Guild Wars 2

Cyn.5036:

Gray.9650:

Cyn.5036:

JonPeters.5630:

I just wanted to update everyone on where we stand with this. So far we have found a single bug with the system that is causing certain players to get stuck in a state of reduced rewards without actually exploiting. A fix for this has already been made and is being tested locally now. We are going to do more significant testing on this new version but we also believe it is more bulletproof to begin with. Please keep posting data as these cases are somewhat rare and are hard for us to find with internal testing but seem to be exposed quickly when thousands of people are playing the dungeons.

All rewards are susceptible to our code that is dealing with people who are speed clearing dungeons. This means that if you are speed clearing and then play some new chain for the first time it may not reward the full 60 tokens. If you find yourself getting less rewards consider whether or not your rate of dungeon completion is extremely high.

If you think you are running at a fairly reasonable pace post all of the chains you have run and the time of day they were completed and we will file it to try and figure out if it is a bug. Please post accurate times, otherwise we cannot determine if there are in fact bugs in the system. Please continue to use this thread as a place to post this data so that we have it all in one location.

Thanks,

Jon

Please define how fast is fast for a speed clearing ? we do the dungeon normally and we are killing things fast due to gears and spec or techniques how is it suppose that we kill all mobs and then sit for 20mins infront of main boss before killing him is that considered not speed clearing?

if you’re too fast you’re exploiting. that’s their stance obviously: causing certain players to get stuck in a state of reduced rewards without actually exploiting

well i dont think i m exploiting it tho by clearing a dungeon within 30mins its reasonable.

certain places like cof path 1 its pretty fast just ned the dps and able to coodinate

so i dont see thats exploiting ?

u penalise players for clearing the dungeon fast ? lol i agree if u want to prevent farming by putting a dungeon timer

but u expect us to finish a dungeon we can finish 20-30mins to do it in 1hour ? just to make it same lvl than those who cant do it ?

gotta be kidding right ? this is not north korea game.

chill, I was meant as sarcasm (although I’m bothered by the use of the term “exploiting”).

the only reason to have said system in place is in case people found a glitch again thus completing a dungeon in a shorter time than intended, but it also affects people that are able to clear it fast legitimately. which also answer why there is an abysmal amount of high-hp trash – they don’t want people to clear them fast. I don’t know, but how about nerfing the trash (or remove it alltogether) and reduce the rewards? wouldn’t that make more sense? you can still have the same reward/time ratio with all that annoyance.

@little
dungeons in gw2 are not supposed to be run in pugs, but “skill organized groups”. don’t shoot the messenger, that’s what a.net said.
hence no need/greed etc (I love getting soulbound runes I don’t need on my char, which I can’t even use on another OR give to someone else) or a reward system that makes more sense for pugs.

ThatTallGuyX.3058:

Well the design that I suggested does fix the issue of farming the first two bosses of a path because you can only get the loot from them once a day. If you want more you have to complete the WHOLE path again not just the first boss.

but then I farm the first 2 bosses a day, have a slower rate but also a lot easier time (which, according to some, doesn’t do the “prestige and achievement” of the armor justice).

in the end every “fix” would merely be a bandaid, because people will always go for the fastest/most efficient way to get their stuff, and you can’t fix people.
personally, if people want to farm the first few bosses only, I don’t care that much. because in the end the reward is just another skin.

Cyn.5036:

JonPeters.5630:

I just wanted to update everyone on where we stand with this. So far we have found a single bug with the system that is causing certain players to get stuck in a state of reduced rewards without actually exploiting. A fix for this has already been made and is being tested locally now. We are going to do more significant testing on this new version but we also believe it is more bulletproof to begin with. Please keep posting data as these cases are somewhat rare and are hard for us to find with internal testing but seem to be exposed quickly when thousands of people are playing the dungeons.

All rewards are susceptible to our code that is dealing with people who are speed clearing dungeons. This means that if you are speed clearing and then play some new chain for the first time it may not reward the full 60 tokens. If you find yourself getting less rewards consider whether or not your rate of dungeon completion is extremely high.

If you think you are running at a fairly reasonable pace post all of the chains you have run and the time of day they were completed and we will file it to try and figure out if it is a bug. Please post accurate times, otherwise we cannot determine if there are in fact bugs in the system. Please continue to use this thread as a place to post this data so that we have it all in one location.

Thanks,

Jon

Please define how fast is fast for a speed clearing ? we do the dungeon normally and we are killing things fast due to gears and spec or techniques how is it suppose that we kill all mobs and then sit for 20mins infront of main boss before killing him is that considered not speed clearing?

if you’re too fast you’re exploiting. that’s their stance obviously: causing certain players to get stuck in a state of reduced rewards without actually exploiting

5- I was able to melee the entire dungeon on all 3 paths, all bosses as Thief and this is probably why this Dungeon is now my favorite. Note: I melee on all dungeons, the difference COE does not make me feel at a disadvantage because I refuse to range with my toothpick (shortbow) or my water guns (pistols).

so how did you deal with the double-leaping trash in the beginning, subject alphas fire aura (plus aoe), the golems knockback beam, the destroyers pushback aura? how would you do it without a guardian? how would you do it with a warrior?

Grey.7319:

Another option would be to weight rewards:

• First boss = 5 tokens
• Second boss = 15tokens
• Third boss = 25 tokens
• Full clear bonus = 15 tokens

still doesnt fix the the issue of people farming the first 1-2 bosses because it’s faster/easier/less annoying than doing the whole dungeon. of course that would require a proper redesign, and I can’t see that happening anytime soon (oh wait, I can: dump more useless hp trash in the beginning. that will sure make the dungeon more fun.)

Holesale.2640:

You guys forget they are called “Rare Materials” for a reason.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Masterwork#Quality

blue isn’t rare.

Gab Superstar.4059:

For years we sucked it up ArenaNet, because the only people still playing dungeons in GW1 actually enjoyed your little nerfs, as it forced a new meta game and these were always fun to develop and learn. However, now you got millions of casual players who only want to enjoy the game, something you are currently preventing them from doing. I’m no management consultant but alienating a massive portion of your playerbase just doesn’t sound good to me.

I know people will disagree (the “dungeon armor is an achievement and prestiiiiiiiiiiige!” faction. if you want prestige and show off in LA get a legendary), but: let people get that armor besides farming dungeons. make it a forge recipe that needs karma, skillpoints, a chunk of mats (that would actually help remove all these crafting mats rotting in the trading post AND make people go into lower level zones to farm them), heck put some money requirement on it so you can sell gems. right now, if you can’t get a group, you’re pretty much effed.

it’s not rocket science, and I’m still puzzled why it wasn’t in from the start. this way the people that like running hard dungeons can do that, the people that don’t can do something else and no one has to argue what an appropriate amount of “grind” or “skill” is necessary for that armor.

Vanisher.9216:

Jasher.6580:

What a lot of us are wondering is how this ATROCIOUS reward system actually made it to the live game.

If it wasn’t for the atrocious reward system people that exploited cof would have broken the game economy and it would a big disadvantage for those who do it after a fix.

disadvantage != broken. and it still it’s no argument for it. “let’s put in a crap reward system in case we can’t be bothered with testing dungeons properly and they find a glitch” – nope, doesn’t sound right.

working as intended, it’s part of the the challenge!

Biscuithammer.8615:

I see people talking about the lack of Karma, but I’m having a bigger problem with the fact that dynamic events aren’t giving enough of a monetary reward. 1 Silver isn’t enough to entice a level 80 player to participate in a level 80 event unless it’s some kind mob farm.

don’t forget that group events give the same amount as normal events. even more incentive to do them!

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Do-NOT-nerf-please/126835
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Do-NOT-nerf-please/127216

after you read that, you can take a look at your options under

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-endgame-reimagined/

enjoy your stay.

miya.5160:

So no, I don’t believe devs intend for you to kill everything. I think Guild Wars 2 has done a good job of encouraging you to approach things creatively—to an extent.

my problem with sth like that is: in almost every game people were whining because they considered it an exploit (latest example would be CC in rift). add to that the new magg bomb chamber where it’s intended to kill everything… that just shows that their design intentions differ from how people do dungeons.

the real fun starts when they “fix” it because they want people to follow exactly like it’s intended. even better when they let it pass for months and THEN fix it.

they should just make it clear from the start, spares us all a lot of drama. that’s all I’m saying.

Lasur Arkinshade.4107:

Prestige gear ceases to be very prestigious if everyone can get it by buttonmashing.

Please, if you want easier content, go do dynamic events. Go do story mode dungeons. Go do achievements. Just allow people who enjoy a challenge to actually, well… be challenged.

implying you do anything else in dungeons. and assuming that there can only be 1 difficulty of dungeon :rolleyes:

and didn’t we already establish that the “lol just do something else then?” is moot since it’s about people playing long term – not giving them finite content that loses it’s appeal after a month.

• Remember Guild Wars 1.*

I do. and it worked better right of of the box. some things you can’t fix afterwards, else there will always be a kittentorm. just look how the announcement of more tokens alone spawned several “what about the people who already farmed them”, “waaah unfair”, “thx arena catering to casuals and whiners!” asf.

I am starting to think that a game without TANKS/HEALERS/DPS just cannot work in dungeon running. The Holy Trinity was invented for a reason

well, the trinity is just a simplified mechanic for gameplay’s sake. without it, how would you fight a dragon? exactly, you wouldn’t. especially not with only 5/10/20/(whatever raid size).

and most people forget the trinity still exists. you still need someone to provide protection and someone to heal.

Fildydarie.1496:

Veterans of GW1 are used to the notion that full-party wipe means restarting from the beginning. Also, it means you’re out an entry fee to the dungeon. We’re used to the idea that not everybody does everything, or has the ability to do everything, and we’re fine with that (for a long time, access to two elite PvE dungeons was restricted to one guild alliance each, determined by largely PvP-oriented efforts). When you do accomplish something, however, you have a way of showing this to the world. Prestige armor, titles… there was a way to show the world that you worked hard, and after months of dedicated effort, reached a goal. I’m in this camp.

what most people forget (or don’t know) in gw1 you were never “forced” to run said content. you could easily do what you found fun the most and progress towards the armor/weapon/whatever. to put it in gw1 terms – most people don’t want DOA to be nerfed, because they don’t care about it – IF they have something to do BESIDES DOA.

I still don’t understand why anet didn’t make the rewards “gifts” like for the legendarys you can get in various ways, and not just running one dungeon over and over till you want to poke your eyes out.

Saint.4789:

I don’t even…….seriously. Entitlement at it’s finest. Yandere you’re playing the WRONG game if you don’t want to try and still get stuff. If you got it you’d be the same person complaining that the content is boring. Do you not see how Anet has this set up? They make it hard so you play for the long haul, the long you’re playing the higher chance of you spending real life money. I love this game and know that’s the set up they have. Get use to it or get a new game to eventually be bored with.

his point is there should be content which is gated by time, not difficulty. right now dungeons are gated by both, plus they’re the only long term progression in the game (tokens for armor and legendary). no matter what a.net tells you in their blogs, farming dragons and doing events with DR is hardly something that will keep a lot of players that rather want time gated content for months, for the simple fact there is no progression anymore (the brick wall OP was talking about).

that doesn’t mean suddenly everything gets nerfed across the board.

ask yourself, how many players of the demographic that is fine with the current state of dungeons and progression are likely to buy gems (because that’s what anet’s after), compared to all the other demographics? not to mention the people who can beat said dungeons but simply don’t find them fun (and boring after the 5th run)?

oh boy, I wonder how many people run around in black. it’s the most expensive dye, so it must be the best, no?

as Grape says it’s a time commitment, nothing more. or want people really imply that a person has more “skill” because he did more runs in a shorter amount of days?

mynameisdan.5309:

At least one will say “breaks stun”..however, it seems that monsters don’t get DR on us like we get on them when boulder-spamming, etc.

which usually has a cooldown, and it only breaks the current stun – not granting immunity to the one you get half a second later.
some professions can break the stun for others, but that usually has a cooldown too.

there are probably ways around it – but it’s still not much fun and cheap.

Airyll.7849:

A universal token system would make everything convenient, yes. But it isn’t what the developers envisioned when they made these dungeons and, outside of that, don’t you think it would make no sense at all? Why on this good earth should I be able to purchase Orrian Arah armour if I don’t ever run Arah for shards? Convenience is a nice thing, but we as players are not entitled to it, so the idea of a universal token system at the end of the day is a bit nonsensical and doesn’t fix anything. It wouldn’t make dungeons live longer – actually it would kill them quicker as players slowly learn and work out which the easiest path was to run. And, since that one path could still get them tokens to buy any armour set they wanted, they’d then never ever need to run the actual dungeon.

that will happen anyway, only difference is that people run the easiest route per dungeon. I’m not saying universal tokens would be a good idea, but they would still be an improvement to the current situation (so much for “don’t fix anything”) – and that just shows how bad the current situation is.

as for what the developers envisioned: gem purchases. why else would you need to put in a large amount of grind if not too keep people playing (and buying)? the sub is still there, just better hidden and distributed differently. funny fact: that type of convenience worked well in gw1 for years. yes, you can have longevity without pushing people into dungeons only to have the same endgame as every other mmo (don’t forget, this game is a revolution)

stunlocking is the same genius mechanic that let a dog in COE leap you twice in a second for 50% each.

would love to play with no cooldowns on my skills too.

MassDelusion.9130:

Making tokens account bound will only bring back the same problem GW1 had.

Dungeon groups will only take 3-5 profession (because people WILL post the most efficient way to run through dungeons), while the other classes will have re roll a new profession if they ever want to get a dungeon set for their unneeded profession.

Groups will be Guardians/Warriors/Ele’s while other professions will have trouble getting into a group.

soulbound tokens won’t fix that, if anything said professions will just be kitten more and forced to reroll. this way they can just use another char and get the armor with another one.

JonPeters.5630:

Xetelian.9278:

Jon could we also get the costs of items down a couple 100 tokens please?

You asked so nicely, but how about we just give out more tokens instead?

I’d have it preferred to remove the runes from the items and make the items cheaper. if needed player’s could have bought said rune (or another rune from another dungeon for tokens = players would have a reason to run more than one dungeon).

Scarlett.9256:

2. I’ve crafted a full set of exotic armor. In this game, exotic armor is exotic armor is exotic armor. Doing 9-15 or so dungeons runs for a piece of armor (lets say gloves) that has the same exact stats as the gloves I just spent 5 minutes crafting makes zero sense to me. I do not mine hard content. In fact I enjoy hard content, but every single game I play beating that hard content gives me something in terms of a reward. In this case, I’m expected to put the time in to lean all these different dungeons, wipe, spend money, develop teaming arrangement that works – all for a vanity item? So for THIS GAME, the dungeons are way too hard for what you get out of them. In other games, hard dungeons/raids are fine because the reward is there. But for this game, no way am I doing that – plus my crafted gloves look better than the wonky looking stuff they dreamed up.

I’d like to chime in on that bit. the problem I see with the current state is that anet royally dropped the ball regarding rewards. cosmetic armor is able to offer a enjoyable progression, but the only way to progress here if you want the armor is doing said dungeon 50+ times.

gw1 had prestige armor (the equivalent here would be dungeon armor) which took some time to get, but you could basically do whatever you wanted to progress towards that since almost nothing was bound (except the prestige armor and manually bound weapons etc.).
in gw2 it would roughly work this way: imagine dungeon tokens are tradeable. now you have someone who likes to run dungeons all day but doesn’t want the armor. on the other side you have someone who wants the armor but doesn’t like dungeons.
so person A has a lot of tokens he don’t need and person B has a lot of money/items/dyes whatever. you meet in LA, discuss a price and suddenly person B can have his armor and person A has a lot of money/items/dyes whatever. both persons are happy, don’t have the feeling their time was wasted and keep playing however it’s fun to them.

even anet would win this way, lets say person B doesn’t have the time to play that much, so he can buy some gems and turn them to gold. before someone screams PAY2WIN – it’s just cosmetic armor, remember?

Hellkaiser.6025:

It would work better imho if there was some sort of visual indicator prior to a new one shot mechanic being thrown at you, a Small cutscene could show them using said skill on someone, and this being clearly dangerous the player could plan ahead, without ending up with a huge repair bill.

you mean like in other games where you have the boss says something or you see his emote in the chat (BIG BOSS grabs a boulder – “uhoh, better watch for that flying boulder now”)?

so when you die afterwards you know “hm, there was something happening” and look for it the next time. in gw2 you open the combat log and see “boss ability XY has hit you for 40k damage”). it’s like someone in a dim-lit room throws a ball as hard as he can without even shouting catch

don’t forget this game is a REVOLUTION! hiding stuff is revolutionary!

as for the cutscene etc: you have all that. you even have npcs with you most of the time (as useless as they are) that could say something. I would expect to run a story mode, see a boss and the npc telling me what to look for (watch out he will pull you!) – and then in explorable this would be used among others in more involved mechanics. this way there would be a progression and learning curve.

with more accessibility and proper handholding (inb4 casuals, but not everybody wants to look up strats and read wikis) I bet a lot less people would have issues with the dungeons

Gies.3824:

Subject Alpha’s spammy rock spikes that WILL eventually hit you: Wait a few seconds in the AoE then dodge you will still be in the circle and evade everything. Also the spiky rocks have huge holes in the middle that you can just stand in.

you’re talking about 2 different abilities here. the ice aoe (tooth of m-whatever) exists in every route, you have to dodge it. the fire aoe is different per route. transporter has the small aoe which you can easily walk out of (thus the fight is quite a few notches easier compared to the other routes), frontgate route has the spike which he does in front of him – you can’t really dodge it, you hardly see when it comes, you WILL get hit if subject alpha looks at you at that moment. and since he runs around a lot cause everybody has to dodge/move every 5-10 seconds this can happen anytime between the ice aoe’s.

the “evade everything” comes from the fact that when you dodge you trigger a hidden 100% evade (the game does not check your location against the attack, it simply makes you evade everything for that time). plenty of times I was IN the aoe and attack range and evaded it simply because I dodged

Gies.3824:

Subject Alpha encasing and simultaneously slamming you with an AoE.
Have whoever in your group that is not reliant on condition damage killing crystal when they are up, there is a few seconds before the AoE. Most importantly don’t have multiple people go into downed state over one crystal if someone does get hit in a crystal just get them up.

subject alpha spams his aoes under everyone every few seconds, even if people ress you and you miss the split second you have an overlapping aoe-field (=harder to dodge out of). you can ress at SA if you time it correctly/ with luck – but in a group that can’t manage to focus and destroy the crystal in time, you think they’re able to time the ress properly?

anyway, the topic was mob hp, and even IF you ace every boss it’s still a drag since the base mechanic isn’t that involving that you don’t notice the hp. sure, it might be only 5 minutes, still doesn’t change the fact that a lot of people find it tedious. pointless trash that is just a damage-sponge doesn’t improve the feel of tedium.

Hawken.7932:

Gray.9650:

Hawken.7932:

You get the helm, because story mode is just an introduction to the dungeon and the helm is the “free” piece you get for doing it. What do you expect to be rewarded with for story mode?

you only get the helm the first time, it has the same model as every other and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t scale.
also given the current state of story modes that are harder than some of the explorable routes of the dungeon, it’s hardly a worthy reward.

don’t forget you can’t run story modes alone, right now there is 0 incentive to do it twice. good luck finding a group in a month.

This is the thing with dungeons and the dungeon gear in general — scale, no. What they do is provide you with a rare skin, and you are free to keep that skin and transmute it onto whatever gear you want. This is why the rewards from the low level dungeons are still valid — because once you have the skin, it’s yours.

eh.. it’s a generic model, nothing special. so no one really cares about the model (besides, most people have helmet display disabled).
and even if it would scale so you can use it with the stats for a different build it only drops once. right now there is no incentive to do a story mode twice (there wasn’t really one before the nerf, and even less now)

shaidyn.4016:

If you’ve been reading the information coming from the developers, it’s pretty obvious they’re happy with the level of difficulty. And so is a significant portion of the database.

Why don’t you see more people on the forums saying how happy they are? Because they’re all in game, having fun. The only reason I show up on the forums so much is to be a voice of positivity for the developers. I think they’re doing a good job, and I want them to know it.

not to interrupt the discussion, but:
- only a fraction of players bothers to post feedback (both positive and negative) on the forums
- you see more people posting negative stuff because they want to vent or improve the game (again, both good and bad)
- just because they don’t post doesn’t mean they are happy. I won’t throw any estimates around, since it serves no one, but I think we can all agree that a lot of people unhappy with the game just stop playing without coming to the forums.

if the rest is significant enough to buy gems – we’ll see.

Hawken.7932:

You get the helm, because story mode is just an introduction to the dungeon and the helm is the “free” piece you get for doing it. What do you expect to be rewarded with for story mode?

you only get the helm the first time, it has the same model as every other and I’m pretty sure it doesn’t scale.
also given the current state of story modes that are harder than some of the explorable routes of the dungeon, it’s hardly a worthy reward.

don’t forget you can’t run story modes alone, right now there is 0 incentive to do it twice. good luck finding a group in a month.

Hawken.7932:

Here I believe (personally) is the source of the problem. The encounters are not badly designed, people are just trying to zerg them, from what I’ve exprienced in all of the bad groups so far, and I would guess often in glass-cannon type builds. You can’t really blame people for this, because there’s not much in the open PvE world which teaches people anything other than “zerg bosses”

that’s what I meant with accessibility, and I mentioned in another post somewhere. there is no real progression, not good explanation or anything. It’s not surprising that if you don’t teach players properly they react accordingly if you slap them in the face without explanation (sure, you can educate yourself, but lets face it, a lot don’t want to, so a certain amount of handholding is needed if you want to engage these players)

a lot comes from the transition into a new system (DD as glass cannons etc, but that’s something you see in tsw which still has the trinity), but I think a lot more people would value and experience the dungeons differently if the changes would have explained better.

Hawken.7932:

So here I don’t really see you explaining why it’s a bad reward system, I see you again saying that you think the dungeons aren’t fun, and I guess that’s because you feel they are too hard.

that’s another thing I mentioned in several other posts (think 1 in the dungeon update thread), they might be considered “hard” but they’re a not difficult. a common complaint even in beta was that moves are badly telegraphed. now I don’t need a DBM popup right in my face (and I think some people are spoiled by it), but a move you can hardly see, worse when the boss is an explosion of particle effects and half his aoe-circles are hidden in geometry that oneshots you is imho bad design. it’s not fun when half the fight is not fighting the actual boss but working around the bugged/bad designed systems. it’s like the game turning your screen blank every minute for 10 seconds – you can still do it, it’s “hard” but hardly challenging or entertaining.

it’s not impossible, I’ve finished plenty of dungeons without many deaths, but it could have been done so much better, which would also affect the accessibility I mentioned above. for example tsw has done a way better job in teaching players and using the same mechanics gw2 uses. they also have less than a handful trash mobs over all instances and in most cases you can even skip them).

as for rewards, I also mentioned that elsewhere. gw1 has almost no bound items, so everything can be traded – this means whatever I do I can progress towards my personal goal. either get money to buy the mats for the armor, get the mats myself, get another item to trade/sell, all with a character I wanted to play in that moment.
It gave people a freedom of choice while still offering progression. now, in gw2 if you don’t do these dungeons for tokens there is no progression towards that armor. ofc you can argue “well then, pic another one” – but that path is equally narrow (and you have to agree that world exploration, events or zerging down dragons isn’t something you do for months, even when arena touts it as endgame", especially when said alternatives get nerfed left and right)

a lot could be alleviated by making the tokens account bound. and letting us transfer tokens between dungeons a certain amount a day so people are not forced to grind the same dungeon over and over.
it’s still quite a step back compared to gw1 (and why I find calling gw2 a revolution is hilarious ironic)
heck, they could’ve emulated gw1 and make the armors require tradeable tokens from the instance, money and a chunk of crafting materials in amounts you can’t get in 1 day (or it would be painfully expensive) and/or gate it with karma, but it’s too late for that now.

Hawken.7932:

I’m not stressing about doing the dungeon again and again and again, I consider it a sideline goal — as there are plenty of other things to do in the game, so bit by bit, I will get those dungeon sets without ever feeling the grind of it.

People wanted and craving to have those dungeon sets “right now” is the real problem, imho.

I’m afraid that’s how they want people to play. “do a bit of this a day, a bit of that, but not too much at once because we don’t want you to progress too fast”.
that might work for you, but not for everybody. people don’t like to get dictated how they are supposed to spend their time unless it fits the developers envisioned path.

as for the “gimme right now”, I don’t think people have a problem with time investment over a long time (see gw1), but that the option to progress are quite limited (I’m sure there are people that just want it nownownow, but I think that’s a minority).

Kana.6793:

There’s plenty of other exotic armour that you can get in a week. The time and effort it takes to get dungeon armour is the entire point of the dungeon armour.

no, the point of the armor is to provide a carrot you can chase to keep you playing (and buy their gems while you’re at it). cause, let’s face it: why should someone buy gems if he doesn’t play the game?

inb4 I want welfare armor and I’m too lazy to work for the look of my character no one gives a crap about but me.

Adzy.8370:

Ok you asked why is Dungeon armor considered prestige. Well it is prestige because of the sheer time investment and difficulty that it takes to obtain a full set. That is why when you see someone with a full set, you think “wow, that player looks awesome.”

it’s called prestige because they vaguely resemble the prestige armor in gw1 in terms of long term goal (with a lot less variety in progression).
fun fact: if you wanted you could simply buy your way to most armors. still players perceived them as special. what does that say about “hardcore” and “prestige”?

RobinotX.1604:

@ Gray,

The whole point of those dungeons was to give people something to do. Something to work for.

If you want your easy excotics then you are welcome to do that. You can craft or buy them from different vendors.

If you have to take time for it, then you should play dungeons. People walking around in CoF gear pre-buff. Shouldn’t be proud wearing it. They didn’t do anything for it, they where lazy.

Yes, they should change some things in the rewards system. Or making it a less sinkhole of money. Cause the skillcap is a little bit to high right now.

I never said in this thread or anywhere else on this forum I want easy exotics. why do people always assume that if you don’t agree with the status quo you only do it because you want easy mode everywhere (especially after I wrote a game needs long-term goals)?

people running around with the armor now are hardly lazy. they have in fact run the dungeon enough times for the tokens. that is anything but lazy. and who said they’re proud? maybe they just wanted a cool looking armor for their char and it was the COF armor. who cares? doesn’t affect me one bit.
so they have it, everybody knows it was faster to get then others, so?

if people want to impress in this game it’s definitely not with armor that simply states “I’ve done this dungeon 50 times and all I got what this armor”.

the problem right now is a lot of people have a different problem with dungeons (difficulty curve, accessibility, design, rewards etc), which boils down to a general “dungeons are crap!”

my personal issue with dungeons is this:
- bad design
making stuff hard to see and slapping obscene amounts of hp on bosses/trash is not challenging. high hp trash is dull, I can hardly see someone go grinding down that champ and say “I’m having so much fun right now! I swung a sword! hey, I swung it again! squeeeee”

- bad reward system
I don’t have a problems with grinding for tokens or investing time to get something, as long as I have fun doing it. sure, fun is subjective, but where’s the flexibility from gw1 to work towards the armor I want with what I perceive as fun and still be able to progress? grinding exactly one dungeon for one set of armor is hardly a revolutionary concept (especially when most mmos already abandoned it).

others have a different opinion/expectation regarding rewards, some want cool loot every run in the chest, other want a random factor so every run is a gamble (to each his own).

just because someone disagrees or questions the current state doesn’t mean he ultimately plots to destroy someone else’s fun.

Xlore.9234:

Gray.9650:

Fay.2735:

To grind would suggest you’re doing something you dislike in order to gain something you need. You don’t NEED the gear and it’s there for those wishing to show their achievement and experience but to be fair even so the amount of tokens required is a bit steep though not impossible.

well, I already said it in another post, but when it’s cosmetics only why does it matter if it’s a long grind or not? who’s gonna hurt if someone else runs around in cool armor?

the armor as “achievement” currently simply shows you have a lot of time spend in that dungeon. it doesn’t say anything how good you performed on these runs or how long it took – just that you did it enough times to have the required number of tokens. what type of achievement is this?

why does it have to be an achievement?
Why can’t it be just someone getting armor they want?

he said it’s an achievement, not me. that’s why I quoted his message.

Xlore.9234:

Gray.9650:

Xlore.9234:

First of all.
You don’t need to do the dungeons.
Second of all the token count on armor is fine since you do not need to do the dungeons.
and lastly. Stop doing pugs.
This whole section of the forums is ridiculous.
You can go craft armor for the same stats as the dungeon armor.
You don’t need it, and if you do want it, you obviously have a reason to go get the tokens.
There is no grind because i would hope you aren’t trying to do something you don’t find fun.
Should stop playing if you’re doing that.

that doesn’t even make sense.

What part do you not get?

well, the whole post is hogwash, but “Second of all the token count on armor is fine since you do not need to do the dungeons.” is probably my favourite.

I know what you want to say, but you didn’t really accomplish it with that post.

Fay.2735:

To grind would suggest you’re doing something you dislike in order to gain something you need. You don’t NEED the gear and it’s there for those wishing to show their achievement and experience but to be fair even so the amount of tokens required is a bit steep though not impossible.

well, I already said it in another post, but when it’s cosmetics only why does it matter if it’s a long grind or not? who’s gonna hurt if someone else runs around in cool armor?

the armor as “achievement” currently simply shows you have a lot of time spend in that dungeon. it doesn’t say anything how good you performed on these runs or how long it took – just that you did it enough times to have the required number of tokens. what type of achievement is this?

Xlore.9234:

First of all.
You don’t need to do the dungeons.
Second of all the token count on armor is fine since you do not need to do the dungeons.
and lastly. Stop doing pugs.
This whole section of the forums is ridiculous.
You can go craft armor for the same stats as the dungeon armor.
You don’t need it, and if you do want it, you obviously have a reason to go get the tokens.
There is no grind because i would hope you aren’t trying to do something you don’t find fun.
Should stop playing if you’re doing that.

that doesn’t even make sense.

Adzy.8370:

i think you are missing the point. why must every thing be easy to obtain? some things need to be harder to obtain than others. this level 80 exotic gear it supposed to be prestige, so therefore it should be earned with hard work, not just handed over to every single player as they hit level 80.

I didn’t say it should, I just disagree with the notion just because it’s cosmetic it’s suddenly completely different from the geargrind in other mmo’s

I agree with the rest of your previous post (couldn’t edit my message because their forum software has the same quality as their endgame) – grind is relative, but long-term rewards are needed, even without a subscription. I think more people have an issue with the way these items are acquired than the time investment itself. no one complained about prestige armor in gw1, and it was a sometimes even worse grind than doing a dungeon 50 times and be done with it (unless you want the weapon. and the gift. and the recipe).

my problem is more that almost no one runs these events besides people too weak for ML/CS or the time when balthazar is up. I like straits, but ask yourself – why do it at 80?

Adzy.8370:

Working hard does not equal grind. Dungeon Exotic Armor is end-game gear specifically for AESTHETIC looks only, which means you can get the same stats on your gear by doing other things, but if you want to look good then get this Dungeon Exotic Armor.

The GRIND is optional. You are not forced to do this “Grind” if you want your Character to be stronger. This Exotic Set should not just be handed over to any casual player who gets carried through a Dungeon.

come on, I think we both know that it’s about the carrot and to keep players playing, no matter if the reward is a step in the item treadmill or a cosmetic reward.

also, that argument works both ways. if it’s just cosmetic why does it have to be a grind? it doesn’t make you stronger so who’s getting hurt if people run around in cool armor?

Robert Hrouda.1327:

we’re very aware that our reward system is not up to par for dungeons. It is something we are actively working on right now, to try and find a solution for. I’m not going to talk about what our plans are because I don’t want us to be trapped in promises, but I will say this: We know, and are actively working on updating the system.

I’m curious, did you guys notice that just now? because given some aspects of the system compared to the rest it’s hard to comprehend how it ever made it out of the brainstorming phase.
like, non level 80 rewards for AC/CM. really? did honestly someone high enough believe the majority of people would grind for these on their way to 80 to USE them at 60/70? when dungeons where supposed to be ENDgame? with dungeons in their current state?
or claiming you don’t want the dungeons to feel grindy and then require an abysmal amount of runs? did you honestly believe your dungeons, which were designed to be on the level of DOA, would be so much fun for a lot of players that they enjoy them so much it doesn’t feel grindy? did none of the decision makers ever play another mmo?

if you ran out of time and couldn’t conceive a proper system instead of wow 2009, tell us and we will say “ok, take your time but do it right”, but right now it’s hard to see any thoughtful planning or what the intention behind is (ESPECIALLY compared to the information released years and months before launch).

This would solve some of the problems for sure.

imho it doesn’t, it would just shift some of complains/expectations. difficulty is relative (unless the gaps are big enough you actually have separate difficulties)

for example the groups I run with do fine on hodgins, but the struggle on the asura route, so if you ask them I doubt they’d say asura is easier than human.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

I’m not about to say this fight was tested with all class/race variations (that would take way too long). We did however test it in the following conditions related to your concerns:
-No poison
-No quickness
-Natural level 75

you know, a LOT of questions would be answered if you’d give us more details how you actually test dungeons. because right now, given the current balance of some encounters (the “fixed” magg bomb phase for example) makes it hard to believe you don’t just cheese your way through (and it would help to understand how you guys actually see us running these dungeons).

on what criteria do you guys choose your composition? traits? professions? combo effectiveness? how much flexibility do you allow? or do you always go “we definitely need these two profession with this weapon/traits for this or that combo”? do you test it with a not absolute optimum comp for some leeway?
how “life-like” are your runs? do you test every encounter separately (which means you trait per encounter, not dungeon and change composition midway)? do you expect us to port out and trait for every encounter? do you test it with a random comp and even stacked professions (sometimes you end up with 2 guards and 2 warriors on top)?

Tradewind.6913:

No, you made an assumption that I’m only playing the game for 30 minutes at a time and have no goals like legendaries based on misinterpreting my comment on how the diminishing returns have not affected me yet.

seems either you didn’t want to or couldn’t see the “maybe” and the several scenarios I provided.

either way, going around “y u mad?” just because it doesn’t affect you YET is quite shortsighted. you might have found alternatives that are entertaining for you, for others these alternatives aren’t. so the question how this game is supposed to be played if the message is “either play as you’re supposed to or suffer the consequences” is still valid, especially given the fact that arena wants people to play (and in effect buy their gems/expansions).

nerva.7940:

the DR system has not affected me at all either. if it means dragon bosses are done less frequently, then fine. theyre not really meant to be “farmed”.

no? even if arena touts that as part of their “endgame”? interesting.

it also doesn’t mean people farm dragon spawns specifically

DusK.3849:

So yes, I’m correct; you’re complaining that ArenaNet turned off a low-risk/low-effort, high reward karma fountain. Spread out, do different events, find different things to do instead of sitting in one spot doing the same event over and over, and those diminishing returns will disappear.

I got hit by it in straits doing the southern invasion from start to the landing and the cathedral part twice. I don’t think you can do events more normally.

nice theory tho.

Tradewind.6913:

Gray.9650:

Tradewind.6913:

That’s a lot of generalizations on things that you can’t possibly know.

now, it’s actually quite easy to figure out when you claim you haven’t encountered the DR system yet.

I said it hasn’t affected me, that’s not the same as I have not encountered it. The difference is that I just don’t care all that much. I make my gold by other means and fill my time with activities that don’t involve farming for inordinate amounts of time. Leveling alts, hopping between dragon spawns, playing the trading post etc.

hu? isn’t that what I said? you might not be affected by it now, but even you will feel the repercussions later if they stick to it. like doing that dragon spawn if only 3 people bother to show up because the rest has DR on drops and karma.

Crise.9401:

Gray.9650:

Kain Francois.4328:

A holy-trinity-meta hasn’t been discovered yet, or at least it’s very low profile. So in the process of fixing the dungeons, I think ANET has also been studying how players compete against overpowered foes.

you mean the exact comp the devs run it and any deviation is recipe for fail?

If you read Robert Hrouda’s post in another topic… already linked here, they do not have such comp… they can run it with different compositions.

I did, and I also read colin’s post about the similarity with DOA. well, if you played gw1 you know what that means.

Fatalyz.7168:

@ Gray

I understood your point, was just making my point clearer. If those target groups are having difficulty, then yes it is an issue. I more or less got tired of seeing the generic “I can’t PUG this anymore” threads and was trying to address those specifically :P

As far as explorable’s the only one I’ve completed thus far was CM butler path, and that was a pain, granted it was first explorable that I had done and was only lvl 45 or 46, can’t remember. Just hit 80 not long ago and helping my group catch up so I am looking forward to more. Although that wasn’t part of my post, just to let you know about me.

my problem with the whole “you’re not supposed to pug it!” (and why I maybe reacted a little bit over-sensitive to your post – sorry ‘bout that) is not that the dungeons are so challenging they can’t be pugged, just that the game does a) a crappy job teaching players properly and b) are crappy designed (ie. high mob hp does make it challenging. making it hard to see oneshot moves is not challenging. letting bugs slip through because their testteam can work around them is not challenging) to the point they are no fun.

whenever you mention that, you usually encounter said devquote and/or something in the vain of “go back to wow if you want ez-mode”.

I don’t want it easy, I want a challenge – but not by faking challenge to make it “hard” (“we made this boss incredibly challenging and hard – at 20% your screen wents black! our internal testteams were able to complete it successfully, so if you can’t than we’re sorry but that content is not for you”).

what many people forget (and a.net as well) a major part in mmos is socializing, meeting new people to form groups which then become said fixed coordinated groups. but if you make the road so inaccessible (not easy!) that a majority doesn’t even want to do it anymore, who are you gonna do these dungeons with? the tight-knit group of guildies won’t be there for ever, people on your friendslist won’t drag you through a dungeons for you tokens endlessly.

Tradewind.6913:

That’s a lot of generalizations on things that you can’t possibly know.

now, it’s actually quite easy to figure out when you claim you haven’t encountered the DR system yet.

Lysidian.4653:

I personally need over 550,000karma just for the obsidian shards I need for just one aspect of the legendary I am working towards. At roughly 379karma per DE….. thats 1452 DEs needed. Now throw in the diminishing returns, remind me again why I am getting diminishing returns when I need such an obscene number of events just for ONE ingame goal? Even if I managed to do 100 DEs a day, it will still take me 14.52 days just to accomplish that one goal, to make one item, which is only one step of many to complete a legendary.

if you don’t get karma anymore, use the gold to buy them on the TP. if you don’t get gold anymore.. well, you can buy them with gems.

how dare you trying to get all the mats yourself’!

Tradewind.6913:

What would be the alternative though? Everyone wants their cake and to eat it too here. Without really considering the alternative. Had they done nothing about the exploitation of resources in this game. I’m of a mind that this is a temporary thing anyway. Until a more elegant solution can be derived. But I can’t say it’s ever really impacted me any. I guess we play this game very differently. Which is why I get upset when people start using words like “everyone,” not you specifically. But really, in this case ANet couldn’t win, but at least this solution has less long term issues, if it does prove to be temporary as I believe it to be.

“hi, this is arena, we developed gw2 for over 5 years and had a lot of success with our first title, gw1 as well. so please bear with us if we act like a 3 man indie devstudio and can’t get our basic endgame design and progression right even with a special economist on the payroll”

the people that have a problem with it now are you in a month. maybe you play 30-60 minutes a day only where you don’t encounter any limitations dictated by the game yet, which is fine. maybe you don’t want a legendary and you’re fine with spvp or pushing 10+ chars to 80 to see every story and enjoy the world. but when you’ve seen everything several times, and after the majority already moved to another game because it’s better entertainment – what are YOU going to do?

Holyfrog.1956:

i just dont get why botters are so bad in this MMO, surely they would damage the economy a little bit because they can farm 24/7 where others cant but realy that would just lower the prices in the TP a bit which are high anyways, what else can t do much, a botter who got his nice shiny plate cant do more than i can, but please if i missed something enlighten me =)

who would buy gems if they can get wads of gold in the game easily?