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Guild Wars 2: Dungeon Running Differently
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
In his latest Guild Wars 2 article, MMORPG.com's Community Manager, Michael Bitton, takes a look at the dungeons in Guild Wars 2. Mike starts the discussion by stating that he didn't really expect the dungeon system to see major changes from GW1 to GW2 but after reading an article in PC Gamer, Mike has been pleasantly surprised to see that dungeons will be receiving love too. See what Mike found out about the Guild Wars 2 dungeon system and let us know what you think.
Guild Wars 2 features an overarching storyline involving the rise of the Elder Dragons and the need for the player to reconcile Destiny’s Edge, the game’s signature heroes (who have split apart,) in order to defeat them. This storyline mainly manifests in players’ “personal storyline”, which is typically instanced away. However, the game’s dungeons (one for every 10 levels, more at endgame) will all feature a “Story Mode”, which provides a bit more of a directed story experience that centers on at least one of the members of Destiny’s Edge (who will accompany you and fight by your side). Instead of just tossing players into a labyrinthine maze populated with boss encounters, each dungeon will serve to expose the player to the game’s overarching storyline, at least for the first run through.
Read more Guild Wars 2: Dungeon Running Differently.
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Comments
It just keeps on getting better and better....
There is more than one thing that is attractive about this sort of dungeon:
1. My friends can join me in "my" story, and I can join them in "theirs", thus getting a different experience from the same dungeon, as I understand it.
2. The loot will be shared equally and will be designed to fit the players present. A ranger will get loot to benefit a ranger, for instance. No multiple runs just to get the piece you want, because the necro got the good one this time.
3. No competition for loot drops--in fact, no competition for anything. I think this is one of the most compellingly great parts of GW2 overall. The things that have made other MMOs a real pain to play--the loot and kill stealing, the camping, etc. ad nauseum--these things look to be a thing of the past in GW2 and in their dungeons.
We CAN all just get along! What a concept!
4. The same dungeon will never really be the same. This is exciting to me! Plus, there is STORY here, not just mindless mob killing. Makes it mean something to do a dungeon, besides just picking up after dead beasties.
Really, REALLY looking forward to this game!
I agree with Ithi. Part of why i never got into WoW was i kept hearing about things like camping and loot stealing, and i decided i wasn't interested.
I always liked the random dungeon replayability of the diablo titles, so I'm looking forward to that in GW2 as well...
I hate how they keep rubbing our nose in how great this game is supposed to be. I really want them to be like weve secretly almost had this game done for some time now and were about to realese it but i know its going to take alot more time. WSAD movement with being smart enough to step off a small ledge it sounds better then most mmo's that have come out so far this decade
I really wish I knew an approximate release date, the mmo's that I am playing currently are just filler until GW2 comes out.
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
I don't hate much, but I hate Apple© with a passion. If Steve Jobs was alive, I would punch him in the face.
Pure win is all I have to say.
Yeap touche AreaNet. I tried WoW and got bored of the dungeons within two weeks of playing. Way I see it, is if im bored of the general PvE, open world bosses ...partying etc etc, ill go to the dungeons which can be replayed a few times and be different, by the end i should have that fancy new armor I wanted, ..so ill go dye it, add some enchants.... oh oh PvP time lets go rub this armor on some scumbags corpse.
Awsome! :DD
I'm definitely in favor of this 5-player Dungeon (Story Mode) transition to Explore mode. There's no reason to run the same exact experience more than once if the tech is available to expand it into fully persistant Event style raids. It's not even new IMO, it's just the natural transition from GW1 we already had where 8-player missions opened up into Explorable areas afterward that you might have found a few Quest NPC's in and Bosses to cap Elites from. ...or in EotN, many Missions actually turned into Dungeons later so they were conserving Tileset & Map geometry but the dungeons were a lot more intensive simply by opening a few doors here and closing a few elsewhere while adding more mobs near some traps. It made for some real challenges that ya wish ya could have 12 player teams for TBH. In Explore mode, it could scale up to the 100's now and make for some really crazy Equipment raids.
Meanwhile some people are probably confused as to why content made for 5 players (just the Story Dungeons) is now superior to content made for 8 players in Gw1. Well it's really simple. In any PuG, you need 2 dedicated healers and usually 1 Utility Necro(or Rit) while you're at it.... Either to juice your energy bar or make a body-blocking wall. Since none of those 3 things techically exist in Gw2, you don't need those 3 extra character slots who are really just Dead weight once you remove those stupid Mini-games (healing, walling, & BiP'ing) from the REAL combat that ever class will focus even harder on (running, jumping, positioning, timing, rolling, blocking, trapping, nuking, shouting, wards, kiting, weapons, bar swapping, trait tweaks, & anticipating movement /w ground targeting).
Do the dungeons scale to party size (1 to 5 players) or do you have to find 4 other players any time you want to run a dungeon? Seem like that could be kind of a pain, imo, especially after the masses have cycled through a lower-level dungeons and the player population thins out.
GW addressed this issue by having henchmen available, but GW2 doesn't have henchmen.
If I'd had to find other full groups of players all the time just to run dungeons in GW (since GW was mostly instanced, everything was really a "dungeon"), I'd probably have quit playing that game pretty quickly in frustration.
As others have mentioned, this is essentially how GW1's missions worked but it's now been adapted to fit the more traditional MMO dungeon instance. You can truly see how their design philosophy pervades every element of GW2... they've really put a lot of thought into this.
altho all stuff they say sounds great, but make a release date already
"Forget this foolish path of personal storyline and unique dungeons. The Players do not want that. They want runs for loot. We know best. We have been designing these games for years. Charge a subscription fee too. They will pay it. Add an item shop when all seems lost. We know what we are doing.."
- a WoW designer
Finally - Best site for Chuck Norris
http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com/
The dungeons do not scale but you can enter with less members and still succeed. It just takes more skill.
Vaporware? Have you seen the demo's?
Facepalm....
Steam: Neph
I´d love randomly generated dungeons like in Diablo.
Or a tower with 50 small floors, each floor slightly tougher than the one before.
This sux. Just give me a party, a shared dungeon, bosses that respawn, mobs that respawn, some loot, some XP, trains, some drama, and you can keep your questlines and all that fancy stuff lol.
I think the person that made the vaporware comment....was probably being sarcastic. If not....then well, he's just a buffoon. No biggie.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
Man the sarcasim is getting thick in this thread.
Glad they are doing something different from the same old method other companies are doing.
The wayting is terrible
And it only has just begun.....
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
I think you are underestimating Anet a little. Yeah I like randomly generated content sometimes myself, but I am sure Anet looked at this, decided what they thought the reasons people like randomly generated dungeons were, and tried their hardest to implement them in the dungeons that we will get to see when the game comes out.
I also like the idea of an enormous tower dungeon but my reasons for this are that they remind me of things like Tower of Druaga (for better or for worse, you decide) and other old "classics." The only way we are goin to have a gigantic tower in GW2 is if Anet can design such a dungeon and do it well, or else I don't think they would put it in the game. I vote for a krait tower going down into the abyss (as in deep below the surface of the sea of sorrows)
I used to TL;DR, but then I took a bullet point to the footnote.
This is what I have been waiting for all my life. A promised piece of loot for everyone on dungeon completion!
That's fine and all but the reason for of those rinse repeate problems is that players have too much time to put into a game vs the time it takes to generate content. With a progression/advancement system you either have to slow them down, build as fast as they consume or allow them to run into the end of content for a while. Sure, you can add PVP and social activities into the mix to give the appearance of stuff to do but is that good enough?
I know who you are: Bill Roper... Or some other dev from STO at least, only they think that 4 years in development is a long time for a MMO.
And to set a release date before you know the game is actually done is not that smart either. If you guess wrong people will be upset, or you can release the game in half assed shape like STO and FF XIV.
MMOs takes 5 years to make, in some cases even longer. While the graphics engine have been done for the last 2 years there is still a lot to do, and releasing the game too early would be another disaster like AoC, VG, WAR, FF XIV and most other games, and ANET are hopefully not that stupid.
You're asking the question backwards. It shouldnt be fine that the default state of a game was such that it consisted of mostly filler to artificially extend the game experience and keep you paying a sub.
Charr: Outta my way.
Human: What's your problem?
Charr: Your thin skin.