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Dungeon running, GS requirements and party composition [thoughts]
thegrandexeno
Member Posts: 239 Bounty Hunter
Well, in the last weeks I've read about all the discontent about the "obvious OP party" and the "not wanted classes", in addition to the "easy endgame".
Well, given that Epic dungeons have a GS "requirement", and given the amount of people that "grinds" such dungeons over and over without much trouble, with the (for now) CW+GWF (opt: +DC) combo, why not gearing it up a notch, for a real challenge?
And what challenge could may be? More adds? More cc immune mobs? What!
Simple: want to do epic dungeons? Enter as a Rainbow Party or it never happened. Simple as that.
All chars are needed, the difficulty is pumped up (well it IS an EPIC dungeon, for crying out loud) without bordering into the "impossible" territory: win-win, I'd say.
What are your thoughts?
Note: no, I'm not a GF, I'm a HR without much problems (never kicked, never refused, etc.)
Well, given that Epic dungeons have a GS "requirement", and given the amount of people that "grinds" such dungeons over and over without much trouble, with the (for now) CW+GWF (opt: +DC) combo, why not gearing it up a notch, for a real challenge?
And what challenge could may be? More adds? More cc immune mobs? What!
Simple: want to do epic dungeons? Enter as a Rainbow Party or it never happened. Simple as that.
All chars are needed, the difficulty is pumped up (well it IS an EPIC dungeon, for crying out loud) without bordering into the "impossible" territory: win-win, I'd say.
What are your thoughts?
Note: no, I'm not a GF, I'm a HR without much problems (never kicked, never refused, etc.)
- Halflingas The Great - Stormwarden HR(60)
Post edited by thegrandexeno on
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Lowbies: DC (level 31) | HR (level 16)
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The stack CWs/GWFs meta isn't about what's required to run the dungeon. It's about either speeding through them or compensating for players not knowing what they're doing so they go for easy mode.
As far as PK with a high GS party you don't even have to worry about the adds the last 3 times I ran this we didn't even pay attention to adds at all just burned the boss so quickly it didn't even matter which you can do with a few DD's now with a high powered party
No actually you will have troubles running these dungeons with a balanced party.
They are designed specifically to defeat that kind of party.
That party (balanced party) has a shortcoming... it is balanced in order to face multiple types of encounter all in moderate amounts.
The way you defeat this type of party is by OVERLOADING it with one type of encounter. It is not designed to handle one specific encounter type in an any extreme. It is designed rather to handle any single encounter, once with multiple different types of encounters but nothing to the extreme.
The GWF/CW/DC party is the party designed to take on ONLY mass mobs with only a few major bosses or elites. This party is basically a mass mob killing machine that can face entire armies and survive. That is what this party configuration does best.
The Balanced Party is not designed to handle that kind of extreme encounter type. While it can do it... potentially, that type of party is facing a failure as its the wrong tool for the job.
Likewise if these dungeons were set up with ALL distance attackers in single points (not grouped) all around the room. You would see ONLY a party of Rangers/Mages/Single Target Distance attackers able to easily beat it... while a balanced party will find a lot of consistent failure.
Its not about Speed Running.
While this will certainly come of that once people figure out what class combo will beat something, this would be no different than if a BALANCED party.... were the perfect choice for the encounter types you designed.
This has little to nothing to do with Speed Running as they will configure their party to whatever works best... even if it meant stacking all Rangers OR... GFs.
I have said this before the problem with NW is not that it is badly designed for a 1st year game. Every mmo I have played had issues with balance in the 1st year, and most had worse issues. In the past big successful subscription MMOs would release a big expansion around the 1 to 1.5 year old mark, and then the developers would show the players what they learned in the design of new content. This second generation of content is typically important and instrumental to getting the game right. I have faith that if NW got a second generation of dungeon content equal in size and scope to the initial release that they could wow you with new dungeon content that re-emphasized class balance. That is how most MMOs work, but creating random rules about party composition probably isn't the way to do it.
I'm sorry but I've run those dungeons with balanced parties on multiple occasions and not had troubles as long as the party members were competent. Not meaning overgeared, just that they know what they're doing. I've even done everything up through Karru and also MC/VT with the 'wrong classes' stacked and beaten the dungeons without wiping once. If you want door to door pulls, stack CW/GWF. If you want to run with whatever people are available, adjust the size of the pull downward. Let a GF or a ranged class pull mobs one at a time when possible. Fight smart and you won't have trouble.
No what you had to do was overcome the deficiencies of that party facing encounters it was never designed to defeat.
But thats all you were doing. You basically have all the classes in your party attempting to beat a situation they are ill suited to beat, and you are lacking the "unbalanced" party you need to achieve that.
The "unbalanced party configuration" designed to beat those things... are the Mass Mob classes. That's why its so easy for them... vs your Balanced party.
That balanced party configuration is not designed withstand extreme encounters and never has been. Extreme encounter types are designed to be taken on with party configurations designed for it.
These dungeons are designed to beat you in that configuration.
But still, in the current conditions most of the dungeons can be beaten differing compositions if the party is made up of players who work together and use tactics.
If you want a dungeon where things like positioning, teamwork and actually using that crazy little shift key come into play, then rainbow is more likely to give you that. It's a lot more fun.
It's not a case of "MUST STACK AOE CLASSES OR WE MIGHT FAIL", it's a case of "it is literally impossible to fail when you stack CWs and GWFs".
I have DM'd for over 20 years here and making encounters for various party configurations. I know their strengths and weaknesses and what they're designed to do.
... the reality is... this party configuration (Balanced) is defeated with extreme encounters. That's how you beat them as a DM you throw extreme encounters at it.
You have been playing in a scheme designed to beat you, and why PUGs are repeatedly failing these T2 upper level dungeons. They are set up to fail before they even started. I'm not making this stuff up and I didn't pull it out of my rear end here.
That party configuration 2 Wizards/ 2 Fighters with Two Handed blades and Great Cleave.... And a Buffing Cleric.... isn't for "speed" running... it's designed to take on dungeons with an Army of Creatures (ie what these dungeons are)... encounters a balanced party is not very good at.... and will fail unless they are absolutely perfect.
The players motives are irrelevent.
A trap filled dungeon with few monsters requires multiple Rogues/Thieves. A Balanced party will likely fail it as a single rogue will miss a lot of traps. And they'd be "Speed running" here with parties of rogues.
You'd see "Speed Running" with a balanced party IF the encounter scheme was set up for that instead.
This has nothing to do with Speed Running.
Balanced Parties are set up to fail in this kind of encounter scheme. You're only overcoming the deficiencies of that balanced party..
....not because other people are trying to "make things easy" so they can Speed Run.
Back in the beta days some people were completing dungeons with rainbow parties at much, much lower gearing than the ludicrously boon/artifact inflated peeps you get nowadays, because they were communicating, and were good players.
That's pretty much all you need (and being a DC back in the healing aggro days was....fun).
Stacking GWFs and CWs simply means that the skill requirement for completion becomes much, much lower. CWs can obliterate everything, and being so squishy that you die in a single hit is irrelevant if everything dies stupidly fast, and you have three amazing dodges...and GWFs? Man, if there are any players out there who find GWF-play to be challenging, then this is not the game for them. It is near-impossible to die as a GWF. Hilarious fun, certainly, but also incredibly easy to play well enough to beat any PvE content (obviously GOOD players will absolutely clean house as a GWF, but being that good really isn't necessary).
You seem to be confusing "finishing a dungeon" with speed running, and seem to be unaware that finishing a dungeon is something that you can do with basically any party combination.
Stacking GWFs and CWs simply means you can make ginormous pulls, wipe out everything by rolling your forehead across the number keys, and still win in very little time, even if you're a mediocre player. This is very very much a speed run, and why you'd think otherwise is...beyond me.
6 class, 5 spot ...
That's why I always ask for parties in the legit channel instead of LFG or randomly queueing for epics.
Soo...
You honestly think... these dungeons were designed for balanced parties... and that an AoE based party wiping them without breaking a sweat is...
.. not because they were designed to defeat Balanced Parties... but rather.. .
Because.... other people want things... "easy" "unfair parties that work in these types of dungeons...
.... Not because the balanced party was designed to be defeated with extreme encounters that overbalance it...
Wow... just wow...
So basically I dunno. I don't automatically assume devs have beat everything as it was released. I figure they beat a version of it, but more than one dev has ninjad in higher numbers in release versions in games I have played.
For example, I look at Dracolich in Castle Never, get my butt beat with a rainbow group around 13 to 13.5k GS and I don't automatically assume a dev did it fighting it straight up with the same group. I have seen them release stuff they couldn't beat themselves in other games, so I don't make that leap. It is possible players do it, but players are devious and routinely surprise devs.
No... what the DEVS did... was took a Balance Party configuration... tried to make EXTREME challange for it.
.. without realizing...
....OOOPS... that only works against THAT party configuration... not other ones. So of course... people suddenly use the one party configuration that's designed to counter their specific design scenario... and POOF... all the Dev's hopes go up in flames... because... well
...It was one track thinking... stuck on designing a dungeon for an EXTREME challence for a balanced party... But that doesn't work against all party configurations.
It only works to defeat a balanced party.
You need to add... WITH DIFFICULTY... because that's what it does to a balance party
... its ONLY going to be difficult for that type of party .... 2CW and 2GWF parties are the mainstream because they're the ones this type of dungeon is designed for...
Speed running has little to do with it.
What you're ACTUALLY saying when you say that is... WHY ARE YOU GUYS cheating and not doing the extreme content challenge that was designed to be impossible for you... and this party configuration... and beat it anyway???
Because you ARE taking the hard path when playing a Balanced party... that IS the extreme challenge this content is specifically designed to beat... ei... your balanced party.
Its no different than trying it with all Rogues. Or ALL GFs.
Perhaps some people only view a difficult run as one that involves many wipes and only succeeds because of a few lucky breaks, and others view it as a run that takes 20 minutes longer than if they had more stacked AoE.
Maybe?
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Don't assume what I or others are thinking. I don't think 2CW 2GWF parties are cheating, but I prefer the old fashioned way, it's more fun to me. Besides I don't have a lv 60 gwf or cw so I wouldn't even get in those parties.
I don't understand what you're arguing about. runs made with 2 cw and 2 gwf take less time than the ones with a varied party composition, so how can you say time has nothing to do when people want to rush through the dungeons on DD?
Lol, Actually... that's not what I said..... I said "2CW and 2GWF parties are the mainstream because they're the ones this type of dungeon is designed for"...
No contradiction there.
The Devs however... thought they were designing a challenge for a "Balanced" party... lol well they sure did alright... they made it an EXTREME challenge for a balanced party... so extreme in some cases if you don't do it JUST RIGHT you're going to wipe.
...unfortunately that means its going to be easy for the other party configuration... lol its kind of like sliting your own throat.
You're right, you didn't directly say it... but multiple others here are implying it... Lol.
And no problem.... wanting to do a standard "balanced" party config... but thats the party this upper level T2 content... was designed to defeat...
What these people are trying to tell you is that this is the intention of the players. They make more ad by running dungeons faster, allowing multiple chances at end chests and drops. I personally don't disagree that the developers intentions may hate balanced parties, but the players' intentions ARE about making the content easymode. So they stack the best classes for that purpose.
P.S. I've done frozen heart as an hr AND a gf before, without CWs and GWFs in the party. 1 wipe at second boss, and it didn't take 40 minutes. Wasn't that bad either. Just that everybody knew what to do.
VT if you totally fail at casket clicking, maybe (but that's not a class-specific issue).
Azahrzel, obviously, but that fight is just horrible.
And...that's about it. Basically all other content can be beaten by almost any party composition, as long as people don't play like morons.
The game isn't an EXTREME CHALLENGE if you don't stack CWs & GWFs, it's simply "no challenge at all" if you do.