Dungeon Chat

[Ingmar]

Man, Dulfy, could you pick worse colors to use?

I find the sylvari stuff universally hideous.

EDIT: Man it is a good thing I find the Vigil stuff acceptable, because there's almost nothing available in heavy armor for a Norn male that I'd ever want to wear. Some of them might be made acceptable with other colors I guess.

[Kageru]

I don't mind the idea of having a soft goal of cosmetic armor... but most of it just looks ridiculous. To make it look special they put so many spikes and decorations that it looks like some sort of fetish outfit rather than armor. Especially for the heavy armors which seem to be way too into spikes and WoW level shoulders.

[Tannhauser]

Not a good first impession of dungeons.  Got a letter inviting me to Twilight Arbor.  Went there, found a group on explore mode.  I was 51, the mobs were 55.    A frustrating ordeal trying to help.  Didn't make it past the big worm. 

I guess explore mode is hard mode or something.  Machine gun AoE's everywhere, poison gas everywhere from plants I can hit.  It felt ridiculous. 

[kildorn]

Not a good first impession of dungeons.  Got a letter inviting me to Twilight Arbor.  Went there, found a group on explore mode.  I was 51, the mobs were 55.    A frustrating ordeal trying to help.  Didn't make it past the big worm. 

I guess explore mode is hard mode or something.  Machine gun AoE's everywhere, poison gas everywhere from plants I can hit.  It felt ridiculous. 

Story mode: easy-ish, no vanity rewards (just random loot chests)

Explore mode: ~5 levels higher than story for the same dungeon, basically Heroics from WoW. Different fights/mob layout, drops tokens for vanity gear.

[Tannhauser]

OK thought so, thanks for the tip.  Now I don't feel quite so lame.

[Zetor]

Also, Ascalonian Catacombs is special. Even story mode. 

[Maledict]

I find exploratory modes a lot more interesting and faster than story modes to be honest. You never, ever need to do a story mode more than once to unlock exploratory that's for sure.

[Zetor]

In the "misunderestimatingmisunderstanding what players want" corner, Colin Johanson thinks y'all should l2p, btw have you run Domain of Anguish in GW1 in the first month after Nightfall launched? (for the record I haven't - you needed very specific builds to even think about running it, and pugging was out of the question. I did participate in a few Underworld runs back in 2005-2006 though... which was a LOT worse than the dungeons we have now, for what it's worth.)

[Falconeer]

It makes sense, doesn't it? He might have a point.
Sometimes the biggest cockblock in learning a new game is YOU and all the other games you played up to that point.

EDIT: that "YOU" includes me, of course.

[Zetor]

I don't completely disagree (and the dungeons are growing on me... well, except for AC, fuck that dungeon and the triple ranger pull it rode in on). It's just that making exploration mode 'hard' is just fine, but storymode? That shit needs to be a tiny notch ahove 'faceroll easy', that's just the way it is. And right now the only dungeon that fits that description is CM (after the first boss, that is)

It also underscores the problems they had making dungeon content fun/balanced ever since GW1 Prophecies. Remember the PCGamer video showing Twilight Arbor? The Arenanet dude was saying that they balance explorable mode by 'making it a bit harder than our best testers can do, since players will do better than them anyway' and how they have testers running storymode dungeons 40 times a day to finetune balance. I'd say that right up until the 7-hero patch the elite areas were pretty much unpuggable. I also have no idea why AC is as hard as it is when it was the single most tested group content in all of the BWEs.

[Phred]

I also have no idea why AC is as hard as it is when it was the single most tested group content in all of the BWEs.

Because a tiny fraction made it over 30 and a tiny fraction of them played AC. (I hit 32 the last weekend in beta and never got around to checking out a dungeon. I know I wasn't alone.

[Maledict]

There is definitely a learning curve to all of this that we just weren't expecting.

For example, last night we realised that if my Mesmer specs for mantra's and uses pistol and greatsword, I can interrupt the ghost captain boss in AC exploratory mode every single time he does his chain pull & slaughter move with very little assistance from anyone else. That fact that's it's possible to co-ordinate moves to the extent that you can lock out a huge part of a boss fight, including their signiture move, is so different to other games it requires a complete rethinking of how we approach fights.

Our warrior has also finally figured out how to survive longer than 10 seconds by Respeccing and regearing. In any other MMO versatility is trumped by specialists, but in this game everyone needs a bit of health, toughness, healing and condition removal. That's another change of mindset required - doing 5 times the damage of everyone else as a warrior is all well and good, but having permanent aggro and dying because of it doesn't help anyone.

[murdoc]

Our warrior has also finally figured out how to survive longer than 10 seconds by Respeccing and regearing. In any other MMO versatility is trumped by specialists, but in this game everyone needs a bit of health, toughness, healing and condition removal. That's another change of mindset required - doing 5 times the damage of everyone else as a warrior is all well and good, but having permanent aggro and dying because of it doesn't help anyone.

I still need to figure this out - but I think you're right, a more balanced spec might be better than the precision/power dominate one I have been running with.

[Zetor]

Different gearsets definitely have their purpose. I like my Cleric set (+healing power/+power/+toughness) for grouping in general, and a pure glass cannon power/precision set for wvw and soloing. I imagine I'd have a condition damage set if it worked with my weapon/build (it's not so hot for staff ele).

There's probably a good reason to have a full set of magic find gear for farming too, but fuck that noise imo.

[kildorn]

My mesmer tends to run Pirate/Magic find for DEs, and Knight (Toughness/Precision/Power) for dungeons.

[sachiel]

Different gearsets definitely have their purpose. I like my Cleric set (+healing power/+power/+toughness) for grouping in general, and a pure glass cannon power/precision set for wvw and soloing. I imagine I'd have a condition damage set if it worked with my weapon/build (it's not so hot for staff ele).

There's probably a good reason to have a full set of magic find gear for farming too, but fuck that noise imo.

I'm going to need some bigger bags.

[Outlawedprod]

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/dungeons/Dungeon-Updates/

anti speed clear and story mode farming nerfed.

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/dungeons/2-6-Silver-and-17-7k-XP

and the nerfing is glitched apparently. oops


Bonus L2P dev post.
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/dungeons/Citadel-of-Flame-Path-1-the-superweapon/first#post189294

[Phred]

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/dungeons/Dungeon-Updates/

anti speed clear and story mode farming nerfed.

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/dungeons/2-6-Silver-and-17-7k-XP

and the nerfing is glitched apparently. oops


Bonus L2P dev post.
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/dungeons/Citadel-of-Flame-Path-1-the-superweapon/first#post189294

And meanwhile they let blatant macroing in Kessex Hills and Gendarran Fields get a free pass. Typical kneejerk dev reaction. I thought story mode was supposed to be EZ mode?

[Kageru]

They didn't make it for speed-runs and farming so it's no surprise they work against that.

[Mosesandstick]

Did AC for the first time today. Story mode was fine but Kohler is still a pretty big PITA. With all the big flashy lights and some ping its not that fun. Did Detha's route of explore without much of a problem. Tzark's route was just stupid especially when combined with the hit boxes of stuff like burrows.

[Lantyssa]

Got to do my second story run through AC this weekend.  I hate the Lovers.  Conceptually we know what it takes, but they're such a pain.

[Zetor]

Just did Sorrow's Embrace.. most of the dungeon was fine (and I'd say the last boss was pretty neat), but the second boss... 

5 phases and more things to look out for than a typical RAID boss (and I'm not talking about LFR) in a casual 5-man? Jeez. The fight lasted forever, too.

[Tmon]

Just did Sorrow's Embrace.. most of the dungeon was fine (and I'd say the last boss was pretty neat), but the second boss... 

5 phases and more things to look out for than a typical RAID boss (and I'm not talking about LFR) in a casual 5-man? Jeez. The fight lasted forever, too.

The bolded bit is a big part of why I'm not even trying dungeons, while it's possible I can play for a couple hours straight I'm just as likely to get called away to deal with some kind of work thing at just about any point in time.  Usually this happens when I'm hip deep in some long personal quest instance or pounding on a keep in WvW, at least in those bailing doesn't really cause anyone else problems.

[Ingmar]

in a casual 5-man? Jeez. The fight lasted forever, too.

Apparently our mistake in general is thinking this game has casual group content. It doesn't.

[Phred]

They didn't make it for speed-runs and farming so it's no surprise they work against that.

Well appearantly they now agree that the token collection was a bit grindy as they are increasing the tokens rewarded for a run.

[Maledict]

Exploratory modes have been a lot faster for my group than story modes. Story modes are simply far, far too long (Sorrows Embrace in particular) and have 0 rewards attached to them. Hell, they actually come with a penalty as you have to listen to more of the story...

[Zetor]

in a casual 5-man? Jeez. The fight lasted forever, too.

Apparently our mistake in general is thinking this game has casual group content. It doesn't.

The sad part is that I'm sort of a crazy outlier who loves difficult small-group content (and I don't raid due to schedule issues). I had a blast doing 45min strat back in vanilla WOW, healing heroics in blue gear at the start of cata, tanking ZG/ZA in the bare minimum itemlevel... those things were tough (and not very puggable), but I found them fun. Here is what that boss looked like:
- 100% to 75%: straightforward, except for a ridiculously hard hitting single-target attack he uses every 15 sec or so
- 75%: he goes invulnerable (still keeps doing that attack throughout the rest of the fight) and summons a golem that has very hard-hitting melee attacks and some sort of chain lightning (spread out). Golem has a lot of hp.
- 75% to 50%: straightforward again, use this opportunity to revive NPCs
- 50%: invul again, time for boss #2! This one has a ton of hp, places fire zones throughout the room, has a fire whirl on a timer, puts a heavy burn on everyone in the group every 10 sec or so, and consumes all conditions every ~30 seconds, which heals him for each condition [!]
- 50% to 25%: normal phase again
- 25%: invul again, boss #3 inc! This guy leaves a poison trail on the ground that hurts... he also pulls people in every x seconds (can LOS, but hard to tell when he's casting it; basically keep a dodge ready to gtfo of the poison right away, or you're probably dead). Also poisons random people, so cleanses are needed again.
- 25% to 0%: normal phase again
- 0%: boss disappears and leaves 3 'normal' elite golems... these aren't very hard, just a fair bit of hp and of course /trollface

So to properly kill this guy, you need to swap out weapons and utilities that have range (this much is obvious from all the melee hate on other bosses), do NOT cause conditions (except for long-ish cooldowns), and most people in the group need to have some sort of short-cooldown reliable cleanse (we had a ranger do the pet cleanse / swap thing and I used evasive arcana in water attunement for aoe cleanses every 10 sec + healing rain). Is this really the level of organization you expect from a random level 60 pug?

We haven't *wiped* (a few people died and ran back), and it's possible that you restart the fight at the phase you were at... but still, having something like this in a storymode dungeon is just crazytown.

GW2 seems to follow the GW1 philosophy in dungeons, which is basically "for the super-hardcore, everyone else stay out" (they only relented on this with eotn mini-dungeons). They're trying to make dungeons into DOA/Underworld/FOW v2.0, when they should be looking at dungeons in uhhh.. every other MMO in the market. Their 'l2p' post only reinforces this.

[Tmon]

Thanks for confirming my decision to avoid dungeons in this game.

[Miasma]

Most people I know are doing what is known as "shard runs" now.  They don't even try to finish the dungeon because the gw2 dungeon designers are retarded and stuck in the EQ one LDoN timeline.  All they do is kill two or three bosses and then reset to do them again.  I can't blame then since the time and effort it requires to actually finish a GW2 dungeon is fucking absurd for almost no reward.

[Maledict]

Yes if you wipe on the golem fight in SE it restarts you at the bit you wiped at. So once a golem is down, it stays down.

[rk47]

Meh, probably won't step into the dungeon anytime soon, then.

[Falconeer]

I don't know much about dungeons. Sure, I've run a few of them in every mmorpg since the nineties, still it's not the part yhat I focus on so I am absolutely no expert. I wanted to love GW2 dungeons, the lack of trinity and lots of needed mobility being my favourite parts, but to day that I'm underwhelmed by what I've seen so far doesn't do my feelings any justice.

I've run Crucible of Eternity (intended level 78) with a group of friends, all 80 and decently geared, and it took us forever. I am sure it's mostly our fault, the l2p part isn't one you swallow easily, but I gotta say that no matter what I didn't like the encounters nor the bosses, to the point that is hard to say what's  a trash fight and what is a boss fight. Too many silly npcs with too many HP and not enough recognizable features. The lack of reasonable rewards (story mode) doesn't help you find the fun here.

Or maybe I am just spoiled from The Secret World's dungeons, my favourite ever, save for a few Eq2 ones, so far.

Obsidian Sanctum, the pvp one in Eternal Battlegrounds, no matter how non-conventional, is still my absolute #1.

[Outlawedprod]

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/info/news/Update-Notes-September-25th-2012

Dungeon Rewards
We’ve made some significant updates to dungeon rewards. I wanted to try and clarify them here. All of these changes have been the result of an original exploit which was letting players receive upwards of 20 levels by completing a single dungeon run. We initially closed this exploit, which caused some new problems. The result is this new system which should increase dungeon rewards for players who play though them normally but help curb inflation of rewards for those who are using exploitative methods to farm them.

1) Dungeon tokens are now rewarded at the end of an explorable chain. This was done to stop players from repeatedly entering a chain and farming the first boss that dropped tokens rather than playing the entire chain. At some point in the near future, we will make up for this by making dungeon tokens a rare drop so that even players who are not completing a chain can make partial progress toward the rewards.
2) Dungeons reward 20 tokens for completion and now reward an additional 40 tokens for the first time they are completed each day. This means that if players can complete all 3 chains of a dungeon in a day, they’ll receive a total of 180 tokens, which is enough to purchase some of the smaller rewards.
3) Dungeon tokens should be account bound. This will allow players to have a single character farm tokens for their other characters.
4) Last week, to limit the most extreme cases of dungeon speed-clearing, we introduced a system to limit rewards for rapidly repeating dungeon clears. However, a bug in that system caused it to impact more players than intended. This week, we’re updating the system to not impact clearing different chains of the same dungeon. We’ll continue to evaluate this system in coming weeks.

[sachiel]

For those thinking dungeons are too hard, AC Explore Path 1 with three people: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjCttqquQoc

[Threash]

Dungeons are too hard, i don't care what three catasses can do.