Do Dungeons Need a Nerf? A viewpoint on the New Player Experience

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

12 minutes ago, Cryect.1780 said:

 

If it hasn't been updated for 8 years, then there's no reason to play them. Even a nerf or balance changes will cause more players to check it out. Else, dungeons are effectively dead

 

Content, Achievements, story, currency to purchase the runes. There's an achievement for doing 8 unique paths that awards arguably the same GP/HR as doing t4 fractals and doesn't require you to do CMs+T4s or have knowledge of advanced rotations/builds with fractal potions to give more stats to do optimally.  In fact, there's roughly 16 easy, quick, painless paths one can do to do this twice in about 1h 30 min, netting you about 15g in raw gold + a plethora of tokens you can use for gearing characters or use to buy gear to salvage into more materials to sell.

12 minutes ago, Cryect.1780 said:

The problem is that, 8 years ago, dungeons and raids were "hard" and required "getting good". Now they aren't.

Also, this is a good argument as to why they don't need to be nerfed.  They're literally already the easiest group content in the game.

Edited January 28, 2022 by Sir Alymer.3406
Lost part of the post in original posting.

[Cryect.1780]

5 hours ago, IAmNotMatthew.1058 said:

 From

to

in less than 2 hours. 

GJ taking that one line out of my paragraph out of context. They were considered "Hard", now strike missions and raids are considered todays "hard" content

5 hours ago, Sir Alymer.3406 said:

Content, Achievements, story, currency to purchase the runes. There's an achievement for doing 8 unique paths that awards arguably the same GP/HR as doing t4 fractals and doesn't require you to do CMs+T4s or have knowledge of advanced rotations/builds with fractal potions to give more stats to do optimally.  In fact, there's roughly 16 easy, quick, painless paths one can do to do this twice in about 1h 30 min, netting you about 15g in raw gold + a plethora of tokens you can use for gearing characters or use to buy gear to salvage into more materials to sell.

Also, this is a good argument as to why they don't need to be nerfed.  They're literally already the easiest group content in the game.

 

If you guys are okay with Dungeons being dead content, that's fine by me, but there are MMOs that do it much better and don't neglect content in the game (and don't leave PVE content untouched for 8 years).  I'm just saying all of the players here are just too set in their 30k+ AP ways to create an inviting atmosphere for newer players and are willing to defend developer's decisions to leave abandoned or outdated content in the game. Also these are the same players that spend too much time on the GW2 forums.

Even now, new players are posting about their dungeon experiences in this thread:

Idk why it's so hard to admit that this 9 year old game has some serious problems and needs to be updated

Edited January 29, 2022 by Cryect.1780

[Linken.6345]

1 hour ago, Cryect.1780 said:

GJ taking that one line out of my paragraph out of context. They were considered "Hard", now strike missions and raids are considered todays "hard" content

 

If you guys are okay with Dungeons being dead content, that's fine by me, but there are MMOs that do it much better and don't neglect content in the game (and don't leave PVE content untouched for 8 years).  I'm just saying all of the players here are just too set in their 30k+ AP ways to create an inviting atmosphere for newer players and are willing to defend developer's decisions to leave abandoned or outdated content in the game. Also these are the same players that spend too much time on the GW2 forums.

Even now, new players are posting about their dungeon experiences in this thread:

Idk why it's so hard to admit that this 9 year old game has some serious problems and needs to be updated

It is legacy content and devs wont update it anymore they said so.

Would you rather then deleted the dungeon enterances or as now still have it in the game?

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

2 hours ago, Cryect.1780 said:

GJ taking that one line out of my paragraph out of context. They were considered "Hard", now strike missions and raids are considered todays "hard" content

 

If you guys are okay with Dungeons being dead content, that's fine by me, but there are MMOs that do it much better and don't neglect content in the game (and don't leave PVE content untouched for 8 years).  I'm just saying all of the players here are just too set in their 30k+ AP ways to create an inviting atmosphere for newer players and are willing to defend developer's decisions to leave abandoned or outdated content in the game. Also these are the same players that spend too much time on the GW2 forums.

Even now, new players are posting about their dungeon experiences in this thread:

Idk why it's so hard to admit that this 9 year old game has some serious problems and needs to be updated

They're not really dead content.  I see LFG postings all the time and when I post something in there for a path, especially post reset, it fills almost instantly.

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

15 hours ago, Cryect.1780 said:

GJ taking that one line out of my paragraph out of context. They were considered "Hard", now strike missions and raids are considered todays "hard" content

You contradicted your own statement, nothing was taken out of context. 

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

Now to show the maths on how profitable dungeons are.

A non comped group can do 16 dungeon paths in about 1h 30 minutes.  Faster if you know what you're doing and have a meta group already.

Now, with that out of the way, here's a chart detailing the rewards:

Dungeon	Path	Coin (Gold)	Token	Experience
Ascalonian Catacombs	P1	0.76	100	177800
	P2	0.76	100	177800
	P3	0.76	100	177800
Caudecus’ Manor	P1	0.61	100	177800
	P2	0.61	100	177800
	P3	0.61	100	177800
Twilight Arbor	Up	0.61	100	177800
	Forward	0.61	100	177800
	Aether	0.92	100	177800
Sorrow’s Embrace	P1	0.61	100	177800
	P3	0.61	100	177800
Citadel of Flame	P1	0.61	100	177800
	P2	0.61	100	177800
Honor of the Waves	P1	0.61	100	177800
Crucible of Eternity	P1	0.61	100	177800
	P3	0.61	100	177800

 

 

The experience, in total, is enough for 11 levels which is 11 spirit shards.  The gold reward (Just from the paths) is 10g 52s.  This discounts any extra gold you may have earned from kills and drops.   Add in an additional 10 gold on top of that for completion of Dungeon Frequenter as well.  For dungeon tokens you have +300 AC, +300 CM, +300 TA, +200 SE, +200 CoF, +100 HotW, and +200 CoE with +300 of your choice

Spirit shards are about 6 silver each currently if you know what to convert.  Dungeon tokens are around 12 copper for profits if you just buy things to salvage.

What does this mean?
Spirit Shards are 66s
Dungeon Tokens are 2g 28s
Raw Gold is 20g 52s
Total profits (Excluding any extra drops in dungeon): 23g 46s

If we want to average out the material drops, this becomes complicated but to say that you earn 7g in materials isn't farfetched and that would bring the value to ~30g in 1h 30m or about 20g an hour.  This is content you don't need super specific builds for either.  Just a group of 5 warm bodies and the ability to cc and  deal big damage.  Maybe occasionally deal with certain mechanics too.

Is this SW RIBA or  DWC South Meta levels of profitable?  Not really, but it's much more fun than running around in circles and whacking a loot pinata for 20 minutes because you and 3 other people there are doing 85% of the squad's dps.

 

[MithranArkanere.8957]

No. All they need is for the Personal story to add new "Optional: ... " objectives to Personal Story journal entries telling players they may want to  visit them at the story stages in which you receive the mails from Destiny's Edge, putting green markers at the entrances of the dungeons, and improved rewards the first time they are completed, instead the crappy rare headgear they give right now. 

[ASP.8093]

Not necessarily a nerf to be easier but a bit of rebalance so that you're facing fewer cases of both "hit-point sponge enemies that take forever to kill" and "enemies that spam near-insta-kill attacks on engage but are otherwise pushovers."

[Saelgash.7014]

On 1/30/2022 at 6:14 AM, Sir Alymer.3406 said:

 

The experience, in total, is enough for 11 levels which is 11 spirit shards.  The gold reward (Just from the paths) is 10g 52s.  This discounts any extra gold you may have earned from kills and drops.   Add in an additional 10 gold on top of that for completion of Dungeon Frequenter as well.  For dungeon tokens you have +300 AC, +300 CM, +300 TA, +200 SE, +200 CoF, +100 HotW, and +200 CoE with +300 of your choice

Spirit shards are about 6 silver each currently if you know what to convert.  Dungeon tokens are around 12 copper for profits if you just buy things to salvage.

What does this mean?
Spirit Shards are 66s
Dungeon Tokens are 2g 28s
Raw Gold is 20g 52s
Total profits (Excluding any extra drops in dungeon): 23g 46s

If we want to average out the material drops, this becomes complicated but to say that you earn 7g in materials isn't farfetched and that would bring the value to ~30g in 1h 30m or about 20g an hour.  This is content you don't need super specific builds for either.  Just a group of 5 warm bodies and the ability to cc and  deal big damage.  Maybe occasionally deal with certain mechanics too.
 

 

Very good information. From someone who hasn't done a lot of dungeons I appreciate it 🙂 

[Serephen.3420]

On 12/18/2021 at 8:10 AM, Sobx.1758 said:

Fractals.

I mean if anet took the time to revamp the explorable paths of dungeons as new fractals I could see that being a pretty good thing. Dungeons get revamped and Fractals get more maps.  

Story modes could remain the same in their current locations.

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

On 1/29/2022 at 8:56 PM, ASP.8093 said:

Not necessarily a nerf to be easier but a bit of rebalance so that you're facing fewer cases of both "hit-point sponge enemies that take forever to kill" and "enemies that spam near-insta-kill attacks on engage but are otherwise pushovers."

What dungeon bosses have too much HP?  Seriously?  They die in seconds most of the time.  Also, those enemies that instant down you on engage (Only if you're full glass) should only do that once.  Now you know their behavior and it's easy to dodge.  Learning as you play is something you should really strive to do.

[GoldenPants.1870]

Kinda, make the unsoloable paths soloable, that’s the only change imo, it’s annoying to try to farm certain paths.

[piitb.7635]

On 1/29/2022 at 6:44 PM, Sir Alymer.3406 said:

Now to show the maths on how profitable dungeons are.

A non comped group can do 16 dungeon paths in about 1h 30 minutes.  Faster if you know what you're doing and have a meta group already.

<snip>

 

 

I haven't done a dungeon in years, because there is a huge lack of incentive, but I somehow don't think any single path takes less than 6 minutes.

[Cuks.8241]

2 hours ago, piitb.7635 said:

 

 

I haven't done a dungeon in years, because there is a huge lack of incentive, but I somehow don't think any single path takes less than 6 minutes.

I dont know if you can do 16 in under 1h 30 mins. But there are solo speed runs for certain paths under 6 mins.

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

7 hours ago, piitb.7635 said:

 

 

I haven't done a dungeon in years, because there is a huge lack of incentive, but I somehow don't think any single path takes less than 6 minutes.

You really need to just run some reapers through any dungeon that downscales you to 65 or lower.  Bosses get shredded in seconds if you line up burst with defiance bar breaks.
 

 

4 hours ago, Cuks.8241 said:

I dont know if you can do 16 in under 1h 30 mins. But there are solo speed runs for certain paths under 6 mins.

You can assuming little mistakes on some of the trickier paths and no bugs.  (Looking at Mag in CoF P2)

[Fangoth.4503]

On 12/13/2021 at 2:21 AM, Defias.1892 said:

Those are fair points, but that's my point exactly - that content haven't changed, but the playerbase has.  These are DUNGEONS, not RAID or Strike Missions. Requiring New Players to look up Youtube Videos/Wiki is a horrible New Player Experience, especially for something that's daily PVE content.

It doesn't matter if its dungeon/raid/strike, anything requirering external guides is a failure, not because of difficulty but because the dev did not find a way to teach the player how to do it.
I haven't done any raid day 1 but I did strikes and last fractal and my take on it is that you can definitively do it without a guide as long as you know your class and how the game work but unfortunally these are not well explained.

 

On 12/13/2021 at 2:21 AM, Defias.1892 said:

And reminder - this IS NOT 2012. Dungeons are no longer the primary endgame focus and don't really need to be as difficult as they are.

Sadly yes they devs gave up dungeon but they still are still easy content as long as the player learn the basics of the game.

 

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

On 2/3/2022 at 5:42 AM, GoldenPants.1870 said:

Kinda, make the unsoloable paths soloable, that’s the only change imo, it’s annoying to try to farm certain paths.

I don't think there's any dungeon path that can't be done solo now with a few tricks to bypass a couple mechanics.

 

 

12 hours ago, Fangoth.4503 said:

It doesn't matter if its dungeon/raid/strike, anything requirering external guides is a failure, not because of difficulty but because the dev did not find a way to teach the player how to do it.
I haven't done any raid day 1 but I did strikes and last fractal and my take on it is that you can definitively do it without a guide as long as you know your class and how the game work but unfortunally these are not well explained.

Nothing in this game really requires an external guide unless the player literally refuses to learn by doing.  Squad getting bodied by greens at VG? The AoE is green, maybe standing in it reduces damage.  Dhuum has greens, maybe we stand in these?  Oh, the whole s quad died on the second  green.  *Looks at buff bar after doing a green.* Oh, a debuff that says we can't do another. 

Guides exist as a shortcut beyond all this testing and trialing as they give you the mechanics straight away.  Sure, ANet could be more clear with the mechanics, but it's not a failure on them if players are literally too lazy to actually observe w hat's going on.  No amount of "Hey, player, this happens when you do this" is going to train the player to do the mechanic.

[Linken.6345]

9 hours ago, Sir Alymer.3406 said:

I don't think there's any dungeon path that can't be done solo now with a few tricks to bypass a couple mechanics.

 

 

Nothing in this game really requires an external guide unless the player literally refuses to learn by doing.  Squad getting bodied by greens at VG? The AoE is green, maybe standing in it reduces damage.  Dhuum has greens, maybe we stand in these?  Oh, the whole s quad died on the second  green.  *Looks at buff bar after doing a green.* Oh, a debuff that says we can't do another. 

Guides exist as a shortcut beyond all this testing and trialing as they give you the mechanics straight away.  Sure, ANet could be more clear with the mechanics, but it's not a failure on them if players are literally too lazy to actually observe w hat's going on.  No amount of "Hey, player, this happens when you do this" is going to train the player to do the mechanic.

Well the 3 torches in citadel of flame path 3 and the 4 door buttons in all 3 explorable paths of crucibel of eternity are 4 I dont know a trick to.

[Teratus.2859]

I am voting no just because of how the subject is worded using nerf..

No dungeons do not need a nerf in the sense of lower difficulty enemies and bosses etc, they are already laughably easy content and a good number of them are quite easily soloable as well.

What Dungeons do need however are for all their story modes to get the same treatment that Arah got.. basically make them to scale for solo players.
This should be done entirely to better slot them into the personal story which they are connected to just extremely poorly.

The explorable dungeon paths can stay just as they are and they will be fine.
If any changes were to be made for explorable paths though then I would argue for them to receive more rewarding hard modes which I think a lot of players would actually enjoy.

Hell go even further than that too and add a raid mode difficulty above the hard mode as wel.

Hard adds stronger enemies and a few more of them and gives bosses some new raid like mechanics that do a lot of damage.
Then Raid mode adds far more enemies making them basically swarms in some places and upgrades the bosses again to raid status turning some of the new mechanics they got in hard mode to insta deaths etc.

[GoldenPants.1870]

1 hour ago, Linken.6345 said:

Well the 3 torches in citadel of flame path 3 and the 4 door buttons in all 3 explorable paths of crucibel of eternity are 4 I dont know a trick to.

Exactly what I was refering to.

[Epsilon Indi.2031]

3 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

Well the 3 torches in citadel of flame path 3 and the 4 door buttons in all 3 explorable paths of crucibel of eternity are 4 I dont know a trick to.

First is skipped via an Out of Bounds trick.  Second isn't even required to do.

[Defias.1892]

It took 10 months and a Steam launch but here's further validation about how GW2's core community is out-out-touch with the new player experience with dungeons:

 

Reddit threads:

I will say that it is nice that Dungeon Currencies have been combined. It is definitely a step in the right direction.

Edited October 2, 2022 by Defias.1892

[Sobx.1758]

52 minutes ago, Defias.1892 said:

It took 10 months and a Steam launch but here's further validation about how GW2's core community is out-out-touch with the new player experience with dungeons:

 

Reddit threads:

I will say that it is nice that Dungeon Currencies have been combined. It is definitely a step in the right direction.

Validation? One thread claims "nobody plays them" (false) and the other says "getting a party wasn't the problem". The person saying getting a party wasn't a problem complains about people moving forward while he was watching cutscenes. Solution for his problem isn't nerfing dungeons (since that will make rushing them easier), it's communicating to the group "he doesn't want to rush dungeons, but instead watch the scenes play out".

Not only that, but even the person saying nobody plays them, simply mentions "the easier story mode" as a solution, which is not really what you wanted in this thread as far as I understand.

Edited October 2, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Defias.1892]

4 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Validation? One thread claims "nobody plays them" (false) and the other says "getting a party wasn't the problem". The person saying getting a party wasn't a problem complains about people moving forward while he was watching cutscenes. Solution for his problem isn't nerfing dungeons (since that will make rushing them easier), it's communicating to the group "he doesn't want to rush dungeons, but instead watch the scenes play out".

Not only that, but even the person saying nobody plays them, simply mentions "the easier story mode" as a solution, which is not really what you wanted in this thread as far as I understand.

 

The main thing is I really don't care what they do with dungeons, as long as they make it easier and more inviting for new players. Nerfing dungeons would be the quickest and easiest way to go about it. Making it solo-able is also another way to go about it.

 

I don't know why the community is so hell-bent about retaining 9 year old content, when it's clear that it isn't inviting or welcoming to new players. It's a large reason why there's such a massive drop-off in new players https://steamdb.info/app/1284210/graphs/

Edited October 3, 2022 by Defias.1892

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

On 1/29/2022 at 6:44 PM, Sir Alymer.3406 said:

Now to show the maths on how profitable dungeons are.

A non comped group can do 16 dungeon paths in about 1h 30 minutes.  Faster if you know what you're doing and have a meta group already.

Now, with that out of the way, here's a chart detailing the rewards:

Dungeon	Path	Coin (Gold)	Token	Experience
Ascalonian Catacombs	P1	0.76	100	177800
	P2	0.76	100	177800
	P3	0.76	100	177800
Caudecus’ Manor	P1	0.61	100	177800
	P2	0.61	100	177800
	P3	0.61	100	177800
Twilight Arbor	Up	0.61	100	177800
	Forward	0.61	100	177800
	Aether	0.92	100	177800
Sorrow’s Embrace	P1	0.61	100	177800
	P3	0.61	100	177800
Citadel of Flame	P1	0.61	100	177800
	P2	0.61	100	177800
Honor of the Waves	P1	0.61	100	177800
Crucible of Eternity	P1	0.61	100	177800
	P3	0.61	100	177800

 

 

The experience, in total, is enough for 11 levels which is 11 spirit shards.  The gold reward (Just from the paths) is 10g 52s.  This discounts any extra gold you may have earned from kills and drops.   Add in an additional 10 gold on top of that for completion of Dungeon Frequenter as well.  For dungeon tokens you have +300 AC, +300 CM, +300 TA, +200 SE, +200 CoF, +100 HotW, and +200 CoE with +300 of your choice

Spirit shards are about 6 silver each currently if you know what to convert.  Dungeon tokens are around 12 copper for profits if you just buy things to salvage.

What does this mean?
Spirit Shards are 66s
Dungeon Tokens are 2g 28s
Raw Gold is 20g 52s
Total profits (Excluding any extra drops in dungeon): 23g 46s

If we want to average out the material drops, this becomes complicated but to say that you earn 7g in materials isn't farfetched and that would bring the value to ~30g in 1h 30m or about 20g an hour.  This is content you don't need super specific builds for either.  Just a group of 5 warm bodies and the ability to cc and  deal big damage.  Maybe occasionally deal with certain mechanics too.

Is this SW RIBA or  DWC South Meta levels of profitable?  Not really, but it's much more fun than running around in circles and whacking a loot pinata for 20 minutes because you and 3 other people there are doing 85% of the squad's dps.

 

Does this take into account buying lv80 rare armors from Honor of the Waves and salvaging them, which produces a similar Glob of Ectoplasm rate as constantly farming Auric Basin?

 

(This compared to say, salvaging the exotics for the insignias like we did in the old days, and so on.)

 

The method of making gold from dungeon tokens isn't made clear and there's several ways., but this particular route is extremely important for players doing alot of crafting, stat-changing, increasing their Magic Find and so on, which can't be done as easily otherwise.

 

I really wish more players knew about it.

Edited October 3, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508