I posted elsewhere, figured I’d post here too:
Here is my perspective:
I leveled to FOTM 80 because it was the only content in the game that I found moderately difficult and enjoyable. I didn’t have a set group, but usually leveled with a mix of friends and a mix of pugs. It was a lot of time, very little proportional reward, but a whole lot of fun.
The clutch moments on level 79 shaman where the 4/5 people die and one person manages to res the rest… that was why I played high level fractals. I enjoyed it.
Looking at the new changes, I am hesitantly disappointed. I know I’ll have to test out the new levels 30-50 before I can fully judge, but from what the developers have been saying you can get to level 50 with less AR than before, and the overall difficulty curve from 1-50 has been lowered. The devs said they’d open up levels 50+ in the future, but not now.
I’ve waited a long time for them to “re-officially” open 50+. I quit the game a while back due to school, and was really looking forward to this patch to maybe bring me back in. But instead of a new challenge being opened to the rest of the player base, the cap on 50 is still in place, and from what the devs said, the content has been dumbed down a bit.
As it stands now, this really isn’t encouraging me personally to come back to the game.
I was one of the people who played from 50-80 not for the rewards, but for the challenge and fun and yes, admittedly, a bit of guild prestige. I don’t care about the leaderboards, don’t care about the rewards, and don’t care about the “new” fractal if it’s going to be easy. I want the dungeon that they said, and now are saying again, has “infinite” levels, that increases in difficulty, so I can challenge myself and have some fun in the process.
Edit: Also, if and when they open 50+, if it requires AR grind, I’ll never enter the dungeon again.