste of precious time and am hoping ANet can add a utility for this in-game soon.

That aside, I’m just curious from those that do frequent the dungeons how quickly it takes on average to get yourselves a full set of gear? Im looking at AC and COF specifically (god the dredge stuff is ugly..). Pardon my infamiliarity with the dungeon scene and thanks in advance-

Full set of gear is around 1380 tokens. Each path through explore nets ~69 (60 for completion and 9 more from sachels).

So you are looking at about 6.5 full runs through (one per day, 3 paths) for the complete set. If you run with multiple characters you can do the full run with each per day, so (assuming 2 characters) you can have it done in about a weekend.

Each run (3 paths) takes about 2 hours.

Also, check out www.gw2lfg.com. Finding a group takes about 15 seconds.

Boyd.5438:

maybe you are in a decent group try for once takin all 4 or maybe 4 man it with another 3 peeps with sub 500 achievement points then you will feel the sting.

also to add, ac is for lv35 peeps, ive done ac with a lv30 toon before with 3 others at lv35 and 40 and one at lv80 suceeded and it was fine but everyone is experienced with it.

compared to a group of 5 people at lv80 with sub 700 achievement points x4, you will feel the bitter sting of failure

Lol, well no argument from me that experience (or skill) trumps level and gear any day of the week.

My problem at the time was the sudden realization that if everyone just ran in, hit the boss once, died, resed, and ran back, we would eventually clear the content… naked, without engaging a single brain cell in the process.

Boyd.5438:

its not about the exploit fix, its about the waypoint being unable to be used. its not the case where we are ress-rushing or wtv its called, but sometimes ress is just impossible in certain situations especially guiding new players. how can people learn when things are set to be at elite mode and they are “barely legal”?

i dont really see the point in all this tho, i wouldn’t have said anything on the forums and stayed as a mute all the time if i had the choice but for Christ sakes, cant they just make an elite dungeon mode instead of ruining the fun for another group of people?

people learn and advance slowly in steps, as you have learned before all those patches that have occurred. if this was implemented from the start, i got nothing to say, everyone started the same. but changing it half way is just.. sigh..

do you remember your own first ac run? cm run? coe or arah? imagine if you cant wp, you dont see anything. there is no “experience” in that staying dead.

Actually I was really disappointed about mid way through my first AC run when I realized there was no way to fail the dungeon, it was just auto reward on a time sync… I stopped doing Dungeons for a long time because of that.

Boyd.5438:

because i take it as a game, i don’t want to spend my life thinking of ways to do a certain thing to get the reward. it is very repetitive, and also tough job to guide new players to do the “right” thing. it is not fun when a game turns into additional stress when things does not work out after a lot of tries.

first of all, you got to understand this is not about just me, i honestly dont give a rats kitten if this goes to the kitten, it aint hard, close and eye its done. but the time used to get it done. its not enjoyable when people start abandoning ship. walk away and leave.

have you notice the sharp decline on gw2lfg for dungeons? those players with 400 – 800 achievement points, some with green gears or rares, go in, die, a few times, and they go offline. some with 2k achievement points just says “mate im goin off after this daily”. meh wtf is this? i want to have people to play with, especially friends. everyone is gone u get it? nobody left to play with. 3/4 of my friendlist is offline, sometimes its only 5 people on lol.

this so called minor change, is making life hard and tough for the beginners. you are maybe an old fart “in gw2 aka old player”, but heck man, what about the new dudes? before they could see whats being done, they already dead somewhere somehow.

Yup, quitters suck, and ruin the game for everyone. But you don’t fix a quitter by trivializing the game, they just get bored and quit anyways.

Helping new players is fun. Its something I try to do whenever I am on, and it keeps the game interesting and social. If your friends all quit within 2 days of what was essentially an exploit fix, it sounds like they forgot its a game too.

Space.8053:

I think people are confusing some of the issues here.

Skilled play should be more rewarding than non-skilled play.

Specifically in dungeons this means skilled players completing hard encounters, managing to complete instances quicker than non skilled players etc.

The problem with the new system is that it punishes non skilled play to such a degree that instead of a mistake costing say 5 minutes of a team’s time, one mistake can easily add 30 minutes or more to a dungeon or even cause a team not to complete the instance.

This has a knock on effect that the vast majority of more experienced players will look to only play with people of equal experience. If you had a choice, would you let a level 35 or a level 80 play with your group in Ascalon Catacombs? Or someone with green gear instead of exotics? How about engineers, rangers and necros compared to warriors, guardians and mesmers?

Without a safety net for newer players to experience dungeons and learn encounters the risk is splitting the community into dungeon runners, and non dungeoners. Most sane people don’t want to see content dumbed down, made brain dead or just plain skippable. However I feel this is too much of a swing, there are a few good suggestions in this thread.

So yes difficult dungeons are fine, just make them accessible. (Hard / Easy modes, make all dungeons lvl 80 to not encourage exclusion of lower levels in PuGs)

Completely agree’d with your first statement, but you lost me after that.

The dungeons are based on skill, not level, and not gear. All your examples you described gear differences or lvl 80 vs lvl 35. I would always take a lvl 35 in blues that knows what they are doing over a lvl 80 in exotics that doesn’t have a clue (and isn’t willing to learn).

The thing most people seem to forget is that there are already hard/easy mode dungeons. They are called Explore Mode. Explore Modes are for skilled players who enjoy challenges and want to obtain useless, but visually striking armor. If you are not interested in a challenge, then there is a story mode which can be done for lesser reward, and involves more story and lore elements.

Boyd.5438:

people just stop trying after awhile. not everyone have the patience to sit stand and wait for something to work or use a pen and paper to write down what the have to do in a “game”. you do realize this is a game right? you dont get a real achievement from here right? there is no such thing as PhD in GW2 skillplay right?

Lol, I love how when describing how it is just a game, you still focused on the REWARD for the activity in your examples.

Games are for fun. You do something, its entertaining. It doesn’t matter if you complete it, or if you win, or if there is a green ribbon at the end. Its about challenging yourself, or entertaining yourself in some way. So yes, I do know its a game.. but I am not sure you do.

Boyd.5438:

there are roles but its turning into elitism mode. only the elites can play the game now.

Wow.. a minor change to something that should never have existed, and a few weeks of potentially challenging dungeon content (that is in no way required for anyone) before they get rebalanced has everyone all doom and gloom.
Seriously, the only people that make this game split between elites and casuals are the casuals who just up and quit. Casuals outnumber Elites… greatly.
So there is no shortage of other casual people with whom you can team with, and have fun. You don’t need to succeed all the time, you just need to try, and have some fun doing it.

Rhysati.4932:

My usual group of 5 contains: Mesmer, Guardian, Engineer, and 2 Thieves.

Sadly, you know what our solution was? For our Mesmer to change professions to Elementalist so she could spam heals and condition removals along with the Guardian.

To me, that’s just wrong. The whole point in GW2 of not having ‘roles’ as so many fanboys cheer about…is that you are supposed to be able to do content with any combination of professions you want. But, it’s simply not true now. The moment you need someone spamming heals and condition removals while someone else tanks is the moment you have the ‘Trinity’ back. Only it is in a crappy and watered down form.

Mesmer couldn’t swap to nullity field (assuming condition removal and not healing was the issue)?

There are roles in GW2, nobody ever said there weren’t. What they said was that any Profession could fill any role. Roles being Support, Control, Damage instead of Tank, Healer, DPS.

Nokaru.7831:

Delvoire.8930:

There shouldn’t be a role so to speak.

Many players feel that we bring so much Control (Dodging) and Support (Reviving) without being specialized into anything, that we can afford to maximize Damage as much as possible for most of the dungeons. And they’re right.

This!!

A lot of the role definition comes from weapon choice… maybe part of the solution here is to greatly increase the cooldown time of the control/support/dps specific weapon skills (making them virtually useless other than an occasional ‘fill the gap’ or a ‘taste of the role’ without traits), and then increase the amount that the cooldown reduction traits affect those skills.

Same would go for utilities.. but i think that would be harder to balance.

Delvoire.8930:

There shouldn’t be a role so to speak.. It’s more about weapon combos than anything. Having a certain profession is great.. but what is best is when the team together is using the right combos to make things work.

I ran a PUG last night and at first it was pure hell. I then decided to switch my thief from Sword/Pistol to double Pistol. Luckily I run with a weapon of every kind my toon can use so I can switch on the fly. After switching and adjusting my skills the party ran much smoother. I was able to use more CC effects and our combos worked better too. Remove Condition, Poison, Burn are great combo effects to help weaken bosses. People forget that a lot it seems.

I think that that is a common misconception. I can’t find the link atm, but the original concept was to create 3 roles; Support, Control, and Damage, and allow any profession to fill any of the 3 roles.

Unfortunately either due to bad boss/dungeon design, a lack of clarity within the game, or just players not recognizing the difference.. or value of these roles and assuming everyone is the same… and we have the dungeon pug system as it is now as a result.

@IceWyvern
I think you hit on exactly why dungeons always feel like such a colossal chaotic mess. Nobody has a job, instead everyone is trying to do everything.. and even worse, nobody is relying on anyone else to fulfill a role.

Since everyone is entering the dungeon as a generalist, it breaks every encounter into two categories.
1. You know the fight, you dodge and control etc… you could solo this fight but it would be slow so having 4 others who could also solo just speeds it up.
2. You know the fight, you dodge and control.. but there is a steady increasing difficulty mechanic (graveling burrows for example) that has a DPS hump…. so you cant do it alone so you need more DPS.

And people wonder why you get 5 man dps groups of all warriors.

Windwalker.2047:

3 warrs 1 guard 1 mesmer fun times all around
DPS (which is one of the most,if not the most important aspects of any mmo’s instanced group content) is totally out of whack between the profs that bringing anything else but the highest dps class is silly and serves no purpose. The reason for this is that PvE is currently balanced around PvP (warrs are easy to handle in PvP,thus need the extra damage to compensate).
For instance in another mmo,the devs would check the dps meter of every class with its dps spec and buff the underperfoming ones and nerf the op ones,bringing them to
a sort of equilibrium and avoiding situations like ‘LFM fury warrs only!’,sure it doesnt work all the time,but they at least try to bring some semblance of class balance in PvE.

That is something I really hope they address in ‘Phase 2’ of the dungeon changes. Melee DPS should be higher, because it has to balance out the lack of range and the time to reach the target (or cooldown of gap closers etc), but in PvE the fights are longer, so the only mitigating factor is usually a boss ability that forces melee to move or run out every 10-30 seconds.

I haven’t taken a hard look at every boss fight, but it seems to me that ranged dps has to do more movement than the melee dps in most fights. This seems out of balance, since essentially Melee dps should always run the risk of pulling boss aggro and having to move out periodically (switching aggro back to a more tanky controller character or allowing chill/slow based controllers to help the person kite). Instead most bosses seem to have lots of ranged abilities and only a very small set of weak melee attacks. Allowing melee dps to go all out all the time, and forcing ranged dps to spend all their time dodging and running around.

First thought would be to allow the player to select a role to be displayed on their character icon.

This may tie into a LFG system later, but initially just using a drop down to say ‘hey I’m support’ that puts a little icon next to your portrait would help the group leader figure out what roles still need to be filled.

Heylo.4938:

Quickness helps as well if it’s a tight situation. I do it very rarely, but if it’s really dire, I’ll drop timewarp to res people. I try to save this for fully downed people whenever that should happen(falling off the scaffolding in Colossus fractal).

Love it! I had never thought of using Time Warp to speed up a tricky Resurrection.

So with the destruction of the MMO Trinity (Tank, Healer, DPS) and the introduction of the Support/Controller/Damage role system, does anyone have any tips or ideas on how to build better Dungeon teams and help new (and old, and pug) players to better identify and fill these roles?

I think the main issue is that most players are still ignorant of the mechanics required for success in a team. And the mechanics themselves are neither obvious, or intuitive. While in other MMOs we had roles divided along class lines, (thief = dps, priest = healer etc) which made it easy for anyone creating a dungeon group to specify and identify what was needed in the group.

In GW2 every profession can fill any role, but different professions have different methods of filling those roles (guardian controller may rely on tanking or knockbacks, while elementalist controller may rely more on chills and cripples)… so how do you build a team? and how do you tell if your team makes are filling the role they volunteered for?

To me, this is the root of the problem of ‘elitism’ and the ever more prevalent requests for ‘80s only’ or ‘5 exotic zerkers warriors only’. It is not that it is required, but it helps people who DON’T know what they are doing to overcome their ignorance.

Ok preamble aside. What do you do to build a successful dungeon team, how do you Identify or fill roles, and what can ANET do to make the role mechanics easier, clearer, and more successful both in the dungeon and when forming a group?

kyrabt.3216:

I agree that the new way of things probably makes dungeons harder than they already are. I can’t say I’ve actually done one yet. I do, however, know about the whole “not enough waypoints” problem.

Honestly, though, I can’t say it’s the dungeons that actually make me hesitant to do them – it’s some of the players. From what I’ve read on a lot of the forum pages the “requirements” for getting into a lot of parties for dungeons is kind of high, especially for first-timers. They expect us to have full exotic? I am not sure how possible that is until you’ve actually started doing dungeons…

And running specific builds, as well. Shouldn’t the player use the build they are most comfortable with? That or at least the team could tell them how to adjust their build instead of just kicking them. Patience is also needed. My reasoning being that if you make a person use a new build you can’t be like, “You must perform perfectly.” or get mad at them if they don’t, considering the person has never used the build before.

Overall, I agree that for casuals or people who play this game just for fun (as it is intended to be played, I’d hope) the dungeons will be harder now than they were before. I just hope that finding a party for dungeons isn’t as bad as it sounds.

Anyone who is insisting on a level greater than the minimum to enter the dungon, or requesting a specific RARE-ITY of gear, is just being an idiot and you probably don’t want to be in their group.

That said, type of spec, and type of gear is important. Every profession can fill any of the 3 roles in GW2, but that doesn’t mean that dungeon teams can be composed of any combination… you still need some representation of each of the 3 roles. So players asking for spec “are you a controller/dps/support” and gear type “umm, your a dps wearing clerics?” may be important for the tougher encounters, and should be expected.

Great story. I do love how these changes have added a sense of ‘epic’ to the encounters.

Nialiss.6459:

Yeah. You know what else is in all other MMOs? Tanks, healers, you know, structured team play. Not a chaotic and choppy mess of a combat system which basically consists of, “spam skills until things r deadlol.” WP resing made it work… Sorta.

No, WP rezing broke the Control, Support, DPS trinity that was supposed to exist, replacing it with a chaotic choppy mess that let people succeed by “spam skills until things r deadlol.” tactics instead of looking for new ones.

Jzl.8715:

Ungood.3054:

I hate to say it, but a large part of being casual is simply that I don’t have the time to spend a part time job doing “research” just to have some fun. In fact the idea that I need to “study up” on how to play a game that I supposedly do to get away from the stress and frustration of life seems like an oxymoron in the purest sense. In fact, when you couple that with the idea that I am now forced to spend my “play time” IE: the time I have put aside and allocated to gaming, is now spent looking at how to do a dungeon seems to be the apex of exactly what “against the casual” gamer in every sens of the word.

Sorry Silidus, but while I loved your post, I sincerely could not tell if you were trying to toll by setting people up to fail and fail hard, or if you really were trying to be encouraging, but none the less, the reality is, to get good and know a dungeon well enough to be able run it in 20 – 60 min takes either a veteran group willing to carry you, or it takes a lot of time to practice getting good at it, and it’s the latter that by definition is exactly what “Casual” players are strapped for.

Yep I agree, and I would also extent on this, because playing sports for fun is just ridiculously tiring right? I think we don’t need any of this. What we need is a screen that feeds us entertainment without any effort at all. Actually i think such a thing has been invented already, called Youtube or television. Better get a fat couch too, to maximize the rate of entertainment return and lack of effort.

I don’t think that was the point.

The point is that when you have only 2 hours to yourself per night (per week), where there isn’t something WAY more important demanding your immediate attention, what would you rather do, play GW2 or read about GW2 (or watch someone else play GW2)?

Ungood.3054:

I hate to say it, but a large part of being casual is simply that I don’t have the time to spend a part time job doing “research” just to have some fun. In fact the idea that I need to “study up” on how to play a game that I supposedly do to get away from the stress and frustration of life seems like an oxymoron in the purest sense. In fact, when you couple that with the idea that I am now forced to spend my “play time” IE: the time I have put aside and allocated to gaming, is now spent looking at how to do a dungeon seems to be the apex of exactly what “against the casual” gamer in every sens of the word.

Sorry Silidus, but while I loved your post, I sincerely could not tell if you were trying to toll by setting people up to fail and fail hard, or if you really were trying to be encouraging, but none the less, the reality is, to get good and know a dungeon well enough to be able run it in 20 – 60 min takes either a veteran group willing to carry you, or it takes a lot of time to practice getting good at it, and it’s the latter that by definition is exactly what “Casual” players are strapped for.

I don’t Troll…

I should state that you have a very valid point when it comes to ‘research’. Personally, I don’t have time for it either, and only rarely do it (usually only if I am grouping with my wife and friends who are also casual and never done the instance before). For the most part, at this stage of the game I am assuming that in any random pug group there is at least ONE person who has done the instance before, and has some understanding of the boss.

All I am doing is trying to break this association between ‘casual player’ and ‘incompetent player’… they are not the same thing. If you are a casual player, remember that this is a skill based game, and it is up to you to ask questions (in the game, during the instance) and do your best to learn while remembering to keep it fun.

If you are NOT causal, remember that others are, and always be open to answering questions from those who would be excellent players and companions if given a heads up now and again.

Talissa Chan.7208:

I think you missed the point silidus. Please make a post in a new thread on “tipis and tricks to survive dungeons” this post is where you’re lead to share your experiences with the DEVS not be told “sure casual players aren’t bad players but learn your class kay?” not all players want to bind their keys a set way, play their builds a set way and learn the animations and cooldown times on every skill on every class of character they have. Some casual players have to drop everything mid fight because the wife needs the son watched for a quick 5 mins, some people NEED the ability to leave and map back in 5 minutes when the issues been solved. Or a quick run to the loo suddenly, an important work call. There are people living very different lives from you. Please leave this thread for its purpose – to send a message to the actual important folks who made the game.

No offence, but I think you are in the wrong thread. We all understand the pressures of work, interruptions from kids or spouse, or just generally more important stuff that comes up in life. It happens.

That said. That has little or nothing to do with the recent dungeon changes. If you are in my dungeon group, and you need a 5 min break to deal with RL.. you got it, I understand and so will everyone else.

But if your in a dungeon, and you don’t want to learn the mechanics of the boss… well i think your in the wrong place. There is a wide world of PvE out there and plenty to enjoy for everyone.

The question before this thread is in regards to the recent changes to the waypoint mechanism, how it affects gameplay, and how players as a whole are reacting and need to modify their approach to dungeons. You may see that as being ‘please vent here’, but some of us feel these changes are very positive and would like to attest to that. This includes opinions on other posts ‘slippery slope’ arguements with regard to the effect of the recent patches (see thread topic again) and gameplay.

Tip (oh how did I forget this):
- Every profession has an Adept level trait which will assist you when resing a downed ally. Some of these provide shields, or boons at the start, others will grant buffs on completion. If your doing a dungeon runs and find you need a little boost when resing allies, swap one of these in.

Castrella.9817:

Though dungeons are designed this way, this doesn’t necessarily mean that players will be willing (or able) to play in a style that developers intended. I’ve always been told to run back when I die, and when I’ve tried rezzing other players I always die because I’m a light armour class and am usually killed in one to two shots.

Hi Castrella,

Don’t give up just yet! I understand how you feel and it sounds like you have run some dungeons with some bad groups. The good news is that I think many of the things that frustrated you are actually addressed in this patch.

Castrella.9817:

Though dungeons are designed this way, this doesn’t necessarily mean that players will be willing (or able) to play in a style that developers intended. I’ve always been told to run back when I die, and when I’ve tried rezzing other players I always die because I’m a light armour class and am usually killed in one to two shots.

Well the good news is that they can’t tell you to “just run back” any more. Everyone lives and dies together. They need you, you need them.

Castrella.9817:

I mean no offence whatsoever by this (and I’m a writer, not a game designer, so I’m just theorizing here) but perhaps it should be considered that, if players are innovating their gameplay to find a way around a system of play that is too difficult, the problem is with the design.

I think that was the point. The game design was flawed, and encouraged players to just keep DPS up while expecting their teammates to res and run back. No teamwork, no interaction, no comradeship. There is still a problem with some fights being too difficult under the current mechanic. Hopefully these can now be addressed properly now that players are forced to attempt the fights legitimately.

Castrella.9817:

Some suggestions that might motivate players to rez others:

1. Players should get a buff while rezzing another player that either greatly increases their toughness or renders them temporarily immune to attacks for a few seconds.

2. Players (or the entire group) get an increase in health (or health regeneration) while rezzing other players.

The good news is that this is already in the game. Every class has an Adept level Major Trait which assists when attempting to revive a down player. Some classes get shields, buffs, protection etc. If you find yourself in a group where you just keep needing to res others, and are having trouble staying alive to do it swap in one of these traits.

Jabuticaba.7458:

Also when we start the skill discussion: why can’t we benefit more from our class or utility skills? Why not be able to daze, blind or knockdown a boss when we see the cleave coming? The way it stands, most encounters seem to favor autoattack and dodge roll as the only 2 keys we need to press in the correct millisecond …

You actually can. Bosses have a permanent buff called ‘unshakable’ which grants them stacks of ‘Defiant’. Defiant stacks absorb crowd control skills, like chill/knockback/daze tec, but will loose one stack for each application. The trick is to hit the boss with enough CC (usually just one by each player) to use up the defiant stacks.. after that, you can interrupt most attacks (not sure about all attacks or every boss).

The above is mostly theory though, since I usually run with pug groups I have occasionally been able to drop the stacks of defiant and CC a boss, but usually its just safer to dodge or use another ability to mitigate the attack for the whole group.

@katz.8376 – I think you hit on one of the fundamental beauties of GW2 in comparison to other MMOs. The game is ‘skill based’ instead of gear based. 5 lvl 35s who know what they are doing will have almost the same experience as 5 lvl 80s (who know what they are doing) when it comes to AC.

This to me is one of the greatest things that makes this game ‘casual friendly’ as oppose to ‘trivial’. I can come, play a game that feels like I am actually doing something, or getting better at something, and then leave to go deal with RL, without feeling like I am going to be locked out of content by not being sufficient level.

That said, Yes, I did assume that at least one or two people attempting the dungeon had some knowledge of its layout and mechanics. But I think that goes without saying. Personally, If I am not in a rush, there is a lot of fun with ‘exploring’ a new dungeon with a group that has never done it before… provided everyone in the group is interested in the same learning experience. But if your in a rush, or just want tokens, going in blind is never a good idea, casual or not.

After reading some of the posts in and around the new Dungeon waypoint patch I have noticed some people have mentioned some really neat strategies to use when trying to resurrect a KO player. In the interest of helping players adjust to the new changes please post your own strategies here and we will try to get them together in one place.

General Tips
- Don’t try to res players if you have boss aggro.

- Don’t try to res players currently in an AOE damage field.

- Watch the boss, not the res-bar. Bosses like to target players resing other players, make sure you keep an eye on the boss and cancel the res (just move) and dodge incoming attacks. Always be prepared to re-evaluate, and let another player continue the res if things are too hot for you.

- There are lots of ways to help someone res another player, without doing the res. Try pulling the boss away from the resing pair if you have aggro, or stand between the boss and the resing pair to block incoming projectile attacks (remember projectiles follow a straight line, and hit the first player or object they encounter, even if that player was not the target).

- Use projectile blocking walls or reflect skills to give some safe time to perform the res. Guardian reflect wall, Theif smoke screen, and Mesmer reflect bubble work well for this.

- Use stealth, clones, invulnerability or mist form before you start the res. This gives you some free time to increase the meter without fear of adding your own corpse to the pile. Mesmer Decoy, Thief Stealths (all of them), Elementalist Mist Form are all good for this purpose.

- Some AoE ‘Dragon Tooth’ like effects do not require that you move out of the AoE field. You can dodge these types of attacks from within the red circle if you time your dodge with the impact. Cancel your res, dodge, then return to resing.

Anyone with tips or tricks please feel free to post them.

Jabuticaba.7458:

@Silidus: the point is not about casual = bad. And the problem is not about “normal” instances like AC or HotW which with a bit of practice and l2p everyone can master (and agree, that gear and class composition has unlike other games very little impact here).
The issue is with those dungeons that for the big majority were extremely difficult even with decent skill and good gear, e.g. CoE, Arah.

So for the easier ones, that you anyway clear without wipe, it doesn’t matter if you can’t WP rez (it does not make the encounter more challenging, just more annoying for the occasional accident that may always happen). And for the ones that before patch were already so difficult that it was hard to find a group wanting to run them, now they are simply out of reach for a casual (even a good one) gamer.
Does it hurt? Not necessarily, but it will simply make content that was anyway rarely frequented (such as CoE) even less appealing to the player community. And that is not what I imagine to be the goal of any MMO vendor in the business …

@Jabuticaba.7458 – That was the first, constructive response I have seen… thank you.

I don’t disagree that there is a large amount of content that is unbalanced, or was only (or almost only) complete-able by using bad or stupid tactics. While this patch does address some of those areas (CoF path 2 ‘plant the bomb’, event in particular), I know there are lots more that need to be addressed.

The most important thing though, (and something lost on this thread) is that in order to balance these events propertly, players must first be forced to attempt them legitimately, without res-running or terrain glitching tactics. Then and only then can they be addressed.

This happened to my group last week. We managed to complete it by having one player pull and kite using LoS while some of the others picked off 1 or 2 mobs before the whole group would reset. It still took a few wipes to get it done.
Totally agree that the entire event should reset if the party wipes.

Talissa Chan.7208:

Silidus – Could you stop adding opinion posts and “omg i was the hero and killed everything kay” stories. This is comments from players for the devs – this is not a thread marked “heres how you should play kay?” There are a crapton of disgruntled players and you’re obviously just riling them up and saying l2p. Let themspeak without being called idiots.

Translation; “Please stop posting anything that doesn’t agree with me or my opinion”.

Honestly, I am trying to provide positive input and counterpoints to a lot of the ‘slippery slope’ arguments going on on this thread. Dev’s have asked for feedback, not for ‘only negative feedback’.

Personally I think the changes have made a great improvement to the game, and have created some extreamely positive experiences for me, as a player, and I am sure for many many others. The Devs deserve to know that.

Noir.3241:

1. “Because each profession is so versatile and has such a wide range of skills and powers, it doesn’t matter what mix of professions are on the battlefield.” with the increasing of the difficulty there is increasing need of special classes and soon there will be " LFG only Mesmers and Warriors" . As and example take p2 CoF where the need of AoE is increasing.

NO. Each ‘profession’ is viable in every ‘ROLE’, but you must still have a team that covers every ‘role’ to some degree. (support, control, dps).

Noir.3241:

2. The WP changes. If i remember correctly anet was strongly against lying dead waiting for resurrection ( in this case revive) and now…..! Here i want to make personal example – died on Alpha because of d/c then had to wait 30 min!!!! until the last party member fall down??!?! And what if in the PUG team the members aren’t completely friendly?!?!? So i have to wait for the last-selfish-hero-type to decide to back off from combat so i can use WP??!? and thats just because i had d/c?!?! + subject alpha doesn’t give you much time to revive fallen players specially on p2 and p3… in the end a little mistake and you have to wait or do boss over and over again…. I doubt thats someone’s idea of fun!
i think this update will only increase the discrimination between players and in the end will deprive the other less playing to enjoy all gw2 content.

Actually I believe even the selfish players will rez you now. Selfish players want to get stuff done faster, and 2 maning a boss is pretty slow. It is now in a selfish players best interests to rez you as soon as your down, and help to keep you in the fight.