im having a whinge

yes, it just take abit longer than normal hm dungeons. HM UW I did with h/h, HM FOW with h/h, HM slaver with h/h. HM DOA I did with me, 3 heroes, my friend and his 3 heroes. DoA is hardest, u need cons + builds + tactics, but u can do it.

H/HH UW and FoW eh? In HM too? I must not be bribing the hench enough then

fow and uw with 7/8 party, u ask for ur friend to bring heros and after start he leaves, so u have hero party. I thought this was a common thing to do, but I see that I need to say everything more clearly here

I agree with a lot of what you type here, however, with the old 600 and the old SF people could do those crappy dungeons in 15-20 minutes and THEN it was an acceptable tradeoff: time versus the chance at a good or most likely crap drop. Now they absolutely killed 600, and changed SF, you are absolutely right that 1 hour for a crappy q13 gold and a diamond or onyx sucks hard. That is the reason EOTN is a ghost town now. Anet in all their wisdom took the Idiot Krewe's suggestions and killed the time vs. reward trade off in this aging game. The update that killed 600 and changed SF was the exact date that those towns became deserted. It cannot be blamed on anything else. Now people are forced into h/h to get the areas done which is far slower, or just shifted into the new SF based speed farming for a few select areas. This had the exact opposite effect of their goal to make the game more team based and social. At least with runners the areas were packed with people, you could enjoy chatting with others in the run, or help out and play if you felt like it. And because the areas were packed with people, it was not as hard to form a traditional team if one felt like it because lots of people would just opt into a pug instead of hanging around for the next runner. Now, you have no choice. You can play by yourself with your h/h, or QQ. The ghost towns and quildies leaving tell Anet all they need to know about how people voted with their feet regarding their brilliant skill update. Within one week after the big skill update, at least 50% of the people on my friends list who logged on daily, never logged on again. GG.

Glad I got all the dungeons done before this nerf.

So basicly what you are saying that the peope on your friend list suck, and can only do certain areas with builds that never should have existed.

People are just too easily spoiled by imba degenerate shit running for way too long. If obvious problems were fixed fast, there would be no QQ threads like this or many before it.

After 5 years of playing 99% of the PvE playerbase is done exploring. What's left is status and rewards. Make the game harder (= spending more time), than players need better rewards or motivation will die. It's not a matter of re-adjusting skillsets but a matter of time. Longer runs = less profit. Less profit = less fun. Less fun = abandon game. We are all materialists after all aren't we?

Runners were a small cog in a large watch,they only made up part of the game which in all fairness wasn't any danger to GW platform, my runner was the only way i could make decent money to finance titles such as drunkard/sweet tooth/party etc etc, relying on drops and chest rewards would never in a millions years of playing GW ever finance this.

I spend most my time in DOA and do admit it seems busier than b4 the nerf, but everyone now sticks to NM, noone wants to tackle HM, cant blame em really...too hard for normal pugs! Anet have killed HM off in DOA except for the leet guilds players.

This is an excellant statement!

No, that is not what I am saying. You come across as a pompous little ass. What I am saying is the same thing most people come to realize after playing this once great game for a long time, that after you have played the story line, the only thing left is to accumlate titles and e-peen. People do not equate fun with spending an hour in a dungeon for most likely a crap drop. So they quit, and that leaves everyone else who is left wondering why outposts have become ghost towns and they are forced to play solo with h/h. Seriously, how hard is this game? Not very hard. People play it for fun. Take the fun away by making the time versus reward ratio terrible, and they quit. The nerfs were bad for not only the people who used to play and now have quit, but bad for a lot of remaining players because they are finding it difficult to find other players in certain outposts for runs or, because there were lots of people congregating there, forming up pugs. People have choices in life with only limited amount of time. If the fun vs. time has been removed from GW because of short sighted nerfs, then they go elsewhere. I am sure those people do not have any goodwill towards GW1 as they let the door hit them on the way out, and to what extent that costs Anet money with lost GW2 sales is the big question. GW1 is screwed now, imo. I also believe the best predictor of the future is the past. My real life dollars are going elsewhere, not into GW2 or another Anet game, because I do not feel they have any understanding of why their customers play after all these years, nor why they are suddenly quitting as of the big nerf-o-rama.

The problem is that too many areas are too hard and too boring to do. Having imba builds is really bad for a game but it did paper over the cracks of dreadful game design. Now the imba builds are reducing the designers need to take a look at rebalancing the game for the normal players to enjoy.

GW is rapidly becoming not worth bothering with.

I liked doing dungeons and vanquishing with 600/smite.

I don't like doing them with unreliable H/H.

The problem wasn't the game design, but instead the players. Instead of actually working hard to complete the *elite* areas, people went online and copy/pasted overpowered builds that allowed them to clear the most difficult areas with probably 3 fingers. Sadly that has been the trend for so many years in Guild Wars that now people are under the impression that's the correct way to play the game. And now that some of their farming builds are finally being dealt with they're complaining that this game is no longer fun. If your idea of fun is running a build that makes HM look like pre-searing than you're obviously playing the wrong game. I thought fun was the reward of challenging yourself and overcoming a difficult task, not sitting there laughing while playing this game with one hand and eating with the other.

People chose to run easy OP builds and they chose to deprive themselves of an actual challenge, and now they're upset because their warped idea of fun and how this game was supposed to be played is crashing down on them. Even though at this point it doesn't even matter

I think SF nurf was the best thing ever.... it restored the "accomplishment" element back into the game. Before when everything was runnable... all you needed was wealth, now you actually need some critical thinking skills. The game is not all about profit and status as it is for some people.. People that agree with OP want everything obtainable in a simple manner. It just does not make for a long lasting game if you give everybody everything in a hasty manner. For these people just focus on one element of the game... profit & status... that is fine as long as you are aware that there are other people that enjoy all elements... not just profit seekers.

ArenaNet took way to long to fix this so players that joined under this SF era knew nothing else and obtained everything... when the game changed they didn't like it so quit, hurting playability for the niches of players that relied purely on SF and this services it produced for there game play. Separating the thinkers from the followers. There are plenty of ways still to solo and farm... but if you want accomplishment now your going actually have to use your brain and not have someone do it for you.

the game is still to easy,me and 2 m8s ran random builds,random heros and still did SoO and Vloxx in HM with no proplems(SoO boss sucked but he would not pull as normal).If you find it too hard play more

No, people ran them because it provided an excelent balance in time/effort vs reward.

But how long did it take?

Excellent balance? Clearing UW in <30min is balanced? I think people were able to do DoA <1 Hour, that's balanced too? The idea was that these areas were supposed to require planning and coordination and not be pug'ed/cleared with such ease. However you could pug 7 assassins and clear UW in 20 minutes, reaping the high-end reward chest. Comparing time/effort vs. reward in regards to those builds and setups such as speedclears is a joke. When it all comes down to it there was no balance. What effort and time did people put in for the rewards? If you haven't realized it, there was none. Someone who just started playing GW for a week, could have been in UW running 20 speedclears daily obtaining high-end rewards. The balance between time/effort vs rewards was tossed out the window long ago. And now that those common builds are being fixed people are complaining since now they are actually going to have to put a little effort into playing the game which apparently has resulted in those same individuals quitting the game.

I'd like to see the answer to this too, Angorodons are a nuisance even in NM, and there aren't really all that many skills that protect against life stealing.