Guild Wars 2

Maybe I’m a little biased, since I’m a composer (studying music composition at Temple), but I think the music is brilliant. I see what you’re saying in terms of how select music isn’t necessarily appropriate for certain areas (Heroic – Ascalon, etc.). But you can’t deny that the music itself is brilliant. I listen to this soundtrack – along with Skyrim and Soule’s other works – very often. I think in terms of complexity and musicality, this soundtrack is incredibly powerful, but perhaps the location choices to place certain tracks is a little bit awkward. Just my two cents

I agree. I think there should be some permanent changes, to some degree. Not everything, though, as that would remove the whole aspect of ‘living story.’ Curious to see how they add content, otherwise, outside of the living story.

I think new armor would be pretty cool. Especially if they took the F&F route and added stat combinations unlike any permanent armor vendors. I can’t think of any new combinations, but I’m sure they could come up with something interesting.

This is my first post on the forums, as I’ve been away from GW2 for a while now, and returned when I found out this whole ‘living story’ was going on. For starters, I think it’s pretty cool, and I look forward to future living stories. However, there’s a little problem I have with the way the dungeon has begun to play out. I don’t really have a problem with ArenaNet’s design, but more so with the way players treat dungeons in this game.

When I started playing again last month, I got myself to 80 and started running dungeons. Lo and behold, a lot of the boss fights and in between sections are essentially farmed. Take CoF p1; people skip things left and right, essentially trying to complete it as fast as possible. I understand, as permanent dungeons become a little stagnant, and people just want to get their tokens and move on. Fine, I’m not going to oppose that. But it’s this ‘farming mentality,’ when applied to Molten Facility, that really bothers me.

When the dungeon was first released last Tuesday, it was a blast. I even did it twice in the same day simply because I found it that fun. The first boss, especially, is like a Mario Party mini-game in its design. Even the last boss, although a bit more challenging, is quite fun if everyone coordinates it properly. But I did a run of MF this morning and, since its release, people seemed to have attached themselves to some farming tactics that really took the fun right out of the dungeon.

Take the first boss. The first few days I did this dungeon, everyone did it the way it was sort of meant to be played. Running around, avoiding all the traps, jumping over the shockwaves, etc. Incredibly entertaining. This morning, people just stood in a corner, self-healing, and waited for the core to be opened. It destroyed all fun involved. I was incredibly disappointed.

Thinking the last boss didn’t really have any design mechanics that could be ‘farmed’ as easily, I was proved wrong. My group said to kill the Jetpack mob first, so that you could stand under the berserker and only have to auto attack and self-heal to win. Again, this took both the challenge and the fun out of the fight.

Does anyone else have a problem with this trend? I find that players only seem to play through the game/dungeon to farm things, instead of enjoying the original mechanics of the design. Not only that, if you’re in a group where 4 out of the 5 players utilize these farming tactics, you’re kind of forced to go along with them. Perhaps there’s a way that ArenaNet can prevent these methods, or patch over them once they’re discovered. I’m not really sure what can be done about this issue in the future, but I was simply wondering if anyone else is on the same page as me. I’d rather not be alone in this mentality.

For the record, I haven’t tried Fractals of the Mists yet, but I almost don’t want to. I have a feeling that there’s probably a way to manipulate the game’s design in each of the Fractals to make it both disappointingly easy and not fun.