Improve Dungeons

They could be so great, but they are so few ppl doing them at the moment. There is no need to redesgin, just add this:

A skull-system that can be toggled on and off, to adjust difficulty and reward. They dont have to add all the suggestions in the video, some seem hard to add, but pls do anything like this __

ArenaNet

How can i tagg arenanet? :open_mouth:

I second this post. I have been thinking about this for some time. I really do think its long overdue that Arenanet Revamps dungeons and their rewards. I think a new reward system would be very beneficial to new players and seasoned players as well. As dungeons aren't as difficult to get into as fractals are. Dungeons is content that hasn't seen much improvement since the release of fractals which many us know, took over as end-game content. I do believe a rework of this content would be great. Some examples that I've thought of were more opportunities for ascended trinkets. Fractals has very easy access to ascended items, rings being one of the most easy ones to acquire. By adding an additional way to acquire ascended trinkets it would make the grind for ascended items that much more bearable. While at the same time not shocking the market since most trinkets cannot be crafted. And perhaps most importantly, get more people interested in fractals. All too often I hear from new players as well as returning players that they are overwhelmed by the amount of time it takes to get yourself fully geared for the master fractal tier level.

In addition, I think it would be awesome to have a CM for all the available dungeons. I frankly think there isn't enough instance content players can utilize in the course of one daily. These CM dungeons can be almost like a 5 man raid. They can also delve deeper into the story/lore surrounded by each unique dungeon. Most importantly, an updated reward system would perhaps be the most beneficial thing to do as I stated above it would help new and returning players alike. Heck it would also help those who have multiple alts. Also adding more dungeons would be excellent. Seeing them being discontinued after the first game release was very disheartening.

Finally, dungeons are a true gem that this game has to offer. As of now they are very underplayed simply because they are outdated, its not tied well enough into the new content and, more pressingly, there is not much incentive to complete this content. I do hope to see future updates for dungeons as I truly enjoy small group instanced content.

Extra tid bit. It would be awesome to have little clues that lead players to fractals. As they stand as one of the key components to end-game content. This way its not like the fractals sort of just dropped out of the sky.

Sending my best,

Dontlook

I would like to see this, but Anet has flat out told us they aren't going to be doing any development on dungeons going forward. Just accept that fractals have replaced them

Thanks for the quick response. That is honestly too bad. Small group instanced content is the best. As of now, I don't think Gw2 has enough of it with dungeons being so outdated. A little bit of love would go a long way with dungeons too. Really too bad to hear.

That video was relevant when it was first posted, definitely not now. We don't need more hard instanced content outside of raids and fractals, imo. Dungeons could be made more challenging, yes. But only to return them to the levels of difficulty they offered circa 2013 (before elite specs and full ascended gear were a thing).

As is, all dungeons really need are minor reward tweaks. Just add a transmutation charges as a daily reward and a couple ascended accessories to the vendor and watch how the LFGs fill right up. That certainly breathed some life back in to dead-ass WvW and PvP

Please no more Transmutation Charges... :/Add some more stats to the token vendors, make for 1500 each get a piece of ascended or something and decrease the rewarded tokens after you did a path once a day...Make them a bit harder, maybe more risky than they are now, and see them coming to life again :disappointed:pls anet :/ :D

Despite the prevalence of people running through dungeons on full-Exotic or higher level 80s, dungeons were meant for lower-level characters. Ascalon Catacombs Explorable Mode is slated as level 35, for instance, not 80. And if you really want to experience these dungeons as the hardcore content they really are, go run it as a level 35 with green gear.

They don't even fix the slightest in the dungeons. Kohler still stutters, so does the SE one dude in SE3. Object can't be conditioned. So it takes forever to dps down the stupid clowncar in SE3. It's just so horrible, really. It's beyond stupid. Also the mechanics are so ancient and obsolete. Additionally something horrible: new players get reckt while veterans run through this sorry excuse of obsolete and ancient content which had never any improvements since the beginning of this game. A shame and not worth of the status AAA game. Compare it to the newer bosses from PoF for example, they are soooo much better.

Dungeons were created with old tools, instead of tweaking/fixing them they'd need to create them from scratch.Since they do not require an expansion to be played, there is little monetary gain for Arenanet from tweaking dungeons.

I know but it is also an excuse and not a good service as a developer. You'd expect something like this from a crappy company, but not from a company with such high goals.

I wouldn't mind some added mechanics towards stimulating more players to join dungeons. As a new player who just reached lvl 80, I am quite curious to do dungeons, but its damn hard to find parties for them.

@DerJoker.9081 said:A skull-system that can be toggled on and off, to adjust difficulty and reward. They dont have to add all the suggestions in the video, some seem hard to add, but pls do anything like this __

ArenaNet

ANet already has instanced content with adjustable difficulty, it's called Fractals of the Mists.

Yes, and it's not about the lack of content like that, but the wasted time that went into developing dungeons, because no ones playing them right now.Making them way harder by default would be a bad thing, but improving replayability and rewards would make them more popular, without any big, time consuming development times.

They won't do much with dungeons. Fractals are where they want you to be

Anet has spoken on this matter. Too much work for little reward, and I hate that response. I run dungeons every single day. I like them more than fractals and raids, but this is where they want us to focus our time. So I've started doing that, and I am miserable. I don't like raids and I HATE fractals. I hope that they add new dungeons in a future expansion that they feel is worth their and our time.

I would like to see more small group instanced content. Dungeons being the top pick for me. They could make lessor Legendary Insights that can be combined into one Legendary insight as well to help ease the grind of legendary armor.. And maybe do something about those provisioner's tokens. Its such a pointless gold sink and very inconvenient. Only getting these materials from raids/wvw/pvp is really mind-boggling. Some people don't like competitive play and there are some that don't like large group encounters.

I further don't think veteran players are making any sort of excuses saying they are outdated. They are and there is no getting around it. It's not even a QoL issue at this point. I'm losing a lot of friends that want to get back into the game but are fronted with this huge grind gate to get competitive or even viable gear. I have been playing this game for five years. There is very little reason to return to dungeons. Five gold from completing eight unique dungeons isn't cutting the cheese. After several bug fixes, a reward system rework, and an added CM for access to higher tier gear/materials, dungeons would be sound content to engage in. Further, I don't think Arenanet would lose out economically, in fact I'm sure beyond an utterable doubt they won't and will actually benefit. Small group instanced content is very popular among MMORPGs. I am even going to go as far as saying small group encounters is one of the best ways to hone your profession and play-style as your not bogged down with specific requirements to fill a specific roll.

Fractals is by far not the best option because there is so much variability with the mist lock instability and agony mechanic. Give people a chance to learn their attack chain without having to worry about players standing too close to them. Give players a chance to see how much damage they are contributing without there being 5-7 other people your competing with for DPS. The list of examples goes on and on. Fractals of the Mist is great stuff and I thoroughly enjoy them, but with all honesty its not how you want beginning players to start out. Its very much end-game content. I would argue even further that its for players seeking a little bit of an extra challenge. But by no means should it be the preferred game mode for players. Raids are good too, but as I stated it is a large group encounter. Its a great addition but least we forget small group encounters that don't have all these strong chaotic instabilities procing. Content like this shouldn't be ignored. Its really a serious matter IMHO. Going forward I sure hope they consider making changes. I have some confidence they will because PvP when it first came out was very unrewarding. The PvP team had no intentions of changing this until the community brought this to their attention. Now, players have a completely overhauled PvP system.

So I'd like to make it clear for those who don't have anything useful to add, it doesn't really help the cause. I'm looking out for the community as a whole.

ANet has released 16 fractals since November 12, 2012, that's a rate of one every 3.75 months. If you count only the new ones since the first set (and include revamps), that's 10 in the same period, a rate of one every 6 months. Let's ignore the fact that dungeons will built using older tools (and can't be revamped as easily) and let's also pretend that adding hard mode is "just" a matter of tweaking encounters... it's still going to take 2 months per path: one month to design, one month to implement/test/rebalance (plus translate) (even ignoring any voice acting). With 24 dungeon paths, that's four years of effort, during which time we'd have no new fractals.

And that's assuming ideal conditions, which we don't have.

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:ANet has released 16 fractals since November 12, 2012, that's a rate of one every 3.75 months. If you count only the new ones since the first set (and include revamps), that's 10 in the same period, a rate of one every 6 months. Let's ignore the fact that dungeons will built using older tools (and can't be revamped as easily) and let's also pretend that adding hard mode is "just" a matter of tweaking encounters... it's still going to take 2 months per path: one month to design, one month to implement/test/rebalance (plus translate) (even ignoring any voice acting). With 24 dungeon paths, that's four years of effort, during which time we'd have no new fractals.

And that's assuming ideal conditions, which we don't have.

It wouldn't at all take that long. It took them literally one update to change the PvP reward system while content, such as fractals, was being released. And that was just a minor reward system change before they completely revamped it with the release of HoT. Although minor it was a major QoL change. They have teams that work on different tasks within the game. I'm sure they could manage something within a reasonable amount time.

Also there's no new map to design, no very few stuff in general that you would build up from scratch. Just tweaking rewards would change a lot. They don't have to make them super rewarding, just a slight improvement, so they offer something for players that already have done them for some time. maybe some crafting materials to sell or use, one kind associated with each dungeon, something like that...

It really doesnt matter how, but there are a lot of ways to increase the attractivity of dungeons, that dont involve a massive amount of development time...

@dontlook.1823 said:

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:ANet has released 16 fractals since November 12, 2012, that's a rate of one every 3.75 months. If you count only the new ones since the first set (and include revamps), that's 10 in the same period, a rate of one every 6 months. Let's ignore the fact that dungeons will built using older tools (and can't be revamped as easily) and let's also pretend that adding hard mode is "just" a matter of tweaking encounters... it's still going to take 2 months per path: one month to design, one month to implement/test/rebalance (plus translate) (even ignoring any voice acting). With 24 dungeon paths, that's four years of effort, during which time we'd have no new fractals.

And that's assuming ideal conditions, which we don't have.

They only have so many individuals that work on 5-person maps, encounters, and rewards. Those people are already working on other things. They have said repeatedly that the maps themselves are the least effort aspect of small-group, instanced content. It's all the other stuff that takes a long time. They have also said that they'd have to start from scratch on dungeons, because the dungeons were designed with their old tools, using less flexible designs. (That's partly why they tinker with them so rarely; it takes a lot longer to fix even little stuff than fixing big stuff in fractals & raids.)

So absolutely, they could manage "something". The question is: what else would they stop working on and how little (or how much) "something" would it be?

It really doesnt matter how, but there are a lot of ways to increase the attractivity of dungeons, that dont involve a massive amount of development time...The amount of dev time is always dependent on the how and the what. There's no such thing as a "simple slider" without also building all the infrastructure to make that possible in the first place.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@dontlook.1823 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:ANet has released 16 fractals since November 12, 2012, that's a rate of one every 3.75 months. If you count only the new ones since the first set (and include revamps), that's 10 in the same period, a rate of one every 6 months. Let's ignore the fact that dungeons will built using older tools (and can't be revamped as easily) and let's also pretend that adding hard mode is "just" a matter of tweaking encounters... it's still going to take 2 months per path: one month to design, one month to implement/test/rebalance (plus translate) (even ignoring any voice acting). With 24 dungeon paths, that's four years of effort, during which time we'd have no new fractals.

And that's assuming ideal conditions, which we don't have.

It really doesnt matter how, but there are a lot of ways to increase the attractivity of dungeons, that dont involve a massive amount of development time...The amount of dev time is always dependent on the how and the what. There's no such thing as a "simple slider" without also building all the infrastructure to make that possible in the first place.

A reward system is not difficult to implement. Minor changes like these would be very beneficial. I do remember them saying dungeons are using older tools so as for the bug fixes, I'm not too sure how that would go. Adding a CM would really be the only thing that'd have to start from scratch. I'm suggesting they add one for each unique dungeon. Not one for each path. That may take some time but I'm pretty sure it can be accomplished within a year. The focus has been on fractals for too long now. Dungeons are in need of some attention. They've made a few changes here and there over the years to certain dungeons. HoTw being the first one that comes to mind. They added a troll to fight that does really high damage. Pretty sure it didn't take them a heap of time to do that.

Arguing that its going to be too much time and not worth the effort isn't going to get us anywhere. I do think they can make some neat changes that would enhance encounters while also making them feel more rewarded. Excuse me if I'm wrong.

@dontlook.1823 said:A reward system is not difficult to implement.

So you claim; ANet says otherwise.

Minor changes like these would be very beneficial.Are they beneficial enough for the time invested? Since you think it's "easy," I have no doubt you'll think it's worth it. But again, ANet has said otherwise.

I do remember them saying dungeons are using older tools so as for the bug fixes, I'm not too sure how that would go.They've said: it wouldn't go well. That they'd actually prefer to start over again and redesign things to use the new tools.

Adding a CM would really be the only thing that'd have to start from scratch.See above; that's not what ANet says.

I'm suggesting they add one for each unique dungeon. Not one for each path.8x time 2 months is still over a year, assuming that they are more efficient than they've been with fractals and they stop working on them.

They've made a few changes here and there over the years to certain dungeons. HoTw being the first one that comes to mind. They added a troll to fight that does really high ranged damage. Pretty sure it didn't take them a heap of time to do that.Pretty sure it did, because it was ages before they made that change and they didn't update it since.

Arguing that its going to be too much time and not worth the effort isn't going to us anywhere.ANet is saying it will take more time than it's worth, so I think it's very important to the discussion to understand what the trade off is.

I do think they can make some neat changes that would enhance encounters while also making them feel more rewarded. Excuse me if I'm wrong.Of course they could. The question is always: what else could they be doing with the same resources? Is this the best use of their time?

. > @Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@dontlook.1823 said:A reward system is not difficult to implement.

So you claim; ANet says otherwise.

Minor changes like these would be very beneficial.Are they beneficial enough for the time invested? Since you think it's "easy," I have no doubt you'll think it's worth it. But again, ANet has said otherwise.

I do remember them saying dungeons are using older tools so as for the bug fixes, I'm not too sure how that would go.They've said: it wouldn't go well. That they'd actually prefer to start over again and redesign things to use the new tools.

Adding a CM would really be the only thing that'd have to start from scratch.See above; that's not what ANet says.

I'm suggesting they add one for each unique dungeon. Not one for each path.8x time 2 months is still over a year, assuming that they are more efficient than they've been with fractals and they stop working on them.

They've made a few changes here and there over the years to certain dungeons. HoTw being the first one that comes to mind. They added a troll to fight that does really high ranged damage. Pretty sure it didn't take them a heap of time to do that.Pretty sure it did, because it was ages before they made that change and they didn't update it since.

Arguing that its going to be too much time and not worth the effort isn't going to us anywhere.ANet is saying it will take more time than it's worth, so I think it's very important to the discussion to understand what the trade off is.

I do think they can make some neat changes that would enhance encounters while also making them feel more rewarded. Excuse me if I'm wrong.Of course they

could

. The question is always: what else could they be doing with the same resources? Is this the best use of their time?

The last thing you said is the case and point. The Thread is titled, "Improve Dungeons." The people here are trying to create a valid argument as to why dungeons are worthwhile content. And what can be done to make them more worthwhile. ANet has said a lot of things in the past. Like, do you remember for instance LFG? They said they weren't going to implement a LFG tool for the longest and they redirected their player base to a third party website through a sticky note. I do think players creating an urging for what they want out of the game is more productive as appose to speaking on behalf of the company.

@dontlook.1823 said:The last thing you said is the case and point. The Thread is titled, "Improve Dungeons." The people here are trying to create a valid argument as to why dungeons are worthwhile content. And what can be done to make them more worthwhile. ANet has said a lot of things in the past. Like, do you remember for instance LFG? They said they weren't going to implement a LFG tool for the longest and they redirected their player base to a third party website through a sticky note. I do think players creating an urging for what they want out of the game is more productive as appose to speaking on behalf of the company.

Actually, the OP specifically stated that they wanted a specific thing and that it would be easy to do. That's not about creating a valid argument about why dungeons are worthwhile content (and incidentally, no one is arguing that they aren't; the question is whether ANet should focus on them or fractals).

LFG is a fine example of ANet changing its mind. What we don't know is: what other features did they drop or postpone in order to deliver it? There's always a limit to what an MMO studio can produce; ANet has to pick & choose based on difficulty, extensibility, appeal, replayability, costs, and tradeoffs. The OP looked at appeal to a subset of players, but not about all the other things that ANet has to way.