Can we let Dungeons Die please?

Just what the title says, everywhere I look it has become a popular chant for people to sing "Dungeons not Fractals!"

I personally don't think that dungeons in their current form are better than fractals, in fact I don't think anyone thinks that, thats why theyre asking right? From my observation the allure of dungeons is purely nostalgia. They are long and tedious or just a total snooze fest. Every suggestion I've seen so far is either a very poor idea or to remake them to be suspiciously like fractals. If they were to remake them, it seems like they would be remaking them like fractals, in that case why not just make new fractals?

Here is a thing I noticed, new peeps don't do dungeons as much as we think despite usually doing them when they start. Most of all they rush to lvl80 and start unlocking mounts, a boring personal story might be to blame for this. From my personal experience having started playing after HoT released, dungeons are boring. They are poorly designed compared to fractals and they don't have any reason to do them. If they could design a perfect dungeon, I would want it to be just like our current fractals.

One thing I worry about is that they might actually pour time into dungeons and take time away from other game elements that effect everyone not just players with nostalgia. Instead of looking backward to the past, can't we just look forward the future?

That which doesn't live can never die.

I would prefer more fractals to more dungeons, but I would also prefer if the current dungeons were changed to be solo-able. The main thing stopping me from doing them is that finding a party who want to go at my pace seems really difficult...I'd like to enjoy the story and exploration, but from what I hear, most of the people doing dungeons just want to do speed runs for the loot.

@Zlater.6789 said:....One thing I worry about is that they might actually pour time into dungeons and take time away from other game elements that effect everyone not just players with nostalgia. Instead of looking backward to the past, can't we just look forward the future?

No need to worry... @"Benjamin Arnold.3457" spoke to this a couple of months ago during an AMA:

"Right now dungeons are not officially supported for new content updates, we have decided that fractals is where we should put the teams resources."

I don't believe there have been any statements contrary to this as of this time.

@Mourningcry.9428 said:

@Zlater.6789 said:....One thing I worry about is that they might actually pour time into dungeons and take time away from other game elements that effect everyone not just players with nostalgia. Instead of looking backward to the past, can't we just look forward the future?

They were already sying this a couple years ago as well, which mean that they are set on this point.

As for the current dungeons, there is no point in anet using time for them. Most of the different paths have been more or less bug free since 2014. Dungeons have their usefullness (mostly token to craft legendary weapons) and, while not being a thrill for veteran players, they can be pretty challenging for new players.

All in all I think they are mostly fine as they are and while there is no need to make big change to them, it's also fine not to ask them to "die". Just let them live peacefully like they've been these last 2 years and everything is fine.

@"Cragga the Eighty Third.6015" said:I would prefer more fractals to more dungeons, but I would also prefer if the current dungeons were changed to be solo-able. The main thing stopping me from doing them is that finding a party who want to go at my pace seems really difficult...I'd like to enjoy the story and exploration, but from what I hear, most of the people doing dungeons just want to do speed runs for the loot.

Yes please. Anet can't you make them solo-able? Like all of them not just a few.

When was the last time they updated dungeons? They are already dead.

Some are already solo-able :)

@Dadnir.5038 said:Most of the different paths have been more or less bug free since 2014.LOL wat?

The old forums use to literally have a permanent sticky thread full of bugs because Anet wanted to help players be aware of the bugs they were not going to fix.

I recently tried to run AC path 1. It was an absolutely horrible experience. Twice we tried to finish it, but Hodgins the NPC bugged out.

Then another thing: since conditions became viable, you can apply conditions to inert objects like doors etc. So you don't have a huge disadvantage to power based gameplay. But not in dungeons! It's so horrible, really, not even that they do. It's beyond ridiculous and unbearable why they let them rot in nothingness.

I think it's a bad idea to ask people to not give their opinions or not to ask for things they'd like. You are welcome to disagree with their opinion of course, but you are not free to dictate whether or not they should express their opinion in the first place. If there's enough demand for a certain kind of content and enough people wanting to play it over other kinds of content, then it would in fact be to the benefit of both ANet and players for that content to be developed. Of course, how much demand there is for dungeons is debatable, but that is another matter, and ANet has already stated they won't continue development on them, so it seems like a moot point to me.

To be honest, the dungeon system is ancient, and its really starting to show its age. I enjoy dungeons-but I wouldn't be against them being streamlined and integrated into fractals, and moving the story paths into the personal story where everyone gets to do them.

@Hannelore.8153 said:To be honest, the dungeon system is ancient, and its really starting to show its age. I enjoy dungeons-but I wouldn't be against them being streamlined and integrated into fractals, and moving the story paths into the personal story where everyone gets to do them.

Fractals were as ancient as dungeons. Difference is they arbitrary decided to stop developing dungeons and revamped fractals. The inferiory of fractals as a concept is obvious on every level, however it's easier (lazy) for them to develop fractals now. And realistically speaking, it's not going to change. Anet has new game to release soon (E3 this year for more info) and GW2 is going to be transfered into auto pilot mode more and more.

@Hannelore.8153 said:To be honest, the dungeon system is ancient, and its really starting to show its age. I enjoy dungeons-but I wouldn't be against them being streamlined and integrated into fractals, and moving the story paths into the personal story where everyone gets to do them.I dont think they show their age other than HoT and PoF powercreep making them obsolete.>

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:

@Hannelore.8153 said:To be honest, the dungeon system

is

ancient, and its really starting to show its age. I enjoy dungeons-but I wouldn't be against them being streamlined and integrated into fractals, and moving the story paths into the personal story where everyone gets to do them.

Dungeons are my Tanzler bride

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:Difference is they arbitrary decided to stop developing dungeons and revamped fractals.

It wasn't arbitrary. The original dungeons were designed as "one & done," like much of Living World Season 1. They built stuff and expected to only have to mildly tweak over time. That turned out to be untrue.

Fractals were designed using different tools and to be modular, expandable, and adjustable. That has made it (relatively) easy to maintain four distinct tiers of difficulty, add|remove|modify instabilities, add|modify new "paths," and otherwise keep fractals evolving with the rest of the game.

@Malediktus.9250 said:A one game company cannot survive in the long runOnly for 10 years?

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:Difference is they arbitrary decided to stop developing dungeons and revamped fractals.

This is only true for fractals after revamp. Before, fractals were mess, just like dungeons are now. Only arbitrary decision made fractals into end game content now. If they chose dungeons instead, we would discuss today fractals as dead content.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:Difference is they arbitrary decided to stop developing dungeons and revamped fractals.

@Malediktus.9250 said:A one game company cannot survive in the long runOnly for 10 years?

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

It wasn't arbitrary. The original dungeons were designed as "one & done," like much of Living World Season 1. They built stuff and expected to only have to mildly tweak over time. That turned out to be untrue.

I'm pretty sure dungeon tokens, armor and weapon skins were all around day 1? That doesn't seem like, 'one and done' to me.

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

Fractals were designed using different tools and to be modular, expandable, and adjustable. That has made it (relatively) easy to maintain four distinct tiers of difficulty, add|remove|modify instabilities, add|modify new "paths," and otherwise keep fractals evolving with the rest of the game.

That is one way to phrase it. Another way to phrase it is, fractals are almost completely disconnected from the main game in terms of story and location, allowing them to be worked on in complete parallel. Unlike raids which have largely stepped in to fill the role of instanced content which actually explores meaningful side stories related to the main game's story.

Also I don't think fractals were any easier to maintain than dungeons. From core game release (aug 28, 2012) to launch of hot (oct 23, 2015), we had 1 new dungeon path (aether blade, also this required killing off ta fwd/up), and additionally an overhaul of ac. Arguably 2 new dungeons in 3 years (they officially killed dungeons sometime in that period). While Fractals, went from the fractured update (nov 26, 2013) to chaos fractal (July 26, 2016) without any new maps. About 2.5 years without a new fractal. Granted there were all sorts of overhauls (remove t4, toughness scaling, the repeal of toughness scaling etc), but I would argue that if your statement was true, that fractals were easier to create, it would show up as more maps entering the game not successive overhauls.

The only reason you can even argue the point your making is because Anet made the decision with hot to actually support instanced content. All instanced content was supported equally poorly (as in not at all) prior to hot. The main difference being that every 9 months Anet would tell us that they were working on fractal leader boards sorta pretending to support fractals, while they would actively ignore community ran events such as DnT's summer speed running competition, a much clearer message.

As a person who runs dungeons a lot, I disagree with your comment that most new players don't run dungeons. For the most part, they're scared off because there are few LFG's like everyone else - but, you'll often come across teams solely consisting of 300ap newbies leveling up their first toon if you write the right lfg.

I like Dungeons, they're a safe place to learn mechanics and teach newbies while making a profit where you can pull someone to the side and explain what they're doing wrong without impacting the group. You just can't get that in any fractal besides Shattered Observitory, which definately has a more dungeonesque feel.

@Oldirtbeard.9834 said:That which doesn't live can never die.

My brudah you know da wae.

@ProtoGunner.4953 said:Then another thing: since conditions became viable, you can apply conditions to inert objects like doors etc. So you don't have a huge disadvantage to power based gameplay. But not in dungeons! It's so horrible, really, not even that they do. It's beyond ridiculous and unbearable why they let them rot in nothingness.Admittedly, this applies to the whole of Central Tyria, not just dungeons. Anet made objects susceptible to conditions starting with HoT, but was too lazy to apply this change game-wide for some reason.

@thrag.9740 said:

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

It wasn't arbitrary. The original dungeons were designed as "one & done," like much of Living World Season 1. They built stuff and expected to only have to mildly tweak over time. That turned out to be untrue.

By "one & done," I was referring to the content, not what we did with the content. They apparently didn't think that they'd have to update dungeons much, if at all. They were designed in a way that made it difficult to do so.

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

Fractals were designed using different tools and to be modular, expandable, and adjustable. That has made it (relatively) easy to maintain four distinct tiers of difficulty, add|remove|modify instabilities, add|modify new "paths," and otherwise keep fractals evolving with the rest of the game.

That is one way to phrase it. Another way to phrase it is, fractals are almost completely disconnected from the main game in terms of story and location, allowing them to be worked on in complete parallel. Unlike raids which have largely stepped in to fill the role of instanced content which actually explores meaningful side stories related to the main game's story.

That's an arbitrary distinction. There are literally dungeons that are copies from LS1. Twilight Arbor offers better background on what happened in pre-GW2 Elona than anything I learned from dungeons about pre-GW2 Destiny's Edge.

Also I don't think fractals were any easier to maintain than dungeons.

I'm going by what ANet has told us (more than once): they designed fractals to be easier to adjust.

From core game release (aug 28, 2012) to launch of hot (oct 23, 2015), we had 1 new dungeon path (aether blade, also this required killing off ta fwd/up), and additionally an overhaul of ac. Arguably 2 new dungeons in 3 years (they officially killed dungeons sometime in that period). While Fractals, went from the fractured update (nov 26, 2013) to chaos fractal (July 26, 2016) without any new maps. About 2.5 years without a new fractal. Granted there were all sorts of overhauls (remove t4, toughness scaling, the repeal of toughness scaling etc), but I would argue that if your statement was true, that fractals were easier to create, it would show up as more maps entering the game not successive overhauls.

All that tells us is how often ANet actually updated fractals. It tells us nothing about whether it was easy or hard (back during the period to which you refer, they seemed to change priorities often, so it's hard to know what they were thinking).

The only reason you can even argue the point your making is because Anet made the decision with hot to actually support instanced content. All instanced content was supported equally poorly (as in not at all) prior to hot. The main difference being that every 9 months Anet would tell us that they were working on fractal leader boards sorta pretending to support fractals, while they would actively ignore community ran events such as DnT's summer speed running competition, a much clearer message.

The reason I can make my argument is that ANet told us that fractals were designed to be easier to modify. They were designed to have multiple tiers of difficulty.

Yeah, I hate the argument that fractals are disconnect. Fractals are currently disconnected for the most part (twilight oasis isn't) But that doesn't need to be true. Nothing is stopping them from adding a story step that is either a t1 fractal or is converted to a fractal after.

Its kinda like saying dungeons shouldn't be developed because they are badly designed. They are, the bosses and encounters objectively suck hard, and are not well done. even the "good" ones in arah need at least a minor rework on the level of the final boss of cliffside. But that isn't a good reason for dungeons not to be developed, because new ones would have better game design.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

The reason I can make my argument is that ANet told us that fractals were designed to be easier to modify. They were designed to have multiple tiers of difficulty.

Hold on. When Anet made those statements, we were coming off years of neglect for dungeons, false advertising with fractal leader boards (btw, it was a promised hot feature that everyone knew was an open lie), legendary fractal back piece that was postponed for about 6 months, worth mentioning we had swamp of the mists for most of that time after the old forums blew up warning it would happen and Anet mods came into those forums and specifically told us they would balance it so it wouldn't happen (they didnt even try to do that), legendary armor delayed for years. I love Anet now, but the Anet from the period your referring to, was a terrible company that treated the instanced content players like dirt.

And you want me to take that company at its word? No thanks, show me the track record.

Let me give you my take on it. Isn't it oh so convenient that the highest level of fractals use to be core game content, then all of a sudden Anet raised the required AR to 150 AR. And look at that, you get 2 extra agony slots on your rings as long as you purchased HOT. Who could object to that? As long as the core players had hundreds of extra gold they could reach 150 AR too after all.

Anet pretended that fractal 100 was going beyond f50, and so they didn't lock previously core content behind a new paywall. They put an upgrade behind that paywall. Except they didnt, because f50 pre-hot are pretty much the same difficulty as t4s post hot except for challenge motes. There was no way Anet could lock old dungeons behind the HOT expansion. So they killed dungeons, locked old fractals behind a new paywall and sold it as an upgrade.

Look I put up with it because I enjoy the product. But Anet's word wasn't worth much back then, it takes time to regain the trust of your community.