Guild Wars 2

The general consensus seems to be that people like this encounter and don’t want to see it go. The best solution I have for this is to turn it into a fractal, whether it be a standard or boss fractal. I haven’t come up with a good way to translate it to a 5-man instance but was hoping others might come up with something. Ideas?

Would be similar. I’d say players would have to hold a lane for one minute. Would be one lane invaded at a time. After the minute they have to go through the portal and fight the 5 champions. One player on each platform. The champions would be scaled down quite a bit.

Yeah, I was thinking a “one lane at a time” approach. Defend for maybe two minutes, then fight the champ (wouldn’t require down-scaling because it’s already designed for 5 people). I’m also curious if we’ll see more of the marionette since it gets yanked back up into the ship after we break the 5 chains. That could change how the fractal would work if there is more to this boss.

Champion #1 would have to be reworked.

Edit: if the idea was to solo. You could have a single lane defend 5 times and each time everyone goes to same platform.

How I’m thinking now is that each team member defends their own lane and then all are ported into the same platform every couple minutes, where each platform holds up a single chain. That would fit thematically with having to defeat each boss to sever a single chain.

You could have to fight your way though 1 lane hit the platform kill the boss then get teleported to the next lane. Rolls reversed the NPC mobs are stopping you from getting to the teleporter?

I don’t think you’d have to make it a fractal. I think reusing the same mechanics for a permanent boss in the future would be good enough.

It’s been suggested quite a few times. At first I was on board, but now I don’t think I like turning it in to a fractal. Part of what makes the fight so cool is the massive size of it, and the pressure of over a hundred people depending on you when you fight the warden.

I do like the suggestion of making a new, permanent world boss with similar mechanics. It could even be better than what we have right now, since the devs have learned from this experience.

i think the key part with turning it into a fractal is that you can’t put players alone, because that would pigeonhole builds. they need to work as a group throughout the whole fractal, even if they get split (in other words, if the players have to be divided in groups, it has to be groups that aren’t necessarily consisted of 1 person)

I don’t want to see this as a fractal. I would love for it to somehow continue being permanent in the open world. A lot of us like this encounter, but do not do fractals.

The way I’m thinking it, is to have the five players defend just one lane, and a minute into it, the portal gate becomes active, but only one player can step through it.

So once inside the platform, the first player will have one minute to reduce the champs stacks of enraged. Hitting him 50 times will do it. This is just one of his buffs on him.

Now if player one managed to rid of the enraged buff, player two will have one minute to kite the champion around the platform (champ is melee only btw) and make him step on the mines that surround you, so he loses stacks of invulnerability, (mines are fairly spaced out so you can walk in between them).

Player three now will have one minute to activate the four panels around the platform so it can help you stack vulnerability on the champ, each panel takes around three seconds to activate, and you can’t get hit or you will have to start it again, (so use cripple, knockdowns, invisibility, etc.. to give yourself time to activate them).

Players 4 – 5, burn phase.

Note: If player one doesn’t manage his task in his turn, player two can pick up right where player one left off, he doesn’t have to redo the whole first task from scratch. And so on. And there is no timer, but there is an aethercannon meter, and this slowly fills up overtime.

ghostchipz.2341:

You could have to fight your way though 1 lane hit the platform kill the boss then get teleported to the next lane. Rolls reversed the NPC mobs are stopping you from getting to the teleporter?

Sounds good to me. Hell, make it so your characters are transformed into the twisted clockwork creations and must fire the lasers on a bunch of enemy NPCs (pact version) to proceed, with a bunch of twisted NPCs following you. Each chain your party fights a different hero. Taimi, Marjory, Rox, Braham, and Kasmeer. Defeat them all, and the fractal ends.

All due respect but…

No No No.. Part of the fun of this encounter is waiting outside feeling anxious if the group inside will actually pull it off! And looking helplessly at other platforms wondering if they will pull it off… You can never simulate this in the fractals (simulator)

This content is fine as it is apart from a few bugs. It should be kept because it is too well done to just chalk it up as temporary content. I am sure Anet is considering returning the marionette as “invasions” with those ships above invading different regions. But this mechanic will again be gone.

Let this content be temporary and not crammed into a five men simulation.

As it was partialy mentioned, this fight is only interesting when a lot of players take part in it, and when all of them shout morale boosting cheers to whoever is fighting at the arena, it was also the main aim of devs.

You cant recreate in fractal or any other instance the tension that you feel when defending the lane with 15 ppl with cannon charged at 98% and all of your siege weapons gone, to give the players, that are curently fighting at the arena, time to finish their fight. Same goes to intense feeling that players, fighting on the arena, have when they know that everyone, wher “everyone” is quite a high number of players, are counting on them.

Lets not forget that they do all that while cheering on others. Countless numbers of player shouting “u can do it!” “keep it up!!” “lane x show them how its done!!” “no one shall pass!!!”, or if the chain get severed “GJ” “u guys r EPIC” , and even in case of failure “dont worry” “u did great” “leave it to next lane”, something like that cant be experienced in party sized dungeon group.

This event have this “Last Stand” feeling, and its a Tyria vs Scarlet fight, just 5 players wont cut in, it wont be epic at all, maybe fun but not epic.

p.s. Im dead tired and sleepy so what i wrote here maybe a pain to read, but at this hour i dont care about some grammar and the likes, will corect whatever error i made later.

I second a boss fractal adaptation. A single lane, 1-2 minute defense – champ 1 -> 1-2 minute defense -> champ 2 … -> champ 5 -> Marionette dismissed. The story itself fits perfectly in the concept of fractals.

Some background fighting noise to imitate the scale while in the lane, just like in Charr fractal. Mobs “fighting” other champs on other 4 platforms. Cutscenes.

There would be sufficient epicness and an interesting gameplay. The best thing about adding it is that the mechanics are already coded and all the graphics are present as well.

Taisia.2813:

No No No.. Part of the fun of this encounter is waiting outside feeling anxious if the group inside will actually pull it off! And looking helplessly at other platforms wondering if they will pull it off… You can never simulate this in the fractals (simulator)

Some minor tweaking will make it available for new players later, while keeping the whole boss as a permanent event is not viable: we’ll be able to get so many people together only during this release and it will stay Tequatl all the other time. Which one would you prefer: sacrificing the “feeling” or sacrificing the whole event?

On the sidenote, I’d be happy to see Tower of Nightmares in fractals as well. Some zerging through the third level plus Toxic Hybrid.

Pazu.8320:

The general consensus seems to be that people like this encounter and don’t want to see it go. The best solution I have for this is to turn it into a fractal, whether it be a standard or boss fractal. I haven’t come up with a good way to translate it to a 5-man instance but was hoping others might come up with something. Ideas?

For me, what makes the event a total winner, is the massive scale, and the fact if you fail, you fail. Putting it into a fractal would leave the massive aside, and you could try again and again if you failed, making the fractal run longer and the people hate the encounter. So no, there would be no way to take marionette to fractals without taking away the things that make it great.

I think a good way to do this would be to split each player into each lane of the boss fight, acting as the commander of that lane. He gets a bunch of NPCs to aid him in defending the corresponding lane. Once all charging steps are completed, all players go into the platforms at the same time. Each person gets the current wardens (with some reworking necessary) and they have to kill the warden and break the seal to break a limb. Repeat 5 times for all limbs and the win. Outside you would get the epic feel of being in a group and commanding your army against the hordes of Scarlet and inside you get to be the lonely hero against the boss.

No don’t take it out of the world.