A couple months back I did a “traditional’ MMO Co-Opportunities on Guild Wars 2. The overarching theme I highlighted about the game was how it encouraged people to work together. Even if players aren’t grouped, they can still get credit for quests/events, and get loot off the mobs they work to kill together. Instead of a competing against other players for PVE (player versus environment) content, Guild Wars 2 players are encouraged with work with them. For this month’s column, I decided to do a follow-up - or a “part 2, if you will. This time I’ll focus on the PVE “end-game” of Guild Wars 2.
After playing the game from release (over two months now!), I’ve gotten two characters to max level and geared out. My guild primarily focuses on PVE, and so the cooperative end-game for us is dungeons. Some of you may play Guild Wars 2, but haven’t quite capped out your character. Others may be interested in the game, but haven’t picked it up because they’re curious about what the end-game content is like. Hopefully I can give you a picture of how it plays.
A nice view in the Arah dungeon
Dungeons are scattered across the world and are available throughout the levels. When your character reaches the appropriate level for one, you’ll receive a nice in-game mail notifying you of this and a helpful link to show you where it is on the map. Each dungeon has two types of mode: Story and Explorable. Story mode will take you through the story of the dungeon and upon completion will unlocked Explorable mode for your character. The first time you complete story mode you’ll also get a rare hat of the appropriate level for the dungeon. Explorable mode is balanced for five levels after story mode, and provides multiple paths which each have their own bosses and unique mechanics. While explorable modes become unlocked only five levels after the story mode, they are clearly intended for level 80s (the max level), as completing them puts you on the track to purchase level 80 exotic gear. Before I get to all that, though, here’s a list of the Guild Wars 2 dungeons, and their recommended levels:
Ascalonian Catacombs (AC) - Story at 30, Explorable at 35
Caudecus’ Manor (CM) - Story at 40, Explorable at 45
Twilight Arbor (TA) - Story at 50, Explorable at 55
Sorrow’s Embrace (SE) - Story at 60, Explorable at 65
Citadel of Flames (CoF) - Story at 70, Explorable at 75
Honor of the Waves (HotW) - Story at 76, Explorable at 80
Crucible of Eternity (CoE) - Story at 78, Explorable at 80
The Ruined City of Arah (Arah) - Story at 80, Explorable at 80
Sweet, sweet loot!
Note that characters who are a few levels lower than the recommended level can still enter the dungeon. Much lower, however, and they won’t be able to zone in. Also, as long as one player in the group has completed story, he or she can zone into explorable mode and everyone else can zone in as well, even if they haven’t completed story.
Just like in the open world of Guild Wars 2, when players enter a dungeon they’ll be leveled down to the recommended level, and their stats cut accordingly. There is no rushing people through dungeons in this game. It is unusual for anyone who is not 80 to attempt an explorable dungeon. as they are exceedingly difficult even with the best rarity of gear (exotics). It is not undoable, however, which is nice because you can still bring along your lower level friends if you still feel that you can complete the dungeon with them.
Explorables follow a similar formula, despite the fact that the dungeons are all quite different from each other in looks and mechanics. Somewhere early on in the dungeon, the players will be asked to vote which path they would like to attempt. Sometimes this is at the very beginning of the dungeon, sometimes it’s a little later, but there will always be this choice. Depending on which path is chosen by the majority, many or all of the bosses will differ, and different parts of the dungeon map will be opened up for exploration. All of the enemies in explorables are much beefier than most of the mobs you’ll have encountered out in the world, and they pack quite a punch as well. Bosses or major events will spawn chests for players to loot (usually 3 per explorable path) and upon completion players will be rewarded with coin, karma, and dungeon tokens (these tokens differ based on which dungeon was completed).
Completion and reward!
The coin and karma reward scales based on what level the player is, and the karma and dungeon token reward will be higher if it’s the first time that particular path of that dungeon has been completed by the player for the day. The base token reward is 20 tokens, with an additional 40 tokens rewarded for each unique path per day. So, for example, if a player runs all three paths of an explorable in one day, they can receive a total of 180 tokens (60 per path they did). If they attempt to run that same explorable again, though, they will only receive the base 20 when they complete a path, since they already did that path that day.
So what are these tokens used for? They can be used to acquire the highest rarity of armor and weapons in the game (exotic gear). In true Guild Wars 2 fashion, the best loot in the game isn’t dropped off a boss for people to roll on. That would put players in a competitive mindset. Instead, everyone gets their own chests (which have the potential to give some decent stuff, but is mostly just vendor trash) and everyone comes away with some tokens which they can spend on fancy gear.
The vendors where you can turn in your tokens
How long does it take to get this gear? The armor ranges from 180-330 tokens in cost and the weapons range from 240-390. A full set of the stuff could take a little while, but one could conceivably get one of the cheaper pieces in one day by running all three of the paths. Another question players may have is “how long does it take to complete an explorable path?” It really depends on a variety of factors, such as which dungeon was chosen, which path was chosen, how well-geared your party is, and how experienced your party is. An explorable dungeon path can probably range from half an hour to three hours, based on these factors. With a decently geared party that knows what they’re doing, however, the average time is probably an hour. Some explorable paths are quite straightforward and have few trash mobs. Some are very complicated with many, many bosses and encounters that might taken several attempts to beat. Everything is quite learnable, but if you find yourself in a party where you aren’t familiar with the path your party took, it might be a good idea to admit you wouldn’t mind quick run-downs of the boss fights to save everyone some time and frustration.
I hope this was informative of how end-game PVE (specifically dungeons) work in Guild Wars 2. If you have any questions, feel free to leave it in the comments below. Also, note that if dungeons aren’t your cup of tea, don’t worry - you can also craft exotic gear or buy it on the auction house. Players are not forced to do dungeons if they want the best gear in Guild Wars 2!