it's almost 2022

[Stelawrat.6589]

11 minutes ago, AgentMoore.9453 said:

First, this is your 6969th post - (Nice)

Second, yes, absolutely this. And while we seem to be surviving that gap in skill (more or less) across other areas of the game, it shouldn't act as a barrier to personal story progress. It's all well and good to be of the view that the rest of the dungeon paths should be left alone since you only encounter them after your story is done, but the baseline introductory experience with dungeons (story mode) should absolutely be something a majority of players can experience alone and on their own terms in addition to being able to bring friends.

Whether that's achieved through scaling or some other method isn't nearly as important as the end goal, which is ensuring that the primary elements of the core story can always be experienced by the average player whether you have backup available to you or not.

The story (especially these early stories being played by new users) is supposed to introduce you to the game. The lore, the world, the mechanics, the skills and such. It should be as accessible as possible for as many players as possible, not just those choosing to play an RPGGG (Roleplaying Git Gud Game).

It's from this pov that I had, when first entering the Catacombs. It's what I thought I was about to experience. 

But after being destroyed, I had every intention of "Gitting Gud". That's why I kept doing it over & over. I could see that I was making some progress, just not enough to be successful. I've tried other dungeons with the same pov, the same intentions, more of a test to see how much I've learned, rather than actually completing the dungeon, which I know is unreasonable & I'm fine with that in it's current state. 

I love this game with all of its foibles & challenges, so whether or not ArenaNet is prepared to make this kind of change to dungeons, won't impact my passion for playing. It's just nice to know that others are in the same boat as me. 

[ChronoPinoyX.7923]

I'm at that point right now here I'm leaning more towards Dungeons as a whole mostly being a solo thing just because ANet has already replaced them with Fractals for multiplayer dungeon content. That's just my personal thought though since most times, dungeons are usually dead as a doornail and I would personally like to be able to farm Dungeon currency so I can get all the armour and weapons for my Fashion Wars 2 experience lel

[kharmin.7683]

6 hours ago, Krzysztof.5973 said:

 Instead of making dungeons single player, just create player incentive to replay them, increasing the population and interest of dungeons altogether. Although I don't know for how long can you make players participate in content that is decades old. 

Dungeons are abandoned content.  They have been replaced by Fractals (and some might argue strikes now).  I don't think that Anet would want to pour development resources into dungeons at the point -- that would be back-ward thinking. 

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

8 hours ago, Mungrul.9358 said:

@Linken.6345, I said contemporary. That's from 2015.

It's only gotten easier since 2015.

  

8 hours ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

Exactly. Not every player is playing all of the existing professions on meta-level.

I have characters of all nine professions, but only two of them I play in high-end meta content (Guardian and Necromancer). I don't have the time (and will) to train all of them to perfection (where I learn the damage meta rotation by heart etc).

Mind you, I was able play through all existing story content on all nine professions without any issues, that includes the more challenging story mission fights as well - ergo, I am not completely incapable in handling them.  Now, why should story mode dungeons have to be more challenging than that for solo-play? Makes no sense at all.

Well, story dungeons are by all means, an introduction to the dungeon mechanics.  The grouping, etc.  They're balanced more in line with the level you're introduced to them at (Having a minimum of green gear at your level and an okay trait build from 2013).

You also don't need super big meta knowledge.  You just need to  know  three things; Boss mechanics (Most function like bossses from the overworld with one new move), what attacks of yours do big damage or CC, and when to use them and that's only if you're doing these solo.  You can find one other person to do dungeons with by the  time you want to do dungeons and then you can likely do dungeon story modes (With the exception of maybe HotW story and CoF story) smoothly.

Edited November 30, 2021 by Sir Alymer.3406

[unsung.2938]

On 11/29/2021 at 2:27 AM, Ayakaru.6583 said:

And we still need to wait 3 hours for a party to form for a story mode dungeon run.

Just give us an NPC party, or scale everything down, there's literally no need for a party for the story mode. I mean, for Grenth's sake,

it's supposed to be _your experience_ with destiny's edge, not a rando's?

 

Edit:  I just thought of the simplest solution. Completely remove the story mode from the dungeons. Add "Destiny's Edge" to the story journal. Story mode can now be entered via a green star in front of the dungeon. Done.

 

I really wish they would bring back companions (aka Nightfall). Companions are the coolest thing in an MMO, but it is also detrimental to the growth of the game, especially with the EOD expansion on the horizon. Playing and grouping with others is what makes MMO special IMO. It's a hard choice to make, it had mix reception when it came out with Nightfall release for Guild Wars 1.

[Svarty.8019]

On 11/29/2021 at 10:27 AM, Ayakaru.6583 said:

And we still need to wait 3 hours for a party to form for a story mode dungeon run.

Just give us an NPC party, or scale everything down, there's literally no need for a party for the story mode. I mean, for Grenth's sake,

it's supposed to be _your experience_ with destiny's edge, not a rando's?

 

Edit:  I just thought of the simplest solution. Completely remove the story mode from the dungeons. Add "Destiny's Edge" to the story journal. Story mode can now be entered via a green star in front of the dungeon. Done.

As more content is added to the game, the game grows, the population spreads out and you get fewer people available to do any one thing. It doesn't mean there are fewer people overall - there are probably more than ever - but you can't see them because of the dilution. 

I think the old dungeons could do with a polish in terms of their appeal, but I don't know what that would be, since they are quality content and already have lots of unique rewards - perhaps those weapons and armour could have player-selectable stats? Would that make them more appealing?

Edited December 3, 2021 by Svarty.8019

[Ashen.2907]

My only issue with the idea of scaling story mode dungeons down is just how bad the implementation was for Arah.

 

 

[frareanselm.1925]

We still got allied npcs in dungeons but they're so bad that they die in seconds like rats. NPC's should be buffed or should be able to tank, at least if the player decides to solo.

[Zaoda.1653]

I agree - I'd like to see an option to add NPC's to your party for stories/missions like it was in GW1, because sometimes I don't want to socialize with randoms, and I have social anxiety, so for me, I prefer to do things by myself.

 

It would also be neat to be able to 'unlock' certain NPC's - like Livia, for example, and various other NPC's with different classes, and be able to select what skills they use - just like in GW1.

 

That way people can do things on their own if there's no one available.

 

One of my biggest pet peeves about GW2 is that, because I'm in a different time zone to most players, there's usually hardly anyone on when I need to complete achievements / PVE content. And the more maps that are introduced into GW2, the higher chance that players won't be able to get things done, because players are spread out everywhere. That's the downside to more maps.

 

To counteract this, make it like GW1 with unlockable NPC's that can join your party like the OP suggests, and also be able to select their skills and weapons, etc. just like it was back in GW1. You could move the NPC's around too, with markers.

[Darkvramp.5640]

On 11/29/2021 at 10:19 AM, HnRkLnXqZ.1870 said:

I was in this situation a few weeks ago. One of the newbies/returners I currently help wanted to play some dungeons, but did not feel comfortable playing with other people. So I've picked one of my overpowered alt-characters, which perform a little different and ran those Dungeons with the person as a 2-player-team. As long as it is story-dungeons, the difficulty is acceptable - for a team of two, where one is insanely powerful and knows every square-inch blindly.

We did a few Dungeons and I've spent my time explaining the mechanics, giving some side-information about the lore and fighting of course. Did I carry the encounter? In most cases, sadly yes. I was able to cover my tracks well enough, so it was not that obvious. But my impact was way too great to be ignored. I really wanted to use a normal character, so our contribution would have been almost equal. But even with the current level of the non-existent power-creep, the difficulty scale is still too high.

Having an NPC that did my job, would probably help. But it would have to scale with the difficulty. The more players there are in the group, the less powerful it should be. Its strength should scale with their performance and its support-capabilities match their survivability. That is a lot of data-tracking, calculating and balancing involved. A too-powerful carry NPC would make the encounters too easy.

My dear farmers ❤️ would straight up abuse it for daily dungeon-runs and do something else, while the NPC does the work. Right at the end of the dungeon, they would disable the NPC, sell 4 party-slots and make huge profit. Yes they sadly are that annoying. Every oversight or common-sense mechanic is considered a "THE DEVELOPERS INTENDED ME TO GET FREE GOLD HERE"-invitation until the mechanic is disabled/fixed. 

There is however one solution for this request. Sadly I cannot go too deep into details, as it would violate my personal code regarding exploits. My dear farmers ❤️ are watchful regarding this kind of information. But you will get the point:

-

I've experienced a strange situation in an instance. I took a break between multiple phases and returned about 15 minutes later. To my huge surprise, someone disposed of one encounter and continued with the instance. After a few tests, I realized that it was a certain NPC that was programmed to auto-operate, the moment you reach a certain point in the instance. The NPC was by design immortal and dealt hilariously low damage. But it was technically capable of soloing the entire instance, all by itself. It just took an eternity.

If we had such an immortal NPC in dungeons, which just progressed with the player and assisted with the damage, it would be fine. The players would still feel powerful, even if they had little to no knowledge about their class and the place they walk. The farmers would refuse to abuse this mechanic, as it would take way too long.

I've made an ingame report about this. If any staff-member reads this post, they can easily find the report in question and check about the details. I think it would be worth a try. Just one NPC with the AI of a necromancer-minion should not eat too many resources. 

And that's where an afk timer can come in if you are idle in game for too long it kicks you, and you have to start over, it would solve alot of problems actually. It would have to be smarter than if you have moved your camera or what not to beat bots and auto clickers but it would solve some issues ingame.

[Ayakaru.6583]

On 11/30/2021 at 11:28 AM, Krzysztof.5973 said:

Paths 1, 2, 3 or whatever are also "story". You still "need" a party to complete the dungeon for those paths. We can rename "story mode" into "introduction" and you are no longer obligated to do the story mode. It's just another path of that dungeon. I don't know why some people are fixated on dismantling the multiplayers parts of gw2. Instead of making dungeons single player, just create player incentive to replay them, increasing the population and interest of dungeons altogether. Although I don't know for how long can you make players participate in content that is decades old. 

It's not so much about dismantling multiplayer mode, as it is about enabling single player mode. 

The main point is that the story mode and exploration mode are inherently different things. The story mode, as the name suggests, has content that affects the dialogue and interaction in the Orr campaign (not much, ik give you that but more than none).

 

Basically, after the introduction in lv30, the average player will be completely alienated from Destiny's Edge, and thus feel nothing when any character does spoilery stuff in HoT, because the average player can't powercreep through dungeons. 

[Gibson.4036]

1 hour ago, Ayakaru.6583 said:

 

Basically, after the introduction in lv30, the average player will be completely alienated from Destiny's Edge, and thus feel nothing when any character does spoilery stuff in HoT, because the average player can't powercreep through dungeons. 

I just got past Claw Island with my daughter for her first time.

The story is like, "It's really important Destiny's Edge is reconciled!" The Pale Tree's vision implies it's our job to make it happen.

But since we won't be doing dungeons, that's about the end of that. And it'll be a little strange when we see them getting along down the road.

Edited December 7, 2021 by Gibson.4036

[Gibson.4036]

On 12/3/2021 at 5:01 PM, frareanselm.1925 said:

We still got allied npcs in dungeons but they're so bad that they die in seconds like rats. NPC's should be buffed or should be able to tank, at least if the player decides to solo.

This might just be enough. It's a huge difference just to have enemies focus something besides your character, hence the heavy use of minionmasters and ranger bears for people looking to make things easy.

Giving the NPCs enough fortitude to survive for a good while seems like it would be a low time investment tweak. Perhaps it could do an inverse scale to number of players in the instance so a full party wouldn't feel like the NPCs are carrying them. The fewer the players, the more resilient the NPCs.