Guild Wars 2

In this thread I’m going to lay out my thoughts as a fractal players since it’s release and talk about each part latest patch from concerning the new fractal and things that weren’t addressed or were left out from my point of you.

Thaumanova Reactor –

• The fractal – thuamanova is a fun fractal to run with 4 out of 3 mini events
to do each fun and different from other events in the game (I find the events
with shields most intresting)
• Its length – the fractal is really short and can be done faster than most
including other short fractal like asura or ice yet it is listed in one of the medium
to long fractal as second or third in the run which make me scratch my head in
wonder.
• The lore – i am no lore wizard yet the expectation to the fractal as
something interesting on what happened thuamanova, the lore wasn’t included as
you go and do the fractal. Instead of having the 4 events tell the lore of the crisis
and brining the story in an interesting way we got scarlet saying some stuff in the
end (which I really don’t understand that well), we teleported and encountered a
random or not entity and that’s it. The story is shallow and follow up a long list of
shallow living stories from when scarlet came and maybe before, the fault is not in
here but in the uninteresting story telling.

All in all it’s a fun fractal but not an interesting one like we thought we would get.

Old Fractals- I will lay out the things that weren’t improved in fractals.

• Aquatic Ruins – I have not played it yet but from what I understand it is as
it was which is good for a simple and short fractal.
• Swampland – Only change is Mossman having bigger company of wolves, I
like this change and it’s a good one
• Urban Battlegrounds – The last boss of ascalon was mad irelevent as the
veterans don’t get hit by agony and kill him without need to do anything, this
need to be changed back to what it was.
• Uncategorized fractal – Less harpies which is a realy nice change, yet the
ogre and flame legion charr take too much time, even with a full zerk team they
take too long to kill, they got so much hp for no reason its not fun, interesting of
complex just long and boring.
• Snowblind – respwan point was pushed back to the begning why? If a
player reach the entry to the last boss room the check point should be there like
before.
• Molten – have not done it yet so no comment at the moment.
• Aetherblade - have not done it yet so no comment at the moment.
• Volcanic - have not done it yet so no comment at the moment.
• Cliffside – same as before and it’s a good and interesting fractal
• Thuamanova – see above.
• Underground – what haven’t been said about it’s extremely long, dredge
respwan endlessly in some parts and too many and hit for high amount compare
to other fractals, first room with trigger takes to much time if you fail, bombs
route is long and got too much wait for bombs respwan, mini boss have too many
waves of dredge to kill for no reason, everything here need to be made shorter.
The only good thing I can say about this fractal is the last champion ice/dredge is
fun.

In general the fractal people complained most about got buffed and some got nerfed for no reason.

Rewards, Relics and other fractal collectibles
• Ascended rings – As players who did a lot of fractals (I mean at least 1500 fractals) the ring issue wasn’t addressed at all we frequent fractal players go a lot of rings which we store or simply vendor it for 4 silver without option to salvage or do anything with it.
• Vial, Globe, shard of mists essence – like the rings we got too many of them (I got 91 shards) and nothing to do with it no new option of conversion for the toknes was added including new items you can get from fractal vendor like random box of items like laurel many random item could be added for the extra stuff we can get with useless tokens.
• Relics and daily tokens – As we don’t need rings and I personally got a 20 slot fractal bags on all of my alts these tokens are also useless nothing was added to make the tokens worth getting them.
• Gold reward – the gold reward at the end of the fractal run is a joke, less than 2 gold for the longest dungeon in the game (if you include the random factor to which fractal you get) make fractal a waste of time in term of reward for the time which bring me to the main reward and biggest disappointment for me.
• Fractal Weapon skins – fractal weapon are now skins and should from container at higher level but according to what I read on reddit that isn’t so, players doing 31-49 still get weapons in a random way and not in a container (I still haven’t had a weapon drop since the patch) like we were told before the patch went live, do note that the way we were told can be interpreted that it isn’t live yet and I see as a total lie and a slap in the face to regular fractal players.
More even I can’t understand Areananet handling of the fractal weapon skins, I do fractal to get the skins and I want them for myself beucase I like some or other , yet we can get it only in a RNG way why? What do they gain by leaving it the way it was, and my only answer is to bait fractal player who they know want the weapons to keep going and do fractal and play the game, it is a cheap way to keep us playing . I can’t see any other reason behind it and not having a way to get weapons with all the fractal relics or daily tokens and this patch made me have second thoughts playing the game if we are looked only of how to keep us in the game for bad reasons.
Other
• Leaderboards – I personally not interested in it and as I thought players have already reached current max level and render it useless.
• Level 50 hard cap – I never went beyond level 49 beucase I only wanted fractal weapons (which some I still looking after so many fractals done), yet the fractal max level was reached fast all old fractal players are now stuck at low levels for no good reason thus reducing the will of many frequent fractal runners to keep doing them.
• Livestream of new dungeon before the patch – this made me scratch my head, it showed level 37 fractal with one of the devs (I think) running as a thief as lacking items and was using double pistols only for an entire run, this made me think was this fractal patch tested seriously? How can we know how it is if those running it show only a shallow form of a run (do note that this could have been only to show the entire player base and thus the impression is disappointing)

Conclusions –
My final conclusion is that this patch is shallow in every aspect and was made for the short burst for casual players base which mostly wont do fractal anymore when this living world highlight will end. Uninteresting lore behind the new fractal, old fractals not revised according to players suggestions, tokens remind mostly useless for the frequent players and new rewards (gold) is a joke, with old rewards mostly fractal weapons still being a RNG reward that legendary made easier to get than them.
What is left for me now doing the same fractals for months and months and hope I get skins I want with new fun instability but no good rewards? This was a chance to get a large group of players who play daily and do fractal and get them reward and keep them playing more instead it was shoved as a short burst for most players who do fractals little.

It made a path for new fotm to be introduced. Threaten Desda = get new fractals