Guild Wars 2

Any of the fractal designers care to shed some light on the subject? I was wondering if the dredge or harpy fractal will receive a re-design or something. Currently, the dredge fractal is extremely unpopular do to infinite spawn of dredges and ho-hum’ mechanics.

Shorten the darn Dredge Fractal. If my group get’s it, people will complain or even leave.

I really hope the clown car is changed. Rest of the dredge fractal is bearable. Bombs takes too long but its not so bad. I dont really have a problem with any other fractals except for cliffside being a bit too long overall.

Dredge fractal sucks, because dredges sucks. It’s a fail gamedesign. They make my thief almost useless — blind immune, dazes, knockbacks, protection boons, unreflectable ranged attacks. So kittening great.

^ clown car is not fun and I’d just remove it (keep Rabsovich and his initial adds). Also fix the reviving at the control panel.
Fix the archdiviner fight and have him drop some kitten loot in line with every other boss.
Fix the charr fractal not turning you into a charr. I’d love to see some more armor variations here.
Really hoping for a good coating of polish on all fractals. But I don’t think much is going to change.

If Dredge and Cliffside fractals aren’t modified to take less time and frustration, things even get worse than they are now, due to longer fractals always popping as third fractal after the patch. This is very worrying so I really hope some dev cares to shed some light on this.

I recall reading that there would at some point be some balancing as some fractals unintentionally take much more time to finish than others. Now all I read about fractal length is, “Fractals are now weighted according to their length and difficulty. Easier fractals will always show up earlier in the run, with more difficult ones coming later.”
And: “On average, a single fractal should take 20-30 minutes to complete, depending on your group and difficulty scale.” Dredge needs some serious attention before it gets completed by normal groups in 20-30 mins.

spoj.9672:

I really hope the clown car is changed. Rest of the dredge fractal is bearable. Bombs takes too long but its not so bad. I dont really have a problem with any other fractals except for cliffside being a bit too long overall.

I actually love the clown car, its probably not intended to be like this but to me, its a phase where you just nuke down mobs who gets killed before they can even let off 3 attacks and you get tons of loot.

The problem for me is that at the entire fractal is a huge suicide run. You HAVE to die at the start, and throughout the encounter, you just will die from way the mechanics of most of the fractal works.

Paradox.5498:

“On average, a single fractal should take 20-30 minutes to complete, depending on your group and difficulty scale.” Dredge needs some serious attention before it gets completed by normal groups in 20-30 mins.

I just hope they won’t decide to “fix” the currently fastest fractals, so they’d always take at least 20 mins or more. So far, at lower fractal levels, it’s entirely possible to finish in less than an hour even when getting one of the longest fractals. I’d rather it would not take 2 hours instead.

I hope they fix the Harpies. We keep getting invulnerable on them even if we are in melee and they still can burst us down of knock back us of the plates, this is annoying.

Fixing the Ascalon Fractal not turning you into a charr would also be nice even if its only for the look.

I think that letting Anet know about the general feeling for the dredge and harpy fractals is necessary for them to provide changes. I think they DO listen, but our voices must be loud enough for them to hear.

You guys must understand that, some self-titled “pro’s” will go on and say “dredge fractal is EASY, you just need to know what you are doing, check this link here”. But many fail to realize that this fractal forces people to go in a suicidal rampage with sub-optimal group compositions (those without warriors, guardians and mesmers).

Take a look at what Duffy says about this fractal:
“Dredge Fractal is fairly annoying due to its high difficulty compared to other fractals."

and

“On high levels, it is almost impossible to survive while standing on the pressure plates. Therefore, it is usually best to just die on the press plate as the weight of your corpse will activate the pressure plate.”

Does dying on the buttons really make for a good design? does requiring guardians almost as a mandatory requirement to survive really the intention of this fractal?

I hope they’ll remove the charr turning in ascalon whatsoever. If I wanted to play a charr I’d roll a charr. This part of fractals is really stupid.

Xae Isareth.1364:

spoj.9672:

I really hope the clown car is changed. Rest of the dredge fractal is bearable. Bombs takes too long but its not so bad. I dont really have a problem with any other fractals except for cliffside being a bit too long overall.

I actually love the clown car, its probably not intended to be like this but to me, its a phase where you just nuke down mobs who gets killed before they can even let off 3 attacks and you get tons of loot.

The problem for me is that at the entire fractal is a huge suicide run. You HAVE to die at the start, and throughout the encounter, you just will die from way the mechanics of most of the fractal works.

O.O

What lvl do you do it on? Its incredibly boring, takes way too long and if you camp at the front and kill as they spawn they are always invuln for ages. And they do hit you while being invuln.

Azraelle.1683:

Dredge fractal sucks, because dredges sucks. It’s a fail gamedesign. They make my thief almost useless — blind immune, dazes, knockbacks, protection boons, unreflectable ranged attacks. So kittening great.

Thieves are great for the dredge fractal because thy can do the control panel while stealth.

I hope they fix the npc AI in charr fractal. Having to lure the groups of mobs and dodge backward just to get the npcs engaged is ridiculous.

Pazu.8320:

I hope they fix the npc AI in charr fractal. Having to lure the groups of mobs and dodge backward just to get the npcs engaged is ridiculous.

This is yet ANOTHER issue. Why are we forced to wipe when the npcs die in that fractal? Couldn’t it be done so that, if the npcs are all dead, you can return to the camp and gather new ones?

They’re probably going remove the current skipping of the first two pressure plates at the dredge, probably going to do something about the clown car and bombs as well, I would assume.
I hope they change snowblind fractal so it’s not as painfully boring.

spoj.9672:

Xae Isareth.1364:

spoj.9672:

I really hope the clown car is changed. Rest of the dredge fractal is bearable. Bombs takes too long but its not so bad. I dont really have a problem with any other fractals except for cliffside being a bit too long overall.

I actually love the clown car, its probably not intended to be like this but to me, its a phase where you just nuke down mobs who gets killed before they can even let off 3 attacks and you get tons of loot.

The problem for me is that at the entire fractal is a huge suicide run. You HAVE to die at the start, and throughout the encounter, you just will die from way the mechanics of most of the fractal works.

O.O

What lvl do you do it on? Its incredibly boring, takes way too long and if you camp at the front and kill as they spawn they are always invuln for ages. And they do hit you while being invuln.

Higher than the majority of us.

I would be more okay if they didn’t spawn invuln.

Isslair.4908:

I hope they’ll remove the charr turning in ascalon whatsoever. If I wanted to play a charr I’d roll a charr. This part of fractals is really stupid.

I kind of think its fun to turn into a charr for a quick fight. It adds variety to the game.

Just a tip for Dredge Fractal – Stealth is your friend for the bomb part. Having a Thief when you roll that one is a godsend.

Nothing in the fractals really need to be fixed except for the attacks glitching so you miss the harpies maybe ease up on the cultists for the arm seals if someone happens to kill both of them on one side. I’m hesitant on even suggesting the cultists but its annoying to salvage the fractal when someone screws it up.

The rest is more of a learn to play and shouldn’t be changed. The switches for dredge are not that bad and there are plenty of strategies on how to do the cage portion. If the fractal level you’re at is too difficult then perhaps you should do a lower level until you’re more comfortable doing a higher level one.

What I’d like to see as tweaks to the existing Fractals:

Swamp – No change.
Aquatic – No change.
Snowblind – Change it so the Svanir mobs drop loot. This should encourage players to fight their way through the forest instead of just skipping everything. Who doesn’t want more chances at Elaborate Totems and Corrupted Lodestones?
Urban – No change, although the Ascalon Warriors do seem to hit crazily hard compared to other enemies in the map. Not sure if that’s intended.
Uncategorized – Haven’t run into it myself, but the Invulnerable harpies bug does sound horrendous and should be fixed.
Cliffside – Fix the Archdiviner so he drops Champ loot bags, just like every other Legendary foe. Adjust the scaling of the Arm Seals a bit so that running back and forth between them is still a valid strategy up until the upper limits of Fractal levels (perhaps the number of Chanters spawning only goes up slowly, from 2 to 3 to 4 etc. each time a group is totally wiped). I don’t mind using the “leave one Chanter alive” strategy, but it does feel somewhat gimmicky.
Volcanic – No change.
Underground – Change it so that less dredge reinforcements spawn in the initial portion; once killed, guards don’t come back (except at the control panel, where they spawn more slowly). Remove the bomb/turret section entirely. Adjust Rabsovich’s portion so that the number of dredge reinforcements popping out of the APC isn’t so high on higher Fractal levels. Final boss fight remains unchanged.
Jade – No change.

the urban fractal the mages are by far the most dangerous, as their aoe kills anything in 2 seconds, quite literally. However, I’m not suggesting warriors aren’t dangerous, as I often end up without endurance because of them.

Mechanics most likly be completly new I guess all Monsters in the older fractals completly changed mossman now is not throwing invis axes at you but he will Play the mad king says with you and if you don’t Dance at the right time you get agony… it’s more about Reflexes you will have wild xboxcontrollbuttons appear on your Screen and suddenly a Computer one even if it is a ¨¨ you Need to press it within 1 second or you get agony.

why are These changes?

because otherwise there would be no reason to reroll if they just stay the same

I think they are making some tweaks to the old ones.

But other than instabilities, I’ve heard nothing very precise about what it is.

Fractals definitely have a lot of untaped potential and virtually infinite room for updates.

The only limitation are ANet’s resources.

Zaxares.5419:

[…]

Wait, we can make wishes?

Hey! Here’s my list!
For all: Remove armor damage from deaths caused by environment or while ‘transformed’ parts. For example, while in the dolphin form, fall damage or falling off a cliff, by environmental traps, or while mashed by crushers in the molten fractal.

• Swamp – Make the mossman hide less often, or add away to lure him out of hiding, like killing his wolves. The guy spends too much time hidden. Add a boss version for 4th fractal with a colossal mossman that chases players in an endlessly looping swampy corridor (probably a tunnel with several loops instead a circle, so player shave to turn left and right) players must fight while running, as they’ll get agony if they get to close to the water around the giant mossman, and if they try to get behind him, they’ll be pushed far ahead and downed.
• Aquatic – Add a boss version for 4th fractal in which you fight off creatures summoned by tablets hold by the statues at the entrance, while also damaging the statues enough so they stop.
• Snowblind – Add a boss version that has a daylight sky in which the boss is the elemental. And this time the thing has new tricks and phases. PHASES!
• Urban – Add some missing AoE circles to the skills there. The flame fields by mages, the meteor shower by the boss… Add a boss version for the 4th fractal in which the boss Dulfy. The doors blast, all soldiers outside the walls from both sides die, and Dulfy brings the Stormcaller at the door (don’t ask me how she got that, the fractal is unstable). And players must beat a powered up Dulfy while trying to damage the mouthpiece of the horn enough so it doesn’t charge an powerful surekill attack, all while dodging trebuchet attacks from behind the wall.
• Uncategorized – Add a boss version for the 4th fractal in which all 5 golem-cats combine to make a “megazorg” mecha that the mad rambling asura rides. Because, you know, the fractal wasn’t mad enough as it was.
• Cliffside – Replace the almost unavoidable vulnerability skills from chanters by slow projectiles that deal more vulnerability if hit, but can be avoided more easily so it’s a bit harder to get a 25 vulnerability stack under 3 seconds. Add a boss version for the 4th fractal in which players are too late. The cultists have completed their ritual. The Colossus frees himself, the cliff walls fall, and some of the debris falls behind the players at the very entrance forming a larger platform, maybe even larger than the arena against the Giganticus Lupicus. Players must fight a purple-glowing mind-controlled Solitary Colossus right there to shake him from the cultist control and survive. Well… they actually fight off waves of cultists while stealing hammers and throwing them to seals with makeshift catapults while avoiding the deadly punches and kicks from the colossus and making new catapults as they get destroyed. I mean, have you seen his size? No way players could really fight him directly.
• Volcanic – Boss version for 4th fractal that starts right at the destroyer harpy-like boss. The difference is that there’s no elementals or villagers. Instead, there’s rock platforms appearing around as the lava raises, and players must fight jumping between them. Aaand the lava deals agony. Of course it will.
• Underground – Reduce respawn speeds to up to a couple of minutes in some spots. Add a short cinematic in which players actually ride the APC when they break the door (they seem to get in, but the angle hides they actually disappear inside before the APC moves, then they reappear inside the dust of the explosion). Add a 4th boss fractal version. This time, instead dredge, the enemies are stone summit dwarves with a massive snow beast. Each phase also brings a few adds: several frost golems (they look like ice elementals), a bunch of dredge slaves, and a couple of Furnace Guardian giants (they have two eyes, horns, forearm spikes, a really bad temper and throw deadly fireballs!).
• Jade – Add a normal fractal version. More platforms are added, and players must choose which ones they want to jump to. If any player jumps to a different platform, they get a dungeon vote dialog to choose which one they want before enemies spawn, and all get teleported there. They’ll be confronted with luxon outcasts, demons, skelk-like shadow nightmares, drakes, walking fish… At the end instead the maw, they have to fight a random boss: Either Zhu Hanuku’s spawn or the Last Shadow of Kannaxai.

Yeah… if wishes where peaches…