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Should Arenanet go back to old dungeons to improve them for the new and old player experience?


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As a veteran player, dungeons might feel "irrelevant", old, outdated content which nobody barely does anymore, when we have fractals and other open world content with their own map rewards. But for a new players, the dungeons usually are first experience of a "group oriented content" that they experience in the game.As new players they rarely have understanding of the end game content and dungeons that they experience could have huge impact of how they perceive the game.

Dungeons haven't aged well, when it comes to old bugs or the rewards they give. Of course many older players might remember the old gold farming in dungeons before it was changed to the repeatable achievement gold reward we have today.

Do you think Arenanet should revitalize dungeons, so people would want to go there more often? Maybe update the bosses by reworking them from the scratch, introducing new combat mechanics what we have access now days in open world and raid content? Would that bring you as veteran player back more often to try dungeon path that you haven't done in a long time?

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And to add for the conversation, lets throw in ideas how to make dungeons more interesting.

I think a challenge mode that would give reward like ascended crafting material would help people to challenge themselves with friends more.The challenge mode could include finishing dungeons at certain time <- This especially if Anet would look into the bosses and bring some of that modern tech to their mechanics.

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Fractals are dungeons, built with better authoring tools that make them easier to update, troubleshoot. The only way that it would be worth it for ANet to return to old dungeons is to throw out the existing ones and replace them, using the new tools. And if they take the time to start from scratch, there's no guarantee that we'd see anything that we like about the originals (we might see new things we like; it just wouldn't be worth it to start over to make near-identical copies).

Developers have written plenty of times about the how & why, including the following:

@"Benjamin Arnold.3457" wrote in the old forumsIt’s not like we want to leave the bugs in, its just that they were built a long time ago with different tools, and fixing them requires a lot of developer time. Time that could be spent on making new fractals and such. Any time I spend fixing dungeon bugs is completely voluntary, and is probably going to be done on weekends.

writing on reddit (emphasis in original)

  • Fixing a fractal/raids bug - 5-30 minutes.
  • Fixing a dungeons bug - Literally an entire day.

tl;dr ANet is not going to go back to old dungeons(and if they do, @Ayrilana.1396 warned you to be careful what you wish for)

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I will one up your idea and say that they should create different fractal paths, similar to how dungeon paths worked.

It would probably be too convoluted and cause singular fractals to be too large to easily bug fix again but it would make them a hundred times more interesting, to me at least.

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  • remake of old dungeons, ...introducing challenge mode along with new rewards.
  • remake of old dungeons, adding updated mechanics to the bosses,
  • keep the old dungeons ... [with] challenge mode for extra rewards.
  • fix.. the bugs, dungeons are fine as they are.

My vote: option 5: none of above. Invest the time into fractals or anything else that gains greater benefit from the same effort. Don't worry about bugs unless they prevent most people from completing the dungeon or can be exploited.

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@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

  • remake of old dungeons, ...introducing challenge mode along with new rewards.
  • remake of old dungeons, adding updated mechanics to the bosses,
  • keep the old dungeons ... [with] challenge mode for extra rewards.
  • fix.. the bugs, dungeons are fine as they are.

My vote: option 5: none of above. Invest the time into fractals or anything else that gains greater benefit from the same effort. Don't worry about bugs unless they prevent most people from completing the dungeon or can be exploited.

I see your point, but having buggy dungeons that haven't "aged well" are still first things to new players who come to the game. In MMO's in general it is the dungeons that are the repeatable content for people to do, and yes, we have fractals at the end game for that aspect in Guild wars 2.

But I recently brought two of my friends into the game and leveled up a new character with them in the open world content until we reached lvl 35, where we went to AC story mode and later the explorable paths. One of the paths bugged so we had to start the said path over and my friend was having a weird visual bug during the cutscenes in the story path, which brought their question of the game's quality "Is this what the dungeons are like", which I had to admit that yes, they include very, very old bugs that haven't been fixed.

I hated to say that to them since I would rather see my friends (new players) being excited for the upcoming dungeons while leveling up, leading to fractals and raids at later on but it was "killjoy" experience for them to see that "this is what this games dungeons are like".

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the only issue with dungeons i'd like to see fixed is that they're mandatory if you want to understand what's going on with destiny's edge in the final instance and yet are completely skipable. other then that (and the bugs) there's nothing wrong with dungeons nor do i see the need to bring them back

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@"Stand The Wall.6987" said:all they need is better rewards. anet nerfed them when fractals came out so people would play fractals. pretty horrible choice imo.

I do agree at some point, since dungeons were fun content that -anyone- could do on the fly (given you had the appropriate level requirement for each dungeon).Sure counter argument could be "But there are low level fractals that are open to everyone" but as a new player, you need to unlock them by rising your personal fractal level, which honestly isn't hard thing to do, but the point being "accessibility", where dungeons are open from the get-go.

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@"Stand The Wall.6987" said:all they need is better rewards. anet nerfed them when fractals came out so people would play fractals. pretty horrible choice imo.

It's inaccurate to claim that dungeons "need" better rewards. The rewards are better than they were during some of the pre-fractal history; they just aren't as good as they were at the peak (when arguably they were over-valuable).Roughly speaking, 8 dungeons per day are worth 11-15 gold these days; before the 'nerf', they were worth 11-13 gold

Khar the Charr's Dungeon Profitstl;dr version

  • The most important part of dungeon profitability is: token rewards
  • The most valuable way to turn tokens into gold is via trinket recipes (that will eventually drop for those who farm enough)
  • Including tokens, dungeons are better than they used to be

tl;dr version
  • The average player (8 paths/day) lost around a measly 1g in liquid rewards, but gained twice as many tokens. (at LEAST 470)
  • The experienced player (16 paths/day) lost anywhere from 2-7g in liquid rewards, but gained at least 790 tokens.
  • The extreme minority of full clear runners (20 paths/day) lost 8g, and gained at least 1420 tokens

See also:https://old.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/90wwix/why_do_we_not_have_a_separate_daily_for_dungeons/

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@"THE FORGE.7198" said:I see your point, but having buggy dungeons that haven't "aged well" are still first things to new players who come to the game.That depends on the players; some people never find them. If you think it sets a bad sign, though, the easy solution is to lock dungeons until the account has at least one L80 character.

But I recently brought two of my friends into the game and leveled up a new character with them in the open world content until we reached lvl 35, where we went to AC story mode and later the explorable paths. One of the paths bugged so we had to start the said path over and my friend was having a weird visual bug during the cutscenes in the story path, which brought their question of the game's quality "Is this what the dungeons are like", which I had to admit that yes, they include very, very old bugs that haven't been fixed.And what's your proposal? Say they decide to fix all the bugs in just AC 1-3, including stuff that they've tried to resolve in the past without much success. During the same week it would take them to fix under half a dozen AC bugs, they could fix 40+ fractal issues.

I hated to say that to them since I would rather see my friends (new players) being excited for the upcoming dungeons while leveling up, leading to fractals and raids at later on but it was "killjoy" experience for them to see that "this is what this games dungeons are like".

Well if it were me showing people around, I would have said, "no, this isn't the game's dungeons; those are fractals. As soon as you hit L80, I'll take you there and those are much more interesting. This is just the stuff the game had at launch and ANet hasn't touched since."

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I don't really want any of the 4 choices. To me the main biggest problem with dungeons is getting a team reliably. So, first, changes should be made that address that problem.

Also, before someone tries to tell me its easy to get a dungeon group. I'm looking through the 8 lfg tabs right now, 10 minutes after reset, and there are no groups, except for 3 in caudecu's manor, and they have been sitting there for at least 5 minutes not filling up.

1.) Currently, the few players that are actually trying to do dungeons are spread out over 8 lfg tabs. You can't even check all 8 tabs in quick succession without the lfg locking up. I would recommend consolidating that down to a single dungeon tab, similar to raids right now.

2.) Make grouping easier through a centralized hub. Personally, I would just use the aerodrome, add a single door that can port you to any dungeon, if your in the aerodrome and a member of the party goes in, it prompts you just like raids. When you leave a dungeon, it takes you back to the aerodrome. This would make it easy for groups to do a daily clear (see next point).

3.) Create some sort of randomized daily system similar to fractals that guides the players towards which dungeons they should do daily. Because fractals are longer than dungeons, I would say more than 3 dungeon paths should be in this daily system. Maybe 5 random paths chosen from all story paths and explorable paths (except for arah p4 and aetherblade path, which should play a role similar to cm's in fractals). Add some sort of nice daily reward which you receive only for completing all 5 of these paths. I would say remove the current 8 path repeatable reward and replace it with this daily system.

4.) Long term rewards. I would attach a single wallet currency for doing the daily repeatable achievement I outlined above. Maybe 5 tokens for doing the daily achievement outlined above, and an additional 1 token for completing aether path and arah p4 respectively. What should those tokens be used for? I don't know, ascended and infusions is more of a fractal thing. Maybe give it a few rewards, a cosmetic chair, a transform potion, maybe a useful gizmo that everyone would want to keep in an account wide inventory slot, Like I said, ascended is already heavily featured in fractals, but dungeons have a long history of being part of legendary weapons. So how about a daily purchasable mystic clover that uses these tokens (balanced appropriately)?

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What I want for Dungeons is a "Vanquisher Mode", similar to the Explorable area Vanquisher from GW1.

  • No story, only events and enemies. It'd be basically a combat-based map completion.
  • All events from story and explorable paths would be recreated or replicated. Generic enemies would be left as they are, named enemies from story would be replaced with similar looking generic enemies with a different model (e.g.: Kudu -> Inquest Leader). Those encounters that may spawn in the same spot on different paths would be moved to different locations, but both would be recreated.
  • All doors would be open or would get opened by defeating a boss or challenge rooms, allowing players to freely explore the entirety of the dungeon.
  • There would be secret events and spawns that are triggered with hidden methods like using emotes at certain points, using hidden objects, placing bundles on certain spots, and reaching faraway areas.
  • Unfinished jumping puzzles would be finished, completing them would count as hidden events. Dungeons with no jumping puzzles would get at least 1.
  • Areas with no enemies would get simple events or enemy spawns. There would be no large empty areas, the dungeon would feel like crawling with activity.

Rewards would be based on how many enemies and events are cleared, and they would be Monthly or Quarterly.

  • Copper: Defeat all enemies and complete all events that are a repeat of story and explorable events.
  • Silver: Do other bonus events outside story and explorable paths.
  • Gold: Also find all secret events and defeat every single enemy.
  • Platinum bonus: Get gold under a certain time.

Vanquishers could also appear in a leaderboad similar to Adventure leaderboards.

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@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:It's inaccurate to claim that dungeons "need" better rewards.if they had better gold per hour, people would do them.

If chatting in /squad had better gold per hour, people would do that more often, too.Dungeons have good gold per hour, just not the best in the game. They don't need it.

And regardless, lots of people run dungeons. It's not as much as in the old days because (a) dungeons are no longer the only always-available farm in the game (as they were early on), (b) they are no longer the top gold producer (as they once were), © there are about 20 more maps than there used to be, increasing the competition for attention, (d) the rewards exclusive to dungeons are no longer exclusive (whereas those rewards remain exclusive in other areas), (e) as time goes on, more veterans have unlocked all the rewards/AP from dungeons, but not from other sources, and more.

Change any of that and dungeons would be run more often.

The thing is: dungeon rewards being "more attractive to more people" isn't inherently beneficial to the game. In fact, without fixing the actual bugs, it might be a bad thing for the game, because people would be crankier about it.


It's inaccurate to say that dungeons have poor rewards or even worse rewards than ever. Dungeons are less competitive for a variety of reasons, most of them good for the game.

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I rather see them fix old bugs that really can stall progression running them. However not as a priority. They should fix stalling open world events first (and honestly this should be a priority as you stumble upon these reports as of late). If I would like to see any change to dungeons it would be the possibility to solo them (like pof or hot story). Gives you something to do when you have no group for fractals yet still able to play instanced dungeon like content. I know some ppl can solo some paths but for a casual player its almost impossible. I know some still don't find them challenging enough atm but we have fractals and raids where the mechanics force you to group up and the real hardcore go raids. And I assume they can still scale up mobs/bosses to amount of players inside (if they don't already).

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@Stand The Wall.6987 said:all they need is better rewards. anet nerfed them when fractals came out so people would play fractals. pretty horrible choice imo.

Fractals were introduced November 2012, 3 months after release and long before dungeons prime time.Dungeons rewards were never better as of now even better than during that dungeon farm time which people consider their prime.

Dungeons are dead. It's five years and people still can't get over it. They won't ever get changed and we won't see new dungeons. Just get over it already. You had 5 years.

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@Miellyn.6847 said:

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:all they need is better rewards. anet nerfed them when fractals came out so people would play fractals. pretty horrible choice imo.

Fractals were introduced November 2012, 3 months after release and long before dungeons prime time.Dungeons rewards were never better as of now even better than during that dungeon farm time which people consider their prime.

Dungeons are dead. It's five years and people still can't get over it. They won't ever get changed and we won't see new dungeons. Just get over it already. You had 5 years.

I meant before the fractal revamp. regardless of what was better, people did dungeons cuz they thought the rewards were good. yeah its a good idea for old content to simply get abandoned, sounds like resources put to good use.

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