[Discussion]Revamp (not update) or limit Dungeons, because they deter new players.

I know I know, you've heard it before.

"Update dungeons ANET FFS, OMFG¤"#% ! etc..

No!

Don't update dungeons, revamp them.

Delete the paths, and replace them with a SINGLE "path" per dungeon that is balanced in reward and challenge.

There are of course several ways they could do this, so here's what I want dungeons to be and what position I want them to hold:(I'll try to be as precise, and objective as I can be.)

• I want dungeons to be valid and for them to have a reason to exist in the game for players who have unlocked all skins.
• I want rng ADDED "note that", to the dungeons by allowing dungeon gear to drop from bosses ALONGSIDE the currency and vendors. (Low drop % obviously.)
• I do NOT suggest new dungeons to be added. (the 8 dungeons from vanilla is enough as pillar content.)
• I DO think that fractals are the future as it has been, and that all 5 man oriented content like it should be developed in that domain of the game.

I consider the dungeon-meta to be a unintended result of bad design which leaves us with skipping, stacking for more than boons and confused players carried by some experienced players. There is almost no reason to read the event descriptions considering it's often bypassed by player inginuity, which often is unintuitive and unrewarding as many players do NOT enjoy it or wish to learn it from an extensive guide that explain having a boss stuck inside wall to ignore mechanics. And, I have serious doubts that the dungeons were ment to play that way.

Why? Whats the reason for revamping them?

• As of now dungeons are a messy endeavor and it is a deterrent for newer players because it is their first group-instanced content. This leaves an impression upon the player on how the game plays, and it really is NOT unusual that players believe fractals and raids to be harder versions of dungeons.

How could dungeons be revamped?

• Basically remove all the old dungeon events and replace them. (Keep the instance/map.)

Replace the events with what?

• Stable, balanced events that are up to date mechanically. (I think the game would benefit to see mechanics that force the group to not stack as much, which is a gameplay I find considerably boring when it basically is the single tactic you do.)

What about skipping?

• Skipping... It's maybe THE worst gameplay in Guild Wars 2.So, how could it be solved?Design the paths to make it impossible (doors that will have to be opened etc,) BUT also decrease the AMOUNT of, or the STRENGTH of the NPC's.

Example:

• A few strong NPC's in Arah would feel off considering it is a post-apocalyptic zombieland.
• An army of weak bandit NPC's would feel wierd in Caudecus's Manor.

What do I think dungeons should feel like?

• I think dungeons should feel like a LONGER fractal with a more "big" story-oriented side to it.

What kind of story?I'd like something that doesn't directly connect with the personal story, but still be prominent.(Example: King Adelbern has assebled his armies and is just about to unleash his vengeance upon the black citadel, you have to stop him not as the commander, but as A player.)Isn't Adelbern dead in canon because of the story dungeon?Revamping the dungeons would of course mean that the original stories would have to be rewritten/altered so that it does not interfere with the personal story.

(I'll admit my bias here, I do not really enjoy the original characters from the Living Story or S1 and 2 Living World, and never felt that they matter in any way. Rytlock, Canach, Traehaern all have their moments and to some extent Taimi also, but characters like Zojja, Logan, Eir and braham etc all make me cringe some times.)just make them go away anet, pls c:.

Arenanet has said that they won't work on dungeons right?Yes they have, but I would like to point out that at this moment dungeons are hurting the game, A LOT. Dungeons are basically where new players first experience 5 man content in the game. Personally I did not do or try any fractals before spring 2017 (played since 2014) because I thought they were like a harder version of dungeons... It hurts the game, and everyone do not google it like me. (eventually.)

If Arenanet won't do anything of the sorts, I will have to sincerely ask that they make all the dungeons have a level 80 required to even enter.A small sacrifice for the healthy growth of the game.

The quality has really increased these last few years, and I want to applaud Arenanet for their achievements and I look forward to all the new raids, fractals the future will bring!Do YOU agree/disagree? What do you think :)?

Tyria feels a bit like a messy room right now, maybe it's time to clean it a little?

No. Dungeons are fine as they are, there's no need for a revamp. Rewards are there, and if you try to make a group with LFG you'll likely fill fast and succeed, except for Arah maybe.

Introducing some of the bounty mechanics to the dungeons bosses / some monsters might be fun.I would like to see new dungeons for the new maps. And yeah fractals are not dungeons. Main difference is that dungeons actually provide some kind of story. Fractals are short 5-man content with couple of mechanics.

@YoukiNeko.6047 said:Introducing some of the bounty mechanics to the dungeons bosses / some monsters might be fun.I would like to see new dungeons for the new maps. And yeah fractals are not dungeons. Main difference is that dungeons actually provide some kind of story. Fractals are short 5-man content with couple of mechanics.

Yes I agree, maybe not with extra dungeons though, but I suspect that we view dungeons a little differently.

I cought myself while writing this that I basically view dungeons as 5 man raids with simpler mechanics. As of length(In a better world i mean.)

Do you mean that you would like to see a dungeon same size or smaller like a fractal with an entrance in the open world? (Labeled Dungeon and have nothing to do with the consept of fractaling?)

Skipping and stacking are valid tactics though which have been around since gw1. I think it takes skill to effectively pull of a skip and I dont think that should be destroyed. Thats part of the reason I dont feel fractals are sufficient replacement for dungeons. Also stacking is mostly not done in dungeons these days as damage creep is so out of hand, you can burst all mobs and bosses down before they even have a chance to move.

I dont think they need to make them 80 only as they are balanced around the reccommended level and I really hope they dont make them 1 single path as that would be removing content which this game does NOT need any more of.

Honestly this post just seems to be another 'I hate skipping and stacking, change the game to make everyone play the way I like'. Id suggest to you to make you own group with the description 'no skipping casual run'

@zombyturtle.5980 said:Skipping and stacking are valid tactics though which have been around since gw1. I think it takes skill to effectively pull of a skip and I dont think that should be destroyed. Thats part of the reason I dont feel fractals are sufficient replacement for dungeons. Also stacking is mostly not done in dungeons these days as damage creep is so out of hand, you can burst all mobs and bosses down before they even have a chance to move.

I dont think they need to make them 80 only as they are balanced around the reccommended level and I really hope they dont make them 1 single path as that would be removing content which this game does NOT need any more of.

Honestly this post just seems to be another 'I hate skipping and stacking, change the game to make everyone play the way I like'. Id suggest to you to make you own group with the description 'no skipping casual run'

I understand that you consider skipping and stacking a staple of the Guild Wars franchise, mind you I do NOT want stacking for boons and generally intelligent gameplay removed at all (I want to do more.)

As of skill i do not agree with you unfortunately , I am in no way uncapable of clearing dungeons with that playstyle and agree that it can be fun if your whole group is in on it. But frankly it hurts the game, and what annoys ME the most is having to explain to a new player that we are going to pop stealth run and probably fail again and again because 3/5 in the group do not understand it for the unatural consept that it is. Its not hard to execute, its just a matter of study.

Its more like a speed run of any game, its something you do when theres nothing else for challenge and you really should move on.

Also doing full clears of dungeons are a time investment for little reward, which is why I want a revamp. As I said; skipping is unnatural gameplay happening naturally because the dungeons are badly designed that way.

Skipping and stacking are clever tactics, but that's all.

There’s nothing good in Skipping part of the run or stack on the same place.

@Shirlias.8104 said:Skipping and stacking are clever tactics, but that's all.

There’s nothing good in Skipping part of the run or stack on the same place.

Agreed, adding simple mechanics not unlike the bosses in "The Shattered Observatory" fractal would break the group up for objectives and such goodies that flavour the encounters. That's also why I do not wish or crave fancy totally new shiny dungeons. Just remove the bugged content and implement and borrow from already developed tech we all know work much better me thinks. Skill is actually dodging an attack, not removing the attack and reason to dodge.

@Lipzipper.3160 said:

I would like to see longer paths, but still keep the multiple paths + story path.Multiple paths provide additional story telling and mechanics. And the story path can show a little of the mechanics in the multiple paths so you know what to expects.

@zombyturtle.5980

Skipping is really easy to do and I don't see how it can be fun. Same for stacking.I've done runs skipping everything and runs clearing everything. And most of the time I had more fun doing the second. But I do agree that after X amount of runs, clearing trash mobs becomes way to boring (trash mobs rarely have unique mechanic and are rarely worth it (well one of the player we cleared dungeons back in the day did get a precursor from dungeon trash)). So allowing for some kind of skipping should be allowed.

I can see some encounters requiring you to stack (like how some bounties can take damage if you are in a special zone) but apart from that its pretty strange mechanic.But I do agree that the old dungeons should be tuned for the appropriate level instead of level 80.

I remember trying to clear AC path 3 in one of the weekends beta before launch. The highest level in the party was maybe 37-8. It was a disaster but still we had fun.So I think it would be good for players to be able to experience dungeons sooner instead of waiting for level 80.

I would really enjoy if ANet change the combat so support and tank roles can be more useful, but without dropping entirely in the holy trinity.Example: A boss have hard hitting almost insta KO AOE attack, but if you taunt him and then use block/evade then the attack will only target you. Now if you are missing a character with evade your party can try to evade/block or if a healing spec is there heal the damage after the attack.This way we have more interesting mechanics and options instead of stack in the corner and fire all your skills as fast as possible.

Sadly they will never do anything with dungeons ever again. They have made this pretty clear in the past. Dungeons are some of my favorite content too. :( They seem to be much more concerned with churning out RNG gem store stuff. I really wish they would listen to the community but that has never been their MO.

@Devilman.1532 said:Sadly they will never do anything with dungeons ever again. They have made this pretty clear in the past. Dungeons are some of my favorite content too. :( They seem to be much more concerned with churning out RNG gem store stuff. I really wish they would listen to the community but that has never been their MO.

Anet is about to release a fractal, raid and a new map. yet somehow you can't see this and seem to think Anet only releases Gem Store stuff. Open your eyes and try to see.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:

What they need to do is add an Ascended tier of rewards to dungeons (with a relative higher cost in tokens, of course).

There, now people would have an incentive to run dungeons.

Make final reward dependent on how many events you finished in dungeon and how successfully. All events finished successfully = max rewards (tokens, gold) and better chance for a rare reward to drop.Its a shame. Instead of making raids, they should rework dungeons, I'm sure it would benefit a lot larger group of playerbase and make better impression on new player, especially if there wouldn't be so much speedrunning like now.

A new map that after its played will have zero replay value, a fractal that will be full of bugs that will never be fixed and with zero replay value, and another raid that 5% of the player base will even play. Yeah look at all that great content!!! ;) /sarcasm But class balance? Nawww wouldn't wanna do that ;)

So your proposal is to remove content. Each path is sufficiently unique from other paths to be a different dungeon. You want to remove paths so each dungeon is one thing, and you don't want to add new dungeons. This means you want to make what is currently three different yet similar things into only one thing. This means you're trying to make dungeons more grindy because instead of doing something different when you run it three times, you would just be doing the same thing over and over ad nauseum.

I really can't get past that, and since you don't address it at all the whole proposal sounds like garbage to me.

I didn't read your thread but I'm pretty sure Anet will do nothing about dungeons ever again.

The only revamp we really need is some new god damn dungeons.

@Einlanzer.1627 said:The only revamp we really need is some new god kitten dungeons.

God KITTEN!!!! Lets hope they add it to the home instance.

@Kheldorn.5123 said:I didn't read your thread but I'm pretty sure Anet will do nothing about dungeons ever again.

I'm pretty sure raids and mounts weren't planned for the game either, yet we have them now, because people wanted them.

@serialkicker.5274 said:

@Kheldorn.5123 said:I didn't read your thread but I'm pretty sure Anet will do nothing about dungeons ever again.

Dungeons are already in game and failed as a concept. Just like esports. Both are not coming back.

@Devilman.1532 said:A new map that after its played will have zero replay value, a fractal that will be full of bugs that will never be fixed and with zero replay value, and another raid that 5% of the player base will even play. Yeah look at all that great content!!! ;) /sarcasm But class balance? Nawww wouldn't wanna do that ;)

Quite a few fractals have been updated. You claim none have. What's your point?

@Kheldorn.5123 said:

@serialkicker.5274 said:

@Kheldorn.5123 said:I didn't read your thread but I'm pretty sure Anet will do nothing about dungeons ever again.

How can you be so sure? Anyway I can hope.

@Kheldorn.5123 said:

@serialkicker.5274 said:

@Kheldorn.5123 said:I didn't read your thread but I'm pretty sure Anet will do nothing about dungeons ever again.

Why did they fail? Because you said so? Because you didn't like them? They were played by a large amount of people for quite some time. They weren't updated, so that's why they ended up in bad state, especially after first elite specs. If they got attention fractals or raids get, they would get popular again.

@Lipzipper.3160 said:I know I know, you've heard it before.

"Update dungeons ANET kitten, kitten¤"#% ! etc..

No!

Don't update dungeons, revamp them.

Tomato tomaato.

I get it, you want to disarm people who are about to rush in and scream and not take the topic seriously, stating something like this does none of that. This is basic presentation stuff, if you are aware that people have heard it before, don't make them hear it again. The fact that you rephrase the term update to revamp shows you know how a thesaurus works, it hardly creates the groundbreaking difference in thematic approach which would be needed.

@Lipzipper.3160 said:

• I want dungeons to be valid and for them to have a reason to exist in the game for players who have unlocked all skins.

You have not yet shown that dungeons are not valid. As far as I can tell they are good gold per hour, provide an abundance of unique skins as well as end game runes and sigils (rune of nightmare for some condi builds as an example). I'd call that pretty valid. What you wanted to say was:"You want dungeons to get run by the community as often as they got used to run in the past."

@Lipzipper.3160 said:

• I want rng ADDED "note that", to the dungeons by allowing dungeon gear to drop from bosses ALONGSIDE the currency and vendors. (Low drop % obviously.)

More rng, I'm sure people will get right on that idea of supporting this. Wasn't one of your approaches dungeons were supposed to provide incentive for people with all the skins? What you should have said is, you want increased dungeons rewards to make the content more enticing. As is, not needed, dungeons are rewarding enough.

@Lipzipper.3160 said:

• I do NOT suggest new dungeons to be added. (the 8 dungeons from vanilla is enough as pillar content.)

Great, because they won't. This also divides the audience which you are intending to reach even further. You are now down to people who do not feel new dungeons are needed, yet feel the need that old dungeons require a complete revamp. That's going very niche imo.

I'm going to address the rest of your points simply by saying:

Yes, 5+ year old content which has no work seen on it will feel dated and not be up to par with current quality of the game.

Yes, dungeons could get a complete revamp/rework to bring them up to speed.

No, this is not so easy and would require massive developer hours as well as new design and implementation of rewards and a reward structure.

Yes, new players are left out to dry as far as dungeons are concerned. If this is to big an issue, make dungeon story lines all level 80. It's not as though a big part of the player base runs them at sub 80 anyway.

Any type of work done on dungeons is competing with work which could be done on other parts of the game. As such, the cost-benefit analysis disfavors change to dungeons just as it disfavors a redesign of Living World Season 1 (something a lot of players would love to see reintroduced into the game). So it won't happen.

@serialkicker.5274 said:

@Kheldorn.5123 said:

@serialkicker.5274 said:

@Kheldorn.5123 said:I didn't read your thread but I'm pretty sure Anet will do nothing about dungeons ever again.

I am one of biggest dungeon fans in this game.

@YoukiNeko.6047 said:

@Kheldorn.5123 said:

@serialkicker.5274 said:

@Kheldorn.5123 said:I didn't read your thread but I'm pretty sure Anet will do nothing about dungeons ever again.

They barely release any raids or fractals. They have no resources to create anything that's not a gemstore skin.