Guild Wars 2

Would be nice to know that the developers are at least aware of this…

I get the feeling that the game is sending me back to the lobby when a different player falls off.

I guess I’m not the only one. Here’s a video:

Mkalafut.1273:

If you can’t complete it, try harder or just avoid them at all.

Don’t assume that when someone notices and points out bad design that has something to do with their ability, or lack thereof.

Doing the puzzle while having people shout at me because I’m playing with a norn, (and am blocking their view) does not increase my enjoyment. And it would be easily avoidable by applying any of the solutions above.

Nor do I enjoy doing the puzzle as an asura and not being able to see my own character for half the time. Again, easily solvable by any of the methods described above.

No one said it was impossible. This about avoiding totally unnecessary conflict between players, that only exists due to bad design.

CrusaderRabbit.7460:

I can do everything else, just when I am forced to speed through a jump puzzle, I can’t do it. It’s easy for you, you have the mobility.

Stop playing the poor victim. This is a game, it’s entertainment. If it’s not entertaining you, go do something else. As several people have pointed out, the puzzle is perfectly doable with one hand. And if you can’t do it, you can’t do it. There are lots of things I can’t do in life. I don’t ask for trees to be chopped down just because I can’t climb them.

Azure Prower.8701:

it’s two thirds of what it costs of a weapon skin? Not sure what the benefit of getting it is.

The benefit, as your post suggest, is one third of the cost of a weapon skin (at the risk of getting one you don’t want, of course – which you can always sell at the TP). Seems pretty straightforward.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

Well we do also have a snowball fight game, a music game, and a whole bunch of other stuff coming. I would hardly say that we’re “stuck on it.”

You don’t seem to have learned the fundamental lesson from the Clock Tower, though:

Make the jumping puzzle solo, make other players invisible, or at least render them with a different (small) model so they don’t block our view of our own character or the platforms we’re aiming for.

Or does someone at Arena Net enjoy the notion of having everyone shout “fat norn, stop blocking my view” for two more weeks?

Doomdesire.9365:

TWMagimay.9057:

So, you buy an obvious gamble item and then complain about…the gambling?! How does that make any sense to anybody? If you want to find out “why ANet?” go to the store, buy a lottery ticket. When you don’t win anything, go and ask them why and tell them how unfair it is because you didn’t get your money worth.

I can earn a dollar in 2 minutes. It takes me too long for 100gems.

100 gems cost $1.25. By your own maths, it takes you 2.5 minutes to earn that.

Ok, it’s getting ridiculous now. I systematically get a loading screen (and get teleported back to the lobby) after jumping on the second snowflake. I’ll assume the server is just having a brainfart, and that it’ll be fixed by tomorrow.

Biscuithammer.8615:

Account.9832:

Biscuithammer.8615:

The solution is for the puzzle not to be timed. Please, Anet. I want a challenging puzzle that isn’t timed.

So, have you completed every other jumping puzzle in the game? You didn’t find Dark Reverie (for example) to be “challenging” ?

I’m not saying that there aren’t challenging jumping puzzles. I’m saying “Why not make a more difficult jumping puzzle WITHOUT a timer?”

Why not make some WITHOUT a timer and some WITH a timer? Because the game shouldn’t be allowed to have any content that other people enjoy but you don’t?

Every couple of runs, regardless of my “relative position” in the JP (i.e., ahead of other players, behind, or in the middle of other players), I get teleported back to the lobby despite not having missed any jumps. I land on a platform (sometimes even the first one), the game jumps to the loading screen, and I’m back at the lobby.

It’s not the flakes melting, because people who were clearly behind me don’t get teleported back. It’s as if the server thinks I’ve fallen although the client knows I haven’t.

It even happened to me once at the end; I jumped into the present, got a loading screen, and was back at the start.

Is anybody else getting this?

Biscuithammer.8615:

The solution is for the puzzle not to be timed. Please, Anet. I want a challenging puzzle that isn’t timed.

So, have you completed every other jumping puzzle in the game? You didn’t find Dark Reverie (for example) to be “challenging” ?

Vortex.5146:

A solution is easy-make 2 or 3 levels of difficulty. Easy=slow melting snowflakes. Hard=fast melting. You get the same achievement but better rewards for the harder one. Simple.

Er… why would you get the same achievement? Surely the harder version is a greater achievement, no? If ever there was a definition of “achievement”, that would be it – being able to do the hardest version.

There are already “varying difficulties” of jumping puzzles in the game. They just happen to be different jumping puzzles instead of the same puzzle recycled with different timers. Personally, I prefer a game with 30 jumping puzzles over one that has 10 puzzles with 3 “speeds” for each.

CrusaderRabbit.7460:

I paid for this game, I invested in their product,

I’m sure they will gladly return all the money you paid for the Wintersday patch.

why should I not be able to participate because they aren’t creative enough to come up with a jump puzzle that is challenging and people like me don’t have to redo it 7,000 times

You are able to participate. This JP is perfectly doable with one hand, and games shouldn’t be designed for the lowest common denominator anyway. Maybe you think every dungeon encounter or dynamic event should be nerfed until it can be done by the least skilled player on the planet?

If there’s something you can’t do, go do something else. I doubt you’ve already finished every other jumping puzzle, dungeon and event in the game. And, if you have, I’d say you got your $60’ worth.

Roll.6329:

Wow, no exotic for this one? Such a waste of time.

If the only thing you care about is the pixels you get at the end, have you considered slot machines?

There’s no reason to have a loading screen at all. The game should load the puzzle while people are in the snowball fight “lobby”. Whoever coded / tested this probably had too much eggnog.

Would probably make more sense to just make the limit per player (ex., 15 stacks per player, with no max limit).

runeblade.7514:

What can Trading do that TP can’t?

What can restaurants do that take-away food can’t?

Direct trading lets players save 15% in the cost of transactions, allows human interaction with other players, allows crafters to suggest items that casual players might not even know about, and which might be useful to them, improves the RP aspects of GW2 (which was advertised with the line “Putting the RPG back into MMORPG”), allows sellers to link items so that buyers can actually preview them, and so on.

Most MMOs have at least 3 forms of trading (face to face, CoD mail, and a marketplace / AH / TP).

It’s strange (to say the least) that a game trying to be as “social” as GW2 doesn’t have any built-in support for direct trading between players (or, at the very least, CoD mail), and instead tries to push everyone towards a totally impersonal (and broken – still no preview after 8 months of public access!) alternative like the trading post.

The dredge suit boss does seem significantly harder than the ice elemental one, mostly due to two things:

• Bombs can 1-shot some classes. Easy enough to avoid once you learn the timing (jump when the 2nd bomb is thrown and you’ll avoid both), but can still fail due to lag, etc.. The fact that aegis reflects them gives guardians (yet again…) an advantage (or a reduction in skill requirements, if you prefer).

• The “ground pounding” AoE seems to have infinite range.

Also, due to the fact that downed players are still targeted, if a player gets downed he’s pretty much dead (unlike with the ice elemental, where it’s much easier to revive downed teammates).

Still, I find this one of the more interesting bosses in GW2, I just think that (like most other bosses) it has about 30% more HP than it should. By the time a group gets the boss down to 50% they’ve pretty much figured out the fight, and after that it just starts to get repetitive and boring.

For people having trouble with him, these would be my tips:

• If you have a thief in the party, assign him to be the official “resurrector”. He should run to the downed player, use AoE stealth to avoid being targeted, and revive the player. Everyone else should stay away to avoid having bombs thrown at the downed player.

• The boss always throws two bombs at each player. Dodge when the second bomb is thrown; no need to waste your dodge as soon as the first one lands, it won’t explode straight away.

• The bomb AoE circles are bugged (same as with every other boss in GW2); the actual damage radius extends about 1 or 2 steps outside of the circle. Make sure you are at least two steps outside. When in doubt, dodge, don’t just run.

Beyond that, the tactics are the same as with the elemental boss. Make sure he’s under the bucket, slow him when he’s there, don’t use pets or minions that might delay him between buckets, etc..

P.S. – I agree with the OP that the boss’ heal mechanic is kind of broken. He should never heal more than 2x in a row between buckets. In other words, if you get him down to 10% and then need to spend a lot of time reviving people, he should only cast 2 heals; after that he should only heal again if he’s hit by a bucket. With the current design, suiciding ends up benefiting the party in terms of time, although it’s obviously much easier than reviving 4 players, which doesn’t make much sense.

How are the people who have assigned all their skill buttons to their mouse supposed to participate?

By going into the options menu and temporarily reassigning them to something more suited to this mini-game, I imagine.

lordkabal.4857:

Timed puzzles behind a loading screen are a bad thing.

It’s really odd why the game can’t simply load the jumping puzzle while you’re in the “lobby”, and then switch instantly. The whole map caching in GW2 is weird. Sometimes I teleport between two WPs in the same city (which are even in viewing distance of each other) and the game makes me go through a 20-second loading screen (off an array that transfers at 700 MB/s – I can only imagine if I had the game on a normal HDD).

CrusaderRabbit.7460:

Anet, why? Why do you feel we need timed jump puzzles? What is the point in making them timed?

Making them slightly different from all the other non-timed jumping puzzles that are already in the game and that you can do whenever you want…?

The problem I have with the jumping puzzle is that it’s horribly laggy and I keep getting teleported back to the start even though (on my client) I didn’t miss any jumps. I guess it’ll improve once there are less people doing it.

maddoctor.2738:

I’d say they should add the option of “increasing” your MF by actually doing more on a mob, […] but that would ruin support builds.

Exactly. How do you “measure” things like casting a Wall of Reflection and saving a teammate, etc.? Very tricky.

Personally I find Magic Find a nonsensical stat, but I can kind of see its merit in solo play; if you’re an experienced player, it gives you an “excuse” to make the game slightly harder for yourself (basically giving up one stat in every piece of armour) in exchange for slightly improved loot.

In group situations it’s just broken, and should either be averaged across the entire party or completely ignored.

Nazario.4760:

Hey guys.

I know roles like tank/healer/dps is not prominent in GW2. However I want a class that is good at support in dungeons, using control, healing and utility. I really want to play mesmer

You’ve just answered your question there.

Mesmers are a bit slow for solo levelling (lack of AoE or other good ways to dispatch large groups of weak enemies), but they’re one of the most useful classes to have in group.

People will practically pay for a good mesmer in CM, for example. Plus, with enough experience and a tailored build, mesmers can solo half the bosses in the game.

People who can’t see past guardians and warriors are either stuck in a WoW / SWTOR mentality or have just had very bad luck with the mesmers / elementalists / necromancers / etc. that they’ve played with.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

stof.9341:

Why should “Reckless Dodge” allow you to exit the bubble when the trait is just supposed to add some damage at end of roll?

That.

Sorry, Robert, but according the the moderators this forum doesn’t allow “This” or “Me too” posts. Your post will be deleted and you’ll get an infraction.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

Yes, one sitting. (Again, to keep players from trying to cheat by disconnecting right before death.)

Wait, so this achievement (that gives 10 points – same as reading all the hints) is considered so important that punishing some would-be exploiters justifies erasing all progress for players who simply moved to another map because they didn’t have anything to do in the previous one, or who got momentarily disconnected due to some internet issue? Wow.

I’ve seen Arena Net developers describe this “reset without death” as a bug. Now you’re telling us it’s deliberate? Or is that just a “PR fix” to the bug (“let’s pretend it’s a ‘feature’ we had planned all along; we can blame it on ‘cheaters’ to make us look tough”) ?

P.S. – The way most MMOs deal with players trying to exploit disconnection mechanics is simply to keep their character in the game world (and vulnerable to damage) for 20 seconds or so after disconnection. Wouldn’t that make a bit more sense than simply resetting the achievement despite the fact that that the character did not die…?

P.P.S. – My issue isn’t that I desperately want those 10 achievement points (I already have them – I got the achievement without even trying, just doing some dungeon). My issue is with this kind of attitude, that seems to permeate GW2 – especially in changes made after launch – where “punishing cheaters” seems to justify inconveniencing everyone else, even when the (supposed) “cheating” didn’t actually affect anyone negatively. Absolutely no one would be hurt by not resetting the achievement when people disconnect or move to a different zone. If it says “experience without death”, then it should only reset on death, period.

You might have better luck with developers noticing if you post here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Issues-with-character-art-weapons-or-armor/

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Not having to use those skills… so the less you do, the more effective you are, seems just shallow to me.

The same thing happens with elementalists and warriors, for example. If you’re using a healing signet the trick is to play in such a way that you never have to activate it. Just because you’re not pressing that key doesn’t mean you’re “not using those skills”. You’re just adapting your play style to the passive effect of those skills instead of using its active effect.

Aktarus.5612:

Robert, can you please implement a casting bar under opponent life bar, to see exactly when we need to escape/interrupt ect ,like in GW1 ?

That’s an “ugly” solution, IMO. I know GW2 already makes players “look at the UI instead of looking at the game” in several places (ex., the range indicators and CD indicators which are at the bottom of the screen while the enemies are generally very near the top, due to the weird GW2 camera ), but I think the same thing could be achieved in a more elegant way. For example:

• Better sound cues. Makes bosses say something before casting their signature attacks. Just a laugh or a scream or whatever (which wouldn’t require translation) should be enough to let players know what they’re about to cast, even when the boss is hidden behind a forest of explosions and pets.

• Animate the boss portrait. Make his eyes flash a second before throwing the harpoons, make him glow when he has projectile reflection, etc.. This still makes players look at a part of the UI but at least it’s a part that represents the actual enemy (and is near the top of the screen, where the enemy will generally be), not just a coloured rectangle.

Kholer is actually one of the most well-designed bosses in the game, IMO, and his harpoon “tell” can be seen even through a lot of spell effects (not through large pets and elementals, though). Some other bosses are much harder to see.

P.S. – A bug I’ve had with Kholer in the last couple of weeks is that, when he throws harpoons at players on the stairs, even if the player dodges or shields, he sometimes gets thrown to the ceiling and then dies from the fall. Funny but kind of annoying.

Khristophoros.7194:

Did you play D3 at all? They kept buffing the drop rates and the feedback remained “Drop rates suck” Well duh people, your drops are going to suck compared to the rest of the economy unless you put in top 1% grinding hours. It’s just how it works no matter what the drop rates are.

Exactly.

Dungeons already have a better drop rate (both in terms of items and gold) than most other aspects of the game. Still some number grinders put “more loots” as their main priority to “improve dungeons” (as if the loot somehow made the gameplay better). If the developers follow that advice, the only thing we’ll get is more inflation, more people complaining that WvW and open-world events need “better loots”, and so on. And we’ll still have the same boring dungeons with broken mechanics and buggy code.

Cbomb.4310:

Theres definitely mobs/bosses that feel like they need some health tuning but once you learn encounters they’re generally all easy enough

The issue isn’t being hard; in fact, most bosses in GW2 dungeons are easier than the groups of mobs between them. The issue is being boring. Once you get their health down to 50%, you’ve probably figured out the fight, and the rest just feels repetitive.

They need either less HP (so it doesn’t get boring), multiple phases with more interesting behaviours (and more interaction with their environment, etc.), or both.

Lucas Ashrock.8675:

the shiny drop is what we chase and play for.

Maybe it’s what you chase and play for, but that “we” there certainly doesn’t include me. I’ve been playing RPGs for about 25 years and “loot” has never been my main focus (except when said loot was necessary to complete some quest or defeat some specific enemy, etc.).

Yes, some aspects of GW2’s reward distribution seem unfair (ex., gold disparity between dungeons and WvW, the way all dungeon tokens drop from the last boss even for players who didn’t fight the previous ones, etc.), but that’s totally unrelated to dungeon design. Generic “loot” (the kind you can buy at the TP or sell for gold) is part of the game economy.

Lucas Ashrock.8675:

you cannot play a dungeon wasting 6/8 hours (arah path 4) coming back to LA with.. a bunch of blues, some green, if lucky 1-2 rares, if uberlucky a lode, and a bunch of T5 junk?

Er… if you feel that the time you spent playing is a waste, then have you considered looking for some form of entertainment you enjoy more?

Or, if you’re that willing to “waste” 6-8 hours of your day doing something that you see just as “effort”, then maybe you could use those 6-8 hours of effort to do something a bit more palpable, with better rewards (i.e., actual work, or a hobby that helps other people or is profitable, etc.).

If you enjoy the game, great, but the way you describe it sounds like you’re suffering through hours of pain (or, at best, boredom) just because you need to get some pixels at the end. It’s as if you don’t care the least bit about the gameplay and will continue to put up with 6-8 hours of non-enjoyment as long as they give a few more pixels at the end.

There are already far too many “Skinner box” MMOs out there, IMO. I think this thread (and all GW2 players) would benefit a lot more from suggestions about how to improve the actual gameplay. Or do you feel that the 6-8 hours you spend playing will always be a waste, and can never be turned into something enjoyable?

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I’d like to see dungeons where tons of people can simply join in, much like the rest of the game.

There are a couple of those in the game (ex., Barradin’s Vault, Flame Temple Tombs), although most seem designed for groups of 3-10 people, so if you get 30 people in there it will probably get a bit messy.

haviz.1340:

She doesn’t have damage reflection. She gets retaliation

Which causes damage to players who hit her. And the same goes for confusion (which you can get by hitting her shield). It doesn’t reflect actual projectiles, but try using Rapid Fire against her when she has Retaliation and Chaos Armor, and you’re not going to last very long. That forces players to stop firing now and then, which makes the fight longer than the corresponding bosses in other paths. And the same goes for when she teleports and remains invisible for 4 or 5 seconds.

haviz.1340:

As for melee > ranged argument, grenades are (I think) the only exception from this.

The elementalist would like to have a word with you.

haviz.1340:

And mace or sword aren’t exactly the best dps weapons for guardians.

I never said they were. In fact, I didn’t mention the sword at all (I mentioned the 2h sword, which probably is the highest DPS melee weapon for guardians, in most situations). But you made a blanket statement (“melee is higher damage”), so I just gave you a couple of examples that disproved it.

Kozai.8269:

Will those pull skills actually bring an enemy over without aggroing the rest of the group?

Depends on the groups and the actual skill; you’ll have to test it.

I think some skills were recently changed to do damage first and pull after, which means the mobs around the one being pulled can aggro (due to the damage being done to the first mob). As a general rule, the thief’s Scorpion Wire seems to have the most success at pulling individual mobs, followed by the necro’s Spectral Grasp, but there are a few groups where all the mobs will aggro when you pull one, regardless of which skill you use or how far away you are.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I can’t pull simple ranged bandits in CM, they are immune to it.

Someone clearly nailed their feet to the ground. How else do you explain the fact that they can’t move at all, even when simply taking one step to the side would give them a much better line of fire at players?

Really, I don’t understand why CM’s designer used human models to represent what are clearly just fixed turrets.

JackSlate.8450:

Hodgins bugged yesterday at path 1 just before the collect the scepter part which is odd since we killed everything and didnt pull any mobs/bosses away from thier point.

Do you remember if anyone ran to the marker (the red spark thingy on the map) while Hodgins and the other players were fighting the oozes?

I can’t be 100% sure, but I think the bug tends to happen mainly when the NPCs engage the oozes (perhaps something related to the immobilize condition). I have never seen Hodgins bug when the whole group runs in and turns left (which prevents the oozes from spawning in the first place). Could be just a coincidence, though.

black sun empress.7401:

the person to actually go in the dungeon, he decided to leave 3/4 the way through it, and we all got booted, is that the same mechanic?

That’s an even older bug, that has been in the game since release (since before release, actually).

In GW2, the “party” is treated as a sub-entity of the account of the first player to enter the dungeon. This means that, if that player needs to leave, other people will get booted out, and if the player gets disconnected, any new players you invite to replace him will get sent to a separate instance (where all the bosses are alive, and where they can’t see the rest of the group).

Again, something that pretty much every other MMO solved years ago (by making the “party” an independent entity, and simply “promoting” one of the remaining players to “party leader” when the leader leaves or gets disconnected).

After 5 years of development and 8 months of public access with people reporting this issue on a daily basis, it still doesn’t work properly in GW2.

Rising Dusk.2408

The entire goal of putting the tokens at the end, for ANet was to force players to play the entire paths instead of farming the first boss.

Do you have a link to that?

The anti-farming mechanism is the diminishing returns (i.e., the reduction in the number of tokens when you repeat the same content). Which is something completely different from the location of those tokens. It’s absolutely trivial to apply diminishing returns to each boss chest separately; it can be done with exactly one bit of storage on the player’s account.

In fact, the DR system also applies to events and chests in the open world, that don’t have any “tokens”, so we know the code is already there.

Add to that the fact that in nearly every dungeon the first boss is a lot harder than the last one, and it really doesn’t make any sense. I can solo several of the final bosses. The first ones are often a PITA even with 4 or 5 players.

Rising Dusk.2408

This plays into the ‘dungeon rewards still need work’

The issue isn’t the actual rewards. The issue is the way they are distributed, and how they are connected to the “work” involved in obtaining them.

Does any company pay its employees for “being present at the office on the last day of the year” ? Or do they pay them after completing each objective (ex., each job) or at regular intervals (ex., at the end of the month – based on the number of days they actually worked) ?

Rising Dusk.2408

with countless dungeons—even with 1/3 rewards like you note—it would be a more efficient use of a player’s time to farm the first boss.

Really? So you think you can kill Kholer in 1/3rd of the time it takes you to kill the Ghost Eater (or any of the AC bosses) ? You think you can kill Seamus in 1/3rd of the time it takes you to kill Vallog (or any of the CM bosses) ?

Go on, count them. I’m sure they’re not just not “countless”, they’re actually countable on the fingers of one hand. Possibly a hand belonging to an incompetent bomber.

And that is still an irrelevant point, because there is no benefit to anyone (player or Arena Net) in making people play through content they don’t like. If some people do prefer to kill Kholer three times (instead of doing the next two bosses in AC), why shouldn’t they do it? Who gains anything by forcing (or even “encouraging”) those players to do content they enjoy less?

It’s as if some GW2 designers are stuck into a WoW mentality, where “making people waste time with the game” is the ultimate goal. All this kind of design does is drive people away from GW2 and worsen Arena Net’s reputation.

The “addicted grinder” demographic is not a good source of income for the gem store.

Rising Dusk.2408

Enjoyment really doesn’t factor into it.

Maybe that’s the problem. And maybe Arena Net needs to read its own manifesto. Some of the designers apparently never did. Fun should always be the #1 factor.

Rising Dusk.2408

There should always be a “you finished the whole path” reward in my opinion,

If you’re not enjoying the path, then the “reward” is really just a bribe; an excuse to save the developers the work of improving that path, or of giving you alternatives that you might enjoy more. And if you are enjoying the path, then the reward is the fun you had playing it.

Nevermind, apparently it’s a concept that many MMO players (and sadly some designers) simply don’t understand.

P.S. – Besides, currently there is no “you finished the whole path” reward. There is simply a “you were present in the group when the last boss died” reward.

I would start by looking at the way the cutscene is actually triggered (it seems to be triggered by Detha’s own script, when it should probably triggered by a proximity check running on the map marker entity itself – that would match the event objective much better and make it much simpler to track).

I also suspect a proximity check is being made on one of the players (i.e., the player Detha is currently following), and not on Detha herself.

The result of this is that things can get messed up whenever Detha decides to switch the player she’s following, or when that player dies (ex., during the previous event, at the Flooded Temple). For example, if four players are fighting the oozes and one enters the Hall of Champions and approaches the marker, how does Detha react if she’s following one of the four fighters, and how does she react if she’s following the one who ran to the marker? And how does her own combat status (or conditions, such as immobilize) affect that?

If, instead of being based on these three things (Detha’s internal script, player being followed, and a proximity check based on one of those two), there was a separate script, running on the map marker itself, that simply checked for Detha’s presence – or the presence of any player – near the marker, and forced the cutscene to start (regardless of the position of other players or Detha’s own combat status), then things would be less likely to fail and much easier to debug.

poe lyfe.5879:

allow individual players to leave the party but disable kicking.

Kicking is fine and a useful mechanic in some situations, as long as people get the rewards for what they actually do in the dungeon. If someone killed 3/4 of the bosses and got kicked at the end, he should get 3/4 of the rewards. What doesn’t make any sense is the current system where you get 60 tokens simply for being in the group when the last boss dies.

It has led to groups of 2 or 3 people from the same guild using PUG players to kill everything up to the last boss, then kicking the PUG players and inviting friends from their guild, so their friends get the 60 tokens and the players who were kicked get nothing.

As long as players receive tokens for the bosses they actually killed (and only for those), this kind of jerk behaviour will stop paying off.

It will also ensure that if someone needs to leave half way through a dungeon due to some real-life issue, he or she will at least get the rewards for the bosses killed up to that point.

haviz.1340:

DR works only on the completion

Duh. Token DR only works on completion because you only get tokens on completion. It’s absolutely trivial to apply it to each boss.

Pretty much every other MMO does this (so that you can’t get loot from the same raid boss twice in the same week, although you can still join groups and play the raid from the start to get loot from the bosses you haven’t killed).

haviz.1340:

that would mean more coding and more possible bugs.

Don’t fix what is a clearly bugged design (leading to frequent customer frustration) because you’re afraid of some potential coding bugs? Kind of the wrong attitude. I hope that’s not Arena Net’s justification, because it would suggest a deeply misguided business model.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Yes, it is, because then no one completes the dungeon and just farms the first boss.

First: What would be the problem with that? If a group of five people prefer to do one boss 4 times instead of doing 4 different bosses, why shouldn’t they be allowed to? It’s not like dungeons even have a difficulty progression; the first boss is often a lot harder than the last one.

Second: The game has a diminishing returns system that reduces the number of tokens to 1/3rd on your second run of the day, so if you killed the first boss 4 times you would get 20+7+7+7, whereas doing 4 bosses would give you 20+20+20+20. How does the former count as “farming”, when they would be getting less tokens…?

Third: If people are only playing through the dungeons to get tokens, that means the dungeons are not enjoyable and need to be improved; limiting the number of tokens people get (i.e., making them get no tokens if the dungeon bugs or someone has to leave before the last boss dies) isn’t actually increasing their enjoyment, it’s just making them spend more time doing something they don’t like (and Arena Net doesn’t gain anything – either financially or in terms of reputation – by doing that).

haviz.1340:

I thought that what makes fwd-up longer is the last boss. More hp than the one in fwd-fwd and some adds you need to kill. And no one melees her (melee = more dmg). Mesmer boss goes down pretty fast.

The problem with the mesmer boss is that she spends half the time shielded and keeps teleporting, which means melee players waste a lot of time walking (and ranged players spend a lot of time waiting for her damage reflection to wear off). Switching back and forth between ranged and melee weapons isn’t really viable, either, because that concentrates all her AoE around her, and everyone takes a lot of damage.

It’s not that she has a lot of HP, it’s just that you can’t spend 100% of the time damaging her, unlike most other bosses.

And what makes you think that melee players do more damage? My engineer’s grenades (1500 range) do a lot more damage than my guardian’s mace or longsword, for example.

I’ve never noticed a significant difference in the time it takes to kill the last boss itself, although F/U does require killing some adds first, that you can simply avoid in the other two paths.

You don’t need any specific classes, although the way some game mechanics work make excessive “stacking” of similar classes wasteful.

For example, you can only have 25 stacks of bleeding on any creature, so if all the members of your party rely on bleeding to do most of their damage (and each can easily do about 10-15 stacks), the whole will be smaller than the sum of its parts. It’s still doable, it’s just less efficient than replacing half the party with classes that use different types of damage.

Likewise, it’s a waste to cast 5 feedback bubbles on the same enemy at the same time (although, if your party is well coordinated, they might be able to time them perfectly after each other).

So any class combination is viable (even 5 characters of the same class and spec), but you’ll generally benefit more from having a mix of classes.

Some people might tell you to “always bring a guardian”, “always bring as mesmer” or “always bring an elementalist”, and those classes do indeed have some abilities that are particularly handy in some spots (aegis, wall of reflection, feedback, portal, ice bow, etc.), but none of them is really necessary anywhere.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

It is caused from our new tech that keeps party leaders from disbanding parties without being punished (we close the instance if the party leader disbands so he can’t re-invite friends/guildies after using PUGs to get to the final boss)

Which is something that practically never happened anyway. What does happen is parties with a couple of guildmates inviting PUG players and then kicking them before the last boss to invite guildies. The leader never needs to leave the party, he just needs someone to confirm his kick.

And that still works perfectly with the current system – the recently invited guildies get 60 tokens and the PUGs who played through the entire dungeon get nothing (well, maybe 6 tokens or so from the blue bags – hooray!).

Is it really so complicated to give people tokens for killing each boss (ex., 20 tokens per boss), instead of 60 tokens for simply being present in the dungeon when the last boss dies…?

And is it so hard to code the party system in a way that it doesn’t get completely broken (players kicked out, replacement players sent to separate instance, etc.) if the party leader gets disconnected or needs to leave?

Dozens of other MMOs seem to have solved these issues years ago; GW2 has actually gotten worse since release (the way FotM handles disconnections is the biggest failure of QA I’ve ever seen in a major game).

Up and Forward-Forward take about 25 minutes, assuming you skip about half the mobs. Forward-Up takes about 40, because there are more unskippable mobs, and the mesmer boss takes longer to kill.

FF has some trickier pulls / runs, so it’ll probably seem harder than U, but after you’ve done it 4 or 5 times both take about the same.

Loggahead.5402:

no matter how fun it is, you will eventually get bored if there isn’t that rewarding feeling of seeing something great drop for you. The loot you receive is half of the addiction.

No. I mean, maybe you will, but I certainly won’t. Maybe that’s because I’m not addicted. People who are will keep playing no matter what (that’s kind of the definition of addiction), so catering to them is a waste. If gameplay is boring, no amount of bribing with “loot” will make me overlook that.

This isn’t a job, it’s a game. It’s what I do in my free time, for entertainment purposes. If someone is using his leisure time to suffer through unpleasant gameplay in exchange for some random virtual reward at the end, he’s doing “fun” wrong, and would probably enjoy himself a lot more doing something less sporadic.

There are no “drops” in most games I play (sports simulations, RTS games, FPS games, etc.); I play them because I enjoy playing. And that’s why I play MMORPGs too, and dungeons in particular. I like the challenge, the teamwork, the teasing, etc..

Having drops is fine, but if the game isn’t enjoyable without them, its gameplay needs to be improved.

As long as players continue to focus on the drops, that gives developers an excuse to keep the same boring / buggy / illogical gameplay mechanics, and just “up the dose” of loot to hang on to the number grinders and addicts.

Like I said above, adjusting dungeon drops is mainly related to the game economy, crafting, and so on. It should never be a concern of the people designing the actual dungeon, coding the behaviour of its inhabitants, writing the NPCs’ lines, etc.. Their job should be to make sure the dungeon is fun to play. And if people play so much that they get bored, then they get bored and go do something else (play a different dungeon, or explore the game world, or turn off their PC and go do something else). There’s no merit to keeping people playing the same thing over and over again (it’s not even like they’re charging a subscription).

Unless the drops are something you use inside the actual dungeon to accomplish something, loot is not part of the dungeon’s design. It doesn’t mean players shouldn’t discuss that too, but always make it very clear to the developers that one thing cannot be used as a replacement for the other.

FISH.1562:

I didnt play WoW, but I think Dungeon finder was something like this.

Trust me, you don’t want something like WoW’s dungeon finder. It was the single most important step in killing any sense of community in that game. Basically it ensured that any player could, at any time, get 4 “automatic friends” to carry him through a dungeon, often picked from other servers (where that player was unknown). This meant that trolls, griefers, scammers and ninjas could get 4 new victims delivered in minutes, at the press of a button.

And, to adapt Murphy’s Law of Product Design, “make a game jerk-friendly and soon most of your player base will be jerks” – which, unsurprisingly, was exactly what happened.

I do hope GW2 improves it’s LFG toom (to allow players to list what they are interested in – which dungeon, which zone of the world, etc.), but it should always let players choose who they want to invite, and show them who else is in the party before they accept an invitation to join.

If they add a WoW-style automated dungeon finder, that will be the final nail in GW2’s coffin, at least as far as I’m concerned.

Dempsey.8760:

By nature humans are altruistic

Pretty much everything that people describe as “altruism” is just a deferred benefit (as both biologists and psychologists will tell you – Dawkins, Pinker, take your pick). We are nice to other people if and when we believe (consciously or not) that it might benefit us down the line (either directly – because those people might help us some day – or indirectly, because it improves our image in the eyes of others). Genes are selfish; it’s a jungle out there.

You only get “true” (self-damaging) altruism as a result of cultural conditioning, but that doesn’t fall into the definition of “by nature”.

Humans aren’t “horrible”, either. They’re just damn good at this “life on Earth” thing.

The evolution of WoW actually offers a good insight into how this applies to games. Once the “Dungeon Finder” was introduced, essentially allowing any player to get 4 “automatic friends” to carry him through a dungeon, the general civility of the community took a nosedive. Players didn’t have to care about their reputation anymore, they knew they could always press a button and get a new set of friends, usually picked from different servers, who weren’t aware of their past behaviour.

Their previous “civility” and “altruism” were just self interest.

And that is why I hope GW2 never adds a fully automated dungeon group finder. It would be great to have a system that could list player names and the things they’re interested in (ex., dungeon name and path, or zone they want to explore, etc.), but please don’t just group players automatically at the press of a button. Forming a group (or joining a group) should always be a conscious and deliberate action, and we should be able to see who we are inviting (or who we are joining).

mexay.3902:

Being kicked at the END of a dungeon, before the chest or during the final boss. This behaviour is disgusting. If someone has stuck with you for the entire dungeon, you do NOT kick them. It is plain rude.

A couple of days ago, I joined a party that was all in the same guild and played through most of the dungeon with them. When we got to the last boss they kicked me (no doubt to invite some friend, so he could get “free” dungeon tokens).

Only problem was… I had been the first to enter the dungeon. So they also kicked themselves out.

Moral of the story: If you’re going to be a jerk, at least be a competent jerk.

Empty Lord.8675:

Unless arenanet personally read carefully a lengthened conversation throughout a dungeon, I don’t see how this can be resolved without removing kicking after a certain point

It’s actually quite simple: Instead of giving 60 tokens simply for being present in the dungeon when the last boss dies, give 60/n tokens for killing each boss (or a fixed number, like 15, so dungeons with more bosses give more tokens). That way if someone kills 3 out of 4 bosses, he still gets 45 tokens, even if the group decide to kick him just before the final boss. And if they invite someone else, that person only gets 15 from the final boss.

And, naturally, to get the dungeon achievement, you should be required to kill all the bosses, not just the last one.

This would quickly put an end to hybrid guild parties using PUG players to carry them, and then kicking those to let their guildmates get easy rewards.

It’s not exactly a revolutionary concept; this is what nearly every other MMO does, and for a good reason.

The actual collision cylinder of characters is (or should be, barring any bugs) identical for all races. However, the animation can be misleading. For example, charr characters and human / sylvari females are known to have a point of contact with the ground that doesn’t actually match their feet, while running. Once you get used to it you can time the jumps just fine, but when you switch between two characters it can really throw you off.

Norns at least have a decent match between their character’s size and the collision cylinder’s radium. With other races, you can be standing 2 steps away from the edge of a red AoE circle and you still take damage (because – if you were a norn – part of your body would still be touching the circle).

It happens with all classes and all weapons. It even happens when trying to rez teammates and NPCs, sometimes. If the “F” interaction fails, you’re stuck doing your previous action for the duration that the interaction would take. It’s been like that for ages, reported several times, still no fix. It’s almost like being feared… by yourself.