Guild Wars 2

The people that dont want to do the dungeons are (hopefully) willing to accept that they are not getting the rewards (be it items or achievements) for free.

So Anet just needs to anchor the final achievement differently. Wintersday did that pretty well, you had an achievement track that gave a title at 12 but there were I think 15-15 achievements in total. That way people can skip the parts they dont like (be it dungeons, JPs, grinding something or silly mini-games) and still get the final achievement for the story arc.

I think that suggestion is very reasonable. There will still be people complaining that they cant get all achievements or cant get the dungeon or JP rewards without doing that content, but you’ll always have those no matter what you do.

They advertised the dragon fights and Orr as something similar to the karka encounter, but delivered a luke-warm shadow of what I expected. Unfortunately instead of tuning towards the goal of Orr requiring players to strategize and work together to take the island, they nerfed it to easy because the solo ori farmers complained loud enough they could not travel unhindered. It’s really a shame. Outdoor content areas (not only single specific events that get zerged for the big loot) that are challenging for small numbers of people would be my wish for game additions. Right now its either easy to solo or it is a big raid (meta events with bonus loot), no in-between.

He wants to know if the tonic itself is bound in any way, not the recipe. I’d like to hear first-hand info about that too, cant check the TP right now.

I agree with the OP to a degree, I want the future living story chapters to include grouping content that is relevant to and part of the unfolding story, with both achievement and item rewards that are only obtainable through the group content.

That isnt limited to instanced dungeons though, I’m sure you can make story steps like the hatchery with varying difficulty and/or include raid-sized* meta-events like the Karka finale (with better planning like spreading players out, etc).

*Vulpis, that means 10-30 or even more people. It is not the same as a single group. Just sayin’

I have taken a recent bank holiday and spent it replaying the dungeon a few times and I have to say it’s still great, novelty doesnt wear off. The whole design of adding the final boss abilities to the prior encounters to make players more aware of them is great. Its not something for every dungeon or encounter ever (that would get old) but showcasing specific abilities prior to the main encounter as a learning tool is a very good idea.

I’m expecting those areas to become regular PoIs on the map with a heart, an event or two and a skill challenge. If they dont I would be quite dissapointed with the F&F arc because to me it isnt living story if it doesnt leave a permanent mark on the world in some sort.

I have no legendary and 63% world completion with barely any of the WvW done since I only rarely pvp (most time spent there was a tonic race).

That said, I like it the way it is with WvW being required for world completion. Everything not in an instance is currently required, makes sense to me.

No I would not like to do that, and I think it would be wasted development time.

Leveling is very easy as is and there are some nice shortcuts for skipping some or all of the road to 80 with in-game currency if you really want. Try doing only the daily for its xp boosts on the leveling char or simply crafting through the levels you find dull.

None of that was actually removed, it never existed. Furthermore, most of it is not rp-specific but concerns every player. I dont know what this topic is meant to accomplish really.

The biggest boon for RP would be officially acknowledging it and marking a server rp, maybe with a free move there open for a week to concentrate the rp community and give new players a heads up on which server to go to (especially now that moves arent free anymore).

Mini pets fighting in regular combat goes against the idea of them being cosmetic gimmicks. And ever profession having combat pets isnt a good idea either I suppose.

Re: Lions. Does the guild wars world actually have lions?

Xta.7458:

Another thing – you dont need tankers/healers in pve, u also cant see the dps of the group
so how you tell which player is good in pve or bad?
how can you tell this group will do X doungen much faster then Y group?

In most content in GW2 it doesnt matter if the player is good or bad, paying attention or watching tv. In the few difficult bits you notice the bad players since you constantly run over to revive them because they stood in the fire (or similar absent-minded things).

Are there any plans to bring up the mesmer options for swiftness and/or a passive trait or signet to the level that other professions enjoy? Preferably signet so we dont get pigeonhold into a certain trait.

If no, why not? If yes, are we talking next patch, or summer, or maybe sometime 2013?

I find mesmer dual pistols takes away from the sophisticated style of the mesmer, the mainhand sword + offhand pistol is classic dueling, with double pistols I end imagining the mesmer sliding down a hill on their back while holding the pistols sideways and firing. Leave such action hero antics to the thief imo.

Do they give the same amount of Karma as the daily if used by a level 80? If yes, then there really wasnt a point to it because you can only do it once during a 2 week window.

Although it might foreshadow a change to daily jugs?

All of you complaining about dungeons, is the achievement really that important to you?

I mean there are screenshots proudly claiming 0 dungeons completed from the achievement list as some kind of badge of honor in these threads. In that regard this is no different, its nothing new. It’s another achievement you dont have because you refuse to do certain aspects of the game. Which I understand, I dont do some parts of this game either. But I dont complain about not getting the full achievements for it. Every other longer story chain in GW required a dungeon or more (Destiny’s edge story, personal story, halloween, xmas) to get all the achievements, same with F&F.

Vulpis.8063:

Mastruq.2463:

Vulpis.8063:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Dungeons are the GW2 equivilant of GW1 missions.

Oh? GW1 missions were specificially designed to be completable by a single player with the the assistances of Heroes and/or Henchmen, or multiple players with the additional players taking up Hero/henchman slots in the group. Kindly show me where the GW2 dungeons are soloable that way.

I dont know, when I played prophecies I didnt didnt find these heroes everyone is bringing up, and with the henchmen most missions didnt really work, required ages or flat out failed.

My guess is heroes is something they added much later? If so it doesnt have much relevance for how prophecies missions were intended to be done, i.e. by a group of players.

And I agree with Konig, GW has raids in the open world, like Shatterer, Temple of Grenth, etc. Dungeons are not raids in the same sense and its hard to take you serious when you fill your posts with twisted references to express your disdain of another game.

Oh? Hmm. I came in late (was given the Trilogy set and EotN as a gift), so it’s entirely possible that Heroes weren’t added until the expansions (I know you can’t even get MOX until you get to Lion’s Arch). I always thought they were one of GW1’s greatest innovations, as they allowed a single player to do what in any other game would be considered a dungeon/raid (or more accurately dungeons/raids, plural, as the later missions expected you to be using either a full team of H&H and/or players, and had difficulty levels set accordingly).

As for my denunciation of ‘raids’—two things here …snipped semantics…

I think you are using several arguments that you dont know enough about, like how and when heroes became a thing in GW1 (never had any, played the original release and some of the Cantha campaign). And back then the missions expected you to bring a group of players or struggle madly for a long time to do it with henchmen, if at all. It wasnt solo content in GW1 until late additions to the game obsoleted it by power creep (more skills, professions, better npc allies). And depending on how ArenaNet advances GW2 you’ll eventually solo Arah too, in a few years. Doesnt help with a temp dungeon I know, and I have my beef with the temp expressed in other threads.

Then there is the talk about raids and WoW and in the last reply you say heard others call it that way? That’s the basis of all the “its like WoW its baaaad” you’re bringing up?
Let me go on record saying here that my definition of raid is older then WoW, and the outdoor encounters in GW2 are raids by that definition. So to me GW2 has raids, and they are not instanced dungeons, they are the open world content you apparently take part in. If you want to read more about it google about the Everquest of 2000-2003ish, but dont try to push everything into a WoW-shaped box just because it is apparently the Big Bad around here.

I believe a mix of tokens and rare drops would work best, provided you can tell them apart. Similar to the way SAB was done except there isnt any difference in those items depending on how you get them.

I would make 3 visually similar but different jetpacks. One is a very rare drop like now and can be sold, (maybe binds on equip?). The second is a medium-to-rare drop (say 10%-15% chance) but account bound (with binds on equip), and the third one is bought with tokens (tokens are account-bound, jetpack needs about 50-80, jetpack is account or soulbound), you get 1 token from each chest and they can drop as rare drop from all Molten Alliance trash (not the wildlife at the start).

That way anyone that cares for it can put in some time to get it as a drop (about 6-8 runs or so to get it), if very very unlucky can still got the token solution if he REALLY wants it. And some players walk away with the main prize that they can either use themselves or sell for gold on the TP.

This also accomplishes the apparent prestige item goal of Anet. In my suggestion, two of the three can only be gotten this month and they are visually distinct so you know those players have been there for it. And there will still be the third one on the TP for people that join the game in the years to come or would rather put in the gold instead of the time (There would be more on the TP then now too because i made versions available that are less rare, so more of the very rare ones get sold).

Vulpis.8063:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Dungeons are the GW2 equivilant of GW1 missions.

Oh? GW1 missions were specificially designed to be completable by a single player with the the assistances of Heroes and/or Henchmen, or multiple players with the additional players taking up Hero/henchman slots in the group. Kindly show me where the GW2 dungeons are soloable that way.

I dont know, when I played prophecies I didnt didnt find these heroes everyone is bringing up, and with the henchmen most missions didnt really work, required ages or flat out failed.

My guess is heroes is something they added much later? If so it doesnt have much relevance for how prophecies missions were intended to be done, i.e. by a group of players.

And I agree with Konig, GW has raids in the open world, like Shatterer, Temple of Grenth, etc. Dungeons are not raids in the same sense and its hard to take you serious when you fill your posts with twisted references to express your disdain of another game.

Collective, dont get me wrong I like this living story (with some exceptions) but you must realize that the team could as well be a second dungeon or world zone team for more permanent content, right? So yea them making this means less manpower on other things.

This is not the same argument as the web team making gimmicks, the guys that made this and SAB could as well have made more lasting content.

The best npc is the engineer, especially the “FIRE EVERYTHING” part.

I did manage to get a group for another run at this that didnt go so well, and now I have one complaint. After ressing the group was immediately placed on the platform again after a loading screen, and mid-combat. I have an average computer but I actually arrived to one person being down and one already dead. Nobody knew what was up with that, needless to say it was a wipe and then the group split.

So if thats a mechanic of the fight and not a bug it should probably be done differently, starting the group at the waypoint so they can change skills and talk strategy before going in again.

I dont know where you get the idea that your way (doing it solo from start to finish) should be applied in every case. My way (slow start solo and ramp up into group content) has been used exactly ONCE in the entire game. Only once, at the end of the last personal story chapter. That’s it.

This is the second time. I welcome that without begrudging the dungeon players or the solo open world players. Would be nice to receive the same courtesy of you just accepting that although you dont like the way this chapter of the living story is done, others might appreciate this approach to story telling.

The whole rest of GW2 is 80% your way and 20% the dungeons-from-start-to-finish way (destiny’s edge story entirely through dungeon chains). I think both those methods have received enough attention and will continue to receive the by far greatest share of attention.

Palador.2170:

Rhaps.8540:

rizzo.1079:

I wish I didn’t have to do a dungeon to finish it, before that it was fun:)

Thank god they added a dungeon, before it was boring.

What they needed to do was add the dungeon for the big fight that breaks the power of the enemies, and then have the conclusion be solo-able in a separate mission. That way people that like the big fights and dungeons can have what they want, but everyone still gets to see the ending of it all.

My understanding is that they’ve done just that. The dungeon runs are breaking the power of the MA like you said, and the story conclusion that follows afterwards (May 12th-16th i think) is in the main cities, and probably accessible for everyone.

Roc acts much more experienced then in the last story part, that’s the only part that surprised me. I would’ve put both of them in the same age group judging from the razing, suddenly Rox goes all “calm and patient mentor” in the dungeon.

MasterfulGaze.4167:

This is my personal playstyle. How any of you play the game has no affect on me whatsoever. You like dungeons? Have at it. Have fun. You interested in solo instances? They are out there. Knock yourself out. Everyone gets to do what is fun for them.

The problem is that anet is mixing the 2 playstyles together and at the worst possible place. The personal story/ living story should not have its climax of the story take place in a dungeon when everything leading up to the climax took place in solo instances. It makes no sense at all for anet to do that. Mixing these 2 playstyles are like mixing oil and water. It just doesn’t work well enough for everyone to enjoy themselves.

You assume theres only your way or the dungeon way there.

This is an ongoing story line of people banding together against the common foe (the player, rox, braham) and triumphing. It starts out slow, builds up and culminates in a raid against the enemy none of them could do alone. In gameplay terms, ends in a dungeon. It fits the story and I like it that way. It would be artificial to have the whole story require a group, it would be artificial to make the end soloable.

They chose the right with this buildup from solo to group experience and that made it much more enjoyable for us grey players. So now I kindly ask you to not see everything in only black and white.

I managed to run this today and have to say it was the most fun dungeon run in the game so far. Keep up the good work. Anet, if there’s any chance to upgrade this to a permanent real dungeon with explorables and all you should go for it.

For the time-limited people, you get a group at the entrance real quick currently so if you can spare the time to run it, finding the group shouldnt be the issue it is for the old dungeons.

Scepter sure needs some love, after the patch even moreso. For starters scepter 1 clones should apply a mix of conditions similar to staff. I’d prefer either always confusion (simply to have more of it up to counter the nerf a bit) or various snares like chilled, crippled, etc.

Yes SAB was well done, but its unrelated to this forum which talks about the events of the F&F chapter of the living story.

I’m hoping Cragstead will be open afterwards and get some content, would be a shame if there is no permanent change in the invasion areas as a result of these months of struggle. So far all seems to point at some NPCs taking up residence in southsun though, maybe they talk about their struggle there. Still, there should be marks in the shiverpeaks too.

I’m all for temporary content as part of the living world chapters.

But(!) I expect the events of those stories to leave their permanent mark on the existing world as they end. Its one thing to have an elaborate story chapter about an invasion in the shiverpeaks if after the fact theres a new homestead with some content and a cave complex to explore that was the site of great conflict in the past (i.e. the remains of the weapons facility after we raze it). There should be some DEs or hearts, PoIs or vistas, some npcs telling the story of what happened there. That’s living story to me. Not wiping the slate clean and everything returning to status quo at the end of the episode (that’s saturday morning cartoons from the 90s).

I cannot comment on how the aftermath of F&F will look like and maybe my concerns are unfounded. But the constant reminder that the content ill go away at the end of the chapter just sits wrong with me, as if they havent planned for and included any lasting content.

In this thread and others I’ve often see the desire to see all of the story played out together with the suggestion of the dungeon part of the story being optional or a side path.

I dont quite understand that because if the dungeon is there and has a development of the story happening inside, then not doing it means you havent seen all of the story – regardless of how the soloable arc concludes.

Alternatively, people are just asking to be able to get all achievements without going into the dungeon, and actually seeing the conclusion or entirety of the story is not their actual concern.

If it is the first, you’re essentially asking for the dungeon to not be there or just be filled with nameless dregde that drop loot. Since we have those in the rest of the world, its like the dungeon isnt there. I dont see an easy solution to that without annyoing other players that actually like the culmination in a dungeon. If it is the latter though , then you might be too obsessed with achievement points but how about these solutions:

• Give the final achievement after you talk to the npcs at the start of the dungeon, even if you dont continue.

• Give a potential title or other reward at (fake numbers) 12/14 achievement points instead of 14/14 so you dont have to do everything to be done (as in the holiday events).

The OP still has a good point. The 4 months we had F&F now didnt deliver much content. I’d say enough for maybe 2 months. With the finale playing out throughout May we then had 2-3 months of content stretched out over 5 months as far as living story is concerned. I’m cutting them some slack because its their first living story chapter but the next story line should certainly be better paced and offer more things to do.

Even SAB offered alot more to do with all the different special achievements, and also had more rewards through gameplay too (skins, fun boxes, legendary craft stuff). I do hope the final chapter will catch up in this regard.

One easy suggestion to beefing up the content with not-so-much writing required is including a task where you grind for optional rewards. SAB does that very well. Its not my thing (made about 120 b-baubles mostly from running world 1-2 when I felt like it throughout the month, then got the skin I wanted and bank some craft stuff with the rest), but I know people that spent so much time in the SAB during this month I barely saw them outside. That’s an aspect missing from the living story for players that swing that way.

lordkrall.7241:

quickthorn.4918:

We can go back and replay the story of Destiny’s Edge via the dungeons or the explorable mode stories any time we feel like it. Granted there isn’t much motivation to do story mode dungeons more than once, but the precedent is there.

There is also a precedent in GW1 where you could replay missions or play through earlier mission content with a character who didn’t come from that continent. Which was useful, say, if that character was now your main and you wanted it to have all the achievements.

I see no harm in keeping the dungeon with some kind of framing that you’re replaying events that happened in the past.

The main issue with all those examples are that they are instanced, so they can be “locked in time” so to speak.
Having only the Molten Weapon Facility dungeon would make little sense, since those that was not here during the Flame and Frost line would have no idea about who the characters were, why they attack a random factory and why the dredge and FL works together.

Well the molten weapon facility as an instance would be locked in time. It would be trivial to place a bit of npc narration at the start to let the players know about the background, same as every other instance does. I didnt know a thing about destiny’s edge when I entered AC story mode. The npcs filled in the story as we went through the instance.

Then you have a few explorable modes of the facility in its post-story state, with some order npcs researching stuff about the alliance.

This is identical to how every other explorable is set up, too. Really there is no need to deviate from the dungeon formula they have set up, its actually thought out pretty well.

I get the point of making the open world content temporary to give the impression of changes in the world, the impression of a living world. But like you said, “locked in time” instances have the advantage that you can do things again without it being out of place. I really hope A.net reconsiders and leaves the instance in. Upgrade it to a real dungeon with armor set and explorable mode after the story line has run its course.

lordkrall.7241:

Tachenon.5270:

Send one of your characters to Queensdale. Let him or her spend a few hours there. Oakheart, troll, boar, bandits, centaurs, Shadow Behemoth. How many times do these events repeat? Is there ever an end to them, a point at which the resolution, win or lose, for good or ill, actually persists? None of that is instanced. That’s our ‘living world’.

There is no excuse for making new content limited time only.

All those does however make sense.
There are more Oakhearts, trolls, boars, bandits and centaurs than one.
The Shadow Behemoth on the other hand is never actually killed, only driven back to the Underworld.

That’s getting off-topic but there are specific npcs you kill over and over, and the whole flame legion + dredge alliance can happen again in a few months anyway. So it makes just as much or as little sense as the rest of the world. Matter of fact I would make that one of the explorable modes, go in and prevent them from re-uniting and take back their arms factory.

I found them fun, to answer everyone that cant see a positive point to them. They gave some credibility to the threat of the molten alliance for those regions and made the living story feel more real (in the sense of the game ofc). It made me do some things slightly different then I would have without their presence, and thats a GOOD thing. An entirely static game makes for a boring game in the long run, so the living story bringing temporary changes to a few maps for a some time is good.

Eternity was a mistake, if anything they should roll it back for now. Even making it is pointless because you give up the choice of when to use each of the other swords and have it tacked onto the day/night cycle instead.

Well they arent going to roll them back, but I would much prefer it if they left it as is and improved the other legendaries that also need it first.

I hope they come up with a new batch of legendaries before the end of the year. Truth is while we have one for each weapon type each of the weapons is fairly distinct, and with the huge effort involved I’m not going to make one I dont find appealing. So I want to put in the effort but the selection currently available just doesnt fit my the style of my characters mostly.

There are various siege weapons at many of those encounters. Make them inactive at the start and require a DE that opens with the main event to get them battle-ready, and then make them do substantial damage but also be attacked so they need to be defended.

Make it possible to fail every event that also gives a bonus chest, regardless of attendance. That requires good scaling since right now fr example Jormag is rough at 5-10 people but faceroll with 20-30. The boss should be challenging no matter how many players are fighting it. For Jormag specifically make him direct attacks or minions at the camp leading the attack, and if the camp gets wiped out the pact retreats and the dragon directs the attacks that went to the camp at the players instead, making the encounter much harder and most likely to fail. That encourages players to defend the camp.

Raphael Williams.3671:

agauos.8794:

Ruprect.7260:

agauos.8794:

Agree with the OP, I hate PvP and WvW. I’m not looking forward to completing any of those maps at all.

Then don’t. There is nothing in this game that you have to do.

I have to if I want the star, don’t I?

then its obvious, you really DON’T want the star.

What you want is someone to GIVE you the star.

What this guy says.

I find it unfair that PvE counts for World completion btw, I only do WvW and its pure drudgery trying to complete one pve map , let alone the dozen+ currently in the game. I think it should be enough that you complete the 1-15 zone (in addition to all WvW zones), the other PvE areas are just the same with different graphics anyway.

OliverT.9021:

And then there’s also the case of players complaining about warriors wearing berserker gear being down more often than anybody else, which automatically makes them the natural worst player?

I agree with everything you wrote except the above sentence. Because a warrior in berserker gear that goes down alot is a liability to the group, and there are many of those from what I hear. If your game mechanics knowledge and playskill allow you to wear berserker without going down more often by all means do it, the group welcomes the dps.

Mirta.5029:

Jski.6180:

Mirta.5029:

a 5-man story dungeon. There are not going to be any raids in Guild Wars 2.

There are a good number of open world raids.

no, those are group events. A raid is an instanced dungeon designed for a huge amount of people (20, 30..)

No, a raid is an encounter meant for larger groups then the usual dungeons. Expand your horizon about non-instanced games before making blanket statements.

Everquest is probably the best reference for non-instanced raids if you want to look some if it up (the xpacks velious, luclin and planes of power, afterwards they also featured more and more instanced content alongside their regular non-instanced boss fights).

Temple events, dragons and some larger world events are raids in GW2, like the poster above already said.

And I see everyone hinging the definition of raid on the difficulty alone. GW2 raids arent difficult, I doubt anyone claims that much in this game is difficult. But they are still raids, same as the vast amounts of easy mode content in WoW that is for 10/25 players is just as a much raid as the tough cutting edge content.

I havent done any raiding in WoW in the last 7 years, but the hardest raids in the release state (before nerfs/fixes/new levels) were Vex Thal when it still had gflux/blind/wall agro and the initial release version of Uqua.

I agree with the OP in essence. I wouldnt quit over it but the “as much content as a full expansion” hype that was being passed around makes the updates for the first 4 months of 2013 seem lacking.

Deamhan.9538:

ANet has always had Holiday events and they are annual. This game is what? 7 months old? GW1 came out in 2005, with Sorrows Furnace released a few months later, while GW Factions came out in 2006.

WoW was released in November of 2004. Burning Crusades came out in 2007. In that 3 year period, what new content was released? Any? Other than new gear, what new events, missions, dungeons, etc.?

Well this isnt 2004/2005/2006/2007. Welcome to 2013.

Comparing your current product or service to what your competition did years ago is the best way to kill your business, in any field.

And if you compare to other current successful MMOs (yea, to WoW, are there any others besides GW2 and WoW?), you’ll see they have their own take of “living story” running since September that added alot of content in the form of new quests, raids and areas. All that interspersed with six or more seasonal or holiday events and a monthly carnival (the latter is a brilliant idea that GW2 should steal btw).

P.S. To pre-empt the go back to WoW, I quit that during BC in 2006 and dont plan to go back. But I dont think blindfolded faith in A.Net is the way to go, they are delivering a bit too slow on the meaningful content side.

You should read up on how F2P games monetize and prosper.

While this isnt a F2P game, once bought the dynamics are mostly the same. Data from said F2P throughout the last years of their continuing rise in popularity show that some heavy spenders subsidize those games, often at a level that gets close to an addiction. The GW2 cash shop RNG items prey on exactly those players that will pay hundreds of dollars on each limited time offer for the mere chance at something shiny. And they’ll buy in again next month despite feeling ripped off for a few days. You and others just buying one sword skin for 4 dollars directly wouldnt make up for those players not blowing hundreds or thousands of dollars each month, even if you rationally believe so.

Since the living world approach seems to be the focus of development for the forseeable future I would like to know how much exactly we can expect from it?

To put the question in perspective, I currently assume that January through March was as slow as it was because the teams had to transition to this new publishing approach. If the Updates under the umbrella Flame&Frost from January, February and March combined had come out throughout the same month I would have considered it well delivered and a worthwhile way of delivering the new content. Obviously with the announcement for the end of F&F throughout May (?) that brings the following questions (each with my expectations towards the answer/A.Net):

Will each new chapter start as slow and drawn out with about 10-20 minutes of actual playtime for that month like January and February, or will the updates actually make an impact on my player behaviour for that month?

To truly be a living world to me it means that I, as someone interested in that kind of content, can spend a good portion of my playtime on living world related things during the month. January and February certainly didnt deliver that, and even March only did if you replayed the two story instances more often then I’d care to do.

And a second question, will the living world content leave enough traces of its passing or is it going to be a saturday morning cartoon situation that always returns to the status quo at the end except that a building somewhere was demolished (Halloween and Karka did that already)?

F&F by my expectations would leave enough permanent changes to be fine on this front IF the two new story areas become openly accessible and have some content (a heart npc, a skill challenge, some npc dialogue about the revent events and a DE or two in each). I expected a new cave area for the finale that also stays, but it seems it is a dungeon instance that will be temporary. I think that’s a waste of potential permanent content that shows later players what happened in the living world, especially since explorable modes are so ideally suited to showing the state of things after the actual story-based events.

Too Sci-Fi for my tastes but Asura have star trek terminals all over so why not.

I expected the dungeon story mode to reflect the conclusion of the F&F story line (like the other dungeons do, and their replayability doesnt make sense either temporary or not). In the same vein I expected this new dungeon to have several explorable modes and an armor set to go along with that. Explorable mode always depicts the aftermath of the story events and it would be no problem at all do the same thing here in a meaningful fashion. Color me surprised and a bit dissapointed.

I welcome any sort of content that encourages playing with any players, so I am happy they finally add a new dungeon besides fractals.

I believe players that argue for having everything of anything soloable have false expectations of how the gameplay experience in an MMORPG is/should be and would be much better served with the selection of great single player games out there.

This comes from someone who very rarely has the time for longer commitments to a group and has done very few dungeons and fractals because of it (20ish runs in total over more then half a year).

I just dont think an actual full-fledged dungeon would be temporary. The dungeon design lends itself to being permanent by having the story mode (what we do next month, beating the MA) and then several explorables for different problems that arise afterwards. So IF it is really a dungeon in this update and not some story instance cave, I bet it stays.

The problem is that a class cannot be “all about conditions” because that automatically makes them overpowered, since it obviously would be asking to much of a player to use a utility slot for defense and employ condition removers.

Back in EQ arena areas were simply automatic FFA pvp regardless of server type. Seems they could implement something like this for arenas and then place them at sensible locations in the world. It creates another reason for people to be out there instead of in LA (obviously dont give LA an arena too).