Wow, long post.
Just for pure curiosity, what makes a dungeon so special for you, and what makes Vinewrath not entertaining?
OK, I'll try, and explain. I'll try not to write a book. To start I'll cut a little bit from a reply I made to someone else.
I hate the feeling at open world bosses that it genuinely doesn't matter if I participate or not. There is no circumstance where my individual play makes a difference.
VW will fail or not, only depending on if enough players press 1 repeatedly or not, never on something I, as an individual, do or fail to do. World "bosses" will never, ever fail. Press 1, you won, no skill or tactics required. I may as well watch a movie - I'm not really participating. There's no scope to get better, beyond "don't die" - when dying is nigh on impossible at most of them.
In a dungeon if I fuck up 4 other people will notice - perhaps there's a wipe, perhaps I aggroed the wrong thing or didn't path the mobs and we now have a a bunch of skipped trash joining in the boss fight. They'll give me hell on TS. If I afk everyone will notice. If I do well 4 other people will notice this too. If 5 people play well as a team a smooth, fast run results. We'll have a laugh on TS and make jokes about "challenging group content".
There's something about that small group synergy that defines what I find enjoyable about MMO's.
People are hating each other in dungeons if someone screws up something, they feel tired of each other, extreme cases sadly happen quite easily when one wants to kick another from the party.
OK, I think you are talking of PUGs here. I don't much like PUGs either and try to run with friends whenever I can, mainly because I have a better chance of people meeting a reasonable minimum standard, and I know what to expect. It's the same in all games with dungeons. Not to say I want to be elitist jerk - quite happy to run with friends who are newer, or learning. I had to learn once. Still am. Still fuck up sometimes.
With friends I know what to expect - I know who's a good guard, who's not so good. They know the classes I'm best at etc.
Every, every single player are defending the meta with tooth and nails
Me, I don't much care, if someone on a new class wants to run knights until they get used to it, I'm not out to break records. That said if 3 of the party are in clerics it makes it harder for everyone as you start to run out of active defences and it makes the fight more difficult for everyone, simply as it starts to take far too long. You'll probably never make it past Simin.
There is a reason every game has a meta though. It is simply what is proven to be the best to do a particular piece of content - AC doesn't need reflects so better the guard or mesmer relogs on ele. Berserker stats are best as passive defence is not needed in this game.
Change it, or encourage other builds and there will still be a meta - perhaps something different, perhaps not. Something will always be the best mix.
PUGs often use it as a crutch - be zerk and still hopeless.
Exploiting everything they can in a dungeon (thinking about stacking in a few pixel corner to stack mobs, trying to force other players to play in a way even if they don't like it - tried AC without frostbow? etc.) to enliminate the "human factor" as much as possible to achieve the smoothest run possible, for the fastest gold and dungeon token income.
...and now you're talking about PUG tactics. 9 times out of 10 we don't stack in a corner as most of the corner stacking is for the long ago nerfed Firey Great Sword. We'll just kill where it stands, it's quicker, it's easier. The one time in 10 that we do it's to Line of Sight some trash, so they group up and can be cleaved down faster. I find it strange that you see it as an exploit though, simply using the mechanics of the mobs and dungeon to move them around. If it's an exploit, why haven't they removed the little stack of barrels in CoE, or the rock at the end of CM?
How is it different to a raid that requires 2 mobs CCed until the end of the fight, or killing in a particular order?
The CC and mechanics in GW2 are very simple, so there's not many fights that rely on control like other games do. It's essentially non-existant in open world - the boss goes where he wants, you follow, or stand on the flower.
Now, let's compare this to Vinewrath event, ... Dungeons do the same. It requires precise coordination of players just like dungeons, but more forgiving for a single individual due to high number of players participating
You said it yourself. "More forgiving". I don't want more forgiving. It's already WAY too forgiving. I want it to take 15 or 25 tries at a dungeon or boss before we figure out how to beat it first time. Not beat it first time like I did with VW an hour after patch. One gives a sense of achievement. GW2 has always been pretty lacking in this.
I want my play to matter. I want my participation to feel like it made a difference - for good, or when I mess up, for bad. I probably know who is going to laugh at me, and probably what he's likely to say. We know each other quite well. I want it to be picked up when I make a mess of things. I want to get better so I don't get all at all the time, just most :)
How can I get better at Vinewrath? I can't control the group, I can't run it with just my friends, I can't low-man it, I can't even run it again with the same group. It's a binary success or fail that's dependent on 60 other people.
I can join the map and spend 10 minutes afk or gathering and still receive full rewards - plenty seem to do exactly this.
still a group effort can fail if in general the group is bad. Just like in dungeons. The playtime of the event is about the same as an average dungeon would be. The payoff (reward) is the same or in case of Vinewrath, far more higher than a single dungeon.
Three(?) yellows, some sand, some crests and some junk. Dungeon gives all the junk, some mats, occasional exotic, tokens, and 1 or 3 gold. I think dungeon wins easily, especially when you can run Arah p3 in 15 mins, or CoF p1 in 5.
Vinewrath and Silverwastes rewards together, is basicly a dungeon on it's own, except it does everything better and makes it a more social event. ... And now that you have this, which is literally equal a dungeon just made it open world, why do you need dedicated dungeons?
It's not even vaguely close to a dungeon, which is
Meanwhile VW
I'm not suggesting ANet consider dungeons only, but provide both for both interest groups.
...had Aetherpath, and you see how it turned out. Nobody plays it. Most of the playerbase avoid it. Literally no pugs do it.
I do it most days. I see quite a few pugs every day. Yes, I do look every day - usually when I'm idling in LA. I join a few of them if my friends aren't around, or we'll fill last spot from an LFG. Generally fill in seconds unless it's late. Quite often see first timer or all welcome pugs too, but I very rarely join those.
I guided an LFG of 4 first timers through only a week or two ago. It was slow, messy and frustrating, but we got there.
Yes it's quite the pug killer, but mainly because they can't coordinate enough to get past oozes, or sparki, or the electric room.
But that's why I like it - it needs a little more coordination than most GW2 dungeons. Most of the dungeons are far, far too simplistic. Even aether isn't difficult. A better skin drop rate would be nice though.
Doesn't mean I have a problem with VW or jumping puzzles being in game, or that I am going to try and persuade you dungeons are better or VW is rubbish - even though I find it dull. But dungeons absolutely are different, and I prefer them over most other forms of content so I would like to see more.
Turns out you got the book anyway.