Guild Wars 2

So, ranger ax 5 tooltip is wrong… I haven’t used offhand ax much, so OK. And warriors need to trait for it — got it.

I would have a difficult time going to an MMO — old or new that:

• Made me pay a sub fee
• Rooted me routinely in combat (this was Tera action combat’s big fail for me)
• Made me compete for objectives, nodes, etc.
• Use quests with the whole go here, do that, come back, now go back to the same spot and … ad infinitum

So, despite GW2’s faults, I like it.

I love underwater combat on warrior, necromancer, ranger and thief. I’m OK with it on guardian, engineer (only because grenades are not stupid kitten ground-targeted) or mesmer. I hate it on elementalist.

jportell.2197:

Lucas Ashrock.8675:

I don’t remember my necro having a reflect with similar results. Am i wrong?

You may be one of the only ones that don’t but I know

Engi’s
Guardians
Thieves
Mesmers
Ele’s
Warriors
Rangers (mayyybbbeee)

All have reflect. so necro might be the only class that doesn’t

Necros are not the only class. Rangers only get it underwater. Warriors? What skill would that be?

This is not all that new. I saw it nearly a month ago. The break point seems to be about 6-8 players for downing the acolytes before he regenerates to full. Can people do Lyssa with 8? Balthazar? With the new chest rewards, it shouldn’t be that hard to entice people in zone or from players’ guilds to come.

I find the mechanic more interesting than just ablating his health bar while trying to avoid his AoE. While he is not the most complex boss in gaming, this is a step in the “more interesting” direction. I’m sure that in a diverse community you will find people who like the mechanic and those who don’t. I think of it this way: the fight was made more interesting without making it more deadly. Grenth on the other hand is both.

This may be a server issue, but mine is hardly a high-pop server and we regularly clear Melandru.

Shootsfoot.9276:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Copying WoW worked fabulously for SWtOR and TERA. Look! They went FTP so even more people can enjoy them. /sarcasm

Why must all games be the same? Companies that try to copy the standard stuff are criticized for not being innovative and for leaving out (insert feature x, which many people cannot do without). Companies that try something new are criticized for not including all of the old standbys and for not being innovative enough. The gaming customer base is broad and diverse enough that no game is going to get “it” right for everyone.

I’m not going to tell people who want the features in the OP to go elsewhere, but I am going to ask, "Given the pre-launch publicity of GW2, why did you buy it if you wanted all those features?

Well, pretty sure the vast majority here don’t want a WoW/Tera/whatever clone. But features found in those games don’t automatically make them bad, nor does it mean those people suggesting them should leave this game or question why they purchased it. LFG, guild management tools, a guild calendar, and improvements on dungeon mechanics are all examples of features this game needs and there are many more.

I do have to say, the boss mechanics in WoW raids are far, far superior to the boss mechanics in these dungeons. But, like I said, I can see they are working on tuning them, which is a good thing.

It would be kind of fun to be able to take a group of GW2 characters into a WoW dungeon or raid with GW2 aggro mechanics.

I’m not convinced there is a vast majority in this game’s player-base that would agree about anything. I do expect some of the features you list to make it into GW2 sooner or later. I don’t expect the classic trinity to make an appearance, though, nor classic instanced raids.

When I found out tOR was using WoW style combat mechanics, I chose not to buy the game rather than buy it and then complain it didn’t have interesting combat. I asked my question because I was trying to wrap my head around why someone who wants certain features would buy a game that says it won’t have them? If I had to guess at the answer, I’d say they: bought the game without first checking it out; were misled by 3rd party site hype from ignorant fans; or expected that whatever features “replaced” the features they wanted would be better than they are finding it to be. However, since I am not in that demographic, I could be very wrong on all counts.

LordGustoff.3752:

Something else I have been thinking about since posting this thread: The game has gone through some major changes since launch, that people feel like the company has betrayed them. I wonder how many of these changes have been made because it turns out that in practice some of the design philosophies they really wanted to include just doesn’t work in the MMO game format?

The only part of the philosophy that has been abandoned is “no vertical progression.” Horizontal progression works in an MMO format, it just didn’t work for enough customers to satisfy the financial decision makers. I’ll get back to you if they change classes to provide for tanks and healers.

Aeonblade.8709:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Copying WoW worked fabulously for SWtOR and TERA. Look! They went FTP so even more people can enjoy them. /sarcasm

Why must all games be the same? Companies that try to copy the standard stuff are criticized for not being innovative and for leaving out (insert feature x, which many people cannot do without). Companies that try something new are criticized for not including all of the old standbys and for not being innovative enough. The gaming customer base is broad and diverse enough that no game is going to get “it” right for everyone.

I’m not going to tell people who want the features in the OP to go elsewhere, but I am going to ask, "Given the pre-launch publicity of GW2, why did you buy it if you wanted all those features?

Most companies claim they have the newest and most revolutionary MMO yet. That is nothing new, and it didn’t change my view about the game at all, I came into it expecting another MMO, and that’s pretty much what it is without proper aggro mechanics and grouping features, but with added bonuses like DEs, WvW, and Personal Story.

The combat is amazing and classes fun to play, and it did have some cool new ideas, I love WvW and no quest hubs, but on the whole, it didn’t really change anything about MMOs, and showed why trinity is as important as it is. If you are getting rid of aggro mechanics that work, at least have a working replacement.

Don’t take this as a bash post, because I have no intention on leaving this beautiful world Anet has created again anytime soon, but I didn’t expect anything groundbreaking with this game so maybe that’s why I’m enjoying it.

This is an important point, because dashed expectations are the cause of a lot of the rage posts in game forums.

I’m not going to buy any of the hoodies, aviator sunglasses or such. I would buy the riding pants if I could transmute them onto armor. Between the hoodies and most of the male human hairstyles, I tend to think of fashions I see at a mall instead of in a quasi-steampunk setting.

Copying WoW worked fabulously for SWtOR and TERA. Look! They went FTP so even more people can enjoy them. /sarcasm

Why must all games be the same? Companies that try to copy the standard stuff are criticized for not being innovative and for leaving out (insert feature x, which many people cannot do without). Companies that try something new are criticized for not including all of the old standbys and for not being innovative enough. The gaming customer base is broad and diverse enough that no game is going to get “it” right for everyone.

I’m not going to tell people who want the features in the OP to go elsewhere, but I am going to ask, "Given the pre-launch publicity of GW2, why did you buy it if you wanted all those features?

In games, drop rates are going to be calculated to produce drop frequency that the devs think will work for the game’s economy. I don’t doubt that when deciding what those rates would be for GW2, the devs took MF into account. If there were no MF, I believe the overall drop rates would have been somewhat higher.

That’s what I thought the OP was going to say.

CassieGold.7460:

A few things I wanted to offer up:

1) Stacking and Reflection use are both natural responses to current design. It’s commonly referred to as ‘meta’ because it is an effective tactic that has the highest ease of use for the broadest player base and gains general acceptance. Meta tactics have existed in most games and represent neither exploits nor an activity that ’goes against the design of the game._ It is simply a commonly accepted, efficient method of dealing with the puzzle that devs present in encounters.

2) Any change in encounter design will prompt a change in Meta. That is the nature of the game. If devs add encounter mechanics that discourage close grouping (attacks that bounce and become more punishing with more bounces as an example) you’ll see shifts towards builds that reward use of swiftness and a focus on range so that parties can spread out more.

I don’t want to argue that the status quo is the best thing in the world, but, remember, it’s taken six+ months for the state of the game to reach this point. That’s not a bad life cycle for a strong meta to emerge and take hold. It actually argues well for the level of complexity in encounters and the diversity of encounters.

Well said. Dungeon difficulty assumes that players will use the skills the game provides them. If reflection is doing a lot of damage, it’s because the mob is doing a lot of damage. If this tactic is “overused” in current dungeon play, it is because it is the ideal mechanic for many situations. Once the mob behavior is altered, it might be less attractive. However, one thing to consider is that most of the group support abilities in GW2 require the entire group to be close together if all are to benefit.

critickitten.1498:

Baeyne.9584:

I actually laughed at the sarcasm in his post. But yes, i would agree with you that people should refrain from insulting other people for their opinions.

Although, i would also encourage people to post constructively in this forums and not just post to whine about something.

I would normally agree, except that it seems this forum has a very different definition of “whining” than most other forums and is excessively hyper-defensive of the game and every decision that ANet makes. I’m not sure if this is an overreaction to some of the more vocal negative complaints or simply a refusal to acknowledge that every game has its faults, but it doesn’t make for a very productive discussion if everything negative is considered “whining”.

Characterizing complaints as “whining” is a way to generate agreement with the like-minded, belittle the complainer’s position and look like that poster is one of the cool kids. It’s a cheap tactic to try to “win” an argument. Since it is an insult, I think every post that uses the term in such a fashion should be moderated.

Nabrok.9023:

Halanna.3927:

…

The monthlies are fine as they are, leave WvW, fractals and dungeons out of them, or make it muti-choice so those who don’t enjoy that content won’t be subjected to it and can still complete their monthly.

It was way too easy this month. Done in 4 days, and that’s only because we had to do 4 dailies. This is just through regular play as well, I did not go out of my way to kill vets or do events, those things come very quickly with even moderate WvW play.

I know they want them to be casual friendly, but this is just too casual friendly.

Dailies and monthlies were put in to give everyone a reachable objective, even players who cannot play often or for very long per session. Why do you care how little or how much time it takes?

Ardenwolfe.8590:

ToT.7018:

FLFW.3105:

I’ve done my monthly in like 3 days and i play 2hours a day max. UMAD monthly?

How did you do it in 3 days when part of the monthly was to finish the daily achievement?
I had to wait for day 4 to finish my monthly so how did you get around this?

Server restarts. If you’ve done a daily, and they restart, you can sometimes get a ‘new’ daily. Some people have benefited from this with an extra laurel.

I know this occurred at least once this month.

Also, since the server resets at 12:00 GMT, someone in the states could do the March 1 daily during the evening of February 28. Thus, it was possible to have done 4 dailies by the evening of March 3rd. In this case, though, it took 4 days, but one of them was not in the player’s March.

If Sir Isaac Newton had been a gamer, he might have said, “Every developer action to address a player complaint produces an equal and opposite complaint.”

I expect something will happen, be it reduced chances, limited guesting or something no one has thought of yet.

The changes require a new learning curve. If you learned the old AC, you can learn the new one. Good luck.

Serkev.5736:

DeathPanel.8362:

Serkev.5736:

yes i did kitten 1 out of 4 guys off but does that warrant a kick especially after running the entire dungeon with them. the kick system clearly needs to be fixed it should require 4 votes instead of 1 and after a certain point in the dungeon kicking should not be possible at all. you know i’m right

The moral of the story is treat teammates with respect and this will most likely not happen.

you’re probably one of those that abuses the kick system

Hmm, an accusation delivered absent any evidence. That’s sure treating people the way you want to be treated! While the party kick system is fraught with the potential for abuse, you’re not making your case as the victim with statements like this.

I saw this behavior in the “Defeat the Risen Worshipers in King’s Passage” event. The Champion uses the new Risen Noble Mechanics. Its target would try to get away from the incessant teleport-symbol-pull/knockdown spam with each symbol tick doing 2-4K health. The mob would follow, so would the other players. Then it would leash, regenerating quickly to full.

This may be a “necessary evil.” However, if the mob is getting out-of-combat regen, why are the players still in combat? If it is truly leashing, why does it get to its leash area, then turn right around and come back? My money’s on a “necessary” mechanic with some bugs.

Stoppable.5814:

Rare Ring:
42
42
59

Exotic Ring:
48
48
67

Ascended Ring:
50
50
71

I rest my case.

Your “case” is incomplete.

Rare Ring (190 stat points)
59 + 21 = 80
42 + 13 = 55
42 + 13 = 55

Exotic Ring (218 stat points)
67 + 25 = 92
48 + 15 = 63
48 + 15 = 63

Ascended Ring (239 stat points)
71 + 32 = 103
50 + 18 = 68
50 + 18 = 68

As good of an idea as this might have been if implemented originally, you cannot put the Ascended genie back in the bottle without generating an equivalent or worse outcry from the people that have invested playtime and effort in getting it.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Risen Preservers: When you see the anchor/pickaxe thrown at you, dodge immediately left or right to avoid being pulled.

That was the Putrifier, not the Preserver. Preserver’s two moves are the AoE heal/damage red circle and a jump-in-the-air-PBAoE-knock. In the “new Risen,” the Putrifier still throws its anchor, but instead of pulling you, it does nothing but a tiny bit of damage, and the attempt seems to self-root the mob. That will hopefully be fixed.

In the Dwayna temple event, the statue will raise its hand, and emit a lot of fire-like bolts. You can actually dodge once the projectiles leave the hand, whereas dodging on the hand raise may be too soon. It helps tremendously to have your PoV tilted back to be able to see the raised hand. If your PoV is focused down or even horizontally (depending on how close you are), you won’t see the bolts until too late. If you are reviving, it is best to do so while looking above the statue as it likes to target revivers with those bolts.

fony.5102:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Maestro.5376:

Can’t talk about gear progression, since we’re talking on-level here. Level 80s scaled down to 35 don’t get as much gear progression as lvl 85s in WoW going back to do a lvl 60 raid, remember. So you’d have to talk about doing dungeons in WoW at the level they were meant to be done, or any experience you have is irrelevant.

The comment on progression was solely related to raids. If the WoW forums are correct (which is in itself questionable), Blizzard dumbed down dungeons as time went on. Maybe that had already happened when I was there, I don’t know. Maybe I just was blessed with really good tanks for a year. I just know what I experienced. I may be wrong as far as actual numbers are concerned, but the subjective experience is what it is.

happened twice over TBC, huge swaths of nerfs. mob HP, mob damage, mod level, mob type across all dungeons. this along with the rightful changes to talent trees and gear(good itemization and better talents and scaling meant more DPS achieved, mnore healing and better threa generated) back then made virtually every dungeon lik CoF path 1. the exceptions were underbog, steamvaults and shadow labs which still had several mob packs with more than on strong enemy in them, and the massive amount of bad tanks which still infests the playerbase to this day made pugging those taboo.

that’s why people in any MMO today expect a 5 minute dungeon run, do not speak and do not res or help out others. WoW made sure you almost never were killed unless you were exceptionally bad, you of course didn’t have to look out for yourself, CC was not necessary at all since mid 2007 outside of raiding and very few heroics. and since you overgeared everything at a certain point that helped add a new layer of mindlessness.

Thanks for the info. This would certainly explain why I was perceiving that other MMO dungeons were easier than GW2’s. Perhaps it was the vanilla/early BC stuff that was harder and that is what the other posters are remembering.

/derail end

Maestro.5376:

Can’t talk about gear progression, since we’re talking on-level here. Level 80s scaled down to 35 don’t get as much gear progression as lvl 85s in WoW going back to do a lvl 60 raid, remember. So you’d have to talk about doing dungeons in WoW at the level they were meant to be done, or any experience you have is irrelevant.

The comment on progression was solely related to raids. If the WoW forums are correct (which is in itself questionable), Blizzard dumbed down dungeons as time went on. Maybe that had already happened when I was there, I don’t know. Maybe I just was blessed with really good tanks for a year. I just know what I experienced. I may be wrong as far as actual numbers are concerned, but the subjective experience is what it is.

Meurik.2790:

ColinJohanson.2394:

The initial release of this system will be for WvW only. There are additional complications we need to solve with PvE due to the number and variety of creatures on screen that WvW doesn’t need to account for. Later this year, we’ll be expanding as much of the changes to the PvE open world as we can as well.

Might we eventually get a slider option, to control the number of particles going off for every single spell in the game? I’d prefer not running a slideshow whenever there is a very large battle (and yes, I have a pretty good hardware setup).

^^this^^

It might be easier to dodge massive boss hits if I could see the boss and its tell.

Maestro.5376:

IndigoSundown.5419:

A lot of people do dungeons in other MMO’s and those dungeons are in every case I’ve seen not as hard as even old AC was. The learning curve was not as punishing. It was easier to pin down problems (tank isn’t holding aggro, healer isn’t keeping tank up, DPS is targeting wrong mob and drawing aggro, people are standing in fire). Add in some of the questionable design choices in GW2 dungeons like, “Why are trash mobs a harder fight than a lot of bosses?” At least some of these people are probably looking for a similar experience — not a handout — and GW2 does not provide it.

Let’s look at a standard for dungeon design (WoW), because as much as I’d like to bash on this certain game for its subscription model and long time-commitment, there’s no denying that its team does incredibly good dungeon design.

Myrkkin.7921:

As an aside… people who think WoW is easier than GW2 mystify me… did you not play during Vanilla, BC, or WotLK when many of the fights required absolute perfection for 15 solid minutes or you were going to be restarting? Nothing in GW2 required the kind of effort that WoW raid instances, or heroic dungeons did. I have no idea how it is now, I got tired of playing a game that required 30+ hours a week just to be competitive with other players.

So I’m not really sure where all the complaints that the dungeons in this game are massively harder than those in other games are coming from. It sounds like it comes from either players who have had little/no MMO dungeoning experience, or from players who have fallen back on cheap knockoffs made by companies rushing to get on the MMO WoW profit bandwagon and as a result implemented extremely shoddy excuses for “dungeons” that provided little to no challenge to players. I would know, I’ve played some of those games XD.

I did play WoW during late BC and Wrath. I can’t say I did all of the dungeons, as I only played the game for a little over a year. I did quite a few, though, including heroics. Maybe it was just me or the people I was playing with, but the dungeons didn’t seem hard once I made the adjustment from the short cast times of heals in GW1 to the longer ones in WoW. While leveling, we 3-manned many of the earlier vanilla ones.

Absolute perfection for 15 minutes? Maybe in raids before gear progression made them obsolete. The end boss in Naxxramas was a competence check on the healers while the DPS just had to, well, dps, and not get too close to each other.

I’ll give you that dungeons in WoW were harder than the few I saw in Rift and ToR, the two biggest recent knock-offs.

One of the issues with repeatable content is that the most effective tactics quickly make their way around the player-base. Players are in many cases going to want to follow the path of least resistance. Why use inefficient tactic z when efficient tactic y gets the job done better, faster and with less risk of a wipe? If you’re running into these tactics in many pick up groups, it’s probably because they work.

Players who think there is an issue with this are free to come up with new tactics and then try to sell them to others. If you have a problem with the tactics, then it’s your problem, not the problem of people who are happy using them.

Maestro.5376:

-snip-

I don’t think armor diversity is the problem here. I think it’s just that most people prefer to get rewarded for doing little to no work, and any change from that status quo is going to create an outrage.

Maybe you’re right about armor. I just know that very time I look at the stuff that’s available it all looks like the same old same old. Outside of dungeons, skins seem to get repeated a lot.

While there might be some people looking for a handout, I think that is getting to be a time-worn defense that does not apply to everyone you’d like to apply it to. The same holds with “elitist,” “no-life” and the other derogatory names applied in these endless circular arguments.

A lot of people do dungeons in other MMO’s and those dungeons are in every case I’ve seen not as hard as even old AC was. The learning curve was not as punishing. It was easier to pin down problems (tank isn’t holding aggro, healer isn’t keeping tank up, DPS is targeting wrong mob and drawing aggro, people are standing in fire). Add in some of the questionable design choices in GW2 dungeons like, “Why are trash mobs a harder fight than a lot of bosses?” At least some of these people are probably looking for a similar experience — not a handout — and GW2 does not provide it.

I’m with you on the need for challenge in GW2. However, falling back on tired rhetoric is not going to convince anyone of the rightness of your point of view except the people who already agree with you.

Leo G.4501:

IndigoSundown.5419:

I’m going to differ here. Work should not be part of games. I’m not saying don’t have challenge. However, if the experience is one like you get “at work,” then most people are not going to think, “This is fun.” If you enjoy challenge, it should not be work, if you don’t enjoy challenge, if it’s not fun, then find something else to do. However, don’t tie the idea of pixel rewards to having to “work.”

After I typed that, I figured the term work would be misconstrued.

When I mean work, I mean effort. That is to say, I’d say having the game automatically e-mail you tokens for any dungeon you enter every day, whether you actually beat the dungeon or just entered it and logged out, would not qualify as effort.

Also, having the dungeons nerfed to the last fight in Arah path 4 (seriously, that is a stupid easy fight you literally need no strategy for) basically amounts to no effort. And that’s what I mean. The old AC was boarderline Bloodstone as most of the bosses just meant ‘hit it till it dies, press dodge for this one attack’ (dodge for 2 things for Colossus).

The new AC certainly isn’t work. It’s not even that tough but you will be involved for these bosses (unless you kitten cheat which hopefully will soon be fixed).

Well, at least I gave you a chance to clarify. Effort is a better word for what you wanted to convey. I think the furor over the new AC is already dying down to some extent. Also, ANet does seem to be trying to make boss fights more interesting. I hope they leave CoF as is for now, and work on Honor of the Waves. Talk about boring boss fights, some of those sure are.

Maestro.5376:

Did I start a conspiracy theory in this thread? O_o.

In all seriousness, Liquid’s accusations should be made towards Arenanet instead. It was always their intent that not all parties would be able to complete explorable mode dungeons. Maybe you disagree with their philosophy, but personally I’m fine with it. It’s not necessary content, it doesn’t really contribute much to the lore of the world or the main storyline, it’s just there for people who like skins and/or a challenge.

I think this touches on one of the problems. The armor options for people who are not going to dungeon are decidedly lacking. There are some PvE skins that everyone has access to (crafted, leveling, drops, karma, cultural and order), and exclusive sets (dungeon). Exotic Karma armor uses the same skin across 5 temples and the Arah vendor. Many pre-exotic Karma armors use crafting skins, or are repeats of dropped armor skins. Exotic named armors (e.g., Rurik’s Legplates) all use the same skin (which I believe is shared with crafted). There really is not a ton of variety, and dungeon sets represent more variety.

That might have been fine pre-Ascended. The “prestige” of a look was supposed to represent end-game rewards. Ascended seems to be a shift away from cosmetic endgame, however.

I think the presumption was that more non-endgame looks might be coming. They have not. If ANet were to get on their armor-designing horse and put out some armor styles that people will like, and make them obtainable through something other than dungeon tokens, the pressure to make dungeons easier might loosen some. It wouldn’t eliminate it, but some people might think, “Oh, I don’t have to do content I dislike to get a look I like.”

Leo G.4501:

IndigoSundown.5419:

That’s not an accurate representation of the old AC. Old AC became easy because people learned it, not because the mobs were not fighting. Nor could it be done mindlessly — well except maybe for Ghost Eater. Although I remember one run having to revive the same guardian several times in the Ghost Eater fight. Your message will come though clearer if you do not let your passion for dungeons get in the way of your objectivity.

AlietteFaye put’s it pretty well. The reason it’s ‘hard’ now is because it’s unfamiliar (bugs aside). It will get easier as we proceed to hammer though it again and again like before.

Yes, I also said this before your video run. Maestro said that, “People don’t like change.” He is correct, many of them resist the kitten out of any change irl and in games.

Leo G.4501:

And again, I have no problem with having tutorial mini-dungeons in this game. But not tutorial dungeons that also award end-game rewards. Why? Because people will then farm the kitten out of them and do nothing else (see: CoF). There’s lots of potential for mini-dungeons in this game and that’s where I feel the learning should be because those rewards can be controlled without stifling those seeking those end-game rewards. Basically, I think if you want to farm something there should be work involved. Doing easy kitten dungeons is hardly work.

I’m going to differ here. Work should not be part of games. I’m not saying don’t have challenge. However, if the experience is one like you get “at work,” then most people are not going to think, “This is fun.” If you enjoy challenge, it should not be work, if you don’t enjoy challenge, if it’s not fun, then find something else to do. However, don’t tie the idea of pixel rewards to having to “work.”

With the exception of FotM, dungeons hardly provide end-game rewards these days. More players are farming them for gold than skins. Arah armor may still have some small amount of prestige attached to it. However, how many people are going to look at someone in CoF armor and think, “He must be a good player?”

If new or inexperienced players have a hard time getting groups that can successfully run dungeons, they will complain both about elitism and how hard the dungeons are. If those numbers become significant enough, ANet might choose to nerf dungeons to accommodate them. Those who are choosing to show players the ropes, who don’t kick anyone who isn’t gaming’s answer to Chuck Norris, might just be doing their bit to keep a modicum of challenge in dungeons.

Cataca.3867:

Doesnt getting that “perfect” group together take more time than actually running CoF 1?

At least some of those CoF1 farm groups are planning to do multiple runs. Such groups are likely farming gold, not tokens.

Adry.7512:

i think that within a year from now GW2 will become the new mmorpg giant and will most likely stay that way for a while. the only competition i see is the new blade and soul game from korea, BUT its a very different game and well….i doubt it will rival gw2.

If you turn out to be the new Nostradamus, NCSoft will be very happy.

Leo G.4501:

Morpheus.6401:

Leo G.4501:

Maestro.5376:

Morpheus.6401:

Seriously, this looks like more a paid advertisement LOL.

Oh it was great, oh it went so smooth, oh I made new friends.

The fact is, even though I still like to run AC it is immensely harder to find a group now.

No matter how many posts there are here saying how good the new AC is gw2lfg.com proves the opposite.

The decrease in LFG entries is not a demonstration of quality of the new AC, but more a demonstration of how resistant people are to change, especially a slight increase in difficulty.

I would say a ‘shift in difficulty’ instead. The bosses tend to have lower HP meaning you spend less time mindlessly beating on them but yeah, it’s harder to mindlessly beat on them too. It’s a give and take.

It’s a demonstration that most ppl didn’t like the changes. And I suppose we are playing to enjoy and have fun aren’t we? So Anet just took away something most ppl use to like and have fun.
Lousy job if you ask me.

Maybe if those people admit they just want to mindlessly beat on things that can’t fight back, perhaps. They’d still have to prove they deserve a reward for such actions though.

That’s not an accurate representation of the old AC. Old AC became easy because people learned it, not because the mobs were not fighting. Nor could it be done mindlessly — well except maybe for Ghost Eater. Although I remember one run having to revive the same guardian several times in the Ghost Eater fight. Your message will come though clearer if you do not let your passion for dungeons get in the way of your objectivity.

Thanks for the live stream. I’ve worked harder to succeed in some Lyssa events than it seems y’all had to in at least some of the encounters. The experiment proved what I expected it to prove, that skill trumps gear. I’ll take skilled players who don’t know their class that well over players who’ve played one class to 80 but mostly just stand in one place.

That said, I still think there should be hard and easy mode dungeons, with hard tuned up a bit from baseline and easy tuned down a bit. Why? The more a game offers to a broader range of player demographics, the better it is for the game.

Ayanavi.1904:

I haven’t run a dungeon yet where “we need to have one of these to make this work” was a true statement. Some professions will make things easier – But they do just that: Make it easier. You can still get past everything without them.

One of the main things that spring to mind when I run dungeons with random groups isn’t “we need these abilities to fit this strategy”, but rather “How can we succeed with these abilities?”.

Kudos for this inclusive approach. However, the Gamer’s Law of the Path of Least Resistance implies that players will find the fastest, easiest way to do something in game, and then implement it. If that means such and such mix of abilities or classes, that’s all some players will want.

I don’t know what to do to balance stealth. Perhaps the culling fix will help. Stability is not broken. Stability is short enough in duration as it is. If you rely on knocks, etc., save them for when stability runs out.

In GW1, members of our alliance would pass the time in outposts linking funny names in team. Sometimes, I miss the ability to link names, “I’m following Pixel Pixie.”

I also believe that dungeons can be completed by any mix of classes. However, it is also undeniable that some abilities make certain encounters easier. All classes do not have all of the abilities. For instance, mobs with nasty ranged abilities are more easily dealt with using reflection. Only 5 classes can bring reflection to the table. Some party mixes are going to be AoE light, some party mixes “heal other” light, etc. At that point it’s a matter of what can those classes bring to compensate for the lack of the optimal ability. If the answer is, nothing but skill, that is poor design.

Tuomir.1830:

Let’s define [dungeons] as the 8 dungeons at launch, as they are so in every sense, and at the time of launch there were no other areas that could have been included.

…

Now, we have established loosely that FotM is not like the rest of the dungeons. It does not belong into the group [dungeons], though it belongs to the group [[dungeons][FotM]], where dungeons also belong.

ANet defines fractals as a dungeon. The title of the blog which introduced FotM was, “The Fractals of the Mist Dungeon.” The first sentence was, “A mission to bring all of you an awesome, high-end dungeon experience that will be challenging, rewarding, and a ton of fun!” Apparently, being unlike the other dungeons in some ways did not impact the developer’s classification of the content.

Mad King and Tixx were also classified as dungeons. Perhaps you should revisit your assumptions.

People insist on running dungeons in pick-up groups, and expect that everyone should want to run the dungeon the same way they do. If you PuG, you take what you get. If you want to PuG in a no-skip group, then only join groups advertising no skipping, or form your own. Better, join a guild, if you can find one that isn’t interested in dungeon speed.

Sylosi.6503:

Because there are more games than WoW:

1 – In many other trinity based games you have to move more than WoW (Rift for instance), though obvioulsy not as much as you move in GW2. Then there is also PvP, which again requires much more movement in these sort of games than PvE.

2 – Not all games have mods like threat meters, healbots, boss mods, cooldown warnings, etc that bascially play the game for you like in WoW, so the more complex classes are not offset to an extent by mods. (this is a very good thig about GW2, no mods playing the game for you)

3 – Lastly not everyone plays a faceroll DPS in these games, which means the GW2 classes are relatively simple and have a lack of multitasking, much less need for awareness of your teammates than many support/healer classses in trinity games. For example in LOTRO I used to play a loremaster and in raids had to :

- Keep up stun immunity on tank(sometimes tank healer)
- Keep up numerous debuffs on multiple mobs.
- Often perma CC one, sometimes two mobs.
- Cleanse team mates.
- Off heal.
- Drain power from boss, and keep constantly aware of tank/healer & key support like captain of their power needs and feed them power.
- Deal with (CC, debuff, put pet on) rogue mobs that go after a DPS / healer
- Occasionally have to rez if healers/cappy out of rezzes
- Deal DPS, especially AOE DPS as the class had very good burst AOE.
- and whilst doing all that manage a pet.

The amount of multitasking / awarenesss / target switching is on a completely different level to GW2, dodging, and more movemtent does not make up that, nor does it make up for teh more simplistic class design (faceroll DPS types excepted)

I find that a GW2 dungeon team with synergy and team awareness rolls along far better than one that doesn’t. While GW2 class options are somewhat simplistic, the game play is often more dynamic.

It’s certainly true that Loremaster brought a lot to the table. I can see why you found the gameplay engaging. Is it not exception to the rule, however? I don’t by any means have vast experience in MMO’s, but in the ones I have played, no other class had that kind of complexity. The closest was the Archon build in Rift. However, in instanced content short of raids, it was preferred the mage run a more dps-oriented build.

Murderin.8269:

… does anyone even want a dps warrior?

Murderin.8269:

It looks like people only want zerker warriors, whatever that is.

A ‘zerker warrior is a dps warrior. The armor prefix for high level Power/Precision/Critical Damage gear is Berserker. People shorten that to Zerker, as it’s less letters to type.

OdinBudd.5298:

It is lame, cheap, and poor design.

Avatar.1923:

it was an awful design decision.

Yeah, maybe ANet should stop catering to what players are saying they want. A great many of the changes in GW2 are the result of them listening to complaints and attempting to address them. Problem is, every time a game company pleases one demographic, they cheese off another.

Or maybe, since game companies are motivated to please customers, players should be more careful what they ask for.

Edge.4180:

I actually don’t have a problem with temple events having treasure chest rewards. They are difficult events compared to some of these other encounters we’ve been using as examples in these thread, they’re difficult to camp because they’re less predictable (and my problem with camping is that people doing it excessively aren’t contributing to the zone), and a lot of effort is required to conquer them.

For those reasons, they’re less popular. And maybe that’s all we need to fix the other events (like the Behemoth, Shatterer, Tequatl, Maw, etc).. but let’s be clear about this: whether it’s applying that formula or removing chest loot.. the goal is to make the events I just mentioned less popular, because right now they’re too popular for their own good, and for all the wrong reasons (the rewards are ridiculously out of balance with the risk).

According to some people in this thread, any kind of fix that corrects that balance can not happen without the universe (or at least this game) imploding. I disagree.

I remember the Maw event in the BWE’s. There were twice as many people as I see doing them now, even with the chest loot increase. The event lasted longer, was more challenging and was frankly more fun.

I find the Orr Meta-events to be more engaging than any other PvE content in GW2. ANet could do worse in examining what they did right there, and as they revamp existing content, applying those lessons.

Good luck. I expect you’ll succeed. A different type of test would involve 5 players with little to no dungeon experience running exotic gear 80’s. I think we can predict with some degree of accuracy that knowledge of the dungeon, communication and coordination will trump any differences in stats.

I don’t believe that better chest loot was put in to make people go to otherwise under-utilized zones.

• There are under-utilized zones with no chest events.
• Chest events encompass a small fraction of the area of the zone; players coming to a zone only for a chest provide little impact on the “feeling” that a zone is thriving.
• Another mechanism was put in to address zone emptiness, area focused dailies.

Chest loot was increased to address a different problem. As much as ANet likes singular solutions that address multiple problems, chest loot was increased to address complaints about loot, not complaints about zone population.

Jornophelanthas.1475:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Maximizing the yield from guild missions is going to impact your time spent — probably more than most people think. Peoples’ ability to maximize the yield of guild missions is going to be impacted by how organized or disorganized the guild is.

In disorganized guilds, you’d better be online a lot. When the mood strikes them, they’ll pop a mission and go. If you’re not on as often as the leadership, you risk being left out. Even in an organized guild, there’s no guarantee that a scheduled mission will fit your schedule.

I have two arguments against this.

First, if you’re in this situation, the worst case scenario is that you log in, wait around for a guild mission while earning your dailies (and perhaps farming some ectoplasm), finally start on a guild mission, which then fails (not earning you anything).

The slightly less bad scenario is that you log in, wait around for a guild mission while earning your dailies (and perhaps farming some ectoplasm), and then log out again without actually doing a guild mission.

The best case scenario is that you log in, wait around for a guild mission while earning your dailies (and perhaps farming some ectoplasm), and participate in a successful guild mission (earning guild commendations).

Again, we see that even if you spend time waiting for a guild mission to start, you still gain AT LEAST as much progress towards an ascended earring as someone who only does dailies.

(I am assuming here that if a guild mission starts before your dailies are completed, you will still finish the daily achievement before logging out if the guild mission was not successful.)

(Also, note that the “best case scenario” only needs to occur once per week per mission type you want to participate in.)

My second argument consists of asking you why you even choose to be dependent on such unreliable people? Wouldn’t it be better to just look for a better organized guild, with a schedule that suits you? Also, if these people are your friends, can’t you just ask them to suit your schedule or to announce their events more in advance? Does getting rewarded for doing something unfun (i.e. begging guild officers to start a mission, badgering your brother/roommate to come online and represent) make it fun in retrospect?

For some people, the answer is no. They find the cost of being aggravated by this dependency on a large group of (possibly inconsiderate) morons to be too high, and therefore choose not be a member of a large guild. This is a conscious playstyle decision. Should these people be discriminated against by paying more for their ascended gear?

While others might be inclined to farm earrings using both paths, the argument centers around whether guild missions represent significantly less time spent to get an earring than laurels/globs. It’s an either/or proposition, not a both/and. The answer is that if all goes perfectly, the time required might be significantly less for the missions path, but worst case might be longer. There is of course no ecto costs with guild missions.

Unless someone has to get these now, I suspect you’ll see those who have access to guild missions using their laurels and ectos for other things. The ecto + laurel cost was obviously a calculated move to incentivize people to do the guild missions.

Yes, I agree that the guild mission implementation was flawed. ANet knows this. Why the forum-goers have to find this out from a poster who attended the live meet and greet in Seattle is another matter. I expect they will address the guild mission issue in some fashion. However, we may not find out what they will do about it until they patch it into the game.

I’m going to cheat and add one more. Artillery.

There’s no one answer, as it is kind of up to you.

Dungeons can be fun if you want to learn the mechanics and take an active role in beating them. You’ll need to learn what skills make you immune to the particular ways mobs are going to try to kill you, when to use what skill (due to extremely short durations), what to dodge and when, how and when to complement your team and so forth.

If you’re looking for a more relaxed, static experience such as you find in many other MMO’s dungeons, and are grouped with others like you, then you might find them to be a waste of silver.