Guild Wars 2

I never felt that Trahearne took over the story. However his acting, dialogue, and overall personality grated on me.

I’m withholding judgement until I see the actual dungeon.

Zietlogik.6208:

Bahamut puts Zhaitan to shame in terms of threat / kittenery / and just overall fear and emotion that would be attached to a creature that could cause something like this.

http://youtu.be/39j5v8jlndM?hd=1

Please make us fear the dragons at least a little bit, our current format is too cliche, sometimes it is better not to be the nerves of steel, afraid of nothing, type of hero.

To be fair the Elder Dragons in GW2 are more like natural disasters. Bahamut in Final Fantasy has a history of being an near instant “end of the world button.” While civilization stands to be destroyed by the Elder Dragons they where never billed as powerful enough to one-shot all life on Tyria in a matter of minutes.

Bellocchi.4593:

Antitheist.5306:

Finally, it does not seem that there are plans for gear beyond this tier, so it’s not a treadmill.

Are you that naïve?

I believe the question that should be asked is: are you?

One tier of gear released over time that ends once you’ve equipped a full set is not a gear treadmill. If you honestly think it is then you’re not very experienced in MMOs I’m afraid.

Doesn’t matter since you’re wrong either way.

Hyperbole (hy-pur-bo-lee) is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech. It may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression.

Translation: OPs post in a nutshell.

aliquis.9180:

Vasham.2408:

aliquis.9180:

Deimos.9285:

aliquis.9180:

Sparda.9356:

On the left corner, we have elitist complain no endgame, on right corner we have casual complain about gear treadmill. Sigh, I guess it IMPOSSIBLE to make everyone happy

Certainly not when you market a game to casuals, because you know that’s where the big money is, and 3 months later go “psych” and turn the game over to the elitists.

This is an honest question, as a casual player why would they be worried about getting +15 more stats and an Infusion that only negates Agony at the absolute hardest end of a dungeon that can be happily played without requiring any ascended gear at all?

Casual players already have an absolute boat full of things to do in this game, this is something for the “hardcore” players to strive for.

Well, I don’t speak for casuals, nor do I consider myself one, but I don’t think it’s about a couple of points on some armor. It’s being relegated to second class, just so some others get to feel superior. This is what almost every other game does, and GW2 wasn’t supposed to.

The problem is that casual players can run the dungeon just fine. The only thing they couldn’t do, based on the assumption they’d somehow be prevented from getting ascended gear (which is more than likely not the case) and thus Agony resistance, is get to the soul crushing levels of deep difficulty from numerous chained runs of the dungeon. Other than this infinite difficulty scaling everything the dungeon has to offer would be available to them. How is that regulating casuals to “second class?”

That’s the problem you run into when you lump ‘casuals’ into a single group. Casuals are casual for a wide variety of reasons. That’s why Arenanet marketed the game as accomodating a wide variety of playstyles. Until now, you didn’t have to dungeons at all to get your gear. You could craft it, you could do DE’s, you could WvW, you could buy it on the TP, etc. When you offer so many choices, nearly everyone can find a way that works for them. That approach has now changed drastically.

First off, one of the new item types is acquired through the Mystic Forge, not the dungeon. That would be the back piece.

Second you have no idea how difficult the beginner levels of the dungeon are. For all we know they’re easier than Story Modes. Hell maybe the rings can be gained through other means in the new zone they’re adding. Don’t go jumping to conclusions and screaming about how persecuted you are based on incomplete information.

Vakirauta.6397:

So the whole content we get after 3 months is a dungeon. Nice.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/november-2012/

Not just a dungeon. The dungeon is just a talking point right now.

TTGP.8517:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/linsey-murdock-unveils-new-high-end-ascended-gear/
“The new additions in November are just the start of our item progression initiative.”

More to come, frankly, this is gear grind for me. Not having that was 1 of the main selling points for me. I wont complain 2 much, had a lot of fun. But if it turns out like this i definetly wont by any future expansions.

Let’s play a game of math.

WoW: 11 equipment slots.

GW2: 13 equipment slots

Last expansion WoW had three tiers of raiding. For each tier you had 2 sets of gear to grind and then enchant. That’s 6 sets of gear total.

6×11 = 66 pieces of gear across three tiers

Time required to get this gear varied based on droprates.

In GW2 they will be adding enough ascended items to fill 13 slots over an extended period of time. Three slots will be open for ascended gear come the 16th.

Assuming you are not already fully geared with exotics…

13 + 3 = 16 pieces of gear with the new patch. 26 by the time they finish adding the rest of the ascended gear across further patches.

I don’t think you have to worry about much of a gear grind, if any.

impoc.1795:

marnick.4305:

I tried it in other MMOs. I’M NOT INTERESTED in gear progression. That’s the primary reason I play GW2. I’m not interested in trying broken mechanics AGAIN.

how do you know that the addition of a SINGLE tier of gear that has a primary use in ONE dungeon is the broken mechanics you have seen before?

Hyperbole and appeal to emotion. Mostly hyperbole.

aliquis.9180:

Deimos.9285:

aliquis.9180:

Sparda.9356:

On the left corner, we have elitist complain no endgame, on right corner we have casual complain about gear treadmill. Sigh, I guess it IMPOSSIBLE to make everyone happy

Certainly not when you market a game to casuals, because you know that’s where the big money is, and 3 months later go “psych” and turn the game over to the elitists.

This is an honest question, as a casual player why would they be worried about getting +15 more stats and an Infusion that only negates Agony at the absolute hardest end of a dungeon that can be happily played without requiring any ascended gear at all?

Casual players already have an absolute boat full of things to do in this game, this is something for the “hardcore” players to strive for.

Well, I don’t speak for casuals, nor do I consider myself one, but I don’t think it’s about a couple of points on some armor. It’s being relegated to second class, just so some others get to feel superior. This is what almost every other game does, and GW2 wasn’t supposed to.

The problem is that casual players can run the dungeon just fine. The only thing they couldn’t do, based on the assumption they’d somehow be prevented from getting ascended gear (which is more than likely not the case) and thus Agony resistance, is get to the soul crushing levels of deep difficulty from numerous chained runs of the dungeon. Other than this infinite difficulty scaling everything the dungeon has to offer would be available to them. How is that regulating casuals to “second class?”

krookie.6378:

Requiring agony resist in order to do higher difficulty is basically gating. it’s not a physical wall that opens in 4 weeks but it’s a wall nevertheless. A wall that opens as soon as you get a certain amount of agony resist.

Some people don’t consider it to be but higher difficulty is still content. With this new update, if your goal is beating the highest difficulty, you must have the new gear. If you don’t have it, you simply do not have access to this content.

It’s also counter to the whole design of this game. Right now, as a level 80, you pretty much have equal access to any portion of the game. After the update you will not.

BTW, resist stacking was one of the worst aspects of those MMOs. I thought that I was done with that “must have at least 500 fire resist” nonsense. I guess not.

Here’s the problem. The devs said “higher difficulty equals greater rewards” with regards to Fractals. But you look at it as if the higher difficulties will somehow drop better gear and that being unable to run higher difficulty fractals gates you from access to it. That’s how WoW does it, not GW2.

We don’t know WHAT you get from clearing Fractals, but it’s safe to assume that there’s only one level of ascended gear rather than WoW’s three levels of raid gear (LFR, normal, and heroic). It’s also safe to assume that the ascended gear will not drop in the dungeon proper since so far Arenanet has not handled dungeon rewards this way. Try to think a little before jumping to conclusions.

krookie.6378:

It is gated content. Difficulty is still content and you won’t have access to that difficulty unless you have certain gear.

Your skill as a player does not play any role in this situation. Without infusions protecting you against agony, you will not be able to complete higher difficulty levels.

I’m gonna give this too you real simple. That’s not gated content. Gated content is when you put a wall between the players and the next part of the dungeon and say “in 4 weeks this will open.” Needing infusions to resist agony will only “gate” how long you can keep going in Fractals, which ultimately similar to resist stacking in endgame raiding in MMOs like WoW and Rift.

But there’s a difference here. In those MMOs if you lack resistances you can’t see further content past the resist check boss. Fractals will be fully available from day one without ascended gear to resist Agony. This is because the difficulty is a scaling mechanic, not a specific boss that says “You must have X Agony resistance to pass” like the other games.

Djavlas.8249:

Vasham.2408:

Djavlas.8249:

so for it to not be gear gating:

I could hop in the instance, at a relatively high lvl of difficulty, with all my current exotics and be at zero disadvantage?

Basically yes. Eventually you’ll reach a point after so many clears were the scaling difficulty will overwhelm you. That’s going to happen with or without ascended gear. But when it comes to the content within the dungeons: the sub-dungeons, the bosses, the loot, you’ll be able to see and get all of that.

Thanks! that’s what i was looking for. (not like that other reply lol)

now if they just get rid of the base stat increase ill be all peachy

The stat increases don’t really worry me. As of the patch it will be three slots you can fill; two rings and the back slot. We have no idea how hard ascended gear will be to acquire so there’s no use worrying about it. The betting man in me would assume it’s a drop off the mega bosses in Fractals, the ones that spawn every other clear.

Djavlas.8249:

so for it to not be gear gating:

I could hop in the instance, at a relatively high lvl of difficulty, with all my current exotics and be at zero disadvantage?

Basically yes. Eventually you’ll reach a point after so many clears were the scaling difficulty will overwhelm you. That’s going to happen with or without ascended gear. But when it comes to the content within the dungeons: the sub-dungeons, the bosses, the loot, you’ll be able to see and get all of that.

aliquis.9180:

Some people have enough experience with other games to know what they like and what they don’t like. “Try it before you knock it” is only for people who don’t know any better.

Having come from an extensive background of MMOs with and without gear treadmills I’m actually interested to see how Arenanet does this. It’s not even a gear treadmill since they’ve already stated the release of ascended gear will be a slow drip as they add new dungeons, eventually leading to the acquisition of a full set. Compare to WoW, where every patch you need to completely regear.

Personally I trust Arenanet with this more than any other publisher.

Talloc.6835:

Vasham.2408:

That would require the GW2 community to be a couple of things: calm, rational, and open to new ideas.

Sadly they are none of these things.

You mean that idea that’s plague the MMO community for years, giving rise to things like GearScore?

Naw, I’ll pass.

Thanks for providing a perfect example of what I was talking about. Immediately comparing what’s happening to other MMOs rather than waiting and seeing how it turns out. The usual kind of kneejerk reactions I’ve grown accustomed to on these forums.

That would require the GW2 community to be a couple of things: calm, rational, and open to new ideas.

Sadly they are none of these things.

Edit: I was gonna try to explain this for people, but you know what? Frak it. Not worth the effort anymore.

dangerhunt.2607:

I don’t see the problem with +2 stat points, arena net could possible later release more powerful rune for the game that can balance out the +2 stat points.

It’s not an issue because it’s not a gear treadmill. The plan is to kit yourself out in full ascended gear over the course of the dungeons they release in the future. The new dungeon will only drop rings. Back slots, the other ascended item type, are craftable.

It’s +2 stat points that’s making players have an aneurism because of kneejerk reactions.

Jestunhi.7429:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Server-Populations/703192

And that settles that conspiracy theory. In before “but they’re lyeing/shills/etc” from the usual crowd.

GregT.4702:

I really can’t see Primordus being the whole point of GW:EOTN, Zhaitan being the end boss of vanilla GW2, and then having us take down Bubbles in a one-weekend event.

Anticlimactic much?

I don’t think we’ll take Bubbles down, just get introduced to him. So far he’s the only confirmed dragon we don’t even know the name of.

~30 bullet points for engis.

Give me weapon stats when using kits and unbugged/improved traits and we’re golden.

teviko.6049:

Again with assumptions. First off, to the boded statement….THEY ARE JUST THINGS TO DO. It is not ‘end-game’.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

Sorry, but you’re wrong. Endgame is “things to do at max level.” Just because you don’t like things doesn’t mean they’re not endgame, nor can you not consider them such when it doesn’t suit your point of view.

Secondly, WoW had nothing to do with ‘end-game’ mentalities. Would you really believe WoW was NOT the first MMO???? gasp the horror….

No it wasn’t, and I’m fully aware of that. But WoW’s endgame model is the one that’s become the so called definition of what endgame should be. That is why we mention it.

Just because your idea of end-game and mine do not mesh does not mean that people do not rise to the top and then realize that there is nothing to do. The things they envisioned on doing once they hit 80 became a sad disappointing reality to many a player.

And the same can be said of you. Just because your idea of endgame and mine do not mesh does not mean that people do not rise to the top and then realize there’s plenty to do. Speaking for everyone makes you look foolish.

Just because you haven’t realized the things I have doesn’t mean that you ever will.

There’s nothing to realize, no massive epiphany to be had. Most people are satisifed, some aren’t. Treating those who are enjoying themselves as merely ignorant of the “truth” is a poor foundation for your argument.

Perhaps your satisfied with this model, currently, but read this:

MANY PEOPLE WERE WHEN THE GAME RELEASED!!! SO many bought into this, thinking that A.Net’s vision was going to revolutionize the MMO industry. We were promised teh nectar of the Gods, and got grape juice instead. As for someone who’se never had grape juice, this might be the end all of end and the bestest thing on the planet, but us adults are going…where’s my wine???

First problem: “Anyone who disagrees with me has poor taste.”

I direct you to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

Second problem. You bought into hype, and you were disappointed. You, not all of us, and it’s no one’s fault but your own. This goes back to that “speaking for everyone” problem I mentioned. Speak from your perspective rather than trying to rally a non-existent army.

bojangles.6912:

Lande.5782:

Nayru.3947:

Lande.5782:

People are way too used to gear treadmills. So ingrained because they never played anything other than that one type of game.

There is an endgame in GW2, and it’s fantastic.

Care to explain what it is? I have 100% world completion and can’t name anything else to do.

WvW, sPvP, alts, working on your legendary, playing the Trading Post, farming, dungeons, exploring further (even at 100% there is still a lot to find in the world, as I was surprised to find out).

The fantastic thing about GW2 is you have so many things you can do every time you log in. The only thing this game is missing would be the gear treadmill, which to many people is a great thing.

Ummm you can do this on all mmo’s also. How is this any different? Also adding farming, trading post and exploration as part of end game just shows you how much it lacks content wise. Exploration is always the poorest excuse of content but to throw in the trading past, that is just mind blowing.

I’m gonna ignore the fact you’re trying to knock legitimate examples off the list with our old friend No True Scotsman and simply let you in on a little fact. Exploration is endgame content for a lot of players. Playing the market is endgame for a lot of players. Just because you don’t enjoy it doesn’t mean you can’t count it on the list of things to do.

Ultimately the problem is with player perception. WoW has poisoned the minds of the MMO community. Challenge is vilified (devs apologizing for the Halloween jumping puzzle mutch?), endgame activities “don’t count as endgame” if it’s not a tiered PVE raid grind. While the “no endgame” argument may have worked in, say, SWTOR the problem is there’s a lot to do in GW2 that doesn’t constitute a classic PVE skinner box.

Sadly to many deluded players no skinner box means no endgame. My advice is to not try to enforce these delusions as the truth of things.

That’s Claw Island. You go there twice during the Personal Story quests.

Jam.4521:

FallenAdvent.5904:

Vote for Zhaitan For President! A vote for Zhaitan is a vote for zombie equality!

Racist

Icebrood Rights!

Icebrood rights are special rights, not civil rights! Vote Primordius to protect our world’s traditional values!

Bruno, I think you don’t quite understand what I’m saying here. “I have yet to meet someone in game who disliked the Zhaitan encounter” does not mean “I’ve never seen people complain about it on the forums.” I’m assuming we both speak english and such a simple concept isn’t outside your realm of understanding.

I’ve run Arah story many times, either to help people complete the personal story quest, get some easy silver/karma, or just cause I feel like it. My personal experiences in game do not mirror the forums one bit.

Meanwhile, look up the term “opinion myopia.” I think you’re suffering from it.

BrunoBRS.5178:

Vasham.2408:

Seriously though, have yet to meet someone in game who disliked the story or ending.

you have yet to meet someone who disliked the ending? WHAT?!

i have yet to meet someone other than you that LIKED the kitten thing. the entire dungeon leading up to it is amazing, and even now that he has dragon tentacle thingies, those things can be easily killed by the NPCs while you ignore them.

behold, the climax of a 100 hours worth of story:

That’s nice and all, but one personal experience does not override another just because yours if more favorable to your viewpoint. I’d love to say I’ve run the place with a group who left it screaming “WORST FIGHT EVER OMG ARENANET WTF,” but I haven’t. I’m sorry if that’s hard for you to accept.

That said they still could have done better by making Zhaitan more involved with the fight. But there’s still four (maybe five) Elder Dragons to go. I’m certain Arenanet will learn from this fight’s flaws and improve on the next one.

DavidGX.1723:

Nihilus.3015:

Don’t expect an Elder Dragon to be the size of their concept art, that size we see on paper will never happen ingame.

Source?

It’s more a matter of being able to put it in the actual level and not have it blow up computers from the need to render such a massive, moving creature. Even WoW when confronted with rendering a beast of equal size (Deathwing) resorted to shrinking him down and using only partial models (Madness fight) or having him be an unmoving set piece (Spine fight). The most practical route is to use perspective rather than a straight up massive model. Though Zhaitan model itself is rather large, since the dragon head that spits the phase 3 adds at you is at least the size of Claw of Jormag’s head.

Asagi.1405:

Yeah you’re using the events of a crap story to justify a crap ending.
That’s all well and good. Doesn’t change the fact that it’s crap.

I’ll take “Subjective Opinions” for $500.

Seriously though, have yet to meet someone in game who disliked the story or ending.

It’s called “Asking for a group in Lion’s Arch.”

Alexander Dragonfang.1759:

Forget about a new ancient dragon, deep sea dragon isn`t even named and besides, he resides far, far beyond the sea of sorrows.

Unless Zhaitan’s Risen navy was battling Bubbles’ tentacled Cthulhu beasts far out at sea, and with him gone he’s gonna Godzilla his way into Tokyo Bay-cough…er, the Sea of Sorrows.

Ath.2531:

Jairlyn.1429:

forced… this word you use…. I do not think it means what you think it means.

From the depths of my heart, Thank you.

Every-time i see someone writing the word “forced” the only thing that comes to mind is that this person is lacking a significant portion of their brain.

Hyperbole is a great way of putting artificial significance on a problem that isn’t really there.

Kierlak.5209:

Other than MfD his abilities are his fireballs and his AOE stomp, both of which are easy to see coming and, if you’re ranged or melee, you only need to watch out for one of them at a time.

Given the ridiculously overdone particle effects in this game, you can’t even see the priest 95% of the time, making dodging anything more about range from him so that the stomp doesn’t affect you, because you cannot see it coming when he is covered in giant blue-red flames plus the six million other explosions, slashes, domes and psychedelic shimmery crap produced by everyone’s attacks. All you can see is a something surrounded by a mass.

That sounds more like a personal problem to me. I’ve fought him from both ranged and melee in huge clusterfraks of players and particle effects. I have yet to experience trouble telling the 20 foot lump of muscle and spiked armor from the other players.

At this point I can only give you this for advice. I know you won’t listen, but it’s all there is left to say: DODGE!!!!

This entire thread goes to show what WoW and it’s imitators have done to the MMO player base. It’s sad really.

And that’s the bottom line.

Voidspawn.1934:

Vasham.2408:

What makes this event impossible are players who die and refuse to run back, buffing the boss since they still count as “in the fight” were scaling is concerned. This makes it impossible for the survivors to stand a chance.

Player laziness is the culprit here, not content design. If you die, run back. Simple.

I’m sorry but if you think a fight that requires that everyone dies, respawns and runs back to the fight as fast as possible is good design, you probably haven’t played any MMOs that actually have interesting and well designed fights.

Although I do agree that players that just sit there dead are also at fault, the main problem lies with the design. An event that is meant to be completed by random people that are not organized shouldn’t be this hard. And if you really want to make it hard, don’t use such cheap ways like 1-shot attacks with <1sec animations.

I’ve played plenty of MMOs over the years. Some of the best bossfights in MMO history had a mechanic where the boss kills you in a single, unavoidable hit. Vaelstraz comes to mind, a fight were the entire point is to kill him before you run out of raid members. Technically the Priest of Balthazar is far more forgiving since you can still get back up after he uses Marked for Death, since it only downs you and good players will still stop to help you back up. Other than MfD his abilities are his fireballs and his AOE stomp, both of which are easy to see coming and, if you’re ranged or melee, you only need to watch out for one of them at a time. 90% of failures on this boss are the result of fully dead players not running back. The fact that dyeing on a boss in an MMO is hard for people to accept nowadays shows how badly casualization has poisoned the playerbase.

I would go so far as to say that Anet needs to add more bosses in events with this level of difficulty. Bosses shouldn’t be limited in difficulty because they’re “meant for event zergs.” I do agree though the shard vendor shouldn’t be tied to a boss like this. Putting him at the Pact Rally point or Fort Trinity after successfully completing one of the invasion events is a far better way to do it.

AesirValkyr.7418:

Adding onto what Curuniel just said, how do the 9+ million WoW players think its ok to pay full price for each expansion, pay $15 a month for the privilege to play what they bought, and also have a cash shop for mounts server moves and other things? How often are they getting real content updates/additions anyhow?

I feel privileged to have bought a game from a developer that isn’t also charging me for access to what I bought.

Was about to mention this. It’s also worth noting that the usual excuse for monthly feels (read: server maintenance) is an outright lie. Anyone can read the fiscal reports of major MMO publishers and see the almost non-existant costs of running servers, at least in terms of large corporations. NCsoft with all the servers it runs for all the MMOs under their belt spend roughly $6,000 per quarter on actual server maintenance. Simple math brings that out to 400 players required to keep an MMO’s servers going with monthly fees alone for every MMO they run and maintain.

What makes this event impossible are players who die and refuse to run back, buffing the boss since they still count as “in the fight” were scaling is concerned. This makes it impossible for the survivors to stand a chance.

Player laziness is the culprit here, not content design. If you die, run back. Simple.

The dungeon will be here until the end of the event. The one time event was the Mad King erupting from the statue in LA.

@Lavish: The fight has been patched and his last phase is working properly now.

Soki.3027:

While I’ve noted your condescending attitude to people who disagree with you in other posts going so far as to put on the act of a mother talking to a confused three year old when they perform the heinous crime of, gasp, having differing opinions on subjective matters, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and humor you here.
I’ve bolded the part I wish to speak of. I enjoy running the dungeons for the challenge and the story. Rewards for me personally are fine, those being silver and karma. I also understand that isn’t for everyone and agree the main problem with dungeons, barring a few BS pulls, are the rewards. Anet has already stated a fix for this is in the pipeline and I trust them to follow through, though what that reward system is I don’t know.
I will however state that a proper reward system should have been in place from the start. I’m just glad they’re working on fixing it.

Actually, they may have been referring to me as well – and our opinions seem pretty much aligned (Dungeons are not at all hard, just tedious).

I truly do hope ANet refines the dungeon experiences in the future. If they just keep making things like stupidly-easy but long bossfights; bosses that have no feasible tells; bosses that spawn with adds that, alone, have cool mechanics, but together, turn into a CF of bad design and misguided “More is better” ideals; or traps you’d literally ave to have foresight to see coming; dungeons will be forever-mediocre, and people who accept and thrive on mediocrity (das yew) will be the only demographic who enjoys the game aside from pvpers – something I don’t think any company should strive for with their design goals.

I think it’s cute that your only response is to belittle people who are able to succeed were you obviously fail, all the while regurgitating the same buzzwords and stale arguments. Please continue, it makes me laugh.

Anyway I’m ignoring you now. I have better things to do than waste my time arguing with a petulant child.

Sina.9208:

WoW had what at launch, Molten Core?!

WoW had no raids at launch. Closest thing it had to raids where level 60 5-mans that they forgot to add a player cap to.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Oh dear, has it evolved into this again? People calling each other bad players and claiming superiority? Dear oh dear.

Why do people get so defensive and hostile the moment someone disagrees with them? Why not simply use well reasoned arguments instead? Isn’t that the point of a forum? … Well, then again, looking at most forums… perhaps not.

My biggest issue with the dungeons currently is NOT, read NOT in bolt letters, the difficulty. I have completed plenty of them. After having fallen off the Clocktower countless times, I can also safely say that I do not mind learning a challenge, even if it takes countless times.

However, after making it through the challenge, it has to feel rewarding. With dungeons me and my party felt that with each challenge we survived, we were really just setting ourselves up for tedious work. I think everyone was hoping that a dungeon would mean a labyrinth with devious traps and puzzles. And not a long corridor, with occasionally a room, and just mobs of enemies with really high health pools.

While I’ve noted your condescending attitude to people who disagree with you in other posts going so far as to put on the act of a mother talking to a confused three year old when they perform the heinous crime of, gasp, having differing opinions on subjective matters, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and humor you here.

I’ve bolded the part I wish to speak of. I enjoy running the dungeons for the challenge and the story. Rewards for me personally are fine, those being silver and karma. I also understand that isn’t for everyone and agree the main problem with dungeons, barring a few BS pulls, are the rewards. Anet has already stated a fix for this is in the pipeline and I trust them to follow through, though what that reward system is I don’t know.

I will however state that a proper reward system should have been in place from the start. I’m just glad they’re working on fixing it.

Soki.3027:

Yeah, no.. See.. That’s not how examples work.
“You brought up one, I’ll give you that. But you’re still wrong!”
I brought up one out of 7 I have off the top of my head, of bosses and mob-pulls, that are poorly designed. I’m not going to list examples and explain them in simple terms so you can understand that GW2’s dungeons are a step back for the industry. You’re droning really hard already, and I can see you won’t alter your opinion based on examples.

You’re entering this discussion on one decrepit leg; and when you think you’re “proving me wrong”, you’re cherrypicking which parts of my posts you want to respond to – ignoring the overall point in each one.

I’ve played EQ, FFXI, WoW, GW, and now GW2. I know about the skinner-box method like the back of my hand.
I also know that the same design flaws that existed in GW show themselves in GW2.
I’ve also played games in other genres to a high degree of competency. I’ve competed in invitationals for two modern 2D fighting games; and won 2nd in one. For 5 seasons of WoW arena, I placed within the top 0.5% of the ladder. I had my full-fledged Relic equipment for THF and NIN in FFXI.
I know a good deal about what makes a legitimately good multiplayer game; and I can pick out design flaws that can make a game deviate from being good.

^Was not to tell you how amazing I am. It’s to iterate how unfounded your “You don’t know TRUE tedium!” personal attack was. I know real tedium – and GW2 exhibits it with its Legendary grind – and it exhibits a different form of it with ANet’s “more is better” philosophy of mob-pack design and in terms of boss-health.

If you’re going to try to attack my credibility about “knowing true tedium”, you should also think about the game we’re talking about, here.

GW2 markets itself as a jump-in-and-play MMO. With the way the dungeons are put together, it seems like we’re going back in time 10 years to what would be acceptable design for an MMO dungeon during a time when Absolute Virtue was considered “Super hardcore epic-challenge” – when all it really did was spam every class’ 2-hour abilities and have a stupid amount of Health.

I’ll end with a suggestion: Think about your response this time before kneejerking and trying to resort to some sort of feeble fallacy such as attacking my credibility.

I’d be willing to bet I’m better than you at this and many other games, so keep that in mind as well.

Yes, I’m droning because what you describe as poor design is something I’ve never had trouble with, barring a few moments I too have agreed are terribly designed. Yet you claim to somehow be “better” at this game? Claiming superiority is the first sign of someone with something to prove on a personal level rather than anyone trying to give constructive criticism. Did my remark about your potential lack of experience touch you on a personal level? I would certainly hope not.

Anyway you can claim all that experience all night long and it doesn’t mean anything. Rather than whine and complain about every aspect of every pull of every dungeon like a hyperbole spewing child you could have noted the parts that need fixing in a well worded manner. As for the rest it was only a matter of following my example: use strategy and talk with your group. Communication and working with the party helps, almost to the point of trivializing the trash in this game. One person saying, “Hey, I’ll run support for this dungeon” can make a world of difference with the difficulty and so called “tedium” you see around every corner. Or maybe being smart about gearing instead of wearing berzerker armor then being mad when the boss downs you instantly. That gear’s only good for one fight anyway (Arah Seer path, btw), and it’s hardly required.

Could bosses be more interesting? Sure they could. It’s also Arenanet’s first round of dungeons in this game and with new MMOs the devs often start simple. Inflamatory threads about how dungeons are terrible are pointless when advice on how they could improve is both more constructive and helpful to them. Rather than yelling “TEDIUM!! ONE HIT KILLS!!! CRAPPY DESIGN!!!” in such vague terms would could say “Why don’t you try X, or Y? That would make bosses better and dungeons more fun.”

But alas, you’ve chosen your path. Shame it’s the one that nobody listens to except those with the same poor attitude. Well, them and people who like to remind you that no, you’re not helping. Screaming and flailing will only make things worse. But if this thread’s proven anything it’s that you don’t care regardless.

swiftpaw.6397:

Vasham.2408:

Jaydee.8143:

swiftpaw.6397:

Solution I think would be to add in some high end dungeons where all your points DO matter. People HAVE to be running certain builds and setups, have to think on their toes 24/7 and cannot allow error, dungeons where things change rapidly and there’s no telling what could happen next. Keep the dungeons there are now ( this is a game for the casual player after all) but add in some crazy bat-kitten insane dungeons that require real skill. I am hoping that in the future (expansions), these will be added, possibly as new dungeons or as hardmode versions of current ones.

I think THIS would be the worst opinion. Why the HELL would you FORCE people to play a certain way? The entire point of BUILDS is to do it the way you WANT and try to get the most you can out of an idea.

The same reason I was told by a group of four needing one more for an explorable that my Engineer couldn’t go because “we need a tank.” People set in the outdated ways of the trinity, forced specs and class roles.

Ansultares.1567:

I got as far as where you said you were disappointed that the game didn’t employ enrage timers.

Why can’t you just go back to WoW if what you’re looking for is WoW-style raiding?

Enrage timers appeared when Blizzard realized that the only way their bosses could actually wipe a raid was if it suddenly killed everyone instantly for no logical reason. People who want examples of so called “artificial difficulty” need to remember enrage timers.

Well ACTUALLY, if you read what I’m saying here, I am saying KEEP the dungeons we have now. But OFFER something on the next level for people who want it. (Oh the horror!)
No body is forcing anyone to go in hard mode dungeons. I just think it should be on the table for people who want to do it.
Same way as in GW1 where there was Normal Mode DoA and Hard Mode DoA.
Nobody was forced into anything, you simply picked one and everyone was happy.

That’s actually a good idea and would be something I’d probably enjoy. Of course I also like playing hobo runs of STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl and Dark Souls. However enrage timers would not be the way to go if they did such.

Soki.3027:

Vasham.2408:

So in order to counter his argument you bring up a trash pull the devs themselves think is bad and are actively trying to fix? You need to restructure your argument or just give up I think.

Oki-Doki – Do recall the working-term “One example” before I mentioned that particularly obvious example, though.

Pulls that include more than one Support Golem – the type that evokes a non-removable Fire Shield on all of its nearby allies – an example of a well-designed mechanic.
One Golem is an interesting challenge – to overcome the mobs body-blocking the Support Golem to end the source of Fire Shield is an interesting mechanic.
But that’s where things go wrong.
ANet seems to be in love with the idea of “More is better”. They have a mob that has an interesting ability that must be handled in a certain way. Then they add more of them. And more. And more.

3 Support Golems in a wave-style event with Bomb-bots rushing at the nearest player and beginning to detonate, while they have a Fire Shield on, is no longer an example of interesting mechanics. You must kill 3 Support Golems (Keep in mind, 1 makes it difficult to attack for any length of time) – which require a minute of straight damaging before you down one – for 3 of them.
While dealing with Fire stacks.

This sort of encounter is fightable, yes. Without corpse-running? Yes/ Is there any sort of strategy involved, other than “Stack condition removal at the expense of everything else, and just haphazardly tunnel-vision on the Support Golems”?
No.

This one-dimensional type of execution that demands a specific sort of traiting; with no option to adjust spent trait-points in-dungeon, is tedious and poorly-made.

If that’s the strategy then that’s the strategy. No matter what build you are everyone can switch to at least one condition removal skill, many of which can work on other people as well. Needing to vary your skills mid dungeon on a pull by pull basis is not bad design. If anything it’s better than the “pull everything, AOE it down in 30 seconds” crap most MMO gamers are brainwashed with. Having to actually think about a trash pull isn’t a bad thing, even if it’s something minor as “switch one of your skills to X.”

I also go back to my Knights example, in TA E Forward-Forward path.
The boss is not hard by any means. The fact that he pulls with 3 Knights, no matter what, who each can do their leap-combo at different times, is badly designed. It pushes you into a metagamey “strategy” of letting the other mobs get bored, run away, and let you finish off their buddy.

It took you two tries, but you finally found one of the dumber pulls that doesn’t appear to be on the devs radar. I’ll agree this pull is stupid, but it’s so far one of two that I’ve come across. The Inquest Grenadiers being the other, but the devs again admitted to such and are working on changing it, making it a non-issue.

If GW2 was supposed to make the game-world feel alive and teeming with personality, and make the combat feel strategic and satisfying – it SORELY missed its mark, in dungeons.

Your subjective opinion, I’m afraid. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t make it a fact. That’s how simple it is really.

I do hope you can respond to the overarching topic now; rather than kneejerk to what is, effectively, semantics. If you can’t, you can always relinquish whatever point you wanted to make to me.

No I’m quite happy to keep proving you wrong, no matter how condescending you act.

I brought up more interesting things to discuss than a simple example of the bad design that’s the norm in GW2 dungeons – you may want to respond to those, now. You know – the ones that go along the veins of
“GW2 dungeons rarely being an actual challenge; rather than an exercise in tedium”

Kid you don’t really know tedium in MMOs if you think GW2’s dungeons are tedious in any way. Tedium is a three month grind to even get access to a basic dungeon you won’t run once everyone’s done an attunement quest within. Tedium is farming a dungeon over and over just for the right to flick a switch and have it be an actual challenge, to the point people don’t want to run the hard mode since they’re sick of the place. Tedium is watching the same piece of loot drop after over a hundred clears, but you can’t go to the next dungeon until that piece of loot you need drops or the first boss will stomp your face in due to a minor stat difference. If trash pulls are what you define as tedium I think you haven’t experienced much of anything in this genre of gaming. Come back when you have.

Soki.3027:

I won’t respond to Ares individually – I’ll just say they really need to re-read what I said more carefully. Also, they’re confusing what I’ve said with what someone else said, a few times in their posts. Until they can get at least this right, and find some sort of focal-point to direct their posts to, they’re not worth imparting counterpoints to.

Zefiris.8297:

Most of GW2’s dungeons are -objectively- badly designed.

Actually, that argument is a cop-out. -Objectively-, the GW2 dungeons have very good design – the sole exception to this is the destroyer boss in CoE.

The only problem one can objectively attest would be a bug, and those are rare.

Why is this objectively true? Because GW2s boss design is in line with a long tradition of games with similar difficulty. The disconnect is that modern gamers, especially MMO gamers, fail at that kind of difficulty.

And they fail hardcore. They are used to being coddled by games such as WoW, which made dungeons boring sleep-lootfiestas.

Maybe it’s just not the game for you – that’s okay. GW2 isn’t supposed to be a wow-like cakewalk. It’s supposed to be challenging in the dungeons.

You’re like someone going to a Mario game and complains that it lacks twitch gameplay, such as FPS or Starcraft require.

Spoiler: Mario’s developers won’t give a kitten about such an opinion. Neither will Arenanet

You know, the funny thing is that when you bring up WoW as an example of EZmoad, you’re really just shooting yourself in the foot, if you’re comparing to GW2. ^^;
Not only do GW2’s dungeon designs come off as exceedingly unpolished when compared to WoW’s dungeon/raid tiers; they are also amateurly designed, to boot – as well as offering very little progressive oppurtunity on individual pulls, aside from gimmicky metagamey “Pull one Knight at once, and let the rest reset” tactics – which I ~expected~ GW2 to depart from; if ANet’s hype for the dungeons were believable.

Granted that WoW has a heavier focus on boss mechanics than mob-pack intricacies(or lack thereof); but the sheer multitude of mechanics offered by the bosses in a single dungeon of WoW outpace GW2’s handful of mob-type-based mechanics for the majority of the released game.

I don’t mean to bring up the W-word – I know it’s a volatile subject around here – but I just thought I’d have to mention how wrong you were about your comparisoN before moving on to explaining myself further:

The problem is that GW2’s dungeons are rarely an actual -challenge-. Either a boss takes 5mins longer to kill than it honestly should (Unthreatening punching-bag; tedium) or the tells for certain mechnics are either unintuitive or nonexistant.
Aside from these boss-related issues, trash-packs are designed sloppily.

Let’s use an easy example: Inquest Grenadiers. They do literally the same thing for 3 skills: Spam 3 different types of grenades; spawn 6 at once; with the grenades being unavoidable unless you dodgeroll.
Yes, they’re fightable. No, they’re not particularly hard.
They take a long time to kill, they spam a skill that hits for roughly 1/4th your health, depending on health-tier and build, and there’s 6 of them.

I want somebody to explain to me how this design is
1)Interesting and
2)Fun
The “strategy” for this pack is to essentially layer disruptive CC indefinetly – which truly does assume either profession or utility stacking – and even then, it’s HIGHLY unlikely to ever keep them CCed for long enough to avoid a single death to this uninteresting, unintuitive, unfun mob-pack.
The Grenadiers are just one example of many.

I hope now people will quit knee-jerking to call anyone who critisizes GW2’s dungeon design “baddies”/“noobs”.

So in order to counter his argument you bring up a trash pull the devs themselves think is bad and are actively trying to fix? You need to restructure your argument or just give up I think.

Jaydee.8143:

swiftpaw.6397:

Solution I think would be to add in some high end dungeons where all your points DO matter. People HAVE to be running certain builds and setups, have to think on their toes 24/7 and cannot allow error, dungeons where things change rapidly and there’s no telling what could happen next. Keep the dungeons there are now ( this is a game for the casual player after all) but add in some crazy bat-kitten insane dungeons that require real skill. I am hoping that in the future (expansions), these will be added, possibly as new dungeons or as hardmode versions of current ones.

I think THIS would be the worst opinion. Why the HELL would you FORCE people to play a certain way? The entire point of BUILDS is to do it the way you WANT and try to get the most you can out of an idea.

The same reason I was told by a group of four needing one more for an explorable that my Engineer couldn’t go because “we need a tank.” People set in the outdated ways of the trinity, forced specs and class roles.

Ansultares.1567:

I got as far as where you said you were disappointed that the game didn’t employ enrage timers.

Why can’t you just go back to WoW if what you’re looking for is WoW-style raiding?

Enrage timers appeared when Blizzard realized that the only way their bosses could actually wipe a raid was if it suddenly killed everyone instantly for no logical reason. People who want examples of so called “artificial difficulty” need to remember enrage timers.

Grit.9061:

It was disappointing, to say the least. Obviously we wouldn’t be hacking away at his toes with an axe or anything like that.. an airship was the logical way to do things. But the whole fight was rather boring and uneventful. I didn’t mind the rest of the dungeon, and the part where you’re shooting cannons at smaller dragon minions was actually pretty cool.

Explorable mode is better in the sense that you have at least one epic and difficult boss fight (who shows up in every path).

I wasn’t expecting much in the way of difficulty since it was story mode, probably why I enjoyed the encounter. That said I’m certain Anet will analyse criticism of this encounter for future Elder Dragon fights.

To offer some of my own it should be a more engaging battle. Zhaitan is impressive to behold and the music combined with the visuals makes it a very epic encounter, but he feels more like a set piece than a boss. Next time you make a dungeon with an Elder Dragon as a boss try to make him feel like part of the fight, like he’s going to take advantage of his size and power and just sweep you off the field with no effort. Obviously the mechanics would make the fight winnable but a better demonstration of the dragon’s might would go a long way.

Nycthemeron.7690:

The cannons, a mission critical component of the airship battle, is so freaking buggy it’s not even funny. On top of that, you have an insane number of adds and HUGE freaking AoE attacks that litterally overlap each other down the length of the deck. If you are going to have buggy, get stuck in them, wont auto target anything cannons, then do not pour salt into that wound by constant adds and AoE spam.

It is not challenging. It is not fun. It is a chore to try and complete just so I can finish the stinking personal story.

I liked the Zhaitan fight and even I can admit it’s easy. If you’re having trouble with the final phase that’s not the fight being hard, that’s you being terrible.

Nycthemeron.7690:

Oh please. I am complaining about key systems that are obviously broken and difficulties that are set as if these same systems were functioning properly.

Troll elsewhere.

A rebuttal to your point isn’t a troll. I think you need to educate yourself on what the term means.

Edit: Just in case you’re actually serious here’s a very simple phase 3 strategy…

1) Everyone stop shooting the cannons
2) Everyone kill adds
3) Get back on the cannons.

It should take you at most three waves of adds to finish the last phase. It’s not exactly rocket science.