Yeah, I was a bit perplexed on why it was called a dungeon as well. Coming from the dungeon team previously, it really felt more like a boss instance, but I don’t write the patch notes or do the marketing.
I didn’t build the Canach encounters, but I did enjoy them. It’s a neat variation that changes gameplay, and I liked the mechanics. Sure there’s a few things that can be done better (as is with everything), but given the time the designer had to work on the instance, I think he did a great job.
TBH I dont think it was in the mechanics or design of the instance where the problem lay. It was well enough designed mechanically (although I would always be worried about over-using temp skills in place of the ones a player has chosen and practiced with). The real problem with the thing was one of storytelling and characterization. So many gaps in the narrative up to that point, only the bones of a story arc very loosely and artificially constructed from some related events, talking heads and the instances. Some mechanics (such as Canach being invincible) were also wildly immersion breaking. I know you put in one line of text to explain why but still, nothing else in the game, Dragons, Gods or Demons has invincibly but this second rate Sylvari can do it? Putting the cart far off in the distance in front of the horse on that one.
Characterization is another big problem with it. None of the NPCs in this had any real depth or personality to them (apart from right at the very end Inspector Kiel comes out looking pretty cool) Canach as a villian is like bland wallpaper. His motivations are actions are told to us, rather than shown and he himself expresses practically nothing. This is a rather good summary of the problem with a lot of GW2 storytelling to be honest. Too much telling and not enough showing.
PS With regard to characters Im not talking about having super expensive voice acting or elaborate facial animations and gestures. If books can make characters come alive (and sweet mercy they can) then all you really need is some genuinely polished dialoge by writers who know how to conceive and express personality. Some sort of quirk of speech or and expression of personality traits outside the characters assigned role of well meaning doer of evil or long suffering policewoman might be all it takes.
Its all in the details. Give yourself more time, if content were to come out bi-monthly and be around the same amount as now, but significantly higher quality I hazard a guess the community would be quite chuffed.
PPS Remember all those situational comments added to the Cynn and the others back in GW1 that expressed their opinion on some matter or the reaction to a given situation? Those were fun.
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I generally get a couple of cores or a lodestone per run of COE. Its still a long, boring slog if you are doing it just for the rewards but its actually a fun dungeon to run with friends as long as you dont do too much in one go.
We’re aware that people want new armor skins. I want new ones as well, and we’re working on things. Armor skins are much more time/resource consuming and difficult as opposed to weapons.
This is of course perfectly reasonable, most of us players understand that creating these things take times and armour (30 iterations for 1 set) is particularly time consuming to create. What is confusing us is the choice of existing appearance. Why make your new armour (that you presumably want people to use) look like the most common and least useful armour? (as opposed to, say, the tribal pvp stuff or some other existing and underutilized appearance)
For that matter could we perhaps understand how the stats were chosen? What niche or demand do you imagine this particular combination will fulfill?
Really the thing that is confusing us is not that these items are not all new but why they are a combination of undesirable appearance and undesirable stats. A semi reasonable price perhaps, but also quite tricky to buy, especially after this event finishes and Southsun slows down again. Do you not want people to play with the new content you put in game? (Thats not me being snarky, I genuinely want to know. Time was spent on this stuff and if you have no intention of us playing with it I feel obliged to point out that your time would be better spent on other areas of the game – The entire southsun event from beginning to end would have run fine without these merchants and these items.)
PS If your goal was to increase Karka shell prices it has backfired spectacularly. As soon as people saw what the new items were like shell prices dropped by about 60%.
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After thinking about it for a while a simple solution would be to change the system as following:
Instead of the current recipe
4 x item -> 1 x item
with a probability of p for the resulting item being a precursor, make it as
4 x item -> precursor_shard (probability q) OR 1 x (non-precursor) item (probability 1 – q)
and make precursors available through the recipe
m x precursor_shard + fancy_stuff -> precursor (guaranteed)
By setting q / m = p the expectation value of a precursor stays the same as before. However, instead of an exponential distribution, the system now follows a binomial distribution, with a significantly smaller variance.
In simpler terms, it would be just like the system used for crafting mystic clovers. Can you imagine what it would be like if the only mystic clover recipe had a 1/250 chance of producing 77 clovers in one go, and 249/250 chance of producing random junk?
The suggested solution gives the system a coarse memory through the accumulation of shards, and cuts out worst excesses in both directions. In that system it’s still in average just as hard to get a precursor as before, but now that hardness is reasonably fair.
+1, a million times +1
Everyone should +1 this until the forums are a sea of this post and Anet is forced to notice it.
Getting all the WvW zones completed doesnt require skill, it requires the good luck to be on a dominant WvW server and the good luck to be online at the right time to take advantage of that. Player skill has nothing to do with it.
I have nothing against WvW being part of the process for getting legendaries but unlike the badges requirement this one doesnt make people actually play WvW at all. It just means there are a bunch of people running around by themselves in WvW trying to get map completion taking up the pop limit and gifting badges to the other teams on their inevitably frequent deaths.
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Aye, this situation is more or less why Im not playing anymore. Hope they managed to fix it.
P.S
- Since the patch isn’t actually out, I am just speculating on what little information I have. So if things are different and awesome in game, please just ignore this thread and move on, thanks.
Done.
150 fractals is not a large amount, and nice to know this is being fixed to make sense. Thanks Robert =)
I think hes saying that they did victory or death and then went to the pact fort and had the celebration instance (So yes, completed victory or death) and after the celebration they didnt get a reward. Thats what quest on camp means. And only his friend didnt get the reward, maybe.
Lucky as I am being on SOS it still took a while to get full map completion of WvW, I can only imagine what it must be like on a server that struggles to even hold its own borderland for any length of time.
Not entirely sure why the explorable dungeons are scaled down. The only idea I can come up with (and this is since making the tokens account bound) is providing an additional way to gear up your alt characters. A little bonus for having gotten through once already. Purely speculation though.
It is weird, right? I mean Orr mobs dont drop lvl40 rares so you can gear up your alts with them.
Also, found where I read about the explorable modes.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-endgame-reimagined/
Oh yeah, I remember that article. I read it a little differently though – I took them to mean that people at lvl 35 and people at lvl 80 are playing the same sort of content, as opposed to lvling with one type of content and then the end game being completely different ie playing AC at lvl 35 to level up is the same sort of gameplay as doing Arah at lvl 80. Either way, Im still inclined to believe the dungeons were always intended to be done at the lvl they adjust you too, as they actually were right at release before everyone had lvl 80 chars coming out their wazoo.
Meh, the flowers make it easier. =)
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Ive heard of people getting them in Fractals, but never in the other dungeons before.
The thing most people miss is that explorable mode dungeons were designed as part of Anet’s “end game content” (or at least were, if they’ve hence changed their standing). They’re meant to be done by players who have maxed out their character level. They are possible to be done by lower levels than 80 (to an extent, dungeon depending) if the players are competent.
If this is true( and Im not saying it isnt, I just dont understand the design) why arent all the explorables lvl 80 as opposed to 5 lvls above story mode? Yeah, they all give out lvl 80 gear but they also give lower lvl gear too, if AC exp wasnt meant to be done by lvl35 characters why does it have lvl 35 gear available as rewards?
Its a moot point – the game (zone size and density, travel mechanics, economy etc) was designed to not have mounts. Adding them in any form other than purely cosmetic would require either a massive amount of work or would break the game completely. Its not even a remote possibility.
Have you seen the witchs broom stick….. thats nothing but a cosmetic mount……
Which is what I said. Only cosmetic mounts would work without completely redesigning the game. And how would a cosmetic mount help the op enjoy travel more?
Emertion (also just fun how do mini pets help people enjoy the game more? Untell they add polimoc that is)
And i do have to ask if thay added speed bost when mounted that were attached to your skill bar ((as the teck is there)) that were no faster than any other speed boost. And vanished (along with the mount)) when entering combat (hell hit the player with a knock down if hit with a crit as if getting knocked off the mount). How dose that brake anything?
I already drop my banner and use the speed boost from that to move faster than others and with the trate i have my speed runs out only 3 sec before the skill comes off cool down.
Dude, chill, Im not arguing against putting mounts in the game. And Im not saying what you describe would break the game because what you are describing is purely cosmetic – It does nothing mechanically that is not in the game already. But read what the OP posted, he wants mounts that change the way travel is in the game, and to do that properly Anet would have to do a huge amount of work redesigning all the areas. Just think , if they wanted flying mounts they would have to completely rebuild the way zones in the game work, especially if they want it to have more immersion, rather than less, what with all those eerily straight mountain ranges dividing Tyria.
So, yes, the mounts you want wouldn’t be that hard to put in the game, but neither would they do what the OP wants.
The game begins at max lvl, just like a good GW game should.
I too wish for a game designed for me and me alone, but until I have millions of dollars to waste on hiring a team of developers to make it for me I will settle for GW2, which comes pretty close sometimes.
Its a moot point – the game (zone size and density, travel mechanics, economy etc) was designed to not have mounts. Adding them in any form other than purely cosmetic would require either a massive amount of work or would break the game completely. Its not even a remote possibility.
Have you seen the witchs broom stick….. thats nothing but a cosmetic mount……
Which is what I said. Only cosmetic mounts would work without completely redesigning the game. And how would a cosmetic mount help the op enjoy travel more?
I noticed that Ive always got a key from completing early personal story missions. If you wanted regular, albeit slow, keys rerolling low lvl alts might be the best way.
Its a moot point – the game (zone size and density, travel mechanics, economy etc) was designed to not have mounts. Adding them in any form other than purely cosmetic would require either a massive amount of work or would break the game completely. Its not even a remote possibility.
Zero rewards in Story dungeons = waste of time bothering.
What about fun? Unlike explorables you aren’t supposed to farm them. I remember ANet having stated somewhere that story mode isn’t even meant to be repeated more than once per char.
The problem is finding groups for story mode when everyone only does it once. The most polished and interesting dungeons in the game go unplayed because they offer no replay-ability (either in gameplay or rewards).
If classes are balanced then classes with higher base stats should more likely take damage (=tank). If Agony affects them “equally” and one class gets it more likely then it is not balanced.
Isn’t that what he is suggesting? That people take a % of base class hp?
Yes, such a good idea for low HP classses. There is probably a reason why some classes have lower health pools.
Hmm? If Im understanding it correctly his idea would punish high hitpoint and low hitpoint classes equally while at the same time allowing all classes to spec in vitality and have an advantage against agony from it. It would be be less punishment for high hp builds of all classes.
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However much we want it to work properly (and yes, I’ve been dced at really inconvenient times in fractals as well) I’m sure Anet want it more. Its their livelihood on the line, after all – its not like they want problems in their game.
Hmm… well they are ascended and should require work to achieve and upgrade, other than necessary defenses.
Agreed, my point is that the necessary defenses (agony resistance) for offensive slots are more expensive and limited than the ones for defensive slots, for no apparent reason. In terms of additional stats (the really expensive crafted infusions) they are the same cost.
edit – to answer your original question my suggestion would be to add a simple offensive infusion with only +5 agony resistance for 75 fractal tokens to that merchant in the dungeon.
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Omg, thanks for the post above!
Tell you whats a simple fix, just have Agony do a % damage of your intial/base HP (not buffed by stats). That way regardless of what Profession/Class you are you won’t be singled out. Then on top of that, vitality builds won’t be punished either!
This is such a good idea that I’m going to do my part to make sure it repeatedly appears in the bit of the thread most people will read.
No worries, I know the feeling =)
At least the cliffside bugs introduced when trying to fix the exploits were in turn fixed quite fast.
It does actually have a wp that spawns when you start to fight the final boss on some of the paths. Its right near the start though and the final boss fights are so easy that its still completely useless. Really curious as to what the designers were thinking re waypoints in dungeons. Quite strange how randomly they are used.
Ok forum troller,
Tell me why AC has a WP for every final fight, even it being much easier then other dungeons.
Troll
¬¬"
Um, no offence but I’m completely agreeing with you. Its very strange and the only reason I can think of is that AC was done earlier than other dungeons and is more polished. You seem quite angry about it, and me for some reason, first time Ive ever been called a troll for politely agreeing with someone before P
But a simple offensive infusion would be the same as the simple defensive one, with only agony resist on it, and no other stats. None of the simple infusions (the ones you can buy) have any stats except for agony resist. I get the impression you think offensive infusions wouldnt/dont have agony resist?
What most people have a problem with is that a lot of the rings (randomly obtained) have offensive slots which have no cheap way to get any agony resistance from in the same way as defensively slotted items, making them much more expensive to make use of in fractals (for the purpose of agony resistance, nothing to do with a little extra power or precision)
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So you can report players for this kind of behavior? Yesterday I did the cliffside fractal for the firstime and climbing the scaffold to the final seal I kept getting knocked down. My group thought I did this intentionally(1 player accused me of jumping off on purpose but it seems there is an environment effect it looked like someone was shooting the floor and if you walk into it you get knocked off) and they kicked me when I explained I was having trouble climbing it I fell twice they concluded I was trolling them somehow. I should have known this wasn’t a good group when 1 player kept spamming chat and capslock and another kept getting angry for no apparent reason;/
Sounds like they weren’t very nice people but you can at least understand their point of view that its quite strange you didn’t grasp the idea of the exploding platforms the first time it dumped you into the void, its pretty obvious how that bit works. A reason to explain it to you rather than drop you though, so really kitteny behavior from them. But at least now you know that part of the fractal really well =)
Not really 2nd time I tried to dodge roll through but didnt make it in time. I didn’t have stability which makes it easier
Oh well, the explosions move in a path straight up the ramps. You can run up behind the line of explosions without any speed buffs or dodges required. Just wait at the bottom of the ramps for the explosions to start moving up and then follow them to the top, taking one sloped section at a time. Hope that helps =)
It does actually have a wp that spawns when you start to fight the final boss on some of the paths. Its right near the start though and the final boss fights are so easy that its still completely useless. Really curious as to what the designers were thinking re waypoints in dungeons. Quite strange how randomly they are used.
So after only getting my first ring yesterday, (not a useful one either) that has an offensive slot, you are telling me to continue without hassle of agony killing me ever so easily I must spend 250 globs to infuse this thing, or 100 T6 mats? >.> I will uh, sit at lvl 10 “farm” rings just to min/max some stats (if I ever get a useful one lol) and continue towards my legendary ty.
you can get a simple omni infusion for that ring for a relatively small amount of fractal tokens, so no you dont have to spend the globs and mats. Its weird that there is no offensive infusion available from that vendor to match the really cheap defensive one but neither is the virtual sky falling on your head.
Does +5 Agony make a noticeable difference?
Depends how good you are/your latency is at dodging. It doesn’t hurt, put it that way.
So you can report players for this kind of behavior? Yesterday I did the cliffside fractal for the firstime and climbing the scaffold to the final seal I kept getting knocked down. My group thought I did this intentionally(1 player accused me of jumping off on purpose but it seems there is an environment effect it looked like someone was shooting the floor and if you walk into it you get knocked off) and they kicked me when I explained I was having trouble climbing it I fell twice they concluded I was trolling them somehow. I should have known this wasn’t a good group when 1 player kept spamming chat and capslock and another kept getting angry for no apparent reason;/
Sounds like they weren’t very nice people but you can at least understand their point of view that its quite strange you didn’t grasp the idea of the exploding platforms the first time it dumped you into the void, its pretty obvious how that bit works. A reason to explain it to you rather than drop you though, so really kitteny behavior from them. But at least now you know that part of the fractal really well =)
Dungeons in general get a lot easier after your first run through and you know what to expect. Problem with story modes is that people tend to do them one time only, and in the case of Arah its one very long, potentially frustrating time. I feel for you Cav but Im struggling to understand how you guys had so much trouble since Im not very good at this game and I went through Arah with a pug of also not very good people (by my low standards!) and we didnt have any trouble with the first boss or the trash mobs (2 dragons later was interesting but thats another story).
I already suggested the Zelda-style stuff and no one listens or bothers to acknowledge it as a great idea.
I think its a great idea!
off hand mace would be cool, as well as javelins. And if they made the scepter orbs shoot faster or just turned them into some sort of stabby laser that would be cool too. Not very original ideas, I know, but the guardian has pretty original weapon selection already.
:https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/When-do-I-get-Ascended-rings/first#post951603 Dev post on the issue here.
If it is any consolation I am on scale 22 and have accrued over1600 fractal tokens and not yet gotten a ring either. It is RNG with the Jade Maw.
We are exploring alternatives to the current system.
Great to hear it! (the alternatives that is, not your terrible luck =)) I got more lucky than average with a P/V/T ring on my 5th run through lvl 10 and it just doesnt seem right to me that people doing lvl 15, 20 or whatever and have run it many more times than me and who would almost certainly be much better players than me have less to show for it. Element of randomness is good, too much means too many people don’t get what they deserve (and too many get what they don’t deserve too).
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If they fix the DC issue and put some sort of limit on the rings RNG to help those poor people who have had rotten luck (I got one after 5 tries but I hear some people have gone up to 20 with nothing to show for it) then fractals, as far as rewards go is fine. In terms of game play dungeon-wise its the best in the game. If you dont care about rewards just do lvl2 for the fun gameplay. There will always be people farming daily tokens who will want to do it, the loot (aside from ascended gear) is still better than pretty much anywhere else in the game and it is easy so you will get the fastest run possible – Ive done lvl2 runs in less than an hour with a decent pug a few times now.
Given that what rings people get is completely random why isn’t there a cost clone of the defensive one?
I would suggest finding a good guild. Everything becomes much more fun when you do it with people you like.
Magic find doesn’t affect chests.
This needs to be written in really big letters on the login screen, the character select screen, the inventory screen and all dungeon entry dialogs. The fewer people wearing mf gear for anything except pve farming, the better.
Feel free to look me up in game anytime, very interested in doing more COE, its a shame its so underused.
It would be quite interesting to have the data on what % of groups doing dungeons are PUGs or mostly PUGs and what % are guilds/friends. Also what % use some form of voice chat. I wonder if there is any way to collect that?
Cheers for the constructive and helpful post!
well, the shield is down for a total of 17 seconds, so it took them about 34 seconds of the shield being down, plus another 30-40 seconds working with the lasers.
2 tries meaning they only had to bring the shield down twice.
@ omgwtflolbll (funny name btw)
Yeah, you’re fairly correct about that. If I’m running with my dungeon group I go full glass cannon, but with pugs or unfamiliar people I tend to run a toughness spec. If you are good enough, and your group has good synergy, you don’t need all that defense, and you can play a bit riskier.
Did you consider that maybe that was an extremely good group? Theres always going to be a small number at that end of the curve who will make a mockery of balancing by being very, very good. I imagine its very difficult to design something for both PUGs and well coordinated guild groups but I hope you are taking into account that most players/groups are not as good at the game as you are, and don’t have the advantage of having an intimate knowledge of the under the hood stuff that you do.
You can move the cyrstals around by picking them up and dropping them again. Ive noticed good groups gather the crystals together and stay close so that situations like the ones you talk about are practically impossible.