ANet: Robert Hrouda on Upcoming Changes to Dungeon Mechanics

Original Article

Hey folks, I’m Robert Hrouda, a content designer on Guild Wars 2. In the coming months, we’ll make some changes to dungeon mechanics to make them a more fun and challenging experience. I wanted to give you a heads-up on our plans for phase 1 of our dungeons evolution—specifically, the removal of “res-rushing”—as well as a brief overview of our plans for phase 2.

“Res-rushing” is when a player uses a waypoint to resurrect immediately after being defeated in a dungeon and then runs back to the fight, instead of waiting for their party members to resurrect them.

Dungeons were designed to be highly focused on teamwork. The current res-rushing mechanic discourages the type of behavior we intended when a fellow player goes down. We hope that by eliminating res-rushing, we’ll bring dungeons more in-line with our original design goals, which are based around team play and strategy.

With this upcoming change, defeated players will be unable to use waypoints while their party is in combat. Players will only be able to use waypoints if the party wipes or withdraws from combat.

When we were making this change, we looked at the events and encounters where our data showed players being encouraged to res-rush and re-balanced them to allow for the safe removal of res-rushing. There are a few standout examples of this, and our patch notes will include a full list of changes we are making to existing dungeon content.

What’s Happening in Phase 2?

Phase 2 of our dungeons evolution will see a lot of changes to bosses and enemies. We plan on taking a good, hard look at the health values and mechanics of our elites and bosses, and in turn how we reward players for their time investment and risk. This will include looking into every boss in our dungeons and seeing what we can do to enhance the gameplay experience in order to make more memorable and strategic encounters.

I was hoping something of this was coming in the patch today but it is good to see the article literally not long after the patch goes live to know that ANet means business :) Bring on changes to the dragons and dungeons :D

Good to hear, was getting really sick of the res-rush mentality.

As the runner of many dungeons, I know I've had to use the res-rush tactic in order to beat certain objectives (I'm looking at you, CoE Path 2!!!) However, the times I've had to use them always felt like I was fighting a badly-tuned fight, or was dealing with mechanics that did not have a high level of forgiveness. I think the one downside to this is that, for people that die during fights, there isn't enough incentive yet to try to res people in the middle of a fight. In combat, a res will take almost 30 seconds of standing still, and most parties would just rather try to fight with 4, so I worry that you're then left with one person who ends up feeling left out and is left to just sit and watch. I'm not sure how you'd combat that, or turn deaths into something constructive instead of "sit on the floor and think about what you've done while others do stuff." That being said, for me, I don't mind giving up the ability to WP-res in a dungeon fight as long as the fights are being tuned in ways that don't require them.

I'm uncertain on res-rushing, right now its both easier and safer to have someone res and return. With the given boss fights and certain stages of dungeons your more likely to get your party wiped by them resing you then you running back. Hopefully they tweak the combat mechanics in dungeons enough to account for this issue.

Well when I saw this I thought "oh no" as certain dungeons I know use this rez rushing method but after the patch I was on a guild run for exp CoF 2 and I had a bad gut feeling about a certain part. But to my astonishment it went surprisingly well, the difficulty of those mobs were reduced or something and we got through without losing any members. This result was actually far better and less frustrating than the rez rushing thing. So they may have tweaked certain dungeons mobs.

All i saw today on the patch notes was dungeon difficulties becoming easier, from someone that ran all paths legit it felt a tiny bit sad, but maybe it will balance out well with the WP being inaccessible when people are still in combat so overall, I think this was an interesting change.

I'm glad that they are looking into the battles as to why people are needing to the this not just the... 'oh we don't like people doing that lets disable it' mentality many game makers have.

It will be interesting to see what they come up with, I'd love them increasing the rez rate in dungeons, it would be worth rezing people during boss fights then. Some of the boss fights its next to impossible to rez people.

Well, if you read closely, he does say that in the cases were "res-rushing" was most common, they were making adjustments to those encounters to adjust for the nerf to the tactic.

Granted, I just don't want the dungeons to get easier, I want a way to make them more interesting. Personally, with the updates they've made so far its been on the easier line rather than interesting, so hopefully they work on that.

Its a dungeon. Interesting loses all meaning after a few runs. I can't imagine how some folks chain run those things, for hours and days on end.

How many people actually full on DIE in dungeons though? Any decent group will be on top of getting Downed people back up ASAP (if not, they certainly will be now!). If people are finding themselves completely dead on a regular basis, it's time to work on 'Red Circle Awareness' and 'Dodging' lol. You'll probably see less Glass Cannons and full MF players as well. They made this change to encourage more Teamwork and Strategy, and I am very excited they did so. Now, if you want to run a dungeon, you will need to pay attention and work as a team, or you're going to have a rough time of it.

I am all for this mechanic as it does promote Working together and rezing the downed versus letting them die. And as Ralcore said with a good group it is not an issue. Though I am curious about how pug groups will fair with this new change.

Ralcore: The only disagreement I have with your post is "You'll probably see less Glass Cannons and full MF players as well." ArenaNet promises that players can play the game however they want and that should most certainly include builds. If ArenaNet can't balance encounters for all types of builds, then the fault is on them. This isn't World of Warcraft, RIFT or some other game, where you're supposed to need certain builds to properly complete content. As part of their pre-release hype building blitz, ArenaNet claimed to have done away with that type of content design, because it limited players from playing the builds that they enjoyed the most. Now whether or not people can properly play their "glass cannon" build, is a different matter and not part of my point. AN only promised that people could play the builds that they wanted, not that everyone would automagically be flawless experts at what they were playing.

Haha well, Anet can say whatever they want, and those statements can be interpreted by individuals in many different ways. That doesn't change the fact that Glass Cannons (DPS in a Trinity game like WoW) have a much less forgiving margin for error concerning player skill. In the past, this has not been a problem, as they could simply "Res-rush" and get back to the DPS in short order. Under this new system, Res-rushing is obviously no longer an option, so these Glass Cannons will need to either play very well to avoid death, or constantly get revived from the downed state. It doesn't take a lot of math or more than a minute or two to realize that if you're downed, you're not doing DPS (at least not significant DPS); any party members raising you are not doing DPS. By being a Glass Cannon and not having the necessary skill to remain alive and viable, instead of doing *more* DPS and helping the group, they're doing *less* DPS (because they're on the floor) and their group is now down to at best 80% of the DPS they had before the Glass Cannon went down, and as little as 0% DPS if all 4 are jumping to revive. Now, of course there are people currently running a Glass Cannon build who are fully capable of playing well and not being downed. Certainly, nobody would claim that ALL, or even MOST Glass Cannons can do that. Will there be a mass exodus from that playstyle, where everyone respecs out? No. But, "You'll probably see less Glass Cannons and full MF players..." stands as a valid, undisputable statement (especially given the word 'probably' lol). Also keep in mind that ANet, while saying they want everyone to play how they want to play, have also always said from the beginning that they are staying away from the 'Trinity' of Tank, Heals, DPS. Especially in dungeons, their vision has always been one of Teamwork, Strategy and Accountability of all party members. Dodge, Self Heal, and many other forms of Damage Mitigation are found on all professions. So, while anyone is welcome to play however they want, that doesn't mean all builds are viable or effective, or fit in with the general theme of this game. Glass Cannon is great, I have characters built that way and I will continue to play that way, but ANet has no responsibility to cater to my desire to do this, given their views on the Trinity and their long-term goals for the PvE content in this game. To close with a grossly exaggerated example, if I want to play bare-handed and naked like a savage, and I only want to press the number 1 constantly, and I want to complete end-game content, does ANet have an obligation to tune the game in such a way that I can do that? Hopefully everyone reading this is going, "Psh, no, of course not Ral, obviously!" It comes down to playing the way you want to play, that option is always yours, but within the actual spirit and mechanics of the game. IMO as always : )

Cross-posting my reply from the official forums here: Robert, First, thank you for the opportunity to provide feedback and thoughts. I’m posting as a casual-to-moderate player and I deliberately have not read the other replies as I don’t want them to influence my input/feedback. I just found out via your post that “rez-rushing” was being removed. I understand the reasons and agree with the theory; that said, I want to share with you that my overall experience in dungeons to date has largely been a variant the old “Tootsie Roll Pop” commercial: “How many deaths does it take to complete the dungeon?” Even with “experienced people”, there are often fights that you simply do not win without at least one death in the process…. particularly if you’re running to try and acquire gear that you need to live through those fights. It’s going to be interesting to see how/where adjustments have been made, but I strongly suspect that multi-layered requirements (i.e., keep moving, don’t let X get you, remember to Y if Z shows up, and oh yeah, tap dance through the berserk grubs that attack in randomly-directed waves by spitting poison anywhere the boss ISN’T laying down his own ‘circle of stupid’) is a bigger issue than pure HP. I suppose it’s worth mention that most of my dungeon attempts are with people who are new, who haven’t dungeon’ed a lot. Also that most people tend to rush in rather than try to be strategic. But I would also say that this behavior is largely in response to convoluted and often complex mechanics that cause most to find “rez-rushing” the path of least resistance (i.e., I’m going to die repeatedly anyway… may as well just run back). Myself? I’m not someone who has a lot of dexterity so, by and large, I wind up avoiding dungeons because I’m just not that good at balancing eight competing critical priorities and timing all my spells… just…. right. (This does seem to be the new cookie cutter mold and I admit, I dislike it.) Complexity as mechanic, to me, isn’t very enjoyable. And complexity as primary mechanic across the whole of the dungeon experience, frankly, is frustrating and eventually, boring. If the goal is to drive team-work (and the underlying community upon which it is founded), these encounters should reward that community so that team-work (even of clearly less dexterous folk, or those who are learning) is REWARDED, not punished. I note you provide multiple ways for people to attain those “hearts” in the world; if you prefer to kill/collect, then do that. If you prefer to find/dismantle/repair, then do that. If you prefer one on one combat, talk to NPC X and they’ll oblige you. I suppose my question is… why can’t this be possible in dungeons, too? (It is possible, but I’ve yet to see many games really explore it.) As for rezzing… Personally, I began play of this game with the expectation that players would rezz you when you fall in action. I find it rarely occurs. I suspect forcing the matter will help (some), but the greater help would be a dungeon-specific boost to resurrection or at least dumping the aggro/hate of the downed/defeated player correctly. (Of course I realize that if the rezzer is the next up on the ol’ hate list, that likely won’t seem much help, but that just brings me to my next concern… ) I am concerned that if waiting until everyone is out of combat is the “fix”, then it’s essentially going to turn into an “everyone die and we’ll try again” scenario and that doesn’t tend to support commitment to pick up groups OR new players; those who have better reflex/twitch/insight on fights will quickly prefer those who do and now, you have an entire second class citizenry who lose access to the “trial and error” learning method that has been foundational to MMO gaming since its inception. (Or who are relegated to the frustration of running with people like me, who frankly suck at “the dance” and, either way, have a much less enjoyable experience as the ultimate result.) I do realize that a lot of dungeon content is intended to be exclusionary as a means of introducing “status”… but I’d like to think that it’s possible to compromise in a way that allows even new players and dexterity challenged fools like me the possibility of achieving the same rewards… even if at a slower pace over time. Again, thanks for listening. I look forward to see what is next to arrive.

I tend to agree with Ekadzati. I hate dungeons for the most part because you spend too much time trying to find a PuG just to find a varying level of competency/experience. Now you will be restarting sections over and over again because you die while you are locked into rezzing a team mate or people will ignore downed players and fight with 4, then 3, then 2 members until they all die and start again against a boss who is fully regenerated. Sounds like a fun design to me.

The content would need a lot of re-balancing, I am not sure the groups I have been in would have been successful without the running back option. One of the side effects of no healer and no tank is chaos.

Pugging dungeons in my experience has not been time-effective at all. If I can't find a guild group (which is rare honestly) I simply find something else to do. You guys should always try to find groups in /G before resorting to PUGs for sure : )

I have run a number of dungeons in the past few days. It is a lot easier if you can get a group within the guild and even better in Raidcall to really work together. But even in a Pug group where communication is somewhat limited. I haven't had much trouble everyone rezs the downed and the dead if possible.