They aren’t bringing back dungeons. Those are toast. 5 man content is fractals. That’s what Anet is going to continue to support. And of course whatever the challenging group content is, but I highly doubt that’s going to be 5 man dungeons. More likely to be a raid of some type if anything.
I think the problem with Fractals, is that there is limited attraction to them, due to the whole AR thing.
As people who don’t craft (or don’t craft, yet) know they can only do low level ones, because they will hit an AR wall.
When you know there is something beyond a wall, that you can’t access without doing something you don’t wish to do (or do, yet), it tends to put you off the entire thing.
Whereas, dungeeons feel like they should be something anyone can do.
Even if, in reality, that is not necessarily the case (due to the whole meta/elitism/lack of queue system thing).
Gosh, I hope it’s not raids. I am not aware of any game where raiding hasn’t caused endless drama in its community. To be honest, the “challenging group content” announcement is scaring the hell out of me that GW2 might become just yet another endgame focused MMO after all. Dungeons – I am not opposed to getting more of then, but I can’t say I overly like the existing ones. Maybe if they are different enough from the old ones. Less gimmick fights, more fun.
Big, open-to-all, LFR-style raids don’t need to be elitist, though.
I’m envisaging a more challenging, PVE-only version of EOTM, here.
There are no lack of que its just not automated, you have to get off your butt and create/join the groups yourself. Reason why you see so many meta/elitism there is becouse they are very specific in what they want and take time to fill do a all welcome group and watch it get filled quickly. ( could however be hard getting people for story instances since most people only play those once to unlock spvp track and ability to open explore mode)
Yes, I’m aware that you currently have to “get off your butt”.
More than aware, in fact, as it’s all I ever hear on here.
However, I am suggesting that that is one of the reasons fewer people bother with instances, in this game, than in, say, WoW.
People can talk as though this game is a job and that everyone should suck up its inadequacies and whatever else is thrown at them, adapt to it and work hard, as much as they like.
The reality is that most people couldn’t give a flying fig about working in games.
Because, we understand that games are just games and not jobs.
If I have to try to negotiate people’s listings, that often turn out to be highly misleading, or make my own groups and then still have the wrong kinds of people joining and just general bad/intolerate behaviour, I’m simply not going to bother.
Judge me all you want, it makes no difference to me (or the millions like me).
I think the problem with Fractals, is that there is limited attraction to them, due to the whole AR thing.
As people who don’t craft (or don’t craft, yet) know they can only do low level ones, because they will hit an AR wall.
When you know there is something beyond a wall, that you can’t access without doing something you don’t wish to do (or do, yet), it tends to put you off the entire thing.
Whereas, dungeeons feel like they should be something anyone can do.
Even if, in reality, that is not necessarily the case (due to the whole meta/elitism/lack of queue system thing).
Actually the AR thing is quite easy to get around without crafting. If you’re doing the low level fractals you’ll get enough pristine relics to buy a ring and a simple versatile infusion so you can do that until you get 10 AR (two rings) which will let you progress up until level 19. If you do guild missions getting trinkets is dead easy and amulets are cheap in WvW so buying those will get you up to level 29.
Doing level 21 – 29 fractals will drop infused rings which allow you to put higher level infusions in (+8’s for example) so putting two high level infusions in should allow you to get the 40 AR needed to go up to 39. At this point you should have enough fractal relics to purchase a fractal capacitor, upgrade it to ascended and infuse it and add AR to it. Around this level you should also be getting ascended drops that you can change to your required stats in the mystic forge, equip and add some AR to. Continuing along this you’ll get the 55AR needed for up to level 49 and then the 70 needed for level 50.
Um, yeah, that daunting list is even more offputting to someone like me than having to craft would be…
I’m sure I could do all that, if my life depended on it, but fortunately it doesn’t.
Just accessing a few (probably mediocre, let’s face it) instances simply isn’t worth it, to me.
I appreciate you taking the time to post all the info, though.
Just for the record, BTW, I have done some lower level ones, but I didn’t find them fun enough to bother continuing, with all the AR gating.
Without the AR gating, I probably would have done a few more.
