(TL;DR: L2P issues)

I thought I'd do this endeavor, because I figured it should be easy, and I wanted to see how Bastian fared.

I walked into Fungal Grotto-- and immediately started getting my butt kicked, big time. "OMG, did they buff the dungeons?" Keeping Bastian alive was a major challenge, especially since I was having difficulty swapping bars to use my S&B taunt skill and then switch back to my 2H bar for fighting. Everything was so much tougher than usual, and took at least 5-to-10 times longer to kill. Even the mudcrabs were on super steroids.

The worst part was, Bastian tended to stay off to the edges and fire his inferno staff from the sidelines-- which was fine by me, since I wanted him to stay alive-- and at least 3 times he ended up attracting the attention of a boss, drawing the boss outside of its usual range and causing it to reset before I could taunt it back to me. D'oh!

When I got to the final boss, it was impossible to keep Bastian alive, let alone keep myself alive. I finally just dismissed Bastian, but that didn't help-- I still died, over and over again. And why is there a glowing HM scroll on the ground near the last boss?

I finally gave up in despair, crawling back to Vvardenfell with my tail between my legs, thinking I'd somehow gotten far worse than usual. Maybe it was my CP 2.0 trees? Had I even done a dungeon since CP 2.0 was launched? It wasn't my gear or skill bars, because those were all set up exactly the same as they'd been since long before CP 2.0. Was I doomed to miss out on any future dungeon-related events? Was I going to have to totally revamp my dismal-DPS-but-just-tanky-enough-to-stay-alive main character who is so much fun to play on? Would I have to respec him into an OP 1-shotting insta-melter, then end up crying about how the game is boring because I can 1-shot insta-melt everything? And what was up with that HM scroll? That shouldn't even be there on a normal dungeon!

Aaaah, that scroll. On a hunch, I decided to stroll into a different dungeon to check the map. Sure enough, it said "(Veteran)" by the name. I had to search the forum for information on how to check my walk-in dungeon preferences in Group settings, and sure enough it was set to "Veteran."

What the...? How did that happen? I changed it back to "Normal," went back to Fungal Grotto, and breezed through it as usual-- Bastian was even able to stay alive for everything except the final boss.

I'm thinking Bastian must have changed my settings when I wasn't looking, because there's no way I would have done it! I need to have a serious talk with that boy.