If so, does that mean you can effectively only craft 1 per character?
That's a great question. I think they do. But someone can correct me if I am wrong but I think you get two per map completion. I would also like to know if they are account bound or character bound.
@REG Rysk Then don't read it, it could have been perfectly constructive and sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming LALALALA every time someone mentions dungeon difficulty is about as helpful as responding with "Play better. Get better groups" especially when said person ran with PA originated guilds and demonstrated they knew there stuff I.E Bethryn
Everyone flocked to the guy playing the victim telling people to learn2play not the one posting calmly constructively it's backwards and frankly baffling.
Ah, two. So I guess if you were going for broke on Legendaries you'd have to build a few alts just for the 100% completion.
The Great DAMNED STEAM SALES AND WII/U Backlog Just Finished: Borderlands (waste of $7)/Mario Brothers U/The Last Story/Tropico 4 Currently Playing: NS2/ZombiU/PlanetSide 2/Ys/Dota2/Xenoblade Chronicles On Hold: Prince of Persia: Warrior Within/GW2/Scribblenauts Coming Next: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones/X-Com Classic
@REG Rysk Then don't read it, it could have been perfectly constructive and sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming LALALALA every time someone mentions dungeon difficulty is about as helpful as responding with "Play better. Get better groups" especially when said person ran with PA originated guilds and demonstrated they knew there stuff I.E Bethryn
Everyone flocked to the guy playing the victim telling people to learn2play not the one posting calmly constructively it's backwards and frankly baffling.
Will you please stop taking a shit in other people's cornflakes?
@REG Rysk Then don't read it, it could have been perfectly constructive and sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming LALALALA every time someone mentions dungeon difficulty is about as helpful as responding with "Play better. Get better groups" especially when said person ran with PA originated guilds and demonstrated they knew there stuff I.E Bethryn
Everyone flocked to the guy playing the victim telling people to learn2play not the one posting calmly constructively it's backwards and frankly baffling.
Will you please stop taking a shit in other people's cornflakes?
There's a place for that. It's not here.
If this isn't the place to talk about dungeons in guild wars 2...in a gw2 thread. Or this isn't the place to have an opinion after you've decided it's over?
There's a lot of odd double standards here that make me feel like I accidentally disagreed with the cool kid in primary school.
I suppose I know better now, so this has been a learning experience.
Just by way of PSA you guys, some of us are right, some of us are wrong, and sometimes both sides have legitimate and compelling arguments. Sometimes we express them politely, and sometimes we don't.
That sometimes we don't? That's never acceptable. It happens, yes. But let's remember, the person you're arguing with getting heated is not an invitation for you to do the same. Even if some of us get angry in here, we can still keep it civil. Instead of escalating let's just, maybe, try to not escalate. It is incredibly unbecoming.
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BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
Ah, two. So I guess if you were going for broke on Legendaries you'd have to build a few alts just for the 100% completion.
Honestly, having done 100% completion once, I'm not sure I would want to do it again on other characters.
But I guess if you're already committed to getting legendaries and doing the explorables enough to get all the tokens, it's not that big a hurdle.
Also, apparently the recipe that gives Clovers was fiddled with yesterday, so you can now get Orbs (which aren't used at all in Legendaries), a well as 20 of 1 of the 4 crafting ingredients it requires. Which, will, makes the recipe even more punishing than before. 8(
@REG Rysk Then don't read it, it could have been perfectly constructive and sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming LALALALA every time someone mentions dungeon difficulty is about as helpful as responding with "Play better. Get better groups" especially when said person ran with PA originated guilds and demonstrated they knew there stuff I.E Bethryn
Everyone flocked to the guy playing the victim telling people to learn2play not the one posting calmly constructively it's backwards and frankly baffling.
Will you please stop taking a shit in other people's cornflakes?
There's a place for that. It's not here.
If this isn't the place to talk about dungeons in guild wars 2...in a gw2 thread. Or this isn't the place to have an opinion after you've decided it's over?
There's a lot of odd double standards here that make me feel like I accidentally disagreed with the cool kid in primary school.
I suppose I know better now, so this has been a learning experience.
Except you, and others, are no longer talking. You are having a blazing circular row.
If this was a thread about building sandcastles, what people like you are doing is coming down the beach, kicking over other people's sandcastles and complaining that they are building them wrong. We used to like our sandcastles. We would really like to build them again.
Legendaries are about on the level of, if not maybe a little easier than, obsidian armor from GW1. It's really a long term goal to want one of these things and that makes it all the more interesting to me.
I'll probably clap anytime I see someone with the staff because if they have the will power to not identify 250 dyes than they deserve a standing ovation.
Seidkona on
Mostly just huntin' monsters.
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
Am I correct in thinking that there are no armor sets or jewelry with both toughness and vitality on it?
I found a reference somewhere to Dredge/"of Koda" armor sets that had both stats on them, but I can't tell if 1) that's armor that's actually in the game, or from the BWE/beta, or 2) if it's sPvP armor.
Anyone out there with more knowledge who might be able to shed some light?
Legendaries are about on the level of, if not maybe a little easier than, obsidian armor from GW1. It's really a long term goal to want one of these things and that makes it all the more interesting to me.
I'll probably clap anytime I see someone with the staff because if they have the will power to not identify 250 dyes than they deserve a standing ovation.
Well un-ID'd dyes are what, 7 silver on the TP? I could be way off, but that's what I think I saw sometime ago. May have been before the staff info became available though.
I wish we knew what the legendary hammer looked like. I think that's gonna be my longterm goal, but I'm wary because it's a complete unknown. Still, 61% map completion on the thief, so that's progress.
Am I correct in thinking that there are no armor sets or jewelry with both toughness and vitality on it?
I found a reference somewhere to Dredge/"of Koda" armor sets that had both stats on them, but I can't tell if 1) that's armor that's actually in the game, or from the BWE/beta, or 2) if it's sPvP armor.
Anyone out there with more knowledge who might be able to shed some light?
sPvP gear doesn't actually have stats on it.
You rune it for stats, with pretty much the same runes you use in PvE (minus magic find and such), and there are amulets, but the armor itself is statless. Which is a little weird, but I can see why it is.
So, no, it's not sPvP armor. There are 2 sPvP amulets with toughness/vitality on them though: Celestial and Soldier (also, the respective pvp gems)
Rend on
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BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
Am I correct in thinking that there are no armor sets or jewelry with both toughness and vitality on it?
WvWvW armour has toughness/vitality on it.
You can also find Crest of the Soldier socketables. "Soldier" is the given term for Power/Toughness/Vit, but I don't know if there's any specific gear for it.
The odd thing is, I openly said I'm done talking about sandcastles a page ago... yet some folks keep posting.
It's not that we don't want to talk about sandcastles. Just that going around jumping on the sandcastles of others and kicking sand in their eyes isn't acceptable. Ideally, everyone would be building their own sandcastle, and allowing others to give their criticism.
Ah, two. So I guess if you were going for broke on Legendaries you'd have to build a few alts just for the 100% completion.
Honestly, having done 100% completion once, I'm not sure I would want to do it again on other characters.
But I guess if you're already committed to getting legendaries and doing the explorables enough to get all the tokens, it's not that big a hurdle.
Also, apparently the recipe that gives Clovers was fiddled with yesterday, so you can now get Orbs (which aren't used at all in Legendaries), a well as 20 of 1 of the 4 crafting ingredients it requires. Which, will, makes the recipe even more punishing than before. 8(
I'll probably do 100% on any alts I do get to 80, but not with nearly the speed I'm doing it on my main (not that I'm going *that fast* on my main either). I can definitely see some people out there on the tubes doing it just so that they have a full stock of Legendaries on one character. This is an MMO after all, any crazy ass goal will be eventually accomplished by *someone*.
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AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
I don't feel dungeons are too difficult for level 80's geared in exotics. I do find dungeons to be overall, quite buggy and poorly tuned.
Bugginess I have had multiple runs in multiple dungeons ended because one of several encounters bugged out. Some dungeons are missing floors. Almost all storymode dungeons past AC I missed the majority of the cutscenes because they only showed up for one guy. Repeatedly we have had groups have trouble getting everyone into the same instance (although that has gotten much better lately). There are about a million different ways Magg can bug out in the lava now. Cof #3 is bugged and doesn't give you rewards upon completion. And so on.
Story mode dungeons much too hard for their intended audience. Story mode dungeons are intended to be done by pugs in blues and greens. That's why they send you a mail *as soon as you hit the appropriate level*. I actually quite like the idea of story mode: I like the idea of helping the members of destiny's edge adventure in their dungeons and re-unite. Maybe it's because I haven't read the book, but I don't hate them the way everyone else seems to do. I really, really, really liked the story behind Ascalon Catacombs and the idea of the Charr waging endless war against vengeful ascalonian ghosts. But, every time someone points out how hard story mode dungeons are, someone always comes along and says "no they are fine, my group of full level 80's in full exotics has no problem with them". That's not a good counter point, as that is not the intended audience. Any dungeon that downlevels you is not end game content and should not require full level 80's in end game gear to be a fun experience.
Additionally story mode has some of the most absurd and bullshit bosses I've ever seen. The godforged greatsword guy in CoF, and the bird guy in honor of the waves come to mind. These are just hilariously poorly tuned fights, often complicated by poor camera angles and enemies who blend into the background textures, in the case of the CoF fight. And that brings us to..
Dungeon difficulty is all over the place
You'd expect a smooth progression of boss difficulty, from easy to hard, in a well tuned dungeon. I would also except an extremely hard first boss that acts as a benchmark, and if you can clear him the rest is cake. What I don't expect is trash that is harder than the bosses following it, or one boss randomly halfway through that is absolutely murderous while every other boss in there is a total push over. Ideally each encounter requires the group to perform well to proceed. If you have a bunch of face roll bosses and then one absurd boss you get past by graveyard rushing him (a mechanic of which I am not fond and wish were removed) ... that's not a satisfying experience. Additionally story mode dungeons seem to routinely be more difficult than explorable mode dungeons. Which brings us too...
Explorable mode dungeons need some excitement
I don't generally have a problem with explorable mode difficulty. Two of the paths may be bugged/absurd but one is always doable. If it's hard and requires levle 80's in exotics to clear in a reasonable amount of time, I have no problem with that. I even like most of the looks of the vanity armor sets that come from there and think the art team did a great job here, as they did in most of the dungeons. The dungeons are visually very interesting. It's just that running the same dungeon 70 times, while not a single piece of interesting gear drops is terribly tedious. I agree with the design teams decision to not have gear upgrades drop while running the dungeon. However, it does change thing. While running dungeons in WOW (which I bring up as the only equivalently tedious dungeon running experience) meant that after each run, your group was better off and more prepared to face the next run, as you had gotten some gear upgrades. After each boss, there was a bit of excitement on 'what did he drop'? and who it would upgrade and how. This is missing from GW2, which is fine, but we need *something* to make us say 'what did he drop this time'? What happens now is I loot everything and don't even look at it because it will all literally be vendored/salvaged.
I think they need to drop some interesting items inside the dungeon themselves, at low chances. Perhaps some dyes? Or mini pets? Perhaps dungeon specific? Or maybe some themed town clothes? the town clothes mechanic seems full of under utilized potential at the moment. I don't know that I ever see people wearing their town clothes in town. Or, how about some cosmetic back items? There's a dearth of those.
Things like this would not only provide some interest during the run itself, but also make a way to reward people who run dungeons for which they personally do not want the marks, but want to help out their friends. (I am fine with speed running dungeons not being the absolute best source of gold/exp, and I also approve of dungeon specific gear tokens). But right now dungeons aren't incredibly 'fun' if you know what I mean. A lot of that is because of the fight mechanics.
Fun dungeon encounters have a few things in common.
This is going to be very subjective of course as ideas of fun usually are. To me, a fun dungeon encounter is
-relatively short
-can be hard failed
-requires coordination
-more than just tank and spank
Let's use Cof #2 as an example. The 'fun' ecounters in there, for me at least, are getting the bombs for magg, then protecting magg while he places it, then killing the final boss. All of these encounters are the ones where the talking occurs and the planning happens. The other bosses/fights can happen in a completely bored silence because they are quite straightforward. The devourer summoning boss, for example, is supremely boring and non threatening and straightforward.
But in each of these fights, the players have to do something different *and* plan out ahead of time what will be done. you need to figure out who will go where, which speed boosts will be used when, emergency plans, call out timing, stuff like that. Those things I find fun. I wish we would see more of that instead of fights where an afk party could win but it would take 20 minutes or whatever.
Overall I think it's fairly safe to say the dungeon experience in GW2 has not been particularly fun, and that dungeons are a buggy untuned mess - highlighted by how completely stellar and fun and well tuned the rest of the game has been. It's nothing they can't fix though.
The good news is that thanks to their design decisions if we don't want to run dungeons, we don't have to, because the best gear statwise is available elsewhere.
I do still want to run dungeons though because I like the looks of the armor And dungeons that need some work are hardly an uknown situation in MMO's.
I believe this is the case for all ingredients for the legendaries (with the exception of the weaponry, as you could soulbind it by equipping it).
It's not the case. Obsidian shards, of which you have to buy 525000 karma's worth are soulbound, so you must buy them on the character who wants the legendary. Assuming mystic clovers are not soulbound, you could do the rest of your obsidian shard buying on an alt, but at least that first 525k karma will have to be done on the char who wants the weapon. Also, you'd have to do all the skill points on the character who wants the legendary, but that's waaaay easier than the karma.
Am I correct in thinking that there are no armor sets or jewelry with both toughness and vitality on it?
I found a reference somewhere to Dredge/"of Koda" armor sets that had both stats on them, but I can't tell if 1) that's armor that's actually in the game, or from the BWE/beta, or 2) if it's sPvP armor.
Anyone out there with more knowledge who might be able to shed some light?
The dredge and koda sets are from sorrow's embrace/honor of the waves explorable tokens respectively, and yes, they have toughness/vitality on the same pieces of armor. You can't get that itemization via crafting.
Preparing for incoming: its the way its supposed to be, rewards are supposed to be rare in this game you just didnt kill enough trash, you just dont get it... etc etc etc.
Anyway awesome post Vorpal I think you nailed it on the head. There has got to be an issue with the dungeons if a PVEer like myself stays away from them. This game is a step back in MMOs in Dungeons. It is really the only big thing they have done horribly horribly wrong. I would put GW2 Dungeons behind all other major MMOs out right now.
@Vorpal
I disagree with you about the level of rewards, since after running a dungeon 70 times it's likely you would randomly get some pretty interesting stuff. Your problem is you need to learn to dodge obviously!
But I also think that very rare dungeon unique minipets would be pretty cool, actually. Something so that while you're grinding your 70 runs you can hope for that's unique or something. Also, though I agree that the tank and spank encounters in gw2 are not the most interesting, I don't think they're very common, so I don't see that as much of a problem.
The rest of it I am in complete agreement with. Except that you don't find them fun- I actually love them. But, like everything, they definitely have room for improvement.
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AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
TSW's dungeon design is (IMHO) the right way to go for MMOs.
Each dungeon takes a PUG about 30 or so minutes to complete. There are little to no trash mobs and each boss has a particular mechanic that helps to teach you how to fight the final boss of the dungeon. Then you have Nightmare Mode for those people who like a challenge (made even better by the fact that each player needs to clear a "gate-keeper" event to prove that they have the skills, knowledge, and gear to actually by able to compete in NM mode).
GW2 does a lot of things right, but eh, dungeons are not quite up to snuff compared to the quality of everything else IMHO. Though TSW may have spoiled me on that.
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
The dredge and koda sets are from sorrow's embrace/honor of the waves explorable tokens respectively, and yes, they have toughness/vitality on the same pieces of armor. You can't get that itemization via crafting.
Cool. There's no way to get either of these sets off the TP, right? I'll have to run the respective explorable dungeon?
@Vorpal gave clear and concise opinion, but I want to add something to it. The developers absolutely intended the explorable mode dungeons to be the pinnacle of difficulty in the game at this time. This means that any edge you can get like maximum level, all the skills available and exotic statistic gear is going to help you succeed. By that same token, a really well coordinated group of exceptional players leveled to only 35 in blues and greens could probably do AC explorable as well.
Each person is going to have a different experience because of the many various factors, and things can be made easier or more difficult depending on those factors. I had runs in the (pre-nerf) Magg CoF path with Shiashi, Paradelle, Mojojojojojojojojooojoojjojojojojjo, and Vorpal that were just CAKE walk easy 10 minute runs. Swap to another group of people who aren't as familiar with it, who may not have builds optimized for doing it, may not have any exotic gear or be sub 80 and it took 5-15 minutes longer per run.
I believe this is the case for all ingredients for the legendaries (with the exception of the weaponry, as you could soulbind it by equipping it).
It's not the case. Obsidian shards, of which you have to buy 525000 karma's worth are soulbound, so you must buy them on the character who wants the legendary. Assuming mystic clovers are not soulbound, you could do the rest of your obsidian shard buying on an alt, but at least that first 525k karma will have to be done on the char who wants the weapon. Also, you'd have to do all the skill points on the character who wants the legendary, but that's waaaay easier than the karma.
I like the dungeons in GW2, but I would never run them with randoms. My experience is colored by the fact that I'm doing them with my friends, on vent, goofing off while we do them. That drastically increases my fun level no matter what I'm doing.
I absolutely agree that they could use improvement, both in the rewards you get(besides just the token gear), as well as just evening out the bosses so some are more fun. The boss in AC explorable that throws out the hooks and is a thief? Good fun design that keeps you on your toes. The last boss on the ghost eater encounter that spawns oozes? It's pretty much impossible to even get downed, so you just smack him for a few minutes and win. That's not good.
Also, story modes should be basically cannot fail just to see the story. The last boss in sorrow's embrace is fun as hell and impossible to fail. The boss with the golems right before him should've been in explorable mode for instance.
The dredge and koda sets are from sorrow's embrace/honor of the waves explorable tokens respectively, and yes, they have toughness/vitality on the same pieces of armor. You can't get that itemization via crafting.
Cool. There's no way to get either of these sets off the TP, right? I'll have to run the respective explorable dungeon?
Correct, they're only attainable through the tokens from running those explorables. There's also a power/vitality/toughness exotic set from WvWvW, but the only version of i've seen is level 65 and not 80, so kind of pointless.
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BethrynUnhappiness is MandatoryRegistered Userregular
Also, story modes should be basically cannot fail just to see the story. The last boss in sorrow's embrace is fun as hell and impossible to fail. The boss with the golems right before him should've been in explorable mode for instance.
One of the guys I did SE with failed to understand about the fire slugs(?) or the laser or the buckets. Heck, he jumped into the lava twice to avoid the laser.
Preparing for incoming: its the way its supposed to be, rewards are supposed to be rare in this game you just didnt kill enough trash, you just dont get it... etc etc etc.
SANDCASTLES
What we do know are two things: Arenanet is not planning on decreasing the difficulty of the dungeons; Arenanet is planning on improving the return for doing dungeons. We know no more at this point, and I'm sure any more information will be posted here as soon as it's available.
Regarding statement one, whilst I don't think there will be anything substantial changed about the format of the dungeons, I do expect there to be a certain amount of tweaking of numbers. @Vorpal has really hit the nail on the head about difficulty curves. This will require time and testing as it's not a quick and easy fix. Arenanet have already stated that the dungeons are supposed to be considerably more difficult than standard PvE, although whether this is signposted as well as it could be is certainly up for debate.
Regarding statement two, this is likely to mean improvement in the quality of drops and/or chest rewards. Whether that means unique dungeon-drop only items, or a roll on the loot table with the distribution curve skewed more towards the rare/exotic end of the spectrum is anyone's guess.
Regarding statement three, we are all keen for the dungeons to display the same quality and the same commitment to enjoyment exemplified by the rest of the game. Having blazing rows over the dungeons as they currently stand is fruitless because we know Arenanet are not going to simply swing the nerf bat (statement one) and we also know that the rewards are going to be adjusted (statement two).
If you don't like the dungeons, that's cool. They're probably going to be more to your taste after a few updates. If you like the dungeons as they are now, you are probably just better at the game than most other players (or, like me, just more prepared to put up with moments of bad game design), so you get to feel pretty good about that. More people need to play as well as you do! Maybe post how-to guides on Youtube or something?
Posts
@Acharenus you are failing at the not discussing this. It's not constructive and I'm trying to move us one to better discussion.
EDIT - best TOTP ever.
That's a great question. I think they do. But someone can correct me if I am wrong but I think you get two per map completion. I would also like to know if they are account bound or character bound.
Edit: Yep, two per 100% map completion. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gift_of_Exploration
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
I believe this is the case for all ingredients for the legendaries (with the exception of the weaponry, as you could soulbind it by equipping it).
Everyone flocked to the guy playing the victim telling people to learn2play not the one posting calmly constructively it's backwards and frankly baffling.
Just Finished: Borderlands (waste of $7)/Mario Brothers U/The Last Story/Tropico 4
Currently Playing: NS2/ZombiU/PlanetSide 2/Ys/Dota2/Xenoblade Chronicles
On Hold: Prince of Persia: Warrior Within/GW2/Scribblenauts
Coming Next: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones/X-Com Classic
Will you please stop taking a shit in other people's cornflakes?
There's a place for that. It's not here.
That's good to know, Thanks.
That makes it just a little easier to get them with an alt and transfer them if need be.
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
::shudder::
Path of Exile: snowcrash7
MTG Arena: Snow_Crash#34179
Battle.net: Snowcrash#1873
If this isn't the place to talk about dungeons in guild wars 2...in a gw2 thread. Or this isn't the place to have an opinion after you've decided it's over?
There's a lot of odd double standards here that make me feel like I accidentally disagreed with the cool kid in primary school.
I suppose I know better now, so this has been a learning experience.
That sometimes we don't? That's never acceptable. It happens, yes. But let's remember, the person you're arguing with getting heated is not an invitation for you to do the same. Even if some of us get angry in here, we can still keep it civil. Instead of escalating let's just, maybe, try to not escalate. It is incredibly unbecoming.
But I guess if you're already committed to getting legendaries and doing the explorables enough to get all the tokens, it's not that big a hurdle.
Also, apparently the recipe that gives Clovers was fiddled with yesterday, so you can now get Orbs (which aren't used at all in Legendaries), a well as 20 of 1 of the 4 crafting ingredients it requires. Which, will, makes the recipe even more punishing than before. 8(
Except you, and others, are no longer talking. You are having a blazing circular row.
If this was a thread about building sandcastles, what people like you are doing is coming down the beach, kicking over other people's sandcastles and complaining that they are building them wrong. We used to like our sandcastles. We would really like to build them again.
Sandcastles.
I'll probably clap anytime I see someone with the staff because if they have the will power to not identify 250 dyes than they deserve a standing ovation.
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
The odd thing is, I openly said I'm done talking about sandcastles a page ago... yet some folks keep posting.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I found a reference somewhere to Dredge/"of Koda" armor sets that had both stats on them, but I can't tell if 1) that's armor that's actually in the game, or from the BWE/beta, or 2) if it's sPvP armor.
Anyone out there with more knowledge who might be able to shed some light?
Path of Exile: snowcrash7
MTG Arena: Snow_Crash#34179
Battle.net: Snowcrash#1873
Well un-ID'd dyes are what, 7 silver on the TP? I could be way off, but that's what I think I saw sometime ago. May have been before the staff info became available though.
I wish we knew what the legendary hammer looked like. I think that's gonna be my longterm goal, but I'm wary because it's a complete unknown. Still, 61% map completion on the thief, so that's progress.
You get two gifts for completion. I'm not sure if they are soul or account bound.
edit - got beat because i walked away for a minute
sPvP gear doesn't actually have stats on it.
You rune it for stats, with pretty much the same runes you use in PvE (minus magic find and such), and there are amulets, but the armor itself is statless. Which is a little weird, but I can see why it is.
So, no, it's not sPvP armor. There are 2 sPvP amulets with toughness/vitality on them though: Celestial and Soldier (also, the respective pvp gems)
You can also find Crest of the Soldier socketables. "Soldier" is the given term for Power/Toughness/Vit, but I don't know if there's any specific gear for it.
It's not that we don't want to talk about sandcastles. Just that going around jumping on the sandcastles of others and kicking sand in their eyes isn't acceptable. Ideally, everyone would be building their own sandcastle, and allowing others to give their criticism.
Sandcastles.
I'll probably do 100% on any alts I do get to 80, but not with nearly the speed I'm doing it on my main (not that I'm going *that fast* on my main either). I can definitely see some people out there on the tubes doing it just so that they have a full stock of Legendaries on one character. This is an MMO after all, any crazy ass goal will be eventually accomplished by *someone*.
Just Finished: Borderlands (waste of $7)/Mario Brothers U/The Last Story/Tropico 4
Currently Playing: NS2/ZombiU/PlanetSide 2/Ys/Dota2/Xenoblade Chronicles
On Hold: Prince of Persia: Warrior Within/GW2/Scribblenauts
Coming Next: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones/X-Com Classic
You mean this; http://gw2tp.com/?
If you click the link at the top of that page it will also give a a break down of each individual item on the market.
Bugginess I have had multiple runs in multiple dungeons ended because one of several encounters bugged out. Some dungeons are missing floors. Almost all storymode dungeons past AC I missed the majority of the cutscenes because they only showed up for one guy. Repeatedly we have had groups have trouble getting everyone into the same instance (although that has gotten much better lately). There are about a million different ways Magg can bug out in the lava now. Cof #3 is bugged and doesn't give you rewards upon completion. And so on.
Story mode dungeons much too hard for their intended audience. Story mode dungeons are intended to be done by pugs in blues and greens. That's why they send you a mail *as soon as you hit the appropriate level*. I actually quite like the idea of story mode: I like the idea of helping the members of destiny's edge adventure in their dungeons and re-unite. Maybe it's because I haven't read the book, but I don't hate them the way everyone else seems to do. I really, really, really liked the story behind Ascalon Catacombs and the idea of the Charr waging endless war against vengeful ascalonian ghosts. But, every time someone points out how hard story mode dungeons are, someone always comes along and says "no they are fine, my group of full level 80's in full exotics has no problem with them". That's not a good counter point, as that is not the intended audience. Any dungeon that downlevels you is not end game content and should not require full level 80's in end game gear to be a fun experience.
Additionally story mode has some of the most absurd and bullshit bosses I've ever seen. The godforged greatsword guy in CoF, and the bird guy in honor of the waves come to mind. These are just hilariously poorly tuned fights, often complicated by poor camera angles and enemies who blend into the background textures, in the case of the CoF fight. And that brings us to..
Dungeon difficulty is all over the place
You'd expect a smooth progression of boss difficulty, from easy to hard, in a well tuned dungeon. I would also except an extremely hard first boss that acts as a benchmark, and if you can clear him the rest is cake. What I don't expect is trash that is harder than the bosses following it, or one boss randomly halfway through that is absolutely murderous while every other boss in there is a total push over. Ideally each encounter requires the group to perform well to proceed. If you have a bunch of face roll bosses and then one absurd boss you get past by graveyard rushing him (a mechanic of which I am not fond and wish were removed) ... that's not a satisfying experience. Additionally story mode dungeons seem to routinely be more difficult than explorable mode dungeons. Which brings us too...
Explorable mode dungeons need some excitement
I don't generally have a problem with explorable mode difficulty. Two of the paths may be bugged/absurd but one is always doable. If it's hard and requires levle 80's in exotics to clear in a reasonable amount of time, I have no problem with that. I even like most of the looks of the vanity armor sets that come from there and think the art team did a great job here, as they did in most of the dungeons. The dungeons are visually very interesting. It's just that running the same dungeon 70 times, while not a single piece of interesting gear drops is terribly tedious. I agree with the design teams decision to not have gear upgrades drop while running the dungeon. However, it does change thing. While running dungeons in WOW (which I bring up as the only equivalently tedious dungeon running experience) meant that after each run, your group was better off and more prepared to face the next run, as you had gotten some gear upgrades. After each boss, there was a bit of excitement on 'what did he drop'? and who it would upgrade and how. This is missing from GW2, which is fine, but we need *something* to make us say 'what did he drop this time'? What happens now is I loot everything and don't even look at it because it will all literally be vendored/salvaged.
I think they need to drop some interesting items inside the dungeon themselves, at low chances. Perhaps some dyes? Or mini pets? Perhaps dungeon specific? Or maybe some themed town clothes? the town clothes mechanic seems full of under utilized potential at the moment. I don't know that I ever see people wearing their town clothes in town. Or, how about some cosmetic back items? There's a dearth of those.
Things like this would not only provide some interest during the run itself, but also make a way to reward people who run dungeons for which they personally do not want the marks, but want to help out their friends. (I am fine with speed running dungeons not being the absolute best source of gold/exp, and I also approve of dungeon specific gear tokens). But right now dungeons aren't incredibly 'fun' if you know what I mean. A lot of that is because of the fight mechanics.
Fun dungeon encounters have a few things in common.
This is going to be very subjective of course as ideas of fun usually are. To me, a fun dungeon encounter is
-relatively short
-can be hard failed
-requires coordination
-more than just tank and spank
Let's use Cof #2 as an example. The 'fun' ecounters in there, for me at least, are getting the bombs for magg, then protecting magg while he places it, then killing the final boss. All of these encounters are the ones where the talking occurs and the planning happens. The other bosses/fights can happen in a completely bored silence because they are quite straightforward. The devourer summoning boss, for example, is supremely boring and non threatening and straightforward.
But in each of these fights, the players have to do something different *and* plan out ahead of time what will be done. you need to figure out who will go where, which speed boosts will be used when, emergency plans, call out timing, stuff like that. Those things I find fun. I wish we would see more of that instead of fights where an afk party could win but it would take 20 minutes or whatever.
Overall I think it's fairly safe to say the dungeon experience in GW2 has not been particularly fun, and that dungeons are a buggy untuned mess - highlighted by how completely stellar and fun and well tuned the rest of the game has been. It's nothing they can't fix though.
The good news is that thanks to their design decisions if we don't want to run dungeons, we don't have to, because the best gear statwise is available elsewhere.
I do still want to run dungeons though because I like the looks of the armor
PSN: Vorpallion Twitch: Vorpallion
It's not the case. Obsidian shards, of which you have to buy 525000 karma's worth are soulbound, so you must buy them on the character who wants the legendary. Assuming mystic clovers are not soulbound, you could do the rest of your obsidian shard buying on an alt, but at least that first 525k karma will have to be done on the char who wants the weapon. Also, you'd have to do all the skill points on the character who wants the legendary, but that's waaaay easier than the karma.
The dredge and koda sets are from sorrow's embrace/honor of the waves explorable tokens respectively, and yes, they have toughness/vitality on the same pieces of armor. You can't get that itemization via crafting.
Anyway awesome post Vorpal I think you nailed it on the head. There has got to be an issue with the dungeons if a PVEer like myself stays away from them. This game is a step back in MMOs in Dungeons. It is really the only big thing they have done horribly horribly wrong. I would put GW2 Dungeons behind all other major MMOs out right now.
I have no idea why you posted this, but it doesn't really matter. He really is ruggedly handsome.
I disagree with you about the level of rewards, since after running a dungeon 70 times it's likely you would randomly get some pretty interesting stuff. Your problem is you need to learn to dodge obviously!
But I also think that very rare dungeon unique minipets would be pretty cool, actually. Something so that while you're grinding your 70 runs you can hope for that's unique or something. Also, though I agree that the tank and spank encounters in gw2 are not the most interesting, I don't think they're very common, so I don't see that as much of a problem.
The rest of it I am in complete agreement with. Except that you don't find them fun- I actually love them. But, like everything, they definitely have room for improvement.
Each dungeon takes a PUG about 30 or so minutes to complete. There are little to no trash mobs and each boss has a particular mechanic that helps to teach you how to fight the final boss of the dungeon. Then you have Nightmare Mode for those people who like a challenge (made even better by the fact that each player needs to clear a "gate-keeper" event to prove that they have the skills, knowledge, and gear to actually by able to compete in NM mode).
GW2 does a lot of things right, but eh, dungeons are not quite up to snuff compared to the quality of everything else IMHO. Though TSW may have spoiled me on that.
Cool. There's no way to get either of these sets off the TP, right? I'll have to run the respective explorable dungeon?
Path of Exile: snowcrash7
MTG Arena: Snow_Crash#34179
Battle.net: Snowcrash#1873
Each person is going to have a different experience because of the many various factors, and things can be made easier or more difficult depending on those factors. I had runs in the (pre-nerf) Magg CoF path with Shiashi, Paradelle, Mojojojojojojojojooojoojjojojojojjo, and Vorpal that were just CAKE walk easy 10 minute runs. Swap to another group of people who aren't as familiar with it, who may not have builds optimized for doing it, may not have any exotic gear or be sub 80 and it took 5-15 minutes longer per run.
It was because of Huggle's Sandcastles. I felt we needed more. And who doesn't need more Richard Castle?
Hint:
:winky:
I absolutely agree that they could use improvement, both in the rewards you get(besides just the token gear), as well as just evening out the bosses so some are more fun. The boss in AC explorable that throws out the hooks and is a thief? Good fun design that keeps you on your toes. The last boss on the ghost eater encounter that spawns oozes? It's pretty much impossible to even get downed, so you just smack him for a few minutes and win. That's not good.
Also, story modes should be basically cannot fail just to see the story. The last boss in sorrow's embrace is fun as hell and impossible to fail. The boss with the golems right before him should've been in explorable mode for instance.
Correct, they're only attainable through the tokens from running those explorables. There's also a power/vitality/toughness exotic set from WvWvW, but the only version of i've seen is level 65 and not 80, so kind of pointless.
Needless to say, I was impressed. 8D
SANDCASTLES
What we do know are two things: Arenanet is not planning on decreasing the difficulty of the dungeons; Arenanet is planning on improving the return for doing dungeons. We know no more at this point, and I'm sure any more information will be posted here as soon as it's available.
Regarding statement one, whilst I don't think there will be anything substantial changed about the format of the dungeons, I do expect there to be a certain amount of tweaking of numbers. @Vorpal has really hit the nail on the head about difficulty curves. This will require time and testing as it's not a quick and easy fix. Arenanet have already stated that the dungeons are supposed to be considerably more difficult than standard PvE, although whether this is signposted as well as it could be is certainly up for debate.
Regarding statement two, this is likely to mean improvement in the quality of drops and/or chest rewards. Whether that means unique dungeon-drop only items, or a roll on the loot table with the distribution curve skewed more towards the rare/exotic end of the spectrum is anyone's guess.
Regarding statement three, we are all keen for the dungeons to display the same quality and the same commitment to enjoyment exemplified by the rest of the game. Having blazing rows over the dungeons as they currently stand is fruitless because we know Arenanet are not going to simply swing the nerf bat (statement one) and we also know that the rewards are going to be adjusted (statement two).
If you don't like the dungeons, that's cool. They're probably going to be more to your taste after a few updates. If you like the dungeons as they are now, you are probably just better at the game than most other players (or, like me, just more prepared to put up with moments of bad game design), so you get to feel pretty good about that. More people need to play as well as you do! Maybe post how-to guides on Youtube or something?
There's also http://www.gw2spidy.com/gem
Hrm, now I shall spend the afternoon comparing the two.