Just a couple of quick questions.  Are you running instances with people you know or guildies?  If it is pugs you might be running the instances with people that have now idea to get out of the red circle ect.  I did the final instance with a guy myself the other night who just couldn't keep himself alive.  I stopped rezzing him after the 20th death.  I love the lack of the trinty myself.  I have been playing mmos since one of the first ultima online.

It gets really boring in fights where all you have to do is push buttons, tanks just spam aggro, healers just heal, dps just goes through the rotations.  Very little else going on.  This on the other hand has been great.  You have to keep moving, you have to look at which weapon you are using when.  And you even have to pay attention to the idiot that drags 10 mobs to you and dies.

This game might not be for the hardcore raiders.  I myself got tired of raiding a long time ago.  Waiting for 10-40 people to get together to do something then to take hours just wasn't fun. 

My next question is have you tried playing the other classes past 40?  I love some and hate others myself.  I prefer the ranger but the warrior is great for pvp.

To answer your questions:

1.  They already have.  I constantly have to pay attention to what is going on.  The battles are twitch bases encounters, if you are slow to react you die.

2.  Group play is what you make it.  A pug in not really group play to me.  If you play alone and are not in a guild then you might find this hard.  Having friends ingame to do this stuff leads to group play.

3.  I like the fact myself that the game is harder than others.  Even though it is story you get the feeling you accomplished something when done other than oh I just downed this guy without dieing.  And if you think story mode is hard go try some explorer modes.

Originally posted by voxnor

1) I wasn't saying there was necessarily a problem with it - but *how* - what ideas do you have as to what they will do?

2) I understand its a different mindset - the question is again *how* do you force group gameplay? What types of mechanics can be used? In the trinity there is a standard rule set to be used to that end - what do we use in place here to accomplish these goals?

3) I appreciate the thoughts - but if you are suggesting I need to improve my level 58, green and yellow geared Ranger for a level 50 story mode dungeon... well.. Also - I play the class quite effectively, I am a 10 year MMO vet. Not bragging here, just explaining that personal skill or gear is not an issue.

1. Well, there are plenty of interesting stuff you can do with no trinity. Nasty surprises and constantly forcing players to adapt their tactics to the situation instead of just standing still and rotate skill are my favorites.

2. It is all about flexibility. You need to learn to act like a team and a good team now what the other members will do. This is indeed easier in trinity but it comes natural when you play together with the same people a while. PUGs are harder, particularly without using ventrilo but you just need to communicate.

3. Green gear is not good enough no. Anything below yellow is trash in GW2 sadly. But the lower colors usually suck in any MMO.

 I am a MMO vet from Meridian 59 16 years ago and that does not mean I dont have anything to learn. The combat system takes some time and training to get used to and that is nothing to be ashamed of. It is just different to what we are used to. I also died like a dog in the personal story of the beta. Now it is rare.

Training makes excellence as someone said. As a vet is a mentor probably not neccesarily though, but you still need to be open to new things and forget the skill rotation we are used to. As a thief at least all my attacks are timed to when I need them most and my build is made to remove conditions and get me out of trouble.

It can be so easy that your build is the only problem. If you die a lot you should try putting more points in vitality, toughness and heal. If that makes you live longer that might be better than just high DPS.

The OP point is, story mode is for people who want the story, they just want to follow along and be told a tale, they dont want any type of challenge.

Ive done every dungeon so far, and i can tell you story mode is harder then explorable mode in about 7 of the 8 dungeons in guild wars 2. And a lot of that is due to the fact that there is no trinity, without a trinity you cant do anything but chaotic tank and spanks and body rush encounters.

So what i'm getting from alot of posts is.. don't bother playing unless you have a dedicated group of gamers with you.

Ah gone are the days when a random group of people could struggle past content and feel a sense of accomplishment.

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by voxnor

1) I wasn't saying there was necessarily a problem with it - but *how* - what ideas do you have as to what they will do?

2) I understand its a different mindset - the question is again *how* do you force group gameplay? What types of mechanics can be used? In the trinity there is a standard rule set to be used to that end - what do we use in place here to accomplish these goals?

3) I appreciate the thoughts - but if you are suggesting I need to improve my level 58, green and yellow geared Ranger for a level 50 story mode dungeon... well.. Also - I play the class quite effectively, I am a 10 year MMO vet. Not bragging here, just explaining that personal skill or gear is not an issue.

1. Well, there are plenty of interesting stuff you can do with no trinity. Nasty surprises and constantly forcing players to adapt their tactics to the situation instead of just standing still and rotate skill are my favorites.

2. It is all about flexibility. You need to learn to act like a team and a good team now what the other members will do. This is indeed easier in trinity but it comes natural when you play together with the same people a while. PUGs are harder, particularly without using ventrilo but you just need to communicate.

3. Green gear is not good enough no. Anything below yellow is trash in GW2 sadly. But the lower colors usually suck in any MMO.

 I am a MMO vet from Meridian 59 16 years ago and that does not mean I dont have anything to learn. The combat system takes some time and training to get used to and that is nothing to be ashamed of. It is just different to what we are used to. I also died like a dog in the personal story of the beta. Now it is rare.

Training makes excellence as someone said. As a vet is a mentor probably not neccesarily though, but you still need to be open to new things and forget the skill rotation we are used to. As a thief at least all my attacks are timed to when I need them most and my build is made to remove conditions and get me out of trouble.

It can be so easy that your build is the only problem. If you die a lot you should try putting more points in vitality, toughness and heal. If that makes you live longer that might be better than just high DPS.

1) "Nasty Surprises" - So, move when red circles come. Ok. "Forcing players... instead of standing still". So, move out of red ricles. Ok....

2) "Learn to act like a team". We were acting like a team as much as any PuG will. Is your point that PuG's should not be able to complete story mode without several deaths?

3) "Green gear is not good enough" - This is a level 50 dungeon. All of us were downscaled by at least 5 levels, giving us extra traits. Are you suggesting I gear up specifically for one PuG dungeon run at level 50?

Originally posted by Aori

So what i'm getting from alot of posts is.. don't bother playing unless you have a dedicated group of gamers with you.

Ah gone are the days when a random group of people could struggle past content and feel a sense of accomplishment.

 

This is my major issue, and what I am getting at here alongside a few other points. If story mode is not for PuG's, what is?

1.  They already have.  I constantly have to pay attention to what is going on.  The battles are twitch bases encounters, if you are slow to react you die.

2.  Group play is what you make it.  A pug in not really group play to me.  If you play alone and are not in a guild then you might find this hard.  Having friends ingame to do this stuff leads to group play.

3.  I like the fact myself that the game is harder than others.  Even though it is story you get the feeling you accomplished something when done other than oh I just downed this guy without dieing.  And if you think story mode is hard go try some explorer modes.

I am actually not suggesting it is "Harder than others". I am more getting at that the only way to increase difficulty in the non trinity system is to up damage, and reduce reaction time. So the hardest encounter is:

1) run in circles

2) dodge correctly

3) heal at the right time

What else can be done? How do you up difficulty past that? How do you force GROUP play without roles being assigned?

Originally posted by voxnor

Originally posted by Siphaed

Originally posted by voxnor

Just got done with my first experience in a dungeon - Twilight Arbor Story Mode on my 58 Ranger (down-scaled to 50, of course).

Group looked like this:

54 Necro

54 Warrior

58 Ranger (me)

55 Theif

80 Warrior

 

Now, I will elaborate below, but if I were to blurt out my feelings immediatly it would be "sadly dissapointed and not impressed".

 

Now for the elaboration: I have thus far been a huge fan of GW2 ( a peak at my posting history will show you as much ). And, I had high hopes for the lack of the Trinity. And yet, I can't shake this nasty feeling after my first dungeon. I found that the encounters were either point and click - or a ressurection fest.

 

What I mean by this, is that I think it was and will be very difficult for group strategy to be employed with the lack of the trinity. The second boss, for example, summons a massive amount of spider adds. Our method for handling this was running in circles, shooting the boss, dodging when not out of endurance. This caused frequent deaths - but due to the adds ressurection is not an option - so we would just run back from the spawn point and re-enter the fight in progress. This was not fun.

 

The third boss, however, while gimicky (kitty kat) was tank n' spank, without the tank! (All spank, baby)

 

The point to all this is the following:

 

1. How can / will ANet make complex, engaging encounters without the trinity?
2. Will they ever be able to shift the emphasis to good group play and away from good individual play without the trinity?
3. Why am I dying in story mode? I'd like to go into story mode for the, you know, story.

 

 

First off, your problem was "Let's just nuke the boss and ignore the adds".  That's a poor strategy and nothing to do with groups needing tanks/heals/DPS trinity.

 

   Instead, it has to do with assigning the group AOE attackers to spam AOE's that apply CONDITIONS to slowly get rid of the adds.  In this case, you had a Necromancer. They can place a lot of AOE's that apply poison conditions and even a fear.  By doing a blend of these, the adds become a non-issue. 

 

What AoE's are you referring to? Our Necro was not staff based.

 

I provide a few AoEs, all on very length CD's and not castable while moving. When we attempted a strategy of killing the adds - it went very, very poorly.

and what kind of player is that necro

GW2 is not only about 1 weapon, you need to switch for variety of skills needed in different situations

ofc you can play with 1 wep only but you gimp your character and dont play it 100%

Originally posted by saurus123

Originally posted by voxnor

Originally posted by Siphaed

Originally posted by voxnor

and what kind of player is that necro

GW2 is not only about 1 weapon, you need to switch for variety of skills needed in different situations

 

ofc you can play with staff only but you gimp your character and dont play it 100%

So just to be clear - in your opinion, that dungeon fight was hard for us because we lacked AoE? So to do story mode of a dungeon without massive deaths, I need to study group composition?

Originally posted by saurus123

Originally posted by voxnor

Originally posted by Siphaed

Originally posted by voxnor

Just got done with my first experience in a dungeon - Twilight Arbor Story Mode on my 58 Ranger (down-scaled to 50, of course).

Group looked like this:

54 Necro

54 Warrior

58 Ranger (me)

55 Theif

80 Warrior

 

Now, I will elaborate below, but if I were to blurt out my feelings immediatly it would be "sadly dissapointed and not impressed".

 

Now for the elaboration: I have thus far been a huge fan of GW2 ( a peak at my posting history will show you as much ). And, I had high hopes for the lack of the Trinity. And yet, I can't shake this nasty feeling after my first dungeon. I found that the encounters were either point and click - or a ressurection fest.

 

What I mean by this, is that I think it was and will be very difficult for group strategy to be employed with the lack of the trinity. The second boss, for example, summons a massive amount of spider adds. Our method for handling this was running in circles, shooting the boss, dodging when not out of endurance. This caused frequent deaths - but due to the adds ressurection is not an option - so we would just run back from the spawn point and re-enter the fight in progress. This was not fun.

 

The third boss, however, while gimicky (kitty kat) was tank n' spank, without the tank! (All spank, baby)

 

The point to all this is the following:

 

1. How can / will ANet make complex, engaging encounters without the trinity?
2. Will they ever be able to shift the emphasis to good group play and away from good individual play without the trinity?
3. Why am I dying in story mode? I'd like to go into story mode for the, you know, story.

 

 

First off, your problem was "Let's just nuke the boss and ignore the adds".  That's a poor strategy and nothing to do with groups needing tanks/heals/DPS trinity.

 

   Instead, it has to do with assigning the group AOE attackers to spam AOE's that apply CONDITIONS to slowly get rid of the adds.  In this case, you had a Necromancer. They can place a lot of AOE's that apply poison conditions and even a fear.  By doing a blend of these, the adds become a non-issue. 

 

What AoE's are you referring to? Our Necro was not staff based.

 

I provide a few AoEs, all on very length CD's and not castable while moving. When we attempted a strategy of killing the adds - it went very, very poorly.

and what kind of player is that necro

GW2 is not only about 1 weapon, you need to switch for variety of skills needed in different situations

 

ofc you can play with 1 wep only but you gimp your character and dont play it 100%

See that is an issue, if you can't play the character how you want then it is no different from the trinity.

Originally posted by Lilan
There is a number of heal combos and life steal combos in this game learn to use them, along with CC combos like aoe blind, weakness and other damage reduceing effects

Please elaborate on how these combos help in the second fight of Twilight Arbror, as that has been our example thus far.

So far I have had limited experience in GW2 dungeons, only L42 Ranger. Only 3 full runs so far, 2x Ascelon(sic) and 1 CM. (2 aborted PUGs) But what I have seen so far is disappointing to say the least. (Been dungeoning and raiding since '99 and EQ1)

Rezzing in Combat, sure everyone can do it, but unless you have an instant Rez the likelyhood of you getting it off are next to nil.

Bosses are AoE happy, some more so than others, but some fights you cannot easily dodge due to the raw quantity of AoE circles all over the place. Standing still to attempt a Rez in the midst of the AoE is simple suicide. BTW, the circles are often very hard to see, and to watch for them you really cannot watch the boss at all, I am at max graphics settings and 40+ fps so it shouldn't be lag.

Heals for all, nice in theory, but dropping a circle on the ground to AoE heal and then needing to run screaming away from the static heal area due to Mob and AoE mechanics seems rather silly at best.

Even with voice comm the coordination needed for some fights is intense, Pugging with random people is almost a sure failure if they don't at least listen to comms. Nothing really new there, but the effect is amplified when you cannot count on a tank to grab and hold aggro.

Despite ArenaNet's claim,they didn’t remove the holy trinity of tanking damage, healing damage, and dealing damage in Guild Wars 2. They consolidated it. Everyone can tank, everyone can heal, and everyone can nuke. An Elementalist can take a bunch of hits using skills like Mist Form, Rock Barrier, and Obsidian Flesh to mitigate damage. Just the same, a Warrior can equip a longbow and rain terror over an area.

The holy trinity is alive and well in GW2.

I think you just answered your own problem.  You said roles, there are no roles except what you do in this.  We don't need to be defined by roles to play.  I respect your opinion but bascially it just seems you miss the trinity. 

All three of the things you listed are what make the difficulty perfect for this game.  If someone is not doing each of those things they die.

Despite ArenaNet's claim, they didn’t remove the holy trinity of tanking damage, healing damage, and dealing damage in Guild Wars 2. They consolidated it. Everyone can tank, everyone can heal, and everyone can nuke. An Elementalist can take a bunch of hits using skills like Mist Form, Rock Barrier, and Obsidian Flesh to mitigate damage. Just the same, a Warrior can equip a longbow and rain terror over an area.

The holy trinity is alive and well in GW2.

After having done AC explorable and having chosen the hodgins path, I have a new respect for ANet when it comes to dungeon tuning, they have really managed to make pretty much every encounter need a lot of coordination and planning before you engage.

I would recommend to anyone trying the "defend hodgins" event in AC explorable, if they think there is a lack of direction, need for coordination or planning in dungeons.

That is all!

Edit: Or if they think that they can just kite or tank anything and get a boss done, try this event.

Originally posted by k61977

I think you just answered your own problem.  You said roles, there are no roles except what you do in this.  We don't need to be defined by roles to play.  I respect your opinion but bascially it just seems you miss the trinity. 

All three of the things you listed are what make the difficulty perfect for this game.  If someone is not doing each of those things they die.

1) run in circles

2) dodge correctly

3) heal at the right time

The absence of this in other mmo's it what led to boredom.  Just sitting looking at cast bar instead of what is going on.  I like the fact I never have to look at the cast bar.  I keep my eyes on the boss and surrounds.

Like I said I don't believe that this game is for everyone.  It will end up a WvWvW or PvP in the end just like GW1.  I hope you can come around and find what you like about the game, but everyone has opinions and that is something no one can change.

 

I really don't mean to be rude, but are you really suggesting that running circles, hitting the dodge key, and pressing your number 6 ability comprise the core skills needed for "strategy" in guild wars 2?

You kind of have to wonder whether or not dungeons are just a ploy to encourage people to buy gold, lol. I mean, with all the money spent on repairs and using waypoints just to get to the dungeons, it all adds up, especially if your group isn't successful. Smart design for a business model I guess, a bit sneaky if you ask me though.

Back on topic though, I miss the trinity tbh. Some find the old system boring and archaic, but trinity roles are what made mmorpg's rpg's.

Originally posted by Raven

After having done AC explorable and having chosen the hodgins path, I have a new respect for ANet when it comes to dungeon tuning, they have really managed to make pretty much every encounter need a lot of coordination and planning before you engage.

I would recommend to anyone trying the "defend hodgins" event in AC explorable, if they think there is a lack of direction, need for coordination or planning in dungeons.

That is all!

Edit: Or if they think that they can just kite or tank anything and get a boss done, try this event.

I am not sure how many people are going to come in here and tell me to go do explorable mode. I was quite clear in all my posts that we are mainlly discussing story mode, and how every day gameplay of story mode goes with a PuG. Furthermore, how that gameplay can or cannot be scaled for difficulty.