Guild Wars 2

I can understand changing rewards. I can understand making some explorable modes more difficult. I do not understand why it is necessary to make Story Mode dungeons more difficult.

You changed the rewards so the balance of “money : time” is in line with what you’ve developed it for. That’s fine with me. But don’t ruin the casual game for those who help you keep ArenaNet’s lights on. Cater all you want to the elite for EMs. But if you want any money out of me, you’ll let those who aren’t as skilled enjoy our small portion of your game as well. I don’t even care about gold or experience. I’d just like to be able to run through story mode dungeons with new players without headaches for new players, or needing to gear yourself for Vit/Tough while you’re still leveling.

I see NOTHING wrong with reducing rewards and keeping Story mode easy. Explorable modes are made to be challenging, and should be – but keep something fun for your casual customers as well.

While I doubt many of us will stop playing entirely, I doubt many of those that I play with will be playing dungeons any more. ANet should understand that they have TWO difficulties of dungeons. Story mode rewards SHOULD be less than Explorable mode, but the dungeon should also be easier. Not just slightly easier, but accessible and not frustrating to complete. I don’t mean trivial, I mean less complicated, and the rewards should be small enough that there is reason to run Explorable Mode (for those interested) instead. I’ve been about to do 3 dungeons and 2 explorable modes, and after the patch the difficulties seem much closer.

I play with many people who probably will have no desire to gear grind in EM dungeons, but would like to do something fun as a group (Story Mode) – this change has not only disappointed me, but I really expect to lose the participation of half my guild, maybe more (we are small tbh) because there is no casual mode. The point of story mode is accessibility and… Story. I see no reason to punish players that want to play SM only, and leave EM to those who want more challenge and rewards.

A big draw in MMOs, not just for me, but for many I know, is the multiplayer cooperative dungeons. Those who are interested in dungeons have WIDELY VARIED SKILL SETS. I’m nowhere near as skilled as some on my server, but the last 3 MMOs I’ve played had an option for us “derps”. ArenaNet – please balance the rewards as you see fit, but leave the casual players their easy mode dungeons. Difficulty for difficulty’s sake will only lose you paying customers.