Guild Wars 2

I think dungeons in GW2 are absolutely miserable, and there are several factors why, many of which have been touched on in this thread. Honestly, many of the players on both sides of this argument (meaning these dungeons are awful vs. dungeons are great l2p) have actually mentioned some of the same things;

Challenge is good. Tedium is dreadful. Rewards are good. Lack of reward for effort is dreadful. Fun is good. Boredom is dreadful.

People just disagree over the best way to implement changes to take advantage of what we all want to love about dungeoning. Our level designer poster is correct; there IS such a thing as poor level design and design decisions that punish the player. Many of the players who think the dungeons are fine are doing things like skipping content, exploiting weaknesses, and making use of one known method of beating a dungeon to repeatedly run it for reward. This is not wrong. It means those players are extremely clever at working the current system to their advantage. And that is a skill, and that takes a build, and that means they are very good at their workarounds. Great.

That does not mean the dungeons are well-designed, though, and that is not a knock on the people who think they are fine. People who prefer beating clever level design are disappointed by things like a dungeon being hard because every trash mob has 1,000,000 HP. Not because we are n00bs or are too dumb to figure out that we should skip that room, but because we wanted a cleverly designed room we wanted to stay in and beat, not a room or a path or a set of mobs that ‘everyone knows you should skip.’ Advice like ‘omg just roll a ______ class, lol’ misses the point. Some of us aren’t in dungeons because it is the fastest way to shinies. We are there because we enjoy the game and enjoy the character we leveled for 80 levels, and like teamwork (and shinies).

The argument that ‘well dungeons are for tricking yourself out to manage the one way to get around that particular instance of crappy design…why don’t you know that yet??’ well… I have to ask; why are you okay with the design as is? Don’t you want a living game like this be be improved? Not made easier; improved.

I want this game to encourage teamwork and a varied party; I liked the posted idea of having some bosses vulnerable to healing spells, for example. Can you imagine what kind of cooldown management that would take? If we were all dodging and freaking out trying to time our heal cooldowns, instead of standing barely in range and ranging off the Nine Billion boss hitpoints, I think that would be way more fun.

Anyway; I loved Heroics in SWTOR, there were some WoW dungeons I liked a lot. I think GW2’s dungeons need some love.

Trahearne is like JD Drew.

I’m pretty irritated by the reduction in chocolate drops. Butter is good right now, though.

Someone is doing that to one of my favorite items right now; holding the price where he likes it. I am not currently choosing to indulge him.

I don’t think a lot of the undercutting is suspicious, though. Just people trying to sell fast. That’s about as suspicious as ants at a picnic.

Cooking is bloated. I don’t find it intuitive, either. It is expensive, complicated and bizarre. It certainly isn’t maximized for speed, ease, OR profit.

BUT…

So what? This is a fantasy game. If you want to Max the skill quickly, there are ways. If you want to spend your time collecting ingredients and playing with recipes, I think it is great the game is set up for that.

I do agree that not being able to store intermediate ingredients is irritating, though. For all skills, not just cooking.

Ok, put like that, it makes sense from a profit point of view. I guess I am used to ingredients that get dumped below cost after levelling is done, rather than materials deliberately crafted for sale.

Because butter and eggs that you farm are free, right? (kidding!)

Meaning, I don’t remember that particular ingredient being that expensive. In you trading peeps’ opinion, is this a blip caused by some recipe or supply problem, or are cookies super expensive to make now, or has it always been like this, and I am just amazingly oblivious?

Over a silver? Does this seem high to anyone else?

Boycott shampoo! Demand real poo!

Seriously. Weekly one day sales on one item would be so cool.

Hollywood.2407:

A sale is a sale. I have never picked up a newspaper with an ad saying ‘three day sale…’ to then go into the store and find a few items were only sale eligible for one of the ‘three day sale.’

I don’t even know what to do with this statement. I have seen this at so many thousands of sales in dozens of stores over my 37 years as a shopper that this is like… it’s like someone is complaining that ants showed up at a picnic.

DancingPenguins.9875:

Price fixing.

Yeah… having people agree upon pricing rules is much shadier than undercutting. Much. No bueno.

So go find your own lodestones, if you can’t afford to buy ones other people found?

I personally found this to be quite a useful guide. I don’t necessarily want to become a trader, but understanding how traders’ habits influence the market will certainly make me a better informed casual buyer/seller.

I play Sylvari, and actually hadn’t noticed at all. Evreyone looks so glowy elfy planty and lovely, I hadn’t been examining the the story for gender preference. I just… hadn’t noticed. Which to me, is the mark of a good game. Or, perhaps a mark of my own personal oblivousness.

All the time, yes. I was kind of hoping it would be an early story choice, but …. no.

*EDIT for spelling

Belorn.2659:

Would 3hrs vs 1 hrs waiting really effect how fun trading in the TP is? Would it even be noticable for the causual player?

Yes. Would everyone stop mentally defining ‘casual’ as ’doesn’t care what happens ingame,’ and redefine it as, ‘I don’t have more than three hours a day to play, and would like to have the game mechanics help me get the most fun out of my limited time, as opposed to hinder my efforts to play?’

As a casual player, I am not going to treat the market as a second job. I would, however, like to innocently plop a few things down on the TP and hope I can sell them, without accidentally causing a run on wool, or incurring the violent wrath of the acknowledged King Of Filched Goods Bags, or something.

I want to spend my time playing the game, please, and making enough to keep myself geared. This is what many people would like, and though the rules required to keep it casual may madden the traders, well… it’s a dynamic you are going to have to work around. I am a buyer who occasionally tries to sell a couple of things to get a little money back for what I find. shrug If that means undercutting someone who had a carefully set up scheme of some kind that took them weeks to figure out, I’m sorry. I’m just playing.