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ANET commentary on dungeon difficulty
Nadia
Member UncommonPosts: 11,798
this may have been posted but not sure because this forum is so busy
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/dungeons/Do-NOT-nerf-please/first#post126835
ColinJohanson
“What I would call ‘hard’ was trying to run Domain of Anguish and Mallyx with a balanced setup in the first weeks it was released. Many people called it impossible, but it was a heck lot of fun to do! Why? Because it offered veriety and fluid gameplay, quick and deadly like it should be. Not kiting a mob for 2 minutes and then walking into the next mob rinse and repeat.”
I’ll point out ironically, when we first turned on DoA back in Gw1 the posts you’re seeing in this forum from a few folks about difficulty were the exact same comments everyone had about DoA. It was “impossible, mobs were just tuned to do insane damage and have huge HP, there was no tactics to defeat DoA”, etc. I went back and read through the original DoA launch feedback and it was literally identical to the comments folks on the forums are leaving now.
We made the choice back then to stick with the difficulty, and give people time to learn how to play the dungeon better and overcome it. A few months later, people viewed it as the most fun thing in the game and totally reasonable without us changing anything.
We’ll be doing the same with the Gw2 explorable dungeons, our own internal testing teams and alpha test groups learned to beat them using a combination of player skill, synchronous builds, strong use of cross-profession combos, use of cooking/consumable buffs (these make a huge difference!) and well formed player tactics. By comparison, after having months to play the game and the time our alpha was complete, some of our better dungeon groups felt the explorable dungeons were too easy for launch, we decided not to make them any harder given the expected player skill on launch.
We’re actively monitoring every dungeon and working on balancing issues we encounter appropriately. We’ll be keeping an eye on bosses we think don’t have enough varied mechanics to warrant their large health pools and updating them over time to make them more varied/interesting fights. We’ll be monitoring, and continually tweaking/adding to dungeon rewards over time and of course balancing where we see the need. And of course, we’ll be looking at adding more dungeons as well!
All of that being said, the game is VERY new for most of our players, and I can absolutely promise with more knowledge of the game and advanced player skill, the explorable dungeons can all be overcome by being skilled groups. We’ve seen many groups do it just fine in our internal alpha test once they had time to learn how to play the game well. Just like Domain of Anguish in Gw1, it takes time and practice to learn how to overcome stuff as hard as our explorable mode dungeons, and that’s exactly the kind of players they are designed for.
If DoA was any indication, a couple months from now, many of you will likely be posting saying most of the dungeons are too easy and you need better challenges 
Comments
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Have u tried ToA dungeon? it was really hard for my grp to finish it in the first time... we died a lot.
lol yea.. guess the mmorpg.com elite have no issues but many find them pretty difficult... know everyone in my guild have said they are a damn good challenge mostly aside from the second one...I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
I think its certain dungeons and particularly in exploration mode.
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
I wonder if they realize that the average player probably won't be as skilled as the group of PROFESSIONAL GAME TESTERS Anet has running the dungeons...
Problem GW2 has is there is no gear progression and once boss strats become widely known it'll insta farm for all new 80s.
I've only ran one explorable dungeon to date, and it was with friends who already completed it multiple time, so my viewpoint may be skewed, but I found it rather simple.
You want them to talk about how story mode is too easy? That's been my experience, always succeeded on the first attempt.
Dear God, I fear for the future of this game.
I personally think that anyone that says dungeons are too easy either flame or went with a full group of players knowing the exact fight pattern.
BUT, ANET are right, the first time i did AC i was level 30 and it was hell, we didn't even know how grouping was working and we ended up in different instances and such ( that was the monday after release ) we were a few level 30+ and noone or almost ever did it. It was a pain made me hate dungeons in this game.
I've waiting till level 80 and now everything is easier, i went to TA or COF or Arah and they are all "quite" easy, it's chaotic and mostly random but once you learn to dodge red circle and stop trying to auto attack mindlessly, it is simple.
The only thing i hate about dungeons is that it's a kite fest, being a melee is almost to near impossible on most of the boss fights
ROFL ya... theyre already TOO EASY. in the absence of gear advantage does "skill" fill the void? not necessarily and not in GW2 PVE.
what theyve designed this game for is PUGS that form a group, dont say a single word to each other.. dont synchronize at all and then just throw their bodies and vomit spell pixels at the targets. wipe, run back back until the boss is dead!! dont worry cuz it only costs a small repair bill!! and then, when the vomit of colors on your screen has subsided, when their random dodging have stopped, like pavlovian loot dogs they rush over to the chest!!
but seriously, for my small guild - not overly smart people, not professional gamers, nothing special - find these dungeons (including explorable altho we havent done CoE yet cuz we not all 80 yet) very easy... and if not easy... just not very interesting. once you get passed the initial 10sec burst of the adds or the gimmick of the boss... its a downhill slide. its a done deal. your eyes just glaze over and wait till its over. no real chance for a wipe, just keep recycling your 3 button attack rotation.
When did failure become this terrifying thing?
So people are failing at completing some dungeons... good! Learn from that, improve and try again. You should lose at games sometimes, you should get destroyed. Otherwise what is the point of playing something with no challenge that randomly rewards you?
If you were there for GW1, you wouldn't be saying this.
This is not a game.
I think the skill is deciphering the strategy and figuring out the boss fights. Once that's out there for all to consume it's just a matter of doing the dance. That really doesn't take so much skill.
This is symptomatic of all dungeon encounters in MMO's. Difference with GW2 is you don't need gear progression to become viable in the quote on quote tougher encounters.
So once the strat is out there any new 80 can jump right into any explorable dungeon and likely be successful. I'm not saying this is better or worse, that's for each player to decide for themselves, but it definitely doesn't sustain the longevity of a progression formula.
I agree with you that failure is ok BUT not in a game that requires you to do hundreds of run of the SAME instance over and over to get your set.. Then having someone make you fail is a pain..
I would personnally love a EXTREMELY hard dungeon, almost impossible to complete. but rewarding would be fine. but then again you would "best" the game is a few days for some
Yes, people are actually complaining because EXPLORABLE MODE dungeons are just rock fracking hard. I don't think people are talking about STORY MODE.
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The biggest thing I have seen is people are either unwilling, or unable, to create a build for their class that works within a group setting. I can't tell you how many people iv'e talked to that refuse to change their build because "lolz I can solo everything with this build" I get if you are new to a dungeon you may not understand the mechanics, but at least be willing to change your build so that is works with the group synergy.
People go in with 5 signet warriors, die, then blame the game and say that PvE is dead without the trinity instead of adapting and creating builds that will work.
My Guild Wars 2 Vids
What the.... they DID NOT have professional testers. They had testers who would play the dungeons. In that post, Colin said once they had gotten used to the mechanics of the dungeon and mastered it, they enjoyed it.
It just takes some time to master the specific dungeon. Learning when a boss is about to do is AoE, or when to Root that boss so he doesn't charge your elementalist and one shot him. Things like that, you can't expect to get it in the first one, two or even 5 runs. It just takes time.
I remember running CoF explorable first time, took over 40 minutes. Now I'm doing it 20 minutes or under, even with a random PUG group whom don't say a single word thru the whole run.
All that being said, I think AC (the very first dungeon) is insanely difficult for no reason. There's no way you can dodge 3-4 times in a row which you have to do for the flame room and they hit hard. But other than that, I think the dungeons are just fine in difficulty level.
One problem I do have is the balance in the routes in the dungeon. Most dungeon farming runs the group WILL ALMOST ALWAYS follow a specific path which is to be expected... What I didn't expect is that the other routes are VERY very long(almost 3x longer) or just bugged.
I hate when that happens with me LOL
Anyways elitism aside (ahem and not on the part of Aerowyn just in general) these dungeons are good fun, if you can't have fun with these things or any dungeons for that matter then why play?
Also, I agree with OP soon within some month or twos time these same people complaining they are too hard will be saying they are too easy. It's about as cyclical with the "fail" posts in these forums.
I've seen hard let me tell you. Nothing is more difficult then STO's early dungeon system when they hadn't worked out the bugs and suddenly regular borg had the abilities hitpoints and damage scale of the bosses. yeah that's difficult LOL
hahah well said. this is my experience too. i'm not in a guild yet but on the very RARE chance that i join a group that atleast responds to me when i ask preliminary questions about what character build's we were running and how we could mesh our boons, conditions, and combos. then even explorable mode is pretty easy. but thats really RARE.because today;s gamers, and GW2 is no exception are mostly robots looking to loot purples. theyre not interested in teamwork or a game that "advertises" a skiill based experience lol... theyre just happy that GW2 "got great grafixx dude!"
95% of the time people just ignore me when i join a group and ask just some basic simple questions about the designs/playstyle of the other players. seriously, like dont say a single word. well, maybe "hi" or "sup". but in PUGs that do even the most basic, 2min adjusting of their utilities and such perform soo much better. bleh. just cant find a good guild. only guilds i see recruiting are obsessed with the fact they have 400 PLAYERS AND GROWING! bahhhahha no thanks
I wouldn't mind if dungeons were hard and challenging, so long as the rewards are proportionate. But as it stands, the dungeons are a massive grind, you need to do up to 80 times a single dungeon just to get the gear from it. When people have to "grind" something, the least thing they want is for that something to be hard. Basically, the rewards don't compensate the effort. Imagine if every mob that you killed in the open world was suddenly a very challenging boss fight. Ultimately, that "Tiny Loot Bag" and few copper won't be enough incentive for you to kill them as you travel. Thus, you'll end up avoiding them.
I honestly think they need to do the following:
- Implement a cross-server Dungeon Finder.
- Make it so there's only one badge currency for all armor.
- Lower the currency required per piece of armor.
If you were there for GW1, you wouldn't be saying this.
And what does Guild Wars 1 have to do with this? GW1 wasnt an MMORPG.
If the Game Director really thinks that these "the exp dungeons are too hard" posts will go away in a couple months on the forums ....well, then he's probably right.
However, taking feedback from the hardcore forum zombies is NEVER a good idea for an MMORPG.
The MMORPG crowd is mostly casual and have a very different idea on difficulty.
the day GW2 gets a cross server dungeon finder, is the day i lose interest in the game
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