Guild Wars 2

Class composition means not as much without proper gearing and trait focus. Maybe 5 warriors can defeat any dungeon, but chances are their utility set ups, weapon choices, and traits will not be the same. That’s one reason I think trait specs should be available, because it will actively promote any class composition can complete a dungeon without having to go back to town to choose a new line of traits. Gearwise is another matter as it’s hard to collect different sets of gear to which you are focused differently, but that just comes with time and dedication.

It’s the same idea of any 5 classes going in, claiming they’re doing it right, asking why it’s too hard, yet all being specced within their 30 power traitline.

afflaq is spot on.

People need to realize the difference between people being able to do it now and people being able to do it eventually. There are many types of gamers, and many types of people. When group A is done with dungeons but still doing them a group B catches up and starts them, possibly having group A stragglers left over to teach and help. They may be slower to start because of time constraints or something, but that doesn’t mean they’re worse, just not as quick.

It works like this everywhere, including that one game with a PTR where people learn the fights then teach people rather simply when the game goes live…or have addons ready to do half the fight for you.

People like different things. Some people love dungeons and max-gear in games first and foremost, so focus on that immediately. I know plenty of people focused on WvW/sPvP/puzzles/achievements/exploration right now who will do dungeons a bit later. That doesn’t make them non-elite or “the 5%”, it’s just a path choice.

I hope afflaq teaches me dungeons. xD

Let the good times roll.
And by good times…I mean death.

The point of this is the presentation. GW2 is all about how things are presented, not changing things up. The questing may still be very similar to all other MMOs in terms of collecting, killing, etc., but they present it in a way that differs.

This idea is no different. It’s a daily or weekly. The dynamics and randomness stick with the philosophy of the game, and add a sense of adventure. I don’t think it would be hard, even, to come up with a new event or instance regarding this every week. I meankitten I’ll do it for free… :P

Cross-post from dungeon forum:

My idea is more like a story:

You get mail from a rich man from the wealthier section of Divinity’s Reach this week/day. He exclaims his daughter ran away to CM and hasn’t been heard from. Find her, and you’ll be handsomely rewarded!

The daughter is then dynamically placed in one of the three explorable paths, specific to your party. That means – yes – the daughter will be in any of the three per party, and as long as the party stays together (promoting togetherness, patience, and time, yay!), you’ll eventually find her if you can do the paths. If you join a new party or someone has to go, sadly, it will reset (or make the threshold 3 people – as in, at least 3 of the same people have to be in the party). This will effectively separate those who care from those who don’t. Not only that, the daughter will have to be ‘escorted’ to the end of the dungeon – she’ll either be able to die and be ressed or just be invulnerable and say fun lines throughout her time travelling with you (she’s obviously 16 and rebellious) – that, or just pop out of the chest at the end in a hilarious fashion, hehe.

This way, people who “grind” out the three dungeons really feel like it’s worth it, and gives a large incentive. It will keep the idea of dynamic alive, avoid the “The daughter is in THIS path of CM, go there!” since it’s a random of the 3 per party, and allow people to mix it up. Because the daughter would most likely be near the end, at the end, or hidden within a random spot, it would also exclude the idea of “I’ve checked every spot the daughter spawns at, next path!” It also encourages players to try to find the best ways to do dungeons they may not normally “want” to do because of the initial mechanics.

The reward from this can be something like extra tokens, extra money, black lion keys, dyes, mini-pets, etc. The idea with this is that there can be lots of different things/stories/ideas for this, and they can actually alter dungeons slightly per instance to account for cool things.

IDK, just food for thought. Anything Dynamic and interesting that isn’t easily worked around sounds like fun and cool incentive to me.

nicolebsb.5240:

Daboris.6730:

Mulitplex.2017:

The changes are absurd. I’m done posting reasons for why it was absurd.

I think that a massive chunk of the user base will just stop running the dungeons (myself included) and the armor sets that we see running around will just be something for us to chuckle at.

That’s a better design. So you’re saying you’ll laugh at people who worked hard and put in hours for their pieces and endured all the deaths everyone claims come no matter what, right? So less people will have them, and people who do have them will feel like they earned it and are actually part of a minority?

Seems like the perfect solution. Make people who can’t take it stop doing them because the dungeons are actually too hard for them – not just the difficulty, but because the “reward” is stagnant at “oh,kitten I don’t get enough silver”…whereas the ACTUAL reward for doing dungeons is the armor pieces at the end.

Cool/unique things should cost money and require time and effort, not make you a profit all the time and make you look cool.
^Learn this, then realize why dungeons are a money sink and worth it, from the right perspective.

So basically, you’re saying, the only people who should play this game are hardcore players that want to put 5 hours and 30s into a dungeon for maybe one piece of gear that’s worth anything or a couple tokens?

And what did I say about elitists being the only one who like this update? Lol

Umm, no. ANet specifically stated the explorable modes are the hardest content. So…they’re for the players who are better, right? Why is it you relate these 2 dungeon updates and the silver from the dungeons as the entire game? There’s a lot more out there to do…just because you exhausted it or don’t feel like doing it doesn’t mean others aren’t still having fun.

And why do you keep bringing up the money cost? New development: There are MANY ways to make money outside of dungeons…if you can’t figure that out, you’re a one-track pony with no diversity and are not willing to try anything else.

As for dungeons: I ran HotW story mode in about an hour last night. Got 2 rares, plenty of greens and blues. Died a few times but it was a pug, so obviously expected. Repair costs were hardly noticeable…so……….why are we at war when we’re obviously playing 2 different games?

Mulitplex.2017:

The changes are absurd. I’m done posting reasons for why it was absurd.

I think that a massive chunk of the user base will just stop running the dungeons (myself included) and the armor sets that we see running around will just be something for us to chuckle at.

That’s a better design. So you’re saying you’ll laugh at people who worked hard and put in hours for their pieces and endured all the deaths everyone claims come no matter what, right? So less people will have them, and people who do have them will feel like they earned it and are actually part of a minority?

Seems like the perfect solution. Make people who can’t take it stop doing them because the dungeons are actually too hard for them – not just the difficulty, but because the “reward” is stagnant at “oh,kitten I don’t get enough silver”…whereas the ACTUAL reward for doing dungeons is the armor pieces at the end.

Cool/unique things should cost money and require time and effort, not make you a profit all the time along with make you look cool.
^Learn this, then realize why dungeons are a money sink and worth it, from the right perspective.

I often wonder, when people say “I’m an 80 with full exotics” what they think that means. Do you think if everyone in your dungeon group has full exotics focused on power/precision that it should be a walk in the park?

@Rislod.: That’s a damage spec for guardians. Are your exotics geared for any vitality or toughness at all, or is it mostly precision, power, etc?

I love it when people ask for something they don’t expect to get and get it fairly quickly and easily.

Rizzy.8293:

Daboris.6730:

I am their player. They listened to me, stuff was easy. I think that’s settled. Thanks for playing.

You people provide me with great fun during work, I thank you

You shouldnt play games during work

Oh I meant you as in the forums. Work wouldn’t be the smartest place to play (crappy graphics card on this comp, plus bandwidth xD).

I still fail to see how fixing 1-2 dungeons’ unintentional flaw is game-breaking. I mean, can’t we all just admit it comes down to easy money/tokens and how we want everything within a few weeks?

Here’s the bottom line:
A) They keep things like this, you spend a few weeks in game then decide it’s not for you despite how little this update changed things. Pretty sure there are 25 more dungeon paths that are unchanged.
B) They change it; dungeons are easier, tokens come quicker, you get every set you want within a few weeks, then quit anyway.
C) You play the game, rolling with changes and seeing how things pan out regarding fine-tuning, boss mechanics, rewards, etc.

There it is. Do what you want.

Note: There are numerous posts stating the 9/24 update, so it seems that may be a relatively large update.

I liked TA. The Nightmare Court is pretty cool, very dark looking, and then makes me hungry as if I should go eat a salad. The visuals are nice, and it’s an interesting place.

The last fight in the Story Mode was like…uhh, I have to fight them, really? I’m pretty sure I’m going to get destroyed! But then after it’s figured out, pretty easily done.

I am their player. They listened to me, stuff was easy. I think that’s settled. Thanks for playing.

You people provide me with great fun during work, I thank you

Rizzy.8293:

Daboris.6730:

Nope, still doing.

I’m sorry, am I the only one who gets lots of blues valued at 60 copper each from dungeons? Greens worth 1.5s, and some rares that can be salvaged for Ectos and such? 13 silver…

Yeah, each dungeon should just give 10 gold at the end, right guys?

The gear from the dungeons themselves and selling them is worth it.

Yeah no, not everyone has OCD and meticulously loots corpses.

Uhh…what? You’re right, it’s so hard to press f.

If you want to profit, work for it. Stop asking for handouts.

Nope, still doing.

I’m sorry, am I the only one who gets lots of blues valued at 60 copper each from dungeons? Greens worth 1.5s, and some rares that can be salvaged for Ectos and such? 13 silver…

Yeah, each dungeon should just give 10 gold at the end, right guys?

The gear from the dungeons themselves and selling them is worth it.

Evil.9061:

Daboris.6730:

They didn’t institute measures, they corrected things they didn’t notice at first.

And thread. Press releases from now until the servers shut down should include this.

Every game, even single player RPGs, have been known to make games with game-changing flaws. This dungeon one isn’t even close to that, and encounters, bugs, and what not will be fixed as time goes on.

When you expect perfection, you get disappointed. Once you realize they’re doing their best to please everyone but can’t please everyone, you’ll stop being a kitten and just play the game and have as much fun as you can. Otherwise, you move on.

Honestly, I think people who are complaining are the ones who immediately typed in “Power Overwhelming” in their first SC campaign and just played like that the entire game. Eheh.

Evil.9061:

Why are you losing money? I’m still making money. It’s like people found a good way to make money, it was taken away, and now there is no other way. That’s what I call lazy.

They said anti-grind philosophy. That means they’re trying to reduce it, which they have, relative to the gear-treadmill ideal.

I’m pretty sure half the people arguing don’t even know what “grinding for gear” means relative to the rest of the MMO world. That really grinds my gears!
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Daboris,

Grinding for gear: Doing a dungeon over and over waiting for the RNG of a loot table to drop what you wanted.

It’s not that you cant make money anymore, its just that they have instituted 2 measures “anti botting” aka no farming close to the same area for more than 5 minutes and now reducing the dungeon payouts.

I think most are asking what’s next? I already have the answer….whatever is proven to be profitable will be nerfed.

So then that means soon, they’re going to nerf magic find and drop rates on highest tier crafting mats.

They didn’t institute measures, they corrected things they didn’t notice at first. They apologized for it too. They specifically said it wasn’t meant to be done this way by design, and the players took it as a design change regarding, what, TWO dungeon paths (CM Story and CoF Expo?). Right. Good job guys.

An MMO is a constantly changing game. We just hit the, what, 1 month-iversary of this game’s release and they’re JUST getting enough parses to know how to fine-tune dungeons.

Let’s see what happens. People are making decisions SO quickly it’s as if they were programmed to be morons.

Better yet, we (that is, the vocal minority who matters a lot and is completely stubborn, selfish, and lacks understanding of works in progress) should just stop playing all together, that will show ANet! Come, my brothers. Now is the hour of our discontent! To die…to sleep…NO MORE!

If you did a lot of dungeons, this should hardly effect you unless the “a lot of dungeons” were the same 2 over and over again.

Flawed logic. Peace.

Pony.3256:

Efaicia.3672:

Pony.3256:

Evil.9061:

The people that are “crying” simply are pointing out that regardless the difficulty, which isn’t bad, the dungeons are costing them money to play which for most, as evidenced in thousands of posts today, striped one of the few things they took joy in at level 80.

And no, its not just one dungeon people are complaining about. The monetary gain is absent in all dungeons now.

This.
I’m getting annoyed by people saying “Well this is how dungeons are supposed to be.”
I’m sorry, so is EVERY MMORPG out there broken? Because I sure as hell don’t remember dungeons being this bad at all.
In every game I have played, running a dungeon was worth it.
You’d get gear (decent gear just to sell to other players, doesn’t have to be end gear) and some nice coin.
In this game instead of that, you go into the dungeon and lose money.
Wth is that?
So if this is how dungeons are supposed to be, is Aion, Rift, Tera, etc, broken? Are the dungeons in those games made wrong?
Please explain.

Again someone wanting to not let the genre move on and to evolve past the WoW genre.

To answer your question, yes, those games dungeons, if you applied thier rules to this game, are broken. And would need to be reworked. I am sorry If you did not look into this game more before buying it and expected it to be more of the same. It is not, now quit demanding it become so. You yourself named several good games that have more of the same, you are more than welcome to them, I am not there demanding them to be different. You see, some of us are here to get away from that play style, Not make Arenanet conform to it

First of all, I can’t stand when people bring up WoW like it was the first MMORPG ever made.
I honestly never even played the game.
Calling it the WoW genre? Really?

It’s also quite ridiculous that you think dungeons of other games are broken when for years, they have had the same design.
New games have the same dungeon design with just a twist on things.
For Example, TERA’s combat made the dungeons interesting.

Also, I followed this game for quite some time so don’t ever assume that you know things.
Countless times, the creators of the game said this game was going to be different and there was no grind mentality.
Yet this dungeon update, like I’ve already stated, makes you lose money rather than gain any.
That right there is a grind for coin.
Seeing the prices of materials and other little things, we players need money and dungeons are usually looked at for that fix.

I’m also not wanting ArenaNet to make their game like every other, but a bad decision is a bad decision.
Like I’ve already said, go look at other GW2 fansites, or other gaming sites and see what people are saying right now.
A huge majority of players aren’t happy.

Why are you losing money? I’m still making money. It’s like people found a good way to make money, it was taken away, and now there is no other way. That’s what I call lazy.

They said anti-grind philosophy. That means they’re trying to reduce it, which they have, relative to the gear-treadmill ideal.

I’m pretty sure half the people arguing don’t even know what “grinding for gear” means relative to the rest of the MMO world. That really grinds my gears!

This will just provoke more “All the easy, medium, and hard mode dungeons differ in is HP of boss and mobs! Make it better, I have lost all faith in this game! Blah blah generic complaint blahhhh!”"

They already have difficulty settings, and some explorables are easier than others. If you introduce difficulty settings, you set yourself up for the disparity of loot, the gaps therein, and the players and what they feel is best divided into 100 different opinions, just as this thread is.

No one is stopping you from playing WoW, you know…

Soylent.4197:

I’m not sure I understand the point of this thread.

More useful than another copied and pasted “This is what the game needs”, only to say the same crap someone in a thread below them with 350 pages said…

People don’t understand. I wish I had a pool or large man-made lake so I can collect the tears of these people and then offer some salt-water fish a new home.

For people claiming they promised no grind:

Anti-grind philosophy means doing their best to make it less grindy, not eliminating it completely. Find me an anti-drug program that has effectively eliminated all drugs.

In that regard, I’d say it’s much less grindier than any game I’ve played in terms of the end-game.

People have no idea what grind means. It’s pretty funny how ill-informed and spoiled these ‘kids’ are nowadays. I don’t care if you’re 12 or 40, if you’re complaining about GW2 being a grind you really don’t understand the meaning of the word in terms of how it’s been applied.

Let’s do the WoW gear-treadmill for those who forgot:

I just hit max, level yay! Now what…

Do regular dungeons. Then grind regulars for normal blues. Get Justice points at the same time. Use Justice points to buy some epics. Keep doing regular dungeons until I have enough stats/gear to go to heroics. Do heroics. Replace the gear I just worked a week for very fast. Spend a few more weeks maximizing BiS from heroics while getting JP and valor. Use valor to buy higher tiered epics. Move on to LFR raids. Farm LFR raids and replace the heroic dungeon gear until I have enough gear and more VP to go to normal raids with a guild. Farm normal raids for weeks on end while still doing LFR raids until RNG promotes me to a high enough ilvl to enter heroic raids. Do heroic raids until I have every BiS piece of gear. Throughout each step, wait for friends to catch up or join a different, faster-progressing guild.

Now I enjoyed WoW despite this because I loved collecting pets, quests I missed, doing old stuff for transmog gear, and generally just messing around with friends.

Hi. My name is reality check. Would you like some of this?
People, get your head out of your respective hind parts. Other games require you to gear up through tiers for a long, long time. The relative amount of time required to get the best gear in GW2 isn’t even worth mentioning as it’s so short.

TL;DR: Anti-grind philosophy means doing their best to make it less grindy, not eliminating it completely. Find me an anti-drug program that has effectively eliminated all drugs.

I repeat, get your head out of your respective hind parts and stop claiming they’ve gone against their word or lied to you. You’re lying to yourself.

Efaicia.3672:

Oh, you mean more of what’s been done already? A weekly lock out for gear, or tokens to get gear? A “must do” chore list to get gear, or tokens to get gear. Yeah, no thanks. The dailies and monthies for achievements for doing what I want to do and nothing more is as close as I ever want my list of “chores” to come to that play style.

Dailies and monthlies are not required at all, nor are any repeats of dungeons unless you want specific looking gear.

I like the idea in regards to mixing it up. I think 600 is way too much though, and the presentation doesn’t fit.

My idea is more like a story:

You get mail from a rich man from the wealthier section of Divinity’s Reach this week. He exclaims his daughter ran away to CM and hasn’t been heard from. Find her, and you’ll be handsomely rewarded.

The daughter is then dynamically placed in one of the three explorable paths, specific to your party. That means – yes – the daughter will be in any of the three per party, and as long as the party stays together (promoting togetherness, patience, and time, yay!), you’ll eventually find her if you can do the paths. This will effectively separate those who care from those who don’t. Not only that, the daughter will have to be ‘escorted’ to the end of the dungeon – she’ll either be able to die and be ressed or just be invulnerable and say fun lines throughout her time travelling with you (she’s obviously 16 and rebellious).

This way, people who “grind” out the three dungeons really feel like it’s worth it, and gives a large incentive. It will keep the idea of dynamic alive, avoid the “The daughter is in THIS path of CM, go there!” since it’s random per party, and allow people to mix it up. Because the daughter would most likely be near the end, at the end, or hidden within a random spot, it would also exclude the idea of “I’ve checked every spot the daughter spawns at, next path!”

Again, the amount of tokens can’t be too much, but enough to be worth it. 200 maybe? That’s still generous since you’d get the 25-30 as well.

Can someone show me the quote or implication where they stated getting a full set of cosmetic gear intended for being purely cosmetic would not be a grind/take a long time? Or maybe you’d like to show me where they said getting Legendaries wouldn’t be a grind?

I honestly don’t understand how “so many” (I use "" because you are the vocal minority, everyone else is playing the game) people really didn’t understand that getting a really cool or coveted set of gear would require effort and time. I’m hoping this is the “fanboys” getting a reality check, showing that this MMO isn’t super ground-breaking but just a step in the right direction.

I’d also like someone to come up with a way for people to stop complaining. Reduce token count? Make every dungeon like the previous CoF? You guys are very selfish and misinformed if you think any of those things will stop complaining. Every time something changes, someone will like it and someone won’t. That’s the nature of opinions.

For everyone complaining, you’re better off posting constructively or just not talking. It makes you look ridiculous.

We could always go back to the “Your BiS item drops from this one boss at the end of this one raid and if you don’t get it you’ll have to wait a week to try again. Also you’re rolling against 3 other people, even though it has a 15% chance to drop.”

I agree with the OP. I understand people’s grievances regarding the change, but the perspective is all wrong. You’re still in the mindset of you should be at endgame faster. But…what’s the point? The grind is there so you don’t feel like it’s easy to obtain. I’ve farmed numerous old raids in WoW for transmog gear and it took months to get whole sets I wanted. It also took months on end to get BiS stuff because of lockouts and competition.

Honestly, GW2 gave you an out. Here’s a fairly easy concept: You’ll be able to get really good gear a lot faster than most MMOs, but if you so choose, you can spend a good amount of time getting awesome looking stuff that is pretty much the same as the gear you had a month ago.

People need to like the game for what it is, not what it isn’t. Anyone who says the dungeons are a grind is LOOKING for a grind to do.

The problem herein lies with a lack of understanding. No one is telling anyone here to do 10 dungeons a day, you’re deciding to because you want that gear before everyone and as soon as possible. Why? So you can say you were the first in CoF gear? So you can look like everyone else?

I choose to spread out my dungeons, and it proves an overall enjoyment. I haven’t gotten to that farming mentality – if/when I do, I won’t complain like a little schoolgirl that it’s a grind. Everyone should have known going in what it would have been – to say you didn’t or claim otherwise is complete and utter ignorance.

I’m sorry, but I got tired of the only thing I saw in /map chat in LA was “LFM for CoF Expo!”. If nothing else, I’m glad that will be gone. Annoying as heck.

I know! Let’s make it so each piece of equipment is an unguaranteed random drop from one of each of the bosses in one of each of the expo modes! That will be so much less of a grind! >:]

Really guys, you were having FUN in that one expo mode over and over? Please…if that’s the case, your fun is defined by the end result, aka not even close to the philosophy of the game. If it was intended for you to have this stuff quickly, then they’d make it that way.

I like ideas 3-5. For 5, I’d say only allow it once per week though, because then players will just do the ‘easiest’ 3 over and over. Daily dungeon is a good idea, but how it’s presented makes all the difference I’d say. I’d rather it be something like:

If it’s a server-wide daily dungeon: I’d want it to be altered somehow. Or get a letter saying something like “My daughter snuck into CM and got lost. I don’t know how she got there or where she is, but find her and I will reward you greatly!” – not only that, but each time a party enters the dungeons, it’s random for THAT party. That means that each party, as long as they stay together, will definitely find the missing daughter, AND that each party will have a chance to find her in any of three paths, avoiding the idea of knowledge sharing between everyone. And of course, you’ll have to complete the dungeon too. It’s dynamic and allows for people to do many different dungeons, with a reward that they feel they earned. Of course, the reward will have to be worthwhile!

This thread was completely unnecessary. If one dungeon being fine-tuned to be like the rest ruins it for you, I suggest you rethink what you like in games, and what value you hold in them. I understand every single person wants THEIR version of fun, but that can’t be possible.

So here’s where we stand:
I agree with their changes. You don’t. Who is right, and who is wrong? I’m not saying costs are high; they are. I’m not saying you’re completely wrong; you’re not. As it stands, I’m having a blast and hardly did any dungeons. If that’s where your fun is, then broaden your gameplay experience or gracefully bow out with a little class. Don’t make sarcastic topics that only serve to provoke.

KingLz.1407:

You do realize that they never said thered be no grind right? There’s no grind for best STATED gear, nothing to do with best LOOKING gear, I mean hell I hit lv 80 and within an hour had a full set of exotic weapons (I’m to attached to my gears apperance to upgrade from my blues… Don’t judge me…)

I want gear with:

main: condition damage
second: toughness
third: I don’t really care, precision probably

There is no way to get exotic armor with those stats other then the dungeon sets.
For the best gear you have to farm the dungeons!

You can only avoid that if you are satisfied with the stats the crafting gear provides, which is just the usual distribution….

What about Mystic Forge/random non-dungeon exotics? Am I to understand that the Mystic Forge and random drops are limited to a certain stat-set? I’m actually not sure, just pointing out an obvious oversight if it is one.

Thorn.7963:

All they have to do is lower the token costs and I’ll be happy.

But by how much? I feel like people want it to be low enough so they can get every piece of each dungeon gear within a month or so. The idea of a dungeon set should make you feel like you’re set apart. As of now I see so many people in CoF gear I’m just like…why would I even want that anymore, everyone has it.

Once everyone has something and the accessibility of it is that easy, it becomes less appealing. The idea is…you pick a set and go for it, and hope it looks cool on you while other people not having it. Granted, some people don’t care if everyone else has it if it looks cool, but then I feel like if that were the case, they’d lower the legendary item costs as well. And then start you with 50% Map Completion too.

So how much do they lower it, and will everyone be happy (hint: everyone will never be happy)?

-If they wanted to make it harder, they should have him reflect projectiles and make you kids learn how to dodge at the right moment.
-They have big health pools so more people can experience them. I’m sure you notice people pour in, and others /map about the giant, allowing for more people to see it. Plus, he’s a giant. Giants have lots of health. I know because my dad is a giant…
-If you’re bored at range, get in melee range and have more fun. I love going into melee range on some fights just to prove to myself I can dodge abilities and such.
-Earlier events are meant to be more cool and less hard. I’m pretty sure, by now, every event has been asked to be made harder or more intricate. Honestly, that’s a bad idea, because then every event would take 30 minutes and wouldn’t allow for easy access.
-If you really want to suggest something, suggest an easier fix. Making the giant drop better loot, or have a chance to drop something cool.

I think the longer events that seem more mundane should have some type of interesting reward besides the norm. Maybe give any giant (because they all take awhile to kill) a chance to drop a Giant minipet or something. Low chance, like .1%.

Tik.2381:

The only people complaining are the ones running the same easy lines over and over for hours to cheat the system, end of story.

Now you have to play it the way it was meant to be played. Deal with it, no more easy mode for you.

Yeah, hit ‘em again Ike! Agreed.
Let’s all go back to WoW Cataclysm Heroics and complain how hard they are…and then…a month later…complain they’re too easy.

Whitewolf.9736:

I know one fix that will probably solve all of this easily. Make it so that all the paths are equally rewarded, take roughly the same amount of time and are y’know balanced properly rather than what we have at the minute, where two out of the three paths are absolutely ridiculous and one isn’t.

Regarding CoF, it was easy and quick no doubt about that, but it was worth my time in doing it due to actually getting something good out of it.

It doesn’t help when people are confused about what you want dungeons and the game to be. we can’t grind to get crafting mats and we can’t grind dungeons yet the game was touted as ‘no grind’. heck karma vendors are still completely out of whack with their costs and they aren’t even worth my time.

Trash mobs shouldn’t have more health and damage than a boss with the boss being easy as pie. If you put a good portion of karma in dungeons, one or two rare’s and some and the same amount of money and exp as well as fixing all of thekittenpaths so they’re all equally balanced with one another then none of this would have happened in the first place.

Keep them challenging. That’s perfectly fine but seriously, people need to feel as though there effort was worthwhile and if they get a chunk of blues and a green with pitiful exp and money then it’s a case of well what’s the point for the majority of people. The ‘sense of achievement’ in completing a dungeon wont run as a viable excuse for a lot of people.

That’s what they’re trying to do..

Dace.3985:

I agree that the cost seems to be a little too high and I think it would a good idea to make the tokens account bound. It’s understandable that max stat gear require some investment and you don’t want people to get the cool armor from just being lucky or only doing the dungeon once but the current costs seem a bit extreme for that.

That said, I find it amusing how many people are complaining about grinding a completely unnecessary task. Yeah, it may have the armor that you think looks cooler but that’s it: it looks cooler (frankly most of the dungeon armor doesn’t look that good to me). You know why I do dungeons? Because I find them fun. Unfortunately, this mentality that dungeons/raids are the end game and you do them to get the rewards no matter what is a bit too strong for some MMO players to shake.

Add in to that a lot of people find a build/strategy that works for one dungeon path but does not work for another and immediately blame balance and don’t even consider changing their approach. Not all the time certainly, but definitely a fair share of people. Granted, there are some glitched parts sometimes and I don’t doubt there are some actual issues with balance which definitely exacerbate any resentment towards this change but the entire issue is taken way overboard.

Agreed. There are obvious bugs to fix in places, but otherwise, people live in a world of relativity and can’t see beyond it. This was expected. Anyone with a brain should have seen the idea of one dungeon being easier/faster than the others being buffed to match the others. But apparently it’s not apparent to a lot of people. Oh well. Sucks for them.

Why doesn’t everyone just read the first post of this thread and realize they’re doing their best to fix the dungeons so that they’re all on par. This was a quick fix for the people farming that one path.

For those complaining about the grind, it’s not a gear grind. You can just as easily not do any of this and be competitive in WvW and other forms of PvE. But, of course, impatience and intolerance is expected from a group of gamers who were finally told they could play their way only to be barred on occasion because of design flaws that are trying to be fixed.

And no slack was cut. Perfection demanded, and when not delivered, dealt with harshly.

I really advise everyone to take a step back and appreciate that they’re actively working to make the game better, not appease the voice in your head saying “I want everything right now, all the legendaries, to do every dungeon in 15 minutes, and feel special even though everyone else has what I have n…oh…crap…make things harder, quick, so I’m a special snowflake!!”

You’re basing a lot of your current experience off of past experience and expectations. That’s not how things work.

The main idea is: A dungeon is taking too little time relative to the rest to complete, so it’s the only one being done by a majority of players. Why would they put an explorable mode dungeon in that takes 15 minutes to complete when all others are nowhere near that, relatively? I didn’t do it, I haven’t done many despite being level 80.

I think the ‘outcry’ of the public against this is kind of dumb. While I agree the idea of “the grind” is implemented for their vanity, it’s just that; vanity. They could lower costs a bit, but by how much?

It’s the same logic with events. When you find an easy event that gives a relatively good/fast amount of exp/karma, you’re going to keep doing it and avoid other events.

I think a good solution to that is implementing a scaling/descaling system, as they partially did. Besides doing something like making the same dungeon worth less exp/karma/tokens, make dungeons other people don’t do and take longer worth more karma/exp/tokens the longer you personally don’t do it. It’s like if a mob is alive too long, it’s worth more experience. My suggestion is to apply that across events as well, giving incentive to do them, and then some kind of personal timer on dungeons you haven’t done, giving more incentive to do them relative to ones you may find “easier”.

The Satchel of Mysteries or whatever idea from WoW only made me want to wait for it to pop to queue for a chance at a rare pet or mount. But, a personal timer will vary, so it won’t be much of an issue. It would still make people want to wait however long to join it, but everyone would be on a separate timer, and it would be just long enough to make you say “Hey, I should do this dungeon for a chance at more exp/karma/coins/maybeaspecialminipetorsomething!”

TL;DR – Just like mobs, have events that haven’t been done in awhile offer more reward/possibility at special rewards (mini-pets?) if up long enough. Similarily, add personal timers on dungeons not done so their rewards increase the longer you haven’t done one, then resets (timer applicable to all dungeons not done, and resets when dungeon completed).

I haven’t really done dungeons yet so I can’t speak on difficulty or variety. They did state they’re working on bosses and what not, so that’s good.

I think the counter-intuitive ideas come with exploring. If they want us to mix up the dungeons and do all of them and not farm the same ones, they should just normalize the tokens. At that point it’s borderline Justice/Valor points akin to WoW, but the system can and does work. Instead of currency specific to each instance, you just introduce the idea of a universal currency. You can still keep stuff like Molten Lodestones and what not specific to CoF; however, the idea of making someone run a specific path (which will happen if Explorable A is easier than B and C) over and over doesn’t make much sense per the philosophy.

I’m fine with how it is because I haven’t hit the wall of wanting to grind for a specific set, but I’m used to grinding dungeons anyway.

I think the easiest fix is to just look at each path, determine which is hardest/done fastest, and adjust the reward accordingly. That way the reward scales. I think they should have enough parses for each path by now to do that, and can adjust it accordingly.

If instead of buffing the current “15 minute CoF” run they just made the rewards really really minimal, it would have been funnier IMO and I would have loved the backlash there. It would have become less of “Inform us of all changes and stop messing with our fun blah blah” and more of “How dare you..adjust it..to scale with the length of the dungeon…why would you fix this….errmmm…jerks!”

I like fr0st’s idea regarding defending a point that will inevitably be taken over. It’s kind of like an endless running distance game. You know there’s no way to actually win, but you do your best to go as far as you can because the reward is greater. With that, you introduce an event that is designed in nature to kill everyone at some point; we know how Anet loves to put people in that downed/death state! :P As in, you take over an enemy stronghold, and they decide after an hour of you sitting there that the particular fort you’re in is essential. Thus, they send wave after wave, maxing out at something like 20. If you survive 1-5, you get x. If you survive 6-10, you get y. If you survive 11-15, you get z. THEN, each subsequent wave will actually get a lot harder, making it so if you survive 16 you get a, 17 you get b, and so on. Then if you survive until the very last wave (20), but die because they send some type of amazing death-bringer, you get something too.

An event like this would need to be intricate; as in, waves progress and build up, adding lots of different ideas and things per wave or group of waves to actually merit the reward scaling.

Well you have to understand that ‘dynamic’ is also referring to the amount of players. Because it’s a group quest essentially, it will be different depending on how many players you have and who they are. I’ve done some of the events in Orr with a few people that zergs usually do and, while taking longer, are more challenging and fun, actually having to pay attention to mechanics and what not.

I just compare DEs to quests or dailies. Quests/dailies in other games are usually either done once and alone and that’s it; for dailies, same thing every day with hardly and deviation or variation. DEs really shine relatively, because you choose which ones you want to do and how many people there are effects your experience. Now obviously there needs to be some kind of incentive to not zerg/rotate on events, or they need to be fixed; however, that’s another issue.

If an event is up too long, just make it give a boatload of exp/karma/whatever, or even add extra rewards. Like…say a Champion Ogre has been up for 8 hours…(it’s happened, haha)…add something like anyone who participates and gets silver/gold gets a chance at a mini pet. Something like this gives a huge, huge, huge incentive for people to either do an event or, in the worst case, wait 8 hours. In which case, to fix it, you make the wait time dynamic, and do it for many events, so it’s really hard to track. As with mobs giving more experience, it continues to encourage exploration and diversity.

If they want to, they can do something like their idea with mobs and experience. As of now, if a mob is alive for awhile, you get bonus experience. I would say doing that with events makes complete sense as well, as it would make people curious as to the scaling (hopefully it’s enough to merit going around doing ANY event). As Psilocin says, no one kills the champion shark for the most part, and it kind of just swims around for hours on end. But imagine…if that event started at 15k exp and somehow ended up at 30k after a long time. The incentive to wait wouldn’t be enough until they figure out at what point the exp goes so high.

One of the problems with the zergs is that…well, there shouldn’t be any events that just cycle and allow you to do them in such a time span. They should be random times. The idea of a 3 hour timer on dragons is kind of dumb. It should be something like…may appear 1-5 hours after he’s killed. As soon as you enter Frostgorge people are always asking when the dragon died, so they know to come back 2 hours and 30-45mins later. When you walk into Orr, people are asking where the zerg is so they can join.

Kinda takes the fun out of it…especially when there are people actually telling others not to “mess up” the zerg’s rotation, and don’t kill stuff without the zerg, as if it were the end of the world if one of their bosses is out of sync.

But what about improved healing? I mean I don’t know the actual effect, but…yeah, could actually be substantial, with a mace build or something. Or “Greatsword attacks heal you”, and if your symbols heal…etc. Again, no idea on the actual improved effect, I didn’t check or research, nor do I use this signet much unless I think it will matter.

It’s also really useful for PvP, can save a match.

I always took that trait as whenever someone burns you. Zealots Flame is just wording to connect the ideas of you being “on fire” to people being set on fire around you. Unless the skill actually puts burn on yourself, I don’t think it should activate.

I don’t see that trait as particularly useful unless you KNOW you’re going to be burning a lot. Also, the skill itself doesn’t last long enough IMO, needs to be something like 5-7 seconds. 5 seems right.

The way I see it; most people go for damage, but die very fast. As a Guardian and your plethora of support utilities, if you stay alive, others will too. And guess what: you do more damage alive than dead Honestly, we have a lot of stuff to utilize. You can probably save the day with half of your skills, and then a few more times with some weapons for yourself.

The key to most fights is staying alive, staying alive, mm mm mm mm staying alive, staying alive. Guardians dish out a lot of damage regardless of your trait build, honestly.

Mmm, I find myself needing the Scepter a lot. With the different amount of enemies you’ll encounter, from 1v1’s and beyond, as well as hitting people on top of castles; I found Scepter+(your choice) is a good idea for most times. I haven’t really experimented with the mace, but for WvW I don’t see it as useful as some other choices if you’re on the move. Focus is one of my favorites as the blind/regen and triple aegis seems way too OP for its own good. I also use Greatsword a lot, just because the BB and AoE damage on it is usually most useful.

As for builds, that’s really up to you. A support build can be useful but you’ll find it mostly comes from utilities, or that’s what I’ve found. I run a 0-30-20-20-0 for everything as of now; my crits give might to those around me and I have enough toughness and vitality to stay alive long enough to use my utilities.

Because of WvW’s nature, build seems less important. As a guardian, I wouldn’t suggest a power build, but that’s always an option too. Your build seems like it’d do fine as long as you match utilities to what you’re buffing.

Hmmm… enough time for Ring of Warding (Hammer) → Blinding Blade (Greatsword) → Use Blinding Blade (Pull) → Whirling Wrath? Probably not enough time

Hmm…I mean I don’t really use the staff, but that’s because I don’t have a good one. I don’t think the staff is bad, it’s just not great. If they want to make it more support, I’d say do stuff like this:

Skill 1: Make it more like Trident’s “Light of Judgment”, as in maybe it fires slower, but heals/damages for enough to matter. Either that, or make it bounce a few times just like the Trident, as I think that skill is awesome.

Skill 2: Make the orb oscillate (like, go forward while circling) or go side to side, akin to a figure-eight pattern. Or make it bigger, and the damage stack as it passes through/over someone.

Skill 3: I’d say the symbol is fine as is, though maybe should apply burning to one enemy (and one only, otherwise it’s borderline OP).

Skill 4: Pretty awesome, but hard to get off. Maybe add a block to the first or second half of the channel, making it more viable.

Skill 5: I think this line is cool but may need to be bigger and in a curved shape. Like (, or something. The straight like makes it too easy to walk around. I just think it needs to be a bit bigger for its CD.

Then again, I’m biased, so this may just make the staff completely OP. :P

^I think he’s right.
I think the idea behind skill 3 is this:
-If things are in range of your sword, they’ll always get hit. That’s why everything around you gets hit.
-If there’s something not behind an enemy that’s within 600 range and a projectile happens to go that way, it will be hit.

It’s not meant for 600 range, it just CAN hit at that range…though don’t quote me, I’m not sure. Although I may remember cases where I thought the projectiles hit dead-on within 600 range and it still said miss, but I may be mistaken.

I actually have only been using the signet for the sole purpose of the 10s condition removal, hoping it works with the “Purity” socketed trait, which I don’t know if it’s true as they may share a CD (anyone confirm/deny this?). Otherwise, once I get back into dungeons, I can find myself with the block/heal on more often, as 2 seconds of infinite aegis…wait, let me see if anyone can answer this:

-Shelter: Blocks attack while healing.
NOW: There are many traits and such that say burn when blocking (Defender’s Flame), gain might when blocking (Might of the Protector). Then there are also those that say “when aegis is removed”. Do these apply when blocking with shelter, or is that different (for both cases)? I didn’t even notice if that applies…if so, that makes Shelter MUCH more useful as a whole.

Yeah, as a suggestion, I propose they add numbers or more thorough descriptions so that we can tell if it’s worth it. As per signets, the only one that actually says anything is the damage reduction (10%); the condition damage is shown on your character sheet, but should be readily available on the panel for your character under boons. With that, then if traited, they should then increase and show what’s done on that panel.

I’d say it’s minimal at best, maybe something like 12-15%.

I find that I rarely use them, because I kind of forget they’re there. Then there’s the idea of the passive benefits vs. a WTF button, or if there’s a situation in which your heal or aegis may save from a killing blow. In which case, a utility might be better, or you allow them to take the blow and then resurrect them.

I want to try a Virtue build but find it hard to stray from my 0-30-20-20-0, as I haven’t done enough dungeons yet.

Sometimes you NOT pressing that F1, 2, or 3 is actually best for those around you, because the passives are…really good. x_x

Yeah the hammer looks like it could be a lot of fun – I had a 78 Exotic one but then salvaged it ;x. As of now the output for AoE for the sword seems too good comparably, not sure if that’s true or not. As I haven’t experimented much, it’s hard to say.

I think one of the main issues regarding weapons is their connection to traits, or what you slot. Like, “Greatsword attacks heal you” or “One-hand crit chance goes up 15%” or whatever really affect what you use. I think every weapon needs more or less love in this area.

As per the 5th skill for the Hammer, it needs to add something I feel. Maybe a burn if you touch the outskirts? That will give me incentive to bash my 4 skill sending them into the wall, besides the obvious “that’s hilarious” type of thing; it also keeps with the idea of burning for guardians, though something like a weakness or cripple would be better. I’d say either add that, if they touch it they get crippled for a bit, or just take out their ability to leave it and just make them get 2 conditions (maybe cripple+weakness or cripple+burn) for like 10s.

I’m currently running with an Exotic GS, so that’s my primary weapon. Though ultimately I’d like The Juggernaut (years later…). We’ll see how things progress.

Well yeah, first off, 45 and 80 are large differences. Not that it matters that much, but it still does in terms of skills and elites at your disposal.

Second, weapon choices matter as well. Personally, I go GS/Scepter+Focus, but I do that in most instances anyway. With GS you have your gap closer/blind, as well as your symbol+spins for cleansing conditions and your Blinding Blade for DoT→Pull/Knockdown. For Scepter, you have your ranged attack if you’re kiting plus an AoE attack and your CC, which helps a lot. From the Focus, which I love, you get a blind/regen and then a 3-Block shield (amazing).

Build-wise, I’m running a 0-30-20-20-0. Always applying burning. Something like http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#MzcmMozzmLFRoMxvRm0xGG0MoqMVoR where utilities and such can be reworked depending on your tastes.

As for WvW, it can be pretty hard to gauge a person’s power since not everyone is equal, so don’t feel bad if you can’t win yet. Keep at it!

Yeah, this makes sense. A lot of trait builds work differently with different weapon sets or utility skills. With so many things to work with, it would only be beneficial to add something like this, encouraging different types of playstyles and thought processes for dungeons. I understand the idea of any class being able to fulfill any role, and this will only contribute to that.

As a Guardian, I can use many weapon sets, but there’s no real point if all my traits are geared toward one-hand weapons or the like. Would a burn build be more beneficial versus this dungeon where the mobs are alive long enough for the burn to matter? Do I want a build to really empower my spirit weapons, staying ranged and allowing them to do their thing? All of these things can be experimented with if this option is allowed, and can really give players a lot more freedom when going from say, PvE exploration/open-world fighting to a dungeon environment that may require a much more specific/helpful build.

Definitely worth looking into. Also noted, there are a few topics on this already.