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[Editorial] Guild Wars 2: Review in Progress Dungeons
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
In the final installment of our Guild Wars 2 Review in Progress, we take a look at dungeons. We offer our honest opinion about rough spots as well as the good stuff. Read on and then let us know what you think in the comments.
Well folks, this will be the last stop on the Review in Progress train before I give out my official final (not really, as we’ll undoubtedly re-review it and review expansions and so forth) score. This week in Guild Wars 2, I’ll be talking about Dungeons and then next week we’ll tie it all together and put a neat little bow on it and let you have at my credibility and facial hair in the comments below. If there’s some game system I haven’t touched on that you want to make sure I mention in my review next week, this is the place to put it. So read on, and share your thoughts on Dungeons below!
Read more of Bill Murphy's Guild Wars 2: Review in Progress - Dungeons.
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Comments
Review here is dead on!
I finished all 8 dungeons story modes with guildies- and had a blast! my final comment on this as you slightly mention wish rewards were a bit more fruitful.
the exploration mode is a huge learning curve(in a good way!)-dont expect it to be like open world events. expect different bosses from story mode and some coordination is key.
still Anet have done a fantastic job on letting the player Explore with their skills in combat -allowing one to use different concepts& ideas.- so none should be telling you 'use this, or do that' ,
I aslo found that the boses arent in script mode where everyone has to stand in 'one' place to avoid something or spreadout to avoid aoe...like other mmo's, the fights are more dynamic-and different everytime.
they are called 'personal story'..try em out. they are pretty close to a mini dungeon which leads up to the story mode dungeon seemlessly.basically when you do your personal story you can invite a friend to participate. no chest loot- but you get the idea...
a few things here. first off nice review
"Side-bar: ArenaNet would do well to give an overview of how different professions’ skills combo. Maybe even make an in-game journal that records when and how you actually did something (IE – shooting arrows through a wall of fire). This could only help to promote better grouping and more strategic fighting in dungeons." - YES. this is needed, and tbh i thought the stream yesterday was going to be the combo class they should be putting out.
"It makes the experience feel more like a D&D campaign, like a real RPG, and that’s something that’s often missing when other companies just say, “We need dungeons to check off this item on the list of what’s in an MMO”." - comletely agree. i want my game to pull me in, and not make me feel like i'm going through the motions.
i will say this about your group dying though. this game doesn't have a full on trinity, but going into a 5 man with a "soft" trinity will change it up completely. in guild we do runs all the time, and we run this way. one person is geared towards tanking, and generally tries to gain initial aggro, and stand in the mix to take a few hits. really just to be the target. we're slowly figuring out how aggro works in game this way.
we also run a support build at times. one person will spec into healing a bit more then normal, and with the combination of the tank and support, runs can be a lot easier to manage. the last few runs in guild no one actually died. we use our dodges, watch our range to all targets, and use abilities. none of us go in with our general world pve specs. we at least tend to change up our 6-0 skills.
Went through all 4 paths of TA, CM and two paths of HoTW yesterday without any wipes and no deaths on my part, very few on the part of others. However, I was with my guild, who are very good at this kind of thing. We had food buffs, everyone brought support skills (NEVER underestimate Warrior Banners) and we read up before-hand on what other people faced in those dungeons.
In PUG groups, I never have that kind of luck. Dungeons are meant to be super difficult, and that's part of my gripe. While yeah, I nailed it with a really goot 'leet' group, I don't like that that's what it took to enjoy the dungeons. But then again, if you make them easier thnn people like that will be bored and left out...it's a difficult thing to find a balance on. My main gripe is that dungeon bosses take too long to kill; once you figure out the pattern and allow some elbow room for the occasional deviation from it (bosses like to get tricky) it's pretty much just waiting for it to die and, in some cases, the wait is quite long. Like, pop open that mp3 playlist, long.
Anyway, if you're going into a dungeon people, PLEASE TAKE HEED OF THE FOLLOWING:
1 and most important) ALL CLASSES HAVE SUPPORT SKILLS. BRING THEM. That mean Warriors should have their banners. Guardians need their party boon skills. If you see a Mesmer without Feedback, Null Field and Time Warp, smack them (and also smack the fields as they'll aoe chaos armor everyone). Necros should have minimum 3 "dark" combo Wells (when slapped, they aoe blind). Thieves have aoe blinds and poisons for a reason (poison reduces amount enemies can heal drastically). Elementalists and Engineers are self-explanatory, and finally Rangers need their spirits.
2) Food and potion buffs make a HUGE difference. I typically go in with Mango Pie, +70 vitality and constant Regeneration buff. Additionally, there are vendors all over Tyria that offer consumables that stack with food buffs, including one underwater dude in Bloodtide somewhere that sells two orbs: one is a stack of 5 Fury for 30 minutes, the other is a stack of 5 Regeneration for 30 minutes. Buy some, and if you feel like you're having trouble, pop one.
3) Even scaled down, gear and level matters. A level 80 Mesmer in great gear scaled down to 35 will still have more hp, defense and power than a level 35 Warrior, so if you can't manage it, come back to it when you're stronger.
Bottom line, those kamikaze "die and run back" strategies are not part of the game. They're an option, but that's not one you should be relying on, as evidenced by the fact that Anet is steadily removing Waypoints popping up throughout the dungeon so that by the time you run back, the bosses are back to full. If that's your only way of winning, you're doing something wrong.
By the way - I just wanted to point out that, to the people complaining that not enough is explained, that too much has to be found out on your own, this is the way MMOs have worked classically. Information was never spoon-fed, people figured things out the hard way, then that knowledge was passed on through word of mouth, strategy guides, forum posts, and later wikis. This is exactly what a lot of you have been wanting for a while now, so complaining about it now is a bit ironic.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
The problem is not everyone is like me. I have no issue with figuring things out on my own, but others are going to have a harder time of it. Some sort of editorial or video series on playing your class, field combo's, You and Dungeons, etc. would go along way in helping out those that don't have the time or simply find it difficult to discover these things on their own.
I don't have an issue, but I also have a daughter, son and wife that play and they some times need that explanation. Besides that, if you ever have to pug, or need a few randoms to fill out a party you formed with your guild wouldn't it be better if they knew or at least had an idea of what to do?
I was with you in that Dungeon, Bill, and I think it was all your fault we wiped 30 times
. Kidding of course. That was our first time in that dungeon and as a group, and I think that fact we had 3 engineers and 2 warriors didnt provide the right amount of skills, in addition to our lack of coordination. But we did finish eventually!
I agree, the trash mobs are unbalanced. They dont need to be trash, but 3 trash mobs shouldnt wipe our entire group, when one boss cant. In addition, we should be rewarded for the difficulty of the challenge, otherwise, there is no incentive to play, as the experience itself isnt that dynamic.
One major problem as well is the distance from waypoints to bosses. Some of them are a good 5 mins run. And I think they should not allow rezzing at a WP and getting back into the fight.
Joined 2004 - I can't believe I've been a MMORPG.com member for 20 years! Get off my lawn!
" I love that the game’s eight dungeons see the players through the drama surrounding the Destiny’s Edge guild. You get to party and adventure with people like Eir Stagalkin, Rytlock Brimstone, and the like. The entire series is geared towards telling this story, and I absolutely love the way it does so."
"A big part of the challenge of many dungeons is disarming traps, avoiding pratfalls, and solving puzzles."
Definitely 2 things dungeons should be designed to do well: Story and "Puzzle".
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
I love lack of trinity and requirement of paying attention to enemy, fellow players and skills in order to be successful. It so refreshing after being dps, standing in spot X and pressing 1-3-4-2-2-5 in order as it's best rotation.
As for rewards/difficulty ANet is still balancing them. I remember duo-ing Caudicus Mannor story at lvl 43 bout 2 weeks after launch. Then I went there much later with 5 peeps and it was nightmare, with mobs much stronger and with many annoying skills. Folks say it's actually more difficult than exploration mode. So experience may vary...
That too. Although personally I'm in the level 40 of my PS and I never needed a group, but I can't say the same when I did mini dungeons.
Well, that review is a bit off, bacically you dislike the gameplay of try and error, graveyard rushing, the tedious high--hit-point trash and the lack of desirable rewards, but the story mode is presented well. So the overall experience is positive??? Realy?!
I would agree on most said above, but my judgement would be fundamentally different, the dungeons are by design the weakest and least fun aspect of an otherwise great game. They are overly long, boring, tedious and unrewarding. The lack of trinity makes it horrible for Pugging since most people won't know right away what they are supposed to do to be a decent team. There is next to no tutorial or intro or learning curve within and throughout the dungeons.
As someone else said in the threat where I questioned if dungeons with the trinity are more fun then without, PVE in GW2 feels more like PVP, this is by design and working as intended, however, this is off-putting for all the folks who mainly play(ed) PvE in other MMO's they don't like the hectic reaction based gameplay and prefer beeting though but predictable encounters, learning patterns and strategies. While strategies or kind of possible and required it mostly end up being a deperate struggle for survival on every trash group and most bosses. You never feel like you are in control of the situation. Maybe fun for a couple of encounters, but all the time it is very tedious.
Oh and while talking about dungeons maybe talk about how much penalized melee are over ranged in this game for a majority of encounters. So everyone requires range to increase survivbillity. Not a good balance...
Yeah, but the problem is that the PS lacks cooperation(unless you have a friend help you out but the PS is not really made for that), I wish there was a group version of the PS, like a guild story or something as well.
PUGs have always been horrible in WoW - until Blizz just nerfed all dungeons, of course. I am conviced, that dungeons should be hard and a place, where groups have to think about what they are doing.
Unforutnately since WotLK a great majority of players are accustomed to blindlessly rushing through dungeons (so much for the trinity, that actually nobody uses in WoW). I love the approach by Arenanet very much, because nobody just can stand in his corner and spam his skill-rotation. Everybody has to support and do damage. And afterwards you really feel, like you have accomplished something - I don't care about rewards, as long the gameplay is rewarding.
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First time me and my friends did Ascalon Catacombs we did it with no deaths. Because we worked as a team and shared the roles of tanking, healing and support.
People just want a dedicated healer to blame for their own lacking ability.
It is part of the strategy for bad players. Good players learn to play better to avoid deaths, and are likely the people ressurecting the bad players in PUGs.
2nd and the best thing about GW2 is that you dont need tons of cash you really can do everything your self and be independant so if you use 10% of your cash on repairs go run out and kill stuff for 10 minutes and gather a few mats and you gained it all back. They do a really good job of making sure noone is dependant on lots of cash to get things from other players.